Tuesday, October 28, 1997
Role of women excluded in UC discussion on Princess’ death
HISTORY Audience protests lack of female voice in all-male
forum
By Michelle Navarro
Daily Bruin Contributor
There was a sense of overwhelming irony surrounding the
unfortunate death of Princess Diana this summer.
So when three UC academics held a discussion on her death last
week, the attendees responded to a different sort of irony: that
those lecturing on her were male, and an audience of 30 was made up
of 25 women.
The lectures, coming from academics in such diverse fields as
sociology, religious studies and French, touched on symbolic
sacrifices, the seven deadly sins and eating disorders.
"(The purpose) was to provide people of various faculties to
interact with each other," said Scott Bartchy, director of the
Center for Religious Studies, which sponsored the event.
In order to present three different perspectives on the "Death
of Diana", lectures were given by Steven Sherwood, a sociology
graduate student; Ivan Strenski, a UC Riverside professor of
religious studies; and Eric Gans, a UCLA French professor.
Although three separate angles were given, the primarily female
audience was quick to notice that one perspective was missing – the
one they felt was crucial and most identified with Diana – the
perspective of a woman.
In the classroom, seven Los Angeles Times front pages, all
shouting news of Diana, lined the chalkboard shelves and served as
a backdrop for the discussion.
Sherwood took the stand first. Reading word for word from his
paper, "Narrating Diana," he explored Diana’s role as a symbol of
romance and individualism.
The graduate student talked about how the princess went from the
romantic figure the world saw married in a fantasy wedding, to a
tabloid figure whose every imperfection – divorce, eating disorder,
infidelity – was flaunted.
He correlated these "imperfections" with two of the seven deadly
sins – lust and gluttony. In making this connection, Sherwood said
that Diana represented the ritualization that some cultures have in
purifying and degrading those who commit sins.
Following Sherwood was Strenski. In his lecture, he focused on
the "three elements of Diana:" her connection with the monarchy,
her status as a symbol and in terms of mythical motifs.
Strenski attacked the monarchy, clearly in sympathetic defense
of Diana. He defined the royal family as a symbol in itself, one
that he felt should reflect the populace. In the same breath, he
labeled the reaction the Royals gave to the princess’ death – cold,
stiff, uncaring – virtually absent and disjunct from what the rest
of the world felt.
The UCR professor continued to speak passionately about Diana’s
"compassion and romantic individualism," saying that despite all
the negative things that surrounded her, "it didn’t matter." She
had a "layer of Teflon."
In the religious context, he said Diana was a sacrifice. She was
a victim from the beginning, when she was "given" to Prince
Charles, to the bitter end when death took the life of the young
princess. Strenski depicted the situation Diana was in as "being
caught up in the royal mechanizations."
When Gans took center stage, there was a change in the air.
"It’s strange for me to be here," he said, "I have no particular
interest in this subject."
Gans was chosen to speak because of a column he wrote following
Diana’s death that went into the connection the "common person" has
with celebrities — a connection driven by resentment.
"Having any connection with a celebrity helps us to tolerate any
inferiorities we have," Gans said. "It makes us want celebrities to
be shown as human, just like us. It makes up for the suprality of
the person. A celebrity has to be vulnerable to a type of
degeneration."
According to Gans, the reason why the same obsession and
fascination doesn’t apply to "true heroes," is because "we’re too
resentful to worship people who do heroic deeds."
If that wasn’t enough to stir up under-the-breath remarks from
the audience, the discussion that spurred from a comment made by an
audience member did.
"Today we’ve heard from three men, not from any woman," said
Susan Reimers, an international relations and public policy
student.
Reimers noted that what the three men – who comfortably sat at
the front of the room with raised eye-brows – failed to take into
consideration was the mother role that Diana played as well.
She said that what struck many women about the situation, was
that "Diana died before her sons matured." Therefore, she argued,
women obsessed over Diana’s death because they feared that the same
thing could happen to them.
In response to these comments, Strenski said he thought women
were attracted to Diana because of her "struggle to realize herself
as her own woman."
Gans replied with the theory he introduced in his speech.
"Women are not exempt from resentment. I mean, what is
feminism?" he said, as one woman in the audience murmured, "This is
outrageous."
"Resentment doesn’t have to be violent and nasty," Gans
said.
Gans solicited several exasperated reactions and nodding heads
from the crowd with his comments, until the subject was changed by
another question from the group, which held the discussion until
the end.
"They all had very valid points, but there would have been more
added with a woman’s perspective," Reimers said. "It would have
been a nice one and it definitely would have served by the number
of women in the audience."