Main Post 4/28

In Introduction: Being Curious about Our Lack of Feminist Curiosity, Enloe talks briefly about many of the issues we have gone over in class and questions why it is that people either do not realize or do not want to know more about issues until things are brought to their attention. She talks especially about how women are participants in patriarchy and how this type of patriarchy extends across many countries and that many things involved in being a nation are related to patriarchy. She also wonders why people take the easy route and avoid thinking hard or even considering many women’s issues. I thought the most useful piece of this introduction was this last point because I have often thought to myself how is it that I was unaware of many of these issues and Enloe wants to know the same thing.

In The Surprised Feminist Enloe talks about the benefits of being able to be surprised and how people today see being surprised as a sign of weakness especially in terms of intelligence. She talks about the many occasions she has been surprised by the world’s developments in recent years and how she could say that she wasn’t or twist her beliefs to pretend she knew these things would happen but she thinks that is counter productive. She goes on to link surprise with curiosity and not acting like all is known already.

These readings improved my view of Enloe’s book because I felt it helped to link the themes in her chapters and to give a reasoning for her book.

Follow up 4/28

I enjoyed reading Enloe’s first chapter, “The Surprised Feminist”.  I have never thought about the act of being surprised in that way and think that she makes some very valid points.  I thought her most compelling point came on page 17 when she says, “That is, whenever one is surprised, one most likely can manage to squeeze the new development into a comfortable, worn conceptual shoe.”  It is true that if we try hard enough, we can fit anything into a preexisting context/idea.  We have the tendency to see things through the one lens that we know the best and have difficulty seeing things from another person’s point of view.  As she mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, admitting surprise is somehow undermining one’s credibility.  If you are able to fit the new idea/development into your nice, neat, preexisting framework/idea, you have no need to worry about your credibility.  Regardless of how much we need to stretch it, we all have the tendency to do anything possible to make it so we are right.  I think this is an interesting concept to think about.  It not only relates to feminism, but everything in our society.  It is something that I think our society needs to really think about and reflect on.  I do not think that it will change anything because it is in our human nature to want to be right, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Follow Up Post 4/26

I preferred Attentello’s Navigating Identity Politics in Activism: Leading Outside of One’s Community out of the readings today because I felt that I was able to relate to it best. I liked how she talked about it being okay to take on other’s people’s fights if you are aware of your position in relation to the issues and how you will be viewed by the other people in the fight. I felt I could relate to her feelings of compassion for others but also her feelings of being not quite a member of their society and therefore not as able to help. She realized over time how she could help them most by teaching them her skills and that people need to see their own people in power in order to be inspired and get involved in the cause. She seemed to really get her immigrant friends in a better place and get them started on their fight and knew when her time was to move on and find another fight to help and get involved in. Another great point I felt she had was when she spoke about being conscious of her view and outlook on life and how that helped her in her writings and views of other’s writings as she tried to check herself to be objective and understand that may never happen for herself or others.

Follow Up 4/26

I thought Attenello’s essay on how her ideas on being a leader and an activist changed through her experiences with Unidad de New Brunswick was very interesting.  Later in the essay she talks about her realization that she saw herself as unfit to lead Unidad de New Brunswick.  I found this part of the essay especially compelling.  I tried to think about whether I would feel the same way if I were in her position.  Ultimately, I also think I would feel uncomfortable leading a group that I am not part of.  What authority would I have to say how they really feel or what they really experience on a daily basis?  If I were to be in a leadership position such as that I believe that I would feel as though I’m talking down to them due to my position in society (white, privileged, suburban-raised, college educated woman).  Even if it was a group that I knew the history of, or that someone close to me was part of, I still don’t believe I would really be able to represent them, especially if it was a matter of race or class.  I do not experience what they experience on a daily basis and do not know what it feels like.  As Attenello realizes, there is a difference between leading them and helping them.  I’d be happy to lend my resources and knowledge to help other groups reach their goals, but I do not think I’d be able to be a true and valuable leader of a group I am not apart of.

News Flash #3: Equal Pay Day: The Wage Gap Still Persists

Huffington Post: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: Paycheck Fairness: Progress for America's Women and Economic Security For the Middle Class

Forbes: On Equal Pay Day: Close Your Wage Gap Tomorrow

SF Gate: Women's pay equity still a sore point

Explorer News: Paycheck Fairness Act an important step toward economic recovery

“It’s time to recognize that the women’s movement is stalled.  We have spent the last decade fighting to protect the hard fought gains of my mother’s generation.  This is not good enough.  We need to be moving forward” (Gillibrand).  U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York said this quote on April 12, 2011.

            April 12, 2011 was Equal Pay Day.  In other words, it is the day in the next year that women have to work until in order to make the same amount of money that men made in the previous calendar year.  Women have to work 467 days in order to make the same amount that men make in 365.  Despite the fact that women have made remarkable strides in gaining equal education in the past several decades, these educational gains have not been seen in equal pay.  This is true for all women, even those with college degrees (or higher) who work full time.  In 2007, “a typical woman earned $35,745 compared with $46,367 for a typical man, a pay difference of $10,622” (Boyce-Wilson).

This wage disparity, according to Forbes Magazine, will cost a woman, on average, between $375,000 and $1.5 million (Gates).  This is an astonishing amount of money.  In fact, this number is so high that if women were to receive equal pay, close to 40% of the poor working women who are on welfare could get off of it (Bryce-Wilson).  In a time when welfare is a very hotly debated topic, as we discussed in class, this could be very monumental.  In November 2010 the Paycheck Fairness Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support (a vote of 256-163) but unfortunately stalled in the procedural rules of the Senate (Guise).  This act will “help close the gender gap by updating 48-year-old fair-pay laws.  [It will] close loopholes and prohibit retaliation against workers who inquire about employers’ wage practices or disclose their own wages” (Guise).  Just as we cannot keep letting the Equal Rights Amendment die on the table in the states, we cannot let this issue keep dying in Congress.

Women have been told their entire lives that they can do anything they want.  However, as we can see here, although they might be able to do everything, they are still not treated equally for it.  One suggestion that has been made to help women achieve equal pay is to strengthen their negotiation skills.  However, this will only be a temporary fix (in my opinion).  Women need to demand more and tackle this issue at multiple levels.

In class on March 29^th we discussed who the ideal worker is.  The ideal worker is free of any ties/duties besides the job and they are able to be fully dedicated to their job because they have a partner who can take care of everything else (Simonson 3/29/2011).  In other words, the ideal worker is not compatible with having a family.  The ideal worker is not a woman.  Besides the notion of the ideal worker, we also discussed possible other barriers to achieving equal pay.  They included the responsibility of coordinating childcare and cost of childcare, coordinating maternity leave, and the “unpaid second shift” (Simonson 3/29/2011).  A very similar list of reasons is given in the San Francisco Gate: “Women don’t negotiate effectively for salaries, they lack ambition, they focus on family and having babies, they aren’t as productive, and they choose so-called ‘female’ work that pays poorly” (Guise).  We touched on most of these myths and supposed “reasons” with the exception of negotiation.

Much that has been written about Equal Pay Day this year, 2011, has focused on how women need to be able to negotiate their salaries more effectively in order to achieve equal pay.  Even one of the seventeen women currently in our U.S. Senate said the same thing, Senator Gillibrand.  She has led the fight with Senator Barbara Mikulski to pass The Paycheck Fairness Act and part of this legislation would be to “establish training groups to help women strengthen their negotiation skills” (Gillibrand).  It has apparently been found that “‘when [women] do negotiate on their own behalf, women ask for and receive lower wages than men’” (Forbes).  Furthermore, “[Fiona] Greig finds that the gender gap in propensity to negotiate completely accounts for the gender gap in seniority” (Gates).  Essentially this means that if “women were to negotiate for themselves as much as men do, they would advance as quickly as men and eliminate the under-representation of women in the top ranks of the organization” (Gates).

            

Okay, so this is all fine and well in theory, but is it even possible?  Our society, even today in 2011, is still very patriarchal.  We still believe that the masculine characteristics are more desirable, better, more valuable, and more worthy of power.  Senator Gillibrand even tells us this (albeit in an indirect way).  What she wrote in the Huffington Post (what was quoted above) implies this.  Women need to somehow be trained to strengthen their negotiation skills to gain equal pay.  Why is it that women need to become more like men in order to achieve equal pay?  Why does the fact that women are not as aggressive with asking for a certain salary amount or a raise make it somehow okay that they are paid less?  Is it really their (our) fault?  I am not convinced that improved negotiation is the way to truly achieve equal pay.

            In order to close the salary gap we need to employ a mixture of liberal and radical feminism.  Liberal feminists (such as Betty Friedan) believe that reforming laws are the way to ensure that women have access to the public sphere (or, in this case, equal wages), while radical feminists believe that equality cannot be achieved by working within the system because the system is inherently patriarchal (Simonson 1/25/2011).  We need to reform the laws like the liberal feminists believe (and like Senator Gillibrand is trying to do), but it is also true that our system is still inherently patriarchal.  We need to somehow find a balance and fix both.  (Although I know this is easier said than done.)  Guise agrees:  “There are a number of ways to close the pay gap.  Among them is strengthening national legislation regarding pay equity…and increasing women’s employment options by supporting family-friendly policies.”

            As mentioned, reforming the laws will not completely eliminate this issue.  There need to be changes at the company level as well.  While companies should want to do it for the sake of equality and because they are good and fair employers, we all know that is not the case and, in most cases, will never happen.  There, unfortunately, have to be other motivating factors.  One motivating factor the employers should realize is that “eliminating pay differentials makes good business sense and that pay equity can help with competitiveness, worker retention, and productivity” (Boyce-Wilson).  This is a huge motivating factor for many smart employers.  However, on the other hand, Boyce-Wilson also notes that pay adjustments would cost the employer 3.7% percent of their total hourly wage expenses.  You and me both know that this is nothing in the grand scheme of things, but many companies would most likely not be able to afford paying women more without decreasing the earnings of the men by at least a little bit.  While it most likely would not come out of the top executives’ salaries and/or bonuses, I would venture a guess that they would be very concerned about that happening.  Therefore, I do not see them being all that willing to increase a woman’s salary if it would mean giving up some of theirs.  Our society is greedy.  In class on February 10^th we talked about how in order to increase a woman’s wage men would most likely have to give up some of theirs.  I remember thinking at the time that since the majority of the top executives and legislators who would make those calls are men that I doubt this would happen.  I still believe this.  Our society needs to deal with many imperfections and issues and it will take time.

            

As we discussed on January 25^th in class when we were talking about Simone de Beauvoir, as long as we still think of the male as the norm and the female as “The Other”, all the issues that are present in our society today will remain for a long time.  While it might be true that improving a woman’s negotiation is a temporary fix and a way to achieve pay equality, we should not depend on that.  There need to be changes at the company and legislative level as well.  In the meantime, we need to do what Senator Gillibrand said: women need to keep moving forward and not settle.  Our mother’s generation accomplished a lot but we still have a long way to go and we need to persevere.

Works Cited

Boyce-Wilson, Bonnie. "Paycheck Fairness Act an important step toward economic recovery." Explorer 12 Apr 2011, Print.

Gates, Lisa. "On Equal Pay Day: Close Your Wage Gap Tomorrow." Forbes Magazine 21 Apr 2011: n. pag. Web. 13 Apr 2011. <http://blogs.forbes.com/shenegotiates/2011/04/12/on-equal-pay-day-close-your-wage-gap-tomorrow/>.

Gillibrand, Kirsten. "Paycheck Fairness: Progress for America's Women and Economic Security For the Middle Class." Huffington Post 12 Apr 2011, Print.

Guise, Roberta. "Women." San Francisco Chronicle 11 Apr 2011: A-10. Print

Simonson, Mary. Intro to Women's Studies. Colgate University. East Hall, Hamilton, NY. 25 Jan 2011. Address.

---. Intro to Women's Studies. Colgate University. East Hall, Hamilton, NY. 10 Feb 2011. Address.

---. Intro to Women's Studies. Colgate University. East Hall, Hamilton, NY. 29 Mar 2011. Address.

Follow Up Post 4/21

The piece I found most interesting was Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod. I thought this piece was very interesting because of how she framed the issues and tried to get us to take a look at things from a Muslim woman’s perspective. The analogies she was able to use really made me think of how much I would change if given some sort of freedom I wasn’t really pining for and how we must approach any cultural issues with knowledge of the culture and people we are working with and what are realistic things to expect. This piece seems to say that Americans get too wrappe dup in what they want for others rather than what others really want and while this can be a fine line it seems like Americans are on the wrong side in this case and it would serve both populations if goals were reassessed. It seems like so many resources have gone into helping the women in aspects that they do not need or want help in and that these resources may have been more effectively used if they were targeted towards helping the Afghan women with the things they feel are issues.

Main Post 4/21

I was a bit confused by Charlotte Bunch’s piece “Whose Security?” but I will do my best to summarize it.  I eventually understood where she wanted to go with this piece, but it took until the last few paragraphs.  She begins by looking at several issues that 9/11 has brought into a bigger light, such as “an increase in militarism, wars, internal conflicts and terrorism, which are affecting or targeting civilians and involving more women and children in deadly ways” (pg. 2).  One question feminists have raised for many years, even before 9/11, is who is actually protected by “national security” and what does “national security” actually entail.  We should be looking at security in terms of protecting people, and not simply using war to defend territory.  However, after 9/11 we have seen the “masculine warrior discourse” reemerge.  The media domination by male figures has reminded us that when it comes to policy issues such as war, defense, etc. that women still do not have much influence.  Bunch critiques the Bush administration’s policies post 9/11 and cites a few examples of when they strongly opposed UN leaders simply because they were promoting policies that did agree with their beliefs.  Bush’s policies, she argues, have provided a cover for other countries to push racism and violence against women aside.  She concludes with what she thinks we should do in the future.  She believes that if we deal with the “dynamic tension between the universality and specificity of our work [as a woman’s activist]…then we can move toward an affirmative vision of peace with human rights and human security at its core, rather than continue to clean up after the endless succession of male-determined crises and conflicts” (pg. 5).

The article by Lila Lughod was very informative and interesting.  As someone who has focused on women in the Middle East, she has a lot to say.  She spends the entire paper explaining to us why we should be wary of what Laura Bush had to say about the war in Afghanistan and how we should see issues in a historical context, and not a cultural one.  Lughod questions on page 784 why we think it is more important to know about the culture of the region, instead of the history of the very repressive regimes of the region.  She notes, “Just as I argued above that we need to be suspicious when neat cultural icons are plastered over messier historical and political narratives, so we need to be wary when…Laura Bush, all with military troops behind them, claim to be saving or liberating Muslim women” (785).  When looking at the war in Afghanistan, we need to remember several things about the women there.  For example, even when we “free” them, we need to realize that most women would still choose to wear some form of headcovering.  While the requirement to wear the burqa is indeed very repressive, there are other factors behind the situation in Afghanistan that we need to understand.  One very important point she makes on page 787 is that we need to be accepting of the fact that there is a difference between Afghan and American women, and that we need to be careful when we say that we are “saving” people.  When we claim we are “saving” them we are implying that they need to become more like us, and it should not be that way.  Furthermore, she states that she “cannot think of a single woman I know…who has ever expressed envy of U.S. women, women they tend to perceive as bereft of community, vulnerable to sexual violence and social anomie, driven by individual success rather than morality, or strangely disrespectful of God” (788).  We need to keep in mind when discussing the war in Afghanistan that while we do want to help the country and the women, the way to help them is not by making them more like us.  In the end, “Our task is to critically explore what we might do to help create a world in which those poor Afghan women, for whom ‘the hearts of those in the civilized world break,’ can have safety and decent lives” (790).

Ibrahim’s story is a personal account of what it has been like to grow up in America and what it has been like for her and her family during the American occupation of Iraq starting in 2003.  Her and her family originally came to America as refugees during the first Gulf War, and has remained here ever since—she considers New Jersey her home.  The first section of her story is about wanting to make the experiences of the Iraqi citizens in Iraq more humanized and to portray the American occupation in a different light.  She tells of her family members being kidnapped or killed, and continues on to talk about her project.  Ibrahim wanted to interview the youth who are living in Iraq or have recently been displaced to nearby Jordan.  However, this was difficult because she was no longer considered an “authentic Iraqi” (41).  After finding two boys to interview, they mainly complained about the lack of electricity, overcrowding at public hospitals (and the high costs at private ones), the crumbling education system, and general lack of security.  The American occupation had made even going to school for the day very dangerous.  She soon realizes that she needs to share all these stories with the general American audience to paint a very different picture than the mass media is—which is exactly what the boys she interviewed in Jordan wanted her to do.  Her next section deals with her personal struggles post 9/11 living in America.  On her trip back from Jordan she experienced what unfortunately has become the norm, racial profiling.  She was held in customs for six hours and asked questions, some even questioning their view of the Iraq war.  After this experience, she knew should couldn’t stay quiet.  She went on many news shows to share her experience and to try to get the story out.  This was her first step in her quest to “defend the human rights of all Americans, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or religion” (46).  The conclusion to her story talks about refusing to adopt a single national identity and her experience as an alienated refugee when she first came with her family to America.

Main Post 4/19

Enloe in All Men are in the Militias, All Women are Victims and Spoils of War discusses in particular the case of Borislav Herak who was involved in rapes/murders during his time in the Serbian militia. She talks about how a person who was seemily not violent or angry could turn into the type of person to commit such acts. She says Borislav is only one of many people who underwent this type of transformation through the military and that the situation in Serbia is only one of many examples around the world throughout history. She says the situation men were put into helped to create the situation where the felt they needed to commit rapes and murders and that the higher authorities they were under are partially to blame for the men’s actions. She says the men were conditioned to no longer feel that killing was bad and that the rapes were just another perk of being a soldier. She also talks about how mothers were involved in helping their sons get involved in military life because of some social pressure they felt while the sons also felt pressures to be manly and meet some sort of societal expectations of being a fighter. In an interview with Borislav we can see that he was confused as to why he did things that he says he felt he did not want to and how affected he was by the culture of the military. In Spoils of War she connects these rapes to the way that women are given to soldiers as a supposed necessary item so that the soldiers can complete their jobs to the best of their ability. She talks about an incident at Okinawa in Japan and the way that it is common practice for women to be available for soldiers in a foreign land.

In A Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I.’s and Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In by Stephen Lee Myers the life of women in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan is discussed. These papers talk about sexual assault of women in the military on site and how women are feeling as they have been integrated into the military. The women in the military face the danger of sexual assault with the added pressure of being judged by their peers and superiors, Myers says while giving examples of many who have had situations with sexual assault and their range of outcomes they have faced from discharge to their assailants being prosecuted. Myers cites statistics of rising incidences of sexual assault and the debate over whether this comes from more assaults or more reported assaults. The second article by Myers talks about how women have made their way in the military and how they have changed the standards in the military over time and how they have found ways to make their lives acceptable to themselves and to their male counterparts. A woman in the military sums it up by saying, ““You’re a bitch, a slut or a dyke — or you’re married, but even if you’re married, you’re still probably one of the three,” Sergeant Bradford said” (Living and Fighting, 1). But Myers also shows the bright sides of being a woman in the military through the many good times and successes the women have. Myers does make it apparent the strength the women must have to succeed in this man’s world.

Follow Up 4/19

I found both of Steven Lee Myers’ pieces to be very interesting.  I was pleased to hear that in recent years the government and military have become stricter regarding sexual harassment, abuse, rape, etc.  However, we are far from done yet.  One quote that really struck me was that, “‘A woman in the military is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq’” (“A Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I.’s”, pg. 3).  We hear day in and day out about American soldiers being killed in Iraq, yet a woman is more likely to be raped than killed, like those thousands of soldiers.  This is a frightening statistic.  We claim that we have done such a good job of integrating women in the military, etc. yet we still face serious issues.  Thinking back on Steinmen’s article on crimes over supremacy, part of me has to wonder if that plays a factor in the rapes in the military as well.  These men begin to feel threatened by the women and want to prove their superiority over her by raping her.  This is an issue.

Another quote I found interesting was, “Women have sought acceptance in a still-predominately male environment not by emphasizing their sex but rather by displaying their toughness, their willingness to adjust to conditions that are less than ideal” (“Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In”, pg. 3).  The traits we typically think of when we think of the military and the people we want defending our country are predominantly those of men.  We would not want a spoiled and rich little girl who has never had to work a day in her life going out to fight for our safety.  However, I once again have to think back to Steinmen.  If these women are going out to prove they are capable of fighting in the military, I could see how many men could feel threatened by this and feel the need to assert their dominance through sexual harassment, sexual abuse, rape, etc. like the women in these two articles experienced. 

Follow Up Post 4/14

Stienem in Supremacy Crimes gives her thoughts on why at type of person, white heterosexual males, are killing in mass more often than other groups. I thought this article was interesting because it was a situation that I truly had not ever thought about before and she make some very interesting points. She does not give many concrete facts but dies provide examples. I thought the most interesting part of her work was her final suggestions that, “just as we as society have begun to raise our daughters more like sons--more like whole people--we must begin to raise our sons more like our daughters--that is, to value empathy as well as hierarchy; to measure success by other people's welfare as well as their own.” This quote gives a direction for people to aspire to which if people follow can make a change in these tragedies.

Enloe in Whom Do You Take Seriously talks about the way women and men are seen differently when they speak out on a topic and makes interesting observations about the way that women are not as respected. She also touches on many things we discussed when talking about workers in foreign countries and the abhorrent conditions they work in and she adds more to the dimension we discussed of women not being able to leave their jobs even if they are feeling uncomfortable especially with regard to inappropriate sexual conduct by superiors.

Follow Up 4/14

I was intrigued by our readings for Thursday.  I thought Enloe’s thoughts on trivialization in particular were very interesting, but I was surprised more by Steinmen’s article titled “Supremacy Crimes”.  Throughout the semester we have talked about the white, male dominance in our society, but I never really connected it like Steinmen did.  I guess I can’t really say I’m surprised by these conclusions, but they are a bit jarring.  In class today (Tuesday) we talked about how the rape myths usually include some aspect of racial stereotyping (that black men are, by nature, more aggressive) and Steinmen’s piece shows a completely opposite side.  That “white males—usually intelligent, middle class, and heterosexual…account for virtually all the serial, sexually motivated, sadistic killings” (Steinmen pg. 1, paragraph 5) is proof that we need to put an end to the many stereotypes.  There are many reasons behind a killer’s motivation, and often, as Steinmen proves, has to do with the supposed “supremacy” that white males are “entitled” to.  I do not know what we can do to help fix/ease this.  Steinmen gives one suggestion in her closing thoughts:  “…just as we as a society have begun to raise our daughters more like sons—more like whole people—we must begin to raise our sons more like our daughters—that is, to value empathy as well as hierarchy; to measure success by other people’s welfare as well as their own” (pg. 3, 2^nd to last paragraph).  However, I do not know how exactly Steinmen hopes that we go about actually carrying this out.  Sure, it is easy to say that we need to do this but it took our society a long time to allow a girl to be raised more like a boy (get to work outside of the home, etc.) and do not know how, in practice, we would be able to do this.

Main Post 4/12

The point of Susan Brownmiller’s piece, “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape” is to make the topic of rape something that we feel comfortable talking about.  She wants to make all women aware of rape and where it came from and “deny it a future” (317).  She begins by explaining how the process of training women to be the victim comes at a very young age.  Whenever we learn about rape when we are younger we are usually told that it is a male raping a female.  Brownmiller notes, “The message becomes clear.  Rape has something to do with our sex” (313).  She argues that “Red Riding Hood is a parable of rape” (313) and that it tells girls to not venture far from the path and that if they are lucky a nice man might protect them.  Next she continues on to say that men want to believe that all women, on some level, want to be raped.  Understandably, she has an issue with this claim.  Some claim that rape cannot happen against the will of a woman, and/or that it is impossible to “thread a moving needle” (314).  These claims imply that forcible rape does not exist and that if a woman actually does not want to be raped she can fight to prevent it.  She concludes this section of the piece by observing how our society has somehow always put the fault on the woman.  In the next section she notes that we need to recognize that rape is not an impulsive crime, but one of deliberation and hostility.  Women need to fight back against all that our society has told us or hinted to us throughout our lives in order to not make women the automatic victim and not let us be told that we want to be raped.  We need to “redress the imbalance and rid ourselves and men of the ideology of rape” (316).

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw’s article is about minority women and how their experiences with rape and abuse are very different than that of a white and/or upper-class/privileged woman.  Her piece is divided into four main sections: introduction, structural intersectionality, political intersectionality, and the conclusion.  The introduction tells us how Crenshaw will “consider how the experiences of women of color are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, and how these experiences tend not to be represented within the discourse of either feminism or antiracism” (1).  The first section of her structural intersectionality section deals with battering.  She argues that economic issues (such as access to jobs, housing, and wealth) often play a very key role in the experience of a colored woman.  Socioeconomic factors often disempower women of color, and when you add battering to the situation, it only gets worse.  She next touches on how an immigrant woman is negatively impacted.  Immigrant women who are not legal residents of the United States are often put in the worst situations due to the laws that restrict their ability to leave an abusive marriage for fear of deportation.  Her next section deals with structural intersectionality and rape.  Rape crisis centers that help women of color are often disadvantaged from the start.  Counselors are forced to deal with many other issues before dealing directly with the rape when one is reported which limits their funding.  Crenshaw then moves on to the Political Intersectionality section.  She begins this section by talking about the politicization of domestic violence.  She tells the story of how she tried to find statistics on the rates of domestic violence by district in LA but they would not release anything, claiming that domestic violence activists do not want them released, as they will most likely reinforce racial stereotypes.  Her next section, Domestic Violence and Antiracist Policies, touches on an argument that says the feminist movement has no place in the communities of color.  She continues on to discuss how many minority women do not report many of the abuse they experience because they do not want to perpetuate the racial stereotypes they already face.  Crenshaw continues on to her next section, Race and the Domestic Violence Lobby.  In this section she laments that as long as “attempts to politicize domestic violence focus on convincing elites that this is not a ‘minority’ problem but their problem, any authentic and sensitive attention to the experiences of minority women will probably continue to be regarded as jeopardizing the movement” (9).  Her next and final section, Race and Domestic Violence Support Services, tell us how one Latina woman was denied access to a shelter, even when her safety was seriously in danger, because she was not proficient in English.  Crenshaw continues on to tell us how the shelter was unwilling to change their policies or let her son translate for her.  She concludes the article with a few examples of Supreme Court cases and leaves us with this thought: “Through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us and negotiate the means by which these differences will find expression in constructing group politics” (15).

On a side note, a friend sent me a link to a video on this website so I began looking around at other articles on it.  I found this article on the homepage and thought about how shockingly it relates to what we have been talking about all semester and what we are talking about with these articles as well:

http://www.barstoolu.com/#random-thoughts/reader-email-the-only-thing-worse-than-feminists-is-male-feminists/

Follow Up Post 4/12

These two readings were very interesting in that they complemented each other in certain ways. Crenshaw seemed to me to be very wrapped up finding unique ways to treat each unique person but also in this is distancing herself from the white women who also need help because she does not give them much focus. Brownmiller does not mention race at all but she is also from an earlier time where perhaps there may not have been as much awareness of other racial groups. The message I took most from Crenshaw’s piece is that the ways in which women who are being abused are being helped are not available to all people as you might expect. Brownmiller’s ideas I think can be summed up in her last line where she says “my purpose in this book has been to give rape its history. Now we must deny it a future” (EFR, 317). In this I feel is where Crenshaw went wrong because she does not really suggest too many specific ways in which to help, only her feelings of the wrongness of the system. From Brownmiller’s writing it seems to me that there has been progress currently but Crenshaw shows that there are still issues with rape especially in regard to minorities. These readings make you think about your own life and if you have ever felt the way that these women are discussing. It is interesting to see that a lot of what they say about the general feelings of women rings true still today.

Main Post 4/7

Carol Mendez in Acting on a Grander Scale talks about her personal experience as an immigrant to the United States from Colombia. She talks about her sad life in Colombia including her mother’s death and her grandmother’s compassion towards their even poorer neighbors. She then goes on to tell us about her move to America as a young student and the struggles she and her family had with medical professionals due to the language barrier and how she used her skills in both languages to help first her family and then the larger community by translating for people seeking medical care throughout her young life. She also talks about her work for immigrant groups and helping in programs that try to help immigrants become American and contribute to and gain from American society. She is currently a medical student but discusses how hard it was for her to get started on the college process because of her immigrant status. She speaks a lot about helping other people and how this can be done on a small or grand scale. She says she is a testament to the help she has gotten and that there are many immigrants who could make something of themselves with a little help.

Courtney Turner in Finding the Face in Public Health Policy tells us about her experience working in public health and the ways in which she has experienced the right and wrong way to go about public health. She says she has worked a lot with AIDS patients and has been able to speak with them and see them first hand, an experience that many people who decide the way to deal with public health for them have not had. She says she worked with many people in closer contact with patients who had the knowledge of patients but were not the people in positions to make decisions. She says she felt that most of her learning was not from the classes she took but her actual work with people and hopes to be able to apply this in her future work and spread this type of knowledge with others.

Jan Oosting Kaminsky in Choosing Nursing talks about her career as a nurse and the factors that led to this decision. She says she felt when deciding to be a nurse the pressure of all the stereotypes of nursing because she has a college degree but she knew the importance of nursing for women and all people. She talks about how nursing is so important to our society and how nurses are needed and especially very educated nurses. She talks about the possibilities for people considering nursing and all the benefits nurses receive especially given the demand for nurse now and in the future. She then goes on to talk about the challenges of the idea of nursing for people because it is not perceived to be a great job which Kaminsky disputes but she does say that there are not enough schools for nurses which is an issue. She encourages nursing as a profession for not only the caring you can show to others but also the benefits of the job and the contribution to feminism that Kaminsky says the profession has.

The three readings all focus on jobs that one can have after a college education and how people can help others in a very big way with just a little caring and thoughtfulness. My favorite of these readings was Kaminsky’s because her profession has the ability to help all people who will face a medical situation at some point in their lives.

Follow Up 4/7

I found myself being able to relate on a very personal level to two of these stories.  I am a first generation immigrant; my mom emigrated from Norway when she was little.  She has lived in the States virtually her entire life and does not speak or look like she is an immigrant (due to the very homogenous white, middle to upper class population of Norway), but she always says how she used to have to translate for her mom when she was younger.  She did not experience the same difficulties Mendez did in obtaining a higher education (nor did her two sisters) but I am sure that if she had visibly looked or talked like an immigrant she would have experienced similar issues.  While thinking about this I at first thought it was a ridiculous thought, but upon further reflection it does not seem that ridiculous to me anymore.  Especially in today’s society where we are experiencing a lot of illegal immigration, I do not doubt that certain institutions discriminate against immigrants.  The other story that I could relate very easily to was Kaminsky’s.  My mom, coincidentally, went to school for nursing and was an orthopedic nurse up until I was born.  I have talked to her about the role of doctors and nurses and she has always said that the doctors and surgeons she worked with were always very respectful of the nurses and she never had an issue with it.  After my mom had my older brother she continued to work part-time and enjoyed the flexibility that Kaminsky discusses, but once I was born she decided to stay at home.  Once my little sister grew up and was at school all day my mom was repeatedly asked to be a substitute school nurse or even return to the hospital she used to work at and be a “head nurse” (despite not having worked in over 10 years).  My mom never took any of the jobs because she enjoyed being a stay at home mom, but I think this also very clearly shows the shortage of nurses that we are experiencing today.

Follow Up 4/5

I found these articles on abortion to be very interesting.  Abortion is a very hotly debated topic on our country and one that I know we will have an interesting discussion on tomorrow in class.  I found one line in Arcana’s article to be particularly interesting and something that I’ve never really heard anybody say before: “When the pregnancy is deliberate, or accepted, we say baby.  When the pregnancy is an accident, or rejected, we say fetus or embryo, a mass of cells and tissue” (225).  I am pro-choice and believe that every woman has the right to make a decision about whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, but thought that this was an interesting insight from someone who has worked in a clinic that provides abortions.  I don’t think I have ever really thought of it this way.

I also agreed with the article in the Essential Feminist Reader when it says, “the topic of abortion has…largely lost its taboo” (358).  I believe that this is a really important step for our society to take and one that will definitely take some time to accomplish.  Getting an abortion is a private matter and for the hundreds of women to be brave enough, and face punishment by law, for admitting that they have had one I thought was very remarkable.

Follow Up Post 4/5

Arcana in Abortion is a Motherhood Issue focuses on how abortion is not just not wanting a child but has a lot of other elements and that women decide to do it for themselves and for the child depending on what they think is best. I thought this article was very interesting coming from a woman who says she had a child and then after that had an abortion. She does not tell the circumstances of her abortion but that she has been through it is interesting. She says that women can be perceived as not considering the child they would have and just being selfish, but she says that this is impossible and that women cannot not think of the possibilities and consider the options and how the child’s life would be.

In How It All Began: I Have Had an Abortion talks about the history of how women have to fight to get abortion legalized and they steps they took to do so. It discussion the way that women had to hide the fact that they got abortions and shows how brave the women who admitted having abortions were and how essential their work and stories were to the passing of new laws that made abortion legal. These women are really inspiring in how they fought for what they wanted and were able to tell the world what they went through.

These readings both centered on abortion and the implications of abortion on the mother and perceptions of someone who has an abortion. The readings also talked about how women fought for abortions and how hard this fight was for women and how much they had to sacrifice for other women’s rights. In this current time with the funding cuts for Planned Parenthood, some people might be inspired by the second article and be willing to fight for availability of abortions.

News Flash 2: Discrimination Against Men?

European Court of Justice Logo

Time Magazine: E.U. Court to Insurers: Stop Making Men Pay More (main article)

Other Useful Articles:

Yahoo! News: EU Court Bans Gender-Based Insurance

MSNBC: Women drivers? They're safer than men.

        While most of the focus and emphasis is put on how women are unfairly discriminated against, there are, shockingly enough, examples of when men are unfairly discriminated against as well.  The highest court in the E.U. recently ruled that insurance companies could no longer use gender as a determining factor in deciding premiums.  This is a major step towards actually enforcing gender equality and is being publicized as simply eliminating gender discrimination from the insurance business.  However, there are two sides to every story.  While this ruling might make the prices more even, it is, in reality, only hurting women...again.  There have been very clear reasons for men to pay more than women, and why is it only now that we have decided to abandon these reasons?  What will it actually do?

            I wanted to use this article because I was fascinated at how we could see gender inequality from the other side.  It is very rare to see an example of how men are sometimes discriminated against and this issue shows it very prominently.  The ruling by the European Court of Justice, the top court in the European Union, on March 1, 2011 banned insurance companies (life, health, car, etc.) from using gender as a way to decide how much the client should pay (Time).  The complaint put before them was that “using statistics about differing life expectancies or road-accident records between the sexes to calculate care and health insurance and pension schemes breaches E.U. rules on equality” (Time).  Up until now, using gender as a way to determine the price of insurance has been allowed as long as it is supported by accurate and relevant statistical data (Time).  It has been proven in studies time and time again how men are more reckless drivers, how they cause more accidents, and how they usually live shorter and less healthy lives than women (Time).  Now, despite this evidence, the E.U. court has ruled that they are unable to use this data as the basis for charging men more for insurance.  Those who fought for this ruling say that insurance needs to be calculated objectively and use factors such as type of car, age of the driver, how much the driver drives during the year, and how many accidents they have had previously (Time).  Gender should play no role in the determining the price of insurance because it is very subjective.  It will take time to see what this ruling will do to insurance prices for both genders, but one thing is for certain: it will most likely hurt women in the process of “helping” men.

             Previously there have been very well supported reasons and facts behind charging men more for car insurance: “A male driver under 21 is twice as likely to have an accident than a woman under 21, insurers say.  In 2009, almost 76% of all road fatalities in the E.U. were male” (Time).

When I read this I thought back to our class discussions about how masculinity and being a man is thought of as the norm, while femininity is considered to be the “other” (Simonson 08 Feb 2011).  Here is one example of when this is not the case.  We do not want to make the behavior that a male driver exhibits the norm.  If we want to discourage these actions, why are we lowering their cost of insurance?  If we don’t want female drivers to act more like male drivers, why are we making their costs the same?  The Association of British Insurers said after the ruling that “the premium paid by women under the age of 35 for car insurance could rise by an average 25%” (Yahoo! News).  If the male driving is the norm, and we raise a woman’s insurance rates to this “normal” rate, aren’t we encouraging poor driving and not discouraging it by lowering rates?

             The same is true for life insurance.  There have been many studies done showing that a woman in Europe will live, on average, 6.5 years longer than a man (Time).  However, with this new ruling, “The life insurance paid by women could rise as much as 20 percent while men could pay 10 percent less” (Yahoo! News).  If it is a well-proven statistic, why shouldn’t women pay less for insurance?  Yes, gender equality needs to be enforced but many of the ways women are discriminated against are not proven by factual evidence.  Is it actually discrimination if it is a fact?  (Since there is a lot more said in the articles I found about car insurance, I will, from here on out, focus mostly on car insurance, and not life insurance.)

            In short, yes, it is still discrimination.  As Fausto-Sterling notes in “Should There Be Only Two Sexes?” science can be subjective.  Behind medicine, biology, and science are socially constructed elements.  Perhaps men are more reckless while driving because society tells them to be.  Perhaps men live shorter, unhealthier lives because society tells them to drink more and behave in these destructive manners.  It is this reason that forcing men to pay more for insurance is discrimination.

            This discrimination is not allowed under E.U. law due to their rules of equality.  While it may have some very negative effects that I will touch on later, I do commend them for realizing this inequality and taking action to fix it.  Even the European Women’s Lobby supports the ruling by the court.  As Leanda Barrington-Leach, a spokeswoman for the group, noted, “‘A black man may typically have a shorter life expectancy than a white man, but you could not use race as a factor to set his premium…there are other factors that can and should be taken into account’” (Time).  Despite the potential rate hikes for women, no sane woman would be able to argue against this.

            No sane woman would argue against this because we have been on the other side of cases very similar to this a countless amount of times.  For the first time in this course I have seen the ideas behind patriarchy being seriously questioned.  When we defined patriarchy in class we commented that the characteristics of masculinity are considered more desirable, better, more worthy of power and value than the characteristics of femininity (Simonson Feb 08 2011).  However, for the first time we can see an example where this might not be case.  In insurance, the traits that women possessed were seen as more desirable.  So desirable, in fact, that they were rewarded with considerably cheaper insurance premiums.  This ruling shows that the E.U. is taking their promise to achieve gender equality seriously and even going one step further—they are allowing for the conventional ideas that I truthfully thought our society would never eliminate to be challenged.

            However, there are two sides to every story.  Every step towards equality has another side and that other side requires the privileged group to give up things in order to make it equal.  Laurianne Krid, the policy manager at FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) said they don’t have any reason to believe the ruling should force a rise in premiums since gender was only one factor out of many (Time).  However, others note that this will not happen and that “women drivers under 26 in the U.K. [are] facing a 25% rise in car insurance rates, as rates for men in the same age group drop by 10%” (Time).  As we discussed in class on February 10^th, in order for a woman’s wages to increase to the same level as a man’s, men would need to suffer a wage cut so money would be freed up to pay the women (Simonson 10 Feb 2011).  This is a similar situation, only reversed.  We can see firsthand how equality will not be reached unless women are willing to pay more for their insurance.  On the other hand, and a bit off topic, what if the woman cannot afford to pay more for their insurance?  It is a statement of fact to say that women earn less than men.   How is it fair that women will now have to pay the same amount as men for insurance when they earn considerably less than them?  There is no easy answer.

            While closely examining this article from “Time”, I have thought through the pros and cons of this ruling and it has become clear that there is no easy, right answer and that an easy solution to gender equality will not be found anytime soon.  While this ruling is being touted as progressive and a huge leap for gender equality, it inevitably hurts women still.  I am not arguing that the E.U. is overly sexist because they have done a lot in the past few years to prove they aren’t, but I have to wonder if the European Court of Justice would rule the same if the roles were reversed.  If women had more inherent risks and were forced to pay more for insurance than men, would the court have ruled the same way?

Side Note: While finding articles regarding this topic I found this editorial in the Toronto Sun that I think provides a very shocking opinion.  It is very clearly written by a man (one who is not happy that in Canada insurance companies are still allowed to charge more based on sex) and seems to have many underlying issues to it.  To me, it seemed as though he wasn’t as angry about having to pay more for insurance but how much women complain about how discriminated against they are on a daily basis and how there are many things in life that are unfair. Toronto Sun's Questionable Editorial

Works Cited:

Cendrowicz, Leo. "E.U. Court to Insurers: Stop Making Men Pay More." Time 02 Mar 2011: n. pag. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2056409,00.html>.

"EU court bans gender-based insurance." Yahoo! News 1 Mar 2011: n. pag. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110301/wl_uk_afp/eucourtinsurancewomenmendiscrimination>.

Simonson, Mary. Women's Studies Class. Colgate University. East Hall, Hamilton, NY. 08 Feb 2011. Address.

Simonson, Mary. Women's Studies Class. Colgate University. East Hall, Hamilton, NY. 10 Feb 2011. Address.

Motherhood

http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/03/14/parenting.not.always.peachy/index.html

http://www.workingmomsagainstguilt.com/

Social media outlets such as Facebook have become increasingly popular with all people including mothers young and old. Jill Smokler wrote an opinion piece entitled Less than Perfect Moms Need to Unite in which she describes how mothers on Facebook are playing up their children’s accomplishments and never mentioning any bad days they have had as mothers. She says, “Glance at any parent's Facebook page, and you'd think that parenthood is a picture-perfect joyride, filled with constant sunshine, never-ending ice cream sundaes and breathtaking double rainbows. With the occasional unicorn trotting by” (Smokler, 2011). Smokler is talking about how mothers on Facebook are acting like there is nothing but perfection in their lives. And from this, Smokler says, comes the idea that in other mother’s lives everything runs smoothly and the mother never reaches anything near a breaking point. Smokler’s idea of an unattainable ideal for mothers created through Facebook is echoed in the ideas of Douglas’ Enlightened Sexism and in anecdotal stories of women. Like Smokler’s standing up to the misconceptions generated through the façade women put up, Working Mothers Against Guilt is trying to make mothers know they are not alone in feeling like they haven’t been able to do it all and both are taking a strong step towards having a more open view of real life for women and mothers.

In her book Enlightened Sexism, Susan Douglas talks about how media has made a flawless woman for women to match that is not in alignment with reality. She says that women and men see TV characters as having actual lives that would be possible in the real world and not only possible but preferable. She says there are women who are flawless on TV and that is what real life women are expected to be like. If a woman does not reach the ideals she and others have put on herself she feels unworthy rather than normal, Douglas says. In this phenomenon that Douglas describes, I see a parallel in the current situation of mothers on Facebook. As Smokler describes, mothers are only displaying the best part of their lives with their children and families so other mothers are getting the impression that perfection has been achieved. Smokler tells us that mothers are only showing the ideal parts of their lives and not the ways in which their lives are not as great; none of the struggles of motherhood are portrayed. From this, other mothers are feeling subpar when they compare their lives to only the best parts of other’s, Smokler says, similar to the way that the women that Douglas describes feel when they compare themselves to the perfect women on TV.

In the recent women’s studies brown bag, young mothers talked about their experiences in motherhood thus far and many echoed the ideas of having been given a perception of some aspects of motherhood, like breastfeeding and the process of giving birth, that when they did not meet or feel up to this standard they felt bad about themselves, questioning what was wrong with them. They then went on to say how they realized that not everything is as perfect as many people described but some only realized this after talking about their situations again with the people who gave them their first impressions. This is reflective of what Smokler is talking about on Facebook in a more global sense because not only are women only displaying their best sides on the internet but they are also doing this in their discussions with other women. Douglas would see this also as an expansion of her ideas in Enlightened Sexism and probably suggest that not only mothers, but also all women give impressions of having everything perfect in their lives.

I came across an interesting website called Working Moms Against Guilt and found their commitment to telling it like it is inspiring. In their information section they say “We're moms. We work all day, bring home the bacon, and fry it up in a pan. Oh, and while we're at it, we're raising young children, along with our spouses/partners. As any working mom knows, we often battle the big "G." Guilt creeps up on us when we least expect it. Join us in our ongoing struggle to resist the guilt and embrace the journey” (WMAG, 2011). This mission statement is really reflected in their posts as they describe the many hardships and happiness of being a working mother and many other mothers reply with similar experiences. This website in contrast with what Smokler sees on Facebook, really shows women how hard it is to be a working mom and does not make a woman who struggles with keeping up with their life feel inadequate in any way. Smokler tries to bring about scenes of her reality when she says, “There is no such thing as the perfect parent. Or the perfect child, for that matter… But that doesn't mean that I don't feel like slamming the door in their faces just to be able to pee in peace. Sometimes, they run around like crazy wild animals and I feel like I have absolutely no control over them. It makes me cry. Sometimes, I yell out of sheer frustration. Sometimes, I don't feel like reading bedtime stories and they go to bed without them. None of that makes me a bad mother. It makes me real” (Smokler, 2011). Working Moms Against Guilt would probably applaud Smokler for being honest enough to share with others the real way her life goes rather than setting up false standards for other women.

In The Mommy Tax by Ann Critenden we see how much working mothers struggle with their decision financially and how at times they sacrifice professional and financial success while being deemed less capable of a worker by some for simply having children. Pinand in Stories from the Sidelines: Career Versus Family discusses her anecdotal struggles with deciding on being a mother and a working woman and how this has played into her planning her life and how she has to seriously think about how she will make things work in both her family and professional life. In The Lady and the Tramp: Feminist Welfare Politics, Poor Single Mothers, and the Challenge of Welfare Justice by Gwendolyn Mink, we hear about how closely tied motherhood is to many political issues and how women have been struggling to reconcile motherhood with other aspects of their lives including the circumstances of becoming a mother and how hard they may find doing housework without any compensation. In these readings I see a relation to the Working Moms Against Guilt because of how women should not be so wrapped up in considering every nuance of their lives in relation to how it appears to others and how mothers shoulder the burden of adding family to professional life.

Smokler shows us how mothers’ usage of Facebook has led to an image of the ideal mother and children where nothing ever goes wrong. This ideal has many women feeling like they do not match up to other mothers just like Susan Douglas describes women in general not feeling like they match up to TV characters and celebrities. This uneasy feeling many women are experiencing over motherhood was voiced during the recent brown bag where many of the mothers said that they had at times felt inadequate compared to the impression of motherhood they had gotten from talking to other mothers. In response to this type of unrealistic portrayal, people like Smokler and groups like Working Moms Against Guilt have been trying to show the real side of motherhood in order to counteract feelings of inadequacy. The issues with motherhood and working as a mother while trying to measure up to other people has been around for years as cited in many of our class readings and hopefully the counterbalancing efforts of people like Smokler and WMAG will allow women to be honest with each other and themselves and not feel so much pressure to be something they are not.

Smokler, Jill. "Less than Perfect Moms Need to Unite! - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 14 Mar. 2011. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/03/14/parenting.not.always.peachy/index.html

Working Moms Against Guilt. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. http://www.workingmomsagainstguilt.com/

Class Readings Used:

Stories from the Sidelines: Career Versus Family – Pinand

The Lady and the Tramp: Feminist Welfare Politics, Poor Single Mothers, and the Challenge of Welfare Justice - Gwendolyn Mink

The Mommy Tax - Ann Critenden

Enlightened Sexism – Susan Douglas

Prescription Condoms?

I found this article about how a town in the Philippines is now requiring a prescription to buy condoms at a drug store.  I found some of the views and ideas in the article interesting and it was interesting to also read about different views from another country: Birth-Control Debate Roils Philippines

Main Post 3/31

Mink’s article discussed the challenges that single mothers who depend on welfare face in our society.  She discusses how her and others joined together not to speak for the poor, single mothers but with them—“to speak for ourselves as feminists frustrated by the absence of women’s voices and by the lack of gender equality concerns in the welfare debate” (56).  Mink next goes on to describe the Personality Responsibility Act and the repercussions it has.  She sees the Act as not only taking away a single mom’s right to help from the government in the form of cash, but also getting frighteningly close to taking away their basic civil rights also. Furthermore, she believes unwaged mothers are at a serious disadvantage as well.  Without the financial freedom they are sometimes unfairly forced to stay in marriages due to finances, even when they do not want to.  Mink touches on the idea that our society often views welfare recipients as “reckless breeders who bear children to avoid work” (59).  This is not the case.  She argues that part of the problem is that people do not see welfare mothers who choose to raise their kids as making a choice.  They believe they are lazy.  When, as Mink argues, they are actually agents of their own lives who are very capable of making their own decisions on what kind of work they want to do.  Women should not be forced by the feminist movement to work outside the house; they should be able to make choices for themselves.  Because women are very capable of making these decisions, Mink argues that they should be provided with an income for the work they do in the house (because it is work) so they have more freedom from men if they want it.

Rosanna Eand’s article titled “Leading by Example: My Mother’s Resilience and Power in the Fight against Poverty” was very interesting.  It is an autobiography of sorts that details her mother’s journey and how that has impacted her.  She begins by telling us how her family fled Cambodia in a time of civil war to live in the United States.  Her and her younger sister were fortunate enough to be “American” (meaning she was born in the United States).  She describes the difficulties of the language barrier, how her mother learned very little English since she was expected to always be in the house (due to Cambodian culture), and the manual labor they were asked to do on the farm where their parents worked starting at a very young age.  After a few racial attacks against them while living in Philadelphia, her family moved to Camden City, NJ.  There she started going to school and became very invested in her education.  She, just like Mink, touches on the Personal Responsibility Act and how that impacted her family.  Her next section is about her transition to college and how she soon began to identify herself as a feminist.  This is when she began to analyze her experiences in a wider context and begin to realize she can help and make a difference.  After briefly discussing what she did in college to help out, she reflects on the differences between the life her mother led and the life she is leading.  Despite going against Cambodian culture, she knows that her mother fully supports (and encourages) her move away from the traditional role of women.  By refusing to conform to the traditional gender roles, Eang believes and knows she is throwing all gender roles out the window.

Follow Up Post 3/31

Interesting perspective on the state of women’s issues from CNN - http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/07/coontz.women.report/index.html

This article dovetails nicely with our readings for today and class in general. It is nice to appreciate how far women have gotten in their fight but also to recognize that there is work left to be done.

Eang’s essay was very touching and showed just how strong she and her mother and sister’s are. I especially like the anecdote of her mother living in the jungle with 3 children to protect them because I thought of how much we take for granted in our generally cushy lives. Eang really made strides to be the woman she is today and it is very nice that instead of completely leaving her past behind she wants to work to help people like her. The circumstances of her youth are abhorrent but she never uses them as an excuse and is able to rise out of her situation just like her sister’s and she gives much of the credit to her mother and her mother’s example.

Mink’s essay furthers our discussion of the work involved in having a house and children especially for women and adds a political element for us to think about. She talks about the different social classes and the way that higher class women judge lower class women for perceived not working hard to get to a better place in the world and cautions against this thinking. She also talks about how she had a change of heart on this issue. This paper made me think a little more on these issues and I think I will have a more open mind when considering things like this in the future.

Commonwealth Day 2011

I am choosing not to write my News Flash about this topic because it is similar to what I wrote on last time, but while looking for articles to use for my News Flash I learned about Commonwealth Day.  The theme this year was "Women as agents of change".  Queen Elizabeth is the Head of the Commonwealth and the quote of the day on March 14 Time.com was, "While some people use this day to acknowledge the love, admiration and respect for women, others ... remember the great social and political strides made both by and for women." (Queen Elizabeth II)  I found the website for the Commonwealth Day to be interesting as well: Commonwealth Day 2011: Women as Agents of Change

Main Post 3/28

Pinand in Leading The Way discusses the struggles of being a woman while trying to have success with family life and work life. Pinand tells us her story starting from college to working life after marriage contemplating children. She is very relatable given her desires and education, seem to match up with experiences a person in our class may have had. She tries to explain the ways in which she was optimistic and cautious of being a working mother given the experiences she has seen of her coworkers and the culture of a professional atmosphere. She seems to have a supportive husband but I thought it was interesting when she describes the ways in which she always felt there wasn’t enough time to be available to both her husband and her work and how she struggles to reconcile each especially when hearing this echoed by some coworkers who felt they had experience the same thing. She concludes by saying how she is planning to have children while furthering her career and is going to make it work despite the struggles.

Mariarosa Dalla Costa in A General Strike speaks about the way the women’s work inside the house is undervalued and why the women in Italy deserve more. She talks about a previous “general strike” (303), and says that this cannot be the case because no women were involved. She hopes for a better future in which women are able to be monetarily compensated for their work in the house and where they have time for themselves. In order to have this future, she wants the women of Italy to come together for this goal.

In Maid to Order by Barbara Ehrenreich, the lives of people working in other’s houses as cleaning ladies are studied. Ehrenreich even has worked for a company that supplies these maids so that she could get the full experience of their work. She begins by discussing housework throughout history and references The Feminist Mystique in saying that in that piece, housework was being rebelled against by women but not so that they could have more help from men but so that it could be delegated to another woman. She also talks about how men do not equally share the work of the house with women. She talks about how women have mostly been the holders of these jobs, first low class white immigrants and then African Americans and how companies have formed to have employees rather than individuals working in houses on their own. She discusses how badly workers are treated and how hard their job is for a small amount of pay. She discusses the low social status given to these workers and how hard it was for her to spend 3 weeks doing their jobs. She also talks about the ineffectiveness of their cleaning and how there is a rising prevalence of families who have housekeepers, many of whom do not report it.

In The Mommy Tax by Crittenden, the differing amounts of money earned by men and women are discussed. Crittenden speaks on the ways that the perception of women’s earnings is much higher than it is and depending on the parameters of statistical results, people can be tricked into thinking that there has been a change in the discrimination women face. Crittenden references two specific cases of women who were hard workers with satisfying jobs and then when children were added to their lives, they were given no special treatment and were eventually fired or felt the need to leave their jobs. She says that for women this increases especially when there are more children because the strains on the mother increase. She also compares America to other countries and references France as a country in which many allowances are made for mother’s so that it is possible fot them to have successful families and careers. She talks about the amount of money many women lose by having children and the fact that the government does not help these women at all in our country. She contrasts this with the benefits received by veterans in our country, and questions the fairness of this situation. She does say though that men who have children and a working wife also face similar reductions in their money flow based solely on the fact that they have outside commitments from work.

These readings all speak about women’s rights in working and the respect that women deserve for the amount of women they do. These readings make it clear that equality has not been achieved in regards to the way that women and men are treated in the work place and that feminists and all people have much work to do on this issue.