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.