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