Maria on Schutte and Castro-Klaren
I agree with Katherine that the idea of ‘feminist’ exploitation of lower classes as domestic workers is an important topic to discuss. I don’t believe that this issue is limited to Latin America in the least. In fact, I house-sat for a wealthy progressive family a few times. The woman was very feminist and politically engaged, and yet she also had ‘cleaning people,’ who were Latin American. I was very taken aback by this, and I tried thank them for their work in my terrible Spanish. They laughed at some stuff I said incorrectly – it was a good time. But I felt horrible.
Hopefully I am not the only one, but I was very surprised to read about all the benefits afforded to women in Cuba. I was very impressed. It reminded me of how skewed and biased information can be, because here in the U. S., I am frequently given the idea that Cuba is bad. It’s just that simple. Castro is bad, Cuba is bad, and it’s a backwards place. And yet seem to understand some of the obstacles that women face, and are taking actions to help the situation.
The Castro-Klaren article was a very difficult read for me (though not as tough as Spivak). I am interested to see what people may think about the discussion on male/female sexualities on page 286. It is stated that “male orgasmic “pleasure ‘normally’ entails the male reproductive act” while the female does not necessarily”. How can this be used to theorize? Is she saying somehow that female sexuality is more developed in some respect? I don’t quite understand the point of bringing this up.