feminist debates: gwss 3004

A Redefinition of Family Group 7 Agenda

2010-05-11T16:34:14Z

This is a letter to the United States Government which is calling to attention the disregard for alternative family systems and their importance in our society. Current members in the government have stated that "Family definitions play a major role not only in programs, but in virtually every policy arena". Our governmental definitions of family not only affect the benefits individuals are entitled to, it also affects the emotional status of unrecognized family members. The plutonic family systems of the 1950's has been proven to only encompass portion of our society and as we see more and more alternative family units emerging we must have new definitions to ensure our support for those families. There are several ways that family is currently defined in our government and our own government affirms this by stating that "Families cannot be defined simply or universally for purposes of Federal programs and policies. Much variation is due to the complex nature of the family itself and to the specific purpose of the Federal program". Although this acknowledgement of the complexity of family we would like to propose a list of inclusions for our government to consider when proposing new legislation that affects any aspect of family.
 Family includes both genetically and non-genetically connected family members.
 Family transcends ethnicity and nationalities, families can have allegiance to many flags and be comprised of many different skin colors.
 Family is needs community, if you protect the family, but harm the community systems around it such as schools, libraries, and parks, then you inherently harm the family unit.
 Families need support and daycare is expensive, and we cannot undervalue the importance of raising our future generations in healthy environments.
 Families may be composed of many sexual orientations. This does not mean that parents that are gay, lesbian, transgender, or other sexual orientations are any less valuable parents. We need to value and support all parents for their hard work as being parents.
 Families may be comprised of single parent households. These parents need extra support for their work and dedication. Child care should be made freely available to these parents as well as government aid no matter their gender.
 Families do not have age restrictions, old and young adults help raise children in many different situations.
 Families are very dynamic and change all of the time and assistance to families should be dynamic and not dependent on social class.
 We should have legislation that speeds up the process for parents seeking to adopt, children who spend long periods of time in foster care suffer extensively. We need to ensure the child's safety and well being.
 Family policy should be written by mothers and fathers, not by accountants. Family policy should not be victim to budget cuts and tax raises.
 WE CANNOT UNDERVALUE OUR FAMILIES!!!!!!

Group 7... I think...

Agenda, group 1: restrooms

2010-05-11T15:19:33Z

our agenda addresses feminist and queer family values concerning public restrooms. here are some exploratory proposals for gender neutral restrooms that are not too radical, and surely not meant to offend or completely disparage traditional family values, but to allow for new possibilities concerning the way we understand "family" or "gender" and relationships between people in public space. our ideas centered primarily around the questioning of prohibitive and ill-conceived constructions of gender and the merging/uniting of gendered spaces, while still allowing for *private* spaces -- thus communal, or collective, restrooms, and private restrooms. we acknowledge that the models depicted have their faults -- and appear to demand quite a large space -- however, they are only models, proposals, and tentative suggestions towards an uncertain, yet optimistic, future of shit-fulfillment....

group participants: mary, matt, kathryn, carlyn, will, ellen

Group 4 PIC Agenda

2010-05-07T04:25:58Z

View and download the full size flier here.

DE #10

2010-05-06T21:21:31Z

After reading, I have notice that the difference between the erotic and pornographic.
It seem to me the same. The Author said Erotic is derived from the Greek words eros, which is the personification of love in all of its aspects and creative power and harmony"
Another author Lord said Pornography "is a direct denial of the power of erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling" (570).

Some final thoughts and a note of thanks

2010-05-06T17:02:33Z

As the title indicates, this course has been about contemporary feminist debate. Taking a somewhat unconventional approach, I structured the course around the belief that debate is not about winning an argument or rigidly defending one's position. Instead, it about "living with contradictions" (Jaggar) and staying perpetually curious (Enloe) about problems--what they are, how we frame them, and what strategies we can develop for responding to them.

I selected readings that were meant to highlight the complicated and contradictory ways in which a wide range of feminist thinkers approach key social issues. The readings were also intended to take all of us out of our comfort zone and encourage us to dwell in a space of unknowingness, where easy answers about "what is to be done" aren't possible. While I find this space of unknowingness to be unsettling (and oftentimes exhausting), I also find it be invigorating. Staying in that space of unknowingness allows me to remain curious and fosters my desire to always ask lots of questions about the limits and possibilities of any approach to an issue. In my vision of feminist movement (and my list of feminist values), curiosity, openness and asking lots of questions are central.

Now, I want to be clear here. I am not suggesting that staying in a space of unknowingness is all that anyone, particularly feminists, should ever do. As Anna suggests in her comment to this entry, curiosity, even if it is a feminist curiosity, is not enough. We also need to think strategically and constructively about how to respond to our most pressing issues. But, I wonder, what questions are left unasked and what possibilities get foreclosed when we move too quickly out of our unknowingess? Indeed, what political, critical and ethical value can come out of safeguarding that space? To conclude this reflection, I want to paraphrase, and slightly modify, a passage from Judith Butler in her book, Undoing Gender: While asking questions, remaining uncertain and being curious are not all that feminist movement is or should be, I can't imagine feminist movement without them.

Thanks for a great semester. I truly appreciate how willing you all were to stay curious. And I appreciate how much you all embraced the blog. Have a great summer!

This is a Feminist Issue: Water

2010-05-05T04:01:51Z

I think someone posted about access to safe water a while back, so I thought this article could build on that. "The Burden of Thirst" was a feature story in National Geographic last month. It talks about access to water and how the lack of safe, easily accessible water keeps women out of the public sphere. Girls do not go to school with the boys because they have chores to do. The article says that the average American uses one hundred gallons a day just in their home, and that can be contrasted with the woman interviewed in the article who gets by on just two and a half. If water were more accessible girls would be able to go to school. This is absolutely a feminist issue, and one that deserves more attention. Once again, the article can be found here. You can also check out "Freshwater 101," which is a brief slideshow about freshwater use and includes links to other useful articles.

Prisoner Correspondence

2010-05-05T02:57:48Z

From what we've learned in class I think we can all agree that our prison system does not intend to rehabilitate. The "tough on crime" era was the beginning of a major expansion of the prison system motivated by profit and racism rather than a benevolent desire to "serve and protect." The prison population soared and the crime rate was not affected by the increased rate of incarceration (as we learned in the Angela Davis reading). Because of their size and pervasiveness corporations began taking interest in them and prisons became increasingly privatized. Corporations were interested because money could be made - prisons had to be built, foods, goods and services had to be supplied, and prison labor became an important resource to exploit. The emphasis on money, control and power leaves out the human element and prisoners are exploited and dehumanized. Instead of focusing on rehabilitation people are locked up and forgotten about.

This is where correspondence comes in. As people outside the prison system we have the ability to help restore humanity and hope to a population that many, including their families and friends, forget about. As you can imagine this forgetting happens for a variety of reasons, but part of it has to do with the unwillingness to face something so devastating and overwhelming. When we talk about big problems like this it can be frustrating to hear things like, "if you just do this one simple thing we can..." And it's true, writing letters isn't going to topple the system, but I think it's a good place to start. The dehumanizing nature of prisons can leave those inside feeling totally disconnected from the community. When a person feels like an outsider or a deviant rehabilitation is a joke; it's just not going to happen. Letters from the outside can restore hope, inspiration and will. Many prisoners have been behind bars for years and have not heard from anyone on the outside. Maybe after awhile you start to forget that there is an outside. Writing a letter is a simple and worthwhile way to connect with someone and maybe restore their sense of belonging and worth.

Below are a few websites that offer additional information on prisoner correspondence.

http://www.writeaprisoner.com/homepage.aspx
This is the first result that comes up when you search "prison correspondence." It's a very comprehensive site - they offer a lot more than just a pen pal service (such as ways to donate both money and things like books, legal support, and help finding work for prisoners).

http://www.prisonerlife.com/index.cfm
This is run by former offenders. Their site says they give prisoners a chance "to announce their existence." They have a fact box with prison statistics that changes as you browse.

http://www.ccadp.org/inmates.htm
This site lists prisoners on death row.

By the way, "In 29 years, 1973 - 2002, 103 death row inmates were found to be innocent and set free." Source: http://www.writeaprisoner.com/prisoner-statistics.aspx

Also, if the death penalty or people who were sentenced to death and later found to be innocent interests you, I highly recommend the story of Cameron Todd Willingham. It's a long, heartbreaking read but it does an excellent job of illustrating how our emotions and need for justice can get in the way of a fair trial, which is why something as final as death should not be an option for punishment.

You can (and should!) read his story here.

The Aspects toward Pornography: Positive vs. Negative

2010-05-04T20:23:03Z

Pornography is a battlefield in U.S. law. For decades, courts have struggled to find a middle ground between opponents of obscenity and defenders of free speech. This debate began to shift in the 1970s as feminists introduced new theories.

Pornography, as defined by Wikipedia, is "the explicit depiction of sexual subject matter with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer". This means it excludes erotica, which some purists insist on, because erotica is different in that it has an interest in doing more than merely providing sexual excitation.

POSITIVE

1. Sexual freedom
2. It allows people to view different sexual lifestyles.

NEGATIVE

1. Porn is a drug that leads to addiction.
-Men often consume more and more porn, which can lead to distancing themselves from their loved ones, losing their jobs, etc.
2. Porn is a form of sexism.
-Women are commoditized and objectified in porn, which puts them on an unequal footing with men.
3. Porn portrays all women in one of four degrading, dehumanizing categories.
-It gives you the most insidious view of women.This can lead to an inability to form meaningful romantic relationships and even violence against women.
4. Porn cultivates a single standard of beauty that no real women can live up to.
-This leads men to be mistakenly dissatisfied with reality as it pertains to sex.

This is a feminist issue because...Godzilla Weeds

2010-05-04T20:04:15Z

Yesterday there was an article in the New York Times about how excessive use of herbicides, such as RoundUp, has caused some weeds to become immune to the poison. Because an increasing number of weeds do not die from traditional does of herbicides, farmers, in turn, are spraying even larger amounts of the stuff. The poisons in herbicides are very harmful to living things. As a feminist, I find it troubling that it will be the poor immigrant farm workers, who are exposed daily to herbicides, and wildlife that will become ill from our society's chronic consumerism.

Developing Agendas: Feminist Family Values and the Sex Wars

2010-05-04T15:49:48Z

Today you will get into your groups and develop an agenda for Feminist Family Values or create a response to the Sex Wars. Here are two examples that might inspire you:

ONE: Feminist Family Values
During our discussion of gay marriage, we read the statement by BeyondMarriage.org. Here is their agenda:

TWO: Sex Wars
In her entry, Anna discusses The Sex Workers Project.. They have a press kit that you can download, which has a lot of valuable information, including a values statement. Here's a blurb from that statement:

PIC AGENDA FLYER

2010-05-04T06:01:56Z

Group 6: Caitlin, Danielle, Yein, Heather, Ava, and Abby

Our group decided on making a flyer that would address the problem of dehumanizing prisoners; we then decided to present different outlets and resources to create contact, increase education, and ultimately remove the stigmatizing label of "prisoner" and have them be seen as people.

The Smitten Kitten

2010-05-04T05:58:02Z

The Smitten Kitten is a feminist-owned adult sex toy/equipment boutique located on Lyndale and Lake in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis. SolutionistTwinCities.org describes the Smitten Kitten as, "Valuing "human dignity and the creative expression of gender, identity and desire," the Smitten Kitten is more than a sex toy boutique; it is an open source for information on issues of sexuality, sexual health, and feminism."

Staffed by a team of Sex Educators, the Smitten Kitten is committed to selling only the safest products to its clientele. Jennifer Pritchett, the founder/owner of the Kitten formed the Coalition Against Toxic Toys in 2005, a non-profit that aims to create awareness of the hazardous materials and production practices of the existing sex toy industry. CATT can be found at BadVibes.org.

The Smitten Kitten is an open, accepting environment offering toys, books, zines, DVD's and more to a widely representational audience in the GLBTQ community as well. In addition to their product catalog, their website hosts an events calendar and blog filled with great resources for anyone wanting to explore sexuality in a safe and non-judgmental environment.

The site (and the store!) give a much better look into their mission/vibe/general awesomeness than I could ever do here, so check them out!

The Smitten Kitten

Feminist Issue- Barbie's Dimensions

2010-05-04T02:53:55Z

The other day, I was having a conversation with one of my friends about girls bodies and how some girls can be so lucky to have such a proportional body. This conversation led on to talking about Barbie's body in relation to our body, since I have heard that the relation was really messed up. If Barbie were real, she would have a 42D chest, 32 inch hips, and an 18- inch waist. This is CRAZY! Barbie impacts so many little girls' lives, and it is disheartening to know that little girls look up to Barbie, and want to look just as pretty as their dolly. I wasn't a huge Barbie fan as a little girl, but thank god I wasn't. My body image could be very distorted. I think this is a feminist issue because no little girl should have that "Barbie looking" image for themselves. I hate that our society is so much about pretty, skinny girls. It's not reality. It's reality to be healthy and happy, and that is all that really should matter.

Single Parent Adoption Summary

2010-05-04T02:35:04Z

Our group (Sammy, Kathryn, Alyssa) decided to track the issue of single parent adoption because we knew that discrepancies existed in this area but we were unsure of the specifics. We already knew that it is "easier" for a couple to adopt a child than it is for a single. However before we began tracking the issue, we did not know the laws behind single parent adoption, how race and gender play into the issue, or the differences between domestic vs. international adoption or infant adoption vs. foster adoption.

As far as the laws behind single parent adoption go, it is completely legal in every state of the United States for a single parent to adopt a child of any age domestically. This was not always the case however, due to discrimination of single parent families. In 1958 the Child Welfare League of America put out a release stating that adoptive families must be comprised of a mother and a father. It wasn't until 1965 that the first group, the Los Angeles Bureau of Adoptions, fervently recruited single parents nationwide.

The Los Angeles Bureau of Adoptions was also the first organization to seek out single African-American parents, so that they could match African-American children with parents of the same race. Now, when the state places children they tend to place couples with same-race children. Also, according to Adoption Choices of Oklahoma, most adoptions cost between $28,000 and $34,000, while African-American adoptions range from $25,000 to $30,000, and the average waiting time for a potential adoptive parent to be matched with a birth mother is six months, but the wait is much shorter for parents willing to adopt African-Americans. When looking at local adoption agencies, white, middle-class, heterosexual men and women dominate the photos, giving the impression that these agencies mainly cater to this one group of people.

When the state is responsible for placing children, they tend to give single parents "hard to place" children, such as children with disabilities, or who are older, etc. Single parents are responsible for 25% of all special needs adoptions. Often, single parents are recommended to foster homes, as they will have a better chance at being placed with a child in this fashion, rather than being picked by a birthmother to adopt an infant.

Single parent adopters are an untapped resource that should be utilized to place children into loving homes. Single parent adoptions are just as successful as couple adoptions, often because single adoptive parents often seek out resources and build support systems more vigorously than couples do. These resources include finances, which single adoptive parents are able to bring and make ends meet for their family. No significant differences in terms of educational development of the children have been noted between single and two parent adoptive families. Also, single adoptive parents have reported less use of mental health services than two parent adoptive parents.

Overall, the main issue seen in the practices of adoption is how society views different family units, as well as how society places different values on different children (i.e. foster children, African-American children, etc.)

Feminist Issue- Dove Commercial

2010-05-04T02:09:11Z

http://www.dove.us/?dl=/products/hair#/features/videos/default.aspx[cp-documentid=7049579]

No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.

This is the dove add that was released a few years ago to made us aware of the media and how the gorgeous women and men are portrayed differently than they actually are. This television commercial takes an everyday average girl and puts make- up on her, curls her hair, then takes her picture onto a computer and photo shops her entire face and hair. By the end of the commercial, she looks like a completely different girl than what she started as. I think this is a feminist issue because the media is showing us people who don't really exist, and we are trying to live up to these fake standards. It makes me sad that some people really do feel the need to be as pretty as people we see on ads and magazine covers, when really it is all fake. Why should women (and men) have to be portrayed like this?