It's hard to be right or wrong in fiction. We've all probably read fiction where we disagree with the point that the author is trying to make (I have a lot of issues with lord of the flies) but it is far easier to have a conversation about such difficult to quantify subjects as the everyday oppression of women through the use of contrived example, through the use of fiction. To specify and represent the facts and quantify and argue about the action and outcomes and force ourselves to take sides and justify those sides infinety requires many more pages then do the subtelties that our minds are evolved to handle. Glaspel's story was well written, poignent and conveys the nuances of an oppression that is often difficult to completely consider.
I found Walters' "Wedding Bells and Baby Carriages" to be oversimplifying the gay marriage/ family debate. She focuses on the question whether marriage between gay couples is a way of perpetuating the problematic institution of marriage without changing it or whether it revolutionizes marriage into a more positive institution, which I guess is an important question. But I felt like she failed to really note how gay people feel about the ability to marry in addressing this question, and in doing so she reinforced the same/otherness that she said was a problem with marriage: basically, gay people can try to be just like straight people with the same rights, or completely different and remain subordinate.
I went to last year's Rainbow Families Conference and was surprised to learn just how little most gay couples seeking marriage really care about how much they are trying to "be like" or oppose straight people; gays just want the rights they deserve. The lack of solidarity between gay people and straight liberals is evident in the straight liberal comments that Walker was making (I am not assuming that she is straight, but she does bring up the straight liberal POV a lot.)
After reading the three pieces by Alice Wlaker, Virginia Wolf, and Susan Glaspell, I was wondering if there was an advantage to women not being able to express their intellect? For example, in "A Jury of Her Peers", the men were not able to find the clues because they did not understand women's abilities. For that reason, the two women were able to hide the evidence from the men. Do you think that it is sometimes better for a man not to know what goes on betwee women? However, Amy did make the point that even if the men found the evidence, they would not be able to understand what it meant. So, I suppose even if women were to tell men something, they would probably not understand completely. I am not trying to say that women should not write or express their thoughts, but simply if we can find any advantages to it.
When I read Wolf's piece, the part that stood out to me was when she wrote that we lost novelists and poets when witches, herbal women, and such were burned at the stake. Then she also wrote about how men did not have as many obstacles as women did in writing and expressing their creativity. I think that is very true because in my culture, I have to do the house work and "women duties" which impedes upon my time and thinking of how to do homework or creative projects. This is similar to when Shakespeare's sister had to burn her writings or put away the books she read when her parents came and told her that there was work for her to do. All sorts of obstacles stop and interrupt a person's thinking which means that what one might want to say or write may not always be exactly what they had in mind.
Although I was turned off by Alice Walker in her documentary "Warrior Marks", I really enjoyed her argument of looking outside of the box to recongnize creativity outside of the dominant culture. As a theater major I am constantly questioning what is creativity, what is good art and how am I influencing or conrtadcting socially constructed representations of different bodies through my art. By recognizing creativity outside of the dominant culture's understanding of it, we are able to recongize the oppression that this type of limitation of creativty has on those whom are denied the materials to create inside this small understanding of creativity.
I (cheesily) found Alice Walker's, "In Search of Our Mother's Garden" to be very inspiring. It touched me to read about the influence Walker's mother and grandmother had on her creativity just by reminiscing on their gardens, or quilting. I also liked that Walker refers to women as Saints.
I can't imagine living in the time of Virginia Woolf, or being a black woman in the Reconstruction period. Having no venue to express any artistic talent would definetly drive me to insanity. I would feel like I was locked in a room with no key to escape. Walker's recognition of her ancestors being creative in whatever way possible (like quilting and gardening) really opened my eyes to how hard it must have been.
I was really excited to read the Promise Keepers article. I hadn't heard about the group until a friend of mine began to work on a paper discussing issues with the group. At this point, she discovered that a newer pastor (her family and mine attend the same lutheran church) is a member of the group, and actually facilitated a trip to the cities for other men from the congregation. I ended up asking if my mom was aware of this, which she was, feeling less than comfortable with it. Anyway, what I mean to get to is that my friend ended up interviewing this pastor and his wife for her paper. She told me all about the interviews (conducted separately) as well as emailed me her paper when she was finished. I thought it was interesting that she said that, when asked whether women are to be subordinate to their husbands, Kevin said "no" with an extended explaination as to why he would not consider that to be the correct phrasing (he also knew the basis of her paper at the time of the interview) while his wife responded "yes" without hesitation. Another thing that came up was arguing in front of the children. His wife said she would always agree with Kevin in front of the children, and they could discuss their disagreements privately later. She wanted to make sure her chidren understood the positition of the man vs. the woman in the household and marriage. The final thing I want to mention about the interview (which, granted, isn't even mine, but I found it really interesting) is that when Kevin felt like he needed to defend the groups beliefs (though my friend never intended for the interview to be an attack) but did not have an "acceptable" answer, he would simply recite the Promise Keepers main belief statement. My friend said it almost sounded like brainwashing, because the way he said it, it sounded relatively acceptable. I think the status of the husband and wife, respectively, was stated very clearly in the article; the wife SHOULD be subordinate to her wife. However, when this came up with an actual member of the Promise Keepers group, he was hesitant to admit this. First of all, what does this say for the stability of the group, and secondly for the core beliefs within?
Even though the story of “A Jury of Her Peers” wasn’t anything dramatic that would bring blood shedding images to my head, the story on its own was exceptionally disturbing. I don’t know what’s worse, watching a full action movie where people are slaying one another or reading a story about a sad woman who murdered her husband in revenge for justice on the base of a pet canary.
I don’t normally get disturb by reading mystery/horror story and yet in this little story about quilting and canning and pet canaries, the psychological tension is almost unbearable and I believe much of the tension revolves around my own perspective of viewing how women struggle through abuse from the opposite sex.
It reminded me of how most woman who are brutally beaten by their husband never say a word and they just keep their anger festering inside of them until one day they realized that enough is enough and without much thinking they strike back by doing something extreme. To be brief, I think the sole purpose of Glaspell story is to make other women comprehend the fact that being in an abuse relationship can be extremely self-destructive.
“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell was an interesting historical story that gave me some insight into what it would have been like to live…way back when? I wasn’t quite sure what period this piece was supposed to take place in, but am guessing that it was the 1800’s due to the “Little House on the Prairie”-esque atmosphere. I would not have liked to live then and be deserted in a house by myself to quilt. What would happen if you didn’t like quilting or sewing or cooking or cleaning? I didn’t quite understand why Minnie Foster decided to marry John Wright, and what made her stop singing. I am guessing it is implied that he abused her since a reason is never stated for either of my questions. It was actually a rather sad story, and it makes me glad to live in the twenty-first century and have a degree of autonomy and choice.
I enjoyed reading Woolf's article. What I did find fascinating was her hypothetical idea towards Shakespeare having a sister named Judith. I loved how she demonstrated the double standard of writing in comparison to the times of Shakespeare. It made me think of other things that are a double standard against myself, or women in general, in comparison to men.
However, I just want to point out that there is numerous doubts pertaining to Shakespeare's life. It has been argued time and time again that "Shakespeare" did not write "Shakspeare." In fact many believe that "Shakespeare" was really Queen Elizibeth. Wouldn't that be amazing that if it was in fact a woman who wrote the wonderful plays of Shakespeare? It would clearly support the fact that Woolf was trying to get across, that any work created by a woman would be altered and a name left out ... or possibly changed. Queen Elizibeth is Shakespeare!
This section on women's creativity has been very confusing to me. I feel that the readings were more so stories that you had to deeply investigate to get to the point, and for some reason the point was never clear to me. Woolf's article was extremely wordy and seemed to jump from random point to even more random point...women's creativity to what they had for dinner to something on that same idea about partridges to where a womens creativity is allowed to show. For me the analogies she used were only more confusing and detracted from her point...that i never got. I also felt that these readings confined creativity to the arts and yes to be an artist or a novelist you need money and a room of ones own but women are creative in other ways that dont require these conditions...what about the way they creatively save money by buying used items or repurposing old ones to allow their children a treat every once in a while....this isn't the upper class definition of creativity but in my mind this type of creativity takes more thought and skill than writing any novel or painting any masterpiece.
I've greatly enjoyed what I've read of Virginia Woolf up to this point. For starters, her writing style is lengthy and worth every word (insulting the library, I actually laughed out loud). More importantly, her speculations are direct, important, and limited in scope to what is in my opinion reasonable to assume (which is not to say 'of limited scope'). The addressing of emotions as the cause for both the bias and disdain of the male writers towards females and indeed of males toward female writers seems to me to be really the point of the problem. Anger and fear over the conservation of power. Moreover, her direct reasoning of the need for personal stability (food, shelter, clothing) in order to create truly new and interesting works seems extremely apt given how distracting the fight for those resources can be. While she, as does everyone, make extrapolations to a wider society of the action of only a few, she is addressing only the society that she knows, the evidence does appear extremely well founded in that society, and her arguments hold together: indeed the ever present anger and fear of many of the historical male writers did contaminate their writings because to them, their personal stability was not ever enough (nor in their minds guaranteed).
The explotation of others because of our consumerist culture is not something new. Unfortunatly, it has become an excepted practice and is becoming "normal" for big buisnesses to do. However in the article "the globe trotting sneaker", Enloe represents an argument that places those whom work in these factores in a much different frame then in most discussions led about this type of explotation. She places these women in to postions of strength instead of victims. While although they are victims to explotation and suffer greatly because of the american consumer culture, she represents them as fighting against the power. It is a representation that is so often lost when discussing american consmerism in other cultures which usually frames those whom work in the factories as weak and helpless. The globe trotting sneaker speaks about women fighting back. While although it frames that there are still many problems, and it is our responsiblity to recongize how we ourselves play into the explotation of others, it is just as wrong to only represent the workers as helpless, weak and in need of saving as many other authors have done as well as political leaders and activists when discussing amercian consumerism nad american factories in other countries.
I had never read anything by Virginia Woolf prior to this article, and I have to admit that I knew nothing about her either. But now I am presuming she was a white, educated Englishwoman (someone let me know if I am wrong!). Her style of fiction was a good means to address issues about women, poverty, and their status in society. At first it seemed like it was just a fictional tale about a young woman, but then it changed tone (more so in chapters two and three) and talked about women’s access to education, which is directly related to why women are not present in history and the arts. I enjoyed reading this representation of women’s thoughts in history about women, and the future of the women’s movement.
In Alice Walker's article "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens," she recognizes the unrealized poetic/creative potential in many Black women's existence that remain seemingly cut off from their lived reality. Reading Phyllis Wheatley against Virgina Woolf allows Walker to expose the privilege related in the ability to 'write the feminine.' However, by listening to her own mother's stories and recounting the garden her mother grew, Walker illustrates how those without privilege are still capable of creating meaningful creative discourse. I think this is true of the film, How Women Feed Africa, as well. By locating these women and their actual experience, they are not able to be represented as passive victims (a pretty common function of traditional historical discourse) but instead active participants in social and cultural production.
Something in chapter 1 of A Room of One's Own jumped out at me. She asks, "Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many of these are written by men?" This is something that has always bothered me- although I think it's great when men support the feminist agenda and speak for what they believe from a point of acknowledged gender privilege, much of the time when men speak on women it is not in any way acknowledging their privilege, and often even speaks to what they believe is wrong with the women's movement and women who take action.
She goes on to say, "what was surprising and difficult of explanation was the fact that sex- woman, that is to say- also attracts... men who have no apparent qualification save that they are not women." This reminds me of an article I read in the daily several weeks ago written by a man with no background, education, or experience in women's studies or feminism who sought to argue that American women are sick of feminism. I was appalled that the daily let him write a refute to the people who tried to disagree with him, because it really implied exactly what Woolf is saying- that men are assumed to have some expertise merely because they are men, and therefore more intelligent than women, even when we are on the topic of women or feminism. In reality, for a man who doesn't know what he is talking about to speak out against feminism in the name of women is completely unfair and I am appalled that it is supported by the press.
The documentray we watched in class on Friday was interesting. It surprised me how much the women actually due pertaining to work, and how they are not given much (if any) money for their labor. I forgot what woman it was, but I remember her mentioning that her husband had left 8 years ago (?) for work, and that he does not contribute to his family still living at home. I found these women to be remarkable - they still stood up to their husbands regardless of the fact that they were considered inferior.
I'm commenting on the article The Globtrotting Sneaker by Cynthia Enloe. I find it interesting how everyone "pretends" to care so much about basic human rights. Like the right to live above poverty, the right to make minimum wage. But in the article we've seen U.S based companies going in to third world countries and "pretending" to be there to help the country. We all know that they are not there to help, they are there to make the most money that they can. The most surprising part of the article is where the author talks about president clinton's visit. He is quoted as saying somthing about the right to free trade and the basic assumption that these companies are just taking advantage of those rights. However, what about the rights of the women not to be violated, to be healthy, to be able to provide for more than themselves?? What about their rights? It seems as though no one wants to help out, they just want to take and receive all that they can, even if it means exploiting a people who are already poor.
The Globetrooting Sneaker by Cynthia Enloe was an eye opening article. i often take for granted the prices of my clothing and even when they are still highly priced i never look at the tag to see where it was made. This article made me feel like a terrible person because i buy into the labor of these women, they have no human rights and their jobs offer no stability. Americans think the lowest job you can have is at fast food restraraunt or a similar place, americans have no clue what a bad job is and it is so sad that we act as though we do. In the future, it will not be a question whether or not i look at the tag for the country it was made in, because what good is a beautiful shirt or shoes if someone is suffer for your vanity.
I'm writing about the Segura article. I found it to be extremely interesting to find out that the chicana women were actually more about living the traditional "mother role" than were the mexicana women. We have always been taught as a society that the United States is a country of free will and that equality is a very important aspect of our world. However, I see things a bit differently. It is supposed that in the more traditional, catholic lifestyle of the mexicana women, there would be more traditional beliefs about working and the "mother role". However, it is within this society that we find that it is the shared work load that is found to resemble the "traditional mother role", these women believe that they are being more conducive to the lives of their children by sharing all the work that is to be done. On the other hand, the chicana women find that being a mother is supposed to be the most important role of women. And as discussed in class today, working is essentially alright, but only if it does not overshadow that of the man, that which is viewed as the more important, bread winning occupation.
It seems that time and time again real reason for the oppression of a group is monetary. It's not because they are seen as inferior or that they somehow deserve the differential treatment. Instead, it benefits someone to exploit this group and they are able to do so because they are already differentiated based on some other characteristic. The exploiting group pushed the differentiation to encompass unproven differences and uses those differences as a reason for exploitation. We've read essays saying that we need to remove all differences to prevent this. Removing the ability to differentiate between the sexes in any way is problematic on a species level. I've heard calls for studies to find the real differences if they truly exist. But this will surely result in the warping exploit of science to fulfill political goals. So that pretty much leaves the greed. And I wouldn't say a culture of greed either, it didn't become a biblical sin because it originated in capitalist society and other forms of government are certainly every bit as rich in it. But what is to be done about individual greed?
I don’t think that there’s been enough discussion of the men staying home too, aside from the fair families article last week. All these articles talk about how women either stay home or work and put their kids in someone else’s care, but outside of discussion of patriarchial structure, men aren’t discussed at all in terms of also staying home with the children. My parents both worked part-time jobs so that at least one of them was always around to take care of us (my brother and I). There’s all this talk about societal constructs and motherhood as institution and how men are helping to perpetuate them, but I haven’t heard enough about men’s responsibility towards raising their kids along with their wives/children’s mothers (if not married). We should be in this together! It’s not just an either or for women, men should be involved too, we’re discussing the upbringing of their children too! There’s not enough discussion of fatherhood.
I found Alice Kessler-Harris's article to be very interesting. Before reading this article I knew that men were recieving larger wages from women, and I knew about the glass ceiling effect. However, I didn't really think about why these things were happening, I just figured it was becuase men are considered superior to women. That's why I ejoyed Harris's article because she dives deeper into why women are getting paid less, and it intrigued me to read that women are receiving smaller wages to discourage them from working so they will stay at home and take care of the children and clean the house. I found this very disheartening because even today women are getting paid less than men and I feel like our society has moved slightly forward with the whole "housewife" stereotype (even though it's not gone yet) I feel like the difference in pay between the man and the women should also be moving forward and I don't feel like it is.
This article was very interesting because I never knew to history behind why women were paid less than men besides the sexism. When Kessler-Harris wrote that women were purposely paid less to discourage being independent, it made me think about agency. The societal restrictions on women do not allow them to make their own choices in life because there is always somethign there that will force them back into their "rightful palce". Kessler wrote about how women were paid based on the bare necessities, but who determines that. I know that they researched how much an average women spent, but they did not take race, social staus, and marital status into consideration.
I thought that the fact that women were later not so much concerned with how much they were making incomparison to men, but were concerned about their wage compared to the woman next to them was extremely stupid. Instead of working together to get equal pay as the men, they busied themselves with why the woman next to them was making more money. I suppose this was a way for the men to keep the women distracted from trying to get equal pay with them. It was kind of like divide and conquer in order to keep the women at the bottom.
Reading Bonnie Thorton Dill's essay made me think a lot about greater gender and class problems in labor. I have always been frustrated with families I know who employ black women or immigrants to clean their houses, and when voicing these concerns, I have been met with the argument, "but hiring them to clean your house gives them jobs, and without that they might be unemployed and not be able to support their families." Now, there are a lot of issues that go much deeper than this simple statement, but it has taken me a long time to decide whether that is a big enough (important as it is) reason to justify white people employing people of color as "servants". In the end, I have decided that it isn't, because it is such a system of institutionalized racism in which the workers have so little dignity in their work- a perfect example of one person's oppression benefiting another person.
This said, I still haven't figured out an answer to the "how else do we provide enough jobs for unskilled workers" question. Of course, there are idealistic answers- educate them, etc, but we all know these are pretty lofty goals considering the system we are working in currently.
The set of articles for today (Segura, Dill, and Ehrenreich) have made me even more scared to have children. I have never seen myself as becoming a stay-at-home mom, but more as a working mother. Actually, imagining being a mother seems even more far-fetched as I keep reading articles like the ones for today! The difficulties of working mothers appear to be emotionally draining, and hard on job security. I did enjoy the sarcastic tone of “The Mommy Test”; it was right up my alley. I plan on being successful and will most likely hire a caretaker for my children, but the Dill article made me acutely aware of the effect it will have on my parenting abilities. After reading these articles I have come to the conclusion that perhaps I should just avoid having children whatsoever.
I have noticed that there has been an awful lot of debate on whether staying at home with your children or going out into the work force is the best for the family. In fact on 10/10/05 Dr. Phil had a similar debate on his television program, it raised several points for both sides. On staying at home, one mom argued that she enjoyed staying at home because she knew her children could always depend on her if need, For example: there would be no holding on the phone as the secertary tried to locate mom in a meeting as her child was sitting in the school, ill. She also brought up the point that staying at home has such a negative connotation in our society as though if we werent working we had no self worth, that the only way to feel worthy is to hold down a career and rake in money. Unfortunately that is how alot of people base their achievement. Now ask yourself is staying home with your children really demeaning? i would hope not, after all these are your children that you brought into the world and now you want someone else to raise them during the day(through daycare or nannies ect) The opposing side felt that by having a career you were displaying equality between men and women to your children and it was a positive experience because it showed them to succeed career wise. They also pointed out that the reason many felt dissatisfied with staying home was because it was primarily the females responsibility, that there was little pressure on men to stay home after having children and it was unjust to expect that of women. While this show niether validated either side i think it pointed out some interesting points as well as the article by Denise Segura.
I work in computer science. Women are extremely sparse in this field. This topic yields a variety of responses from those women about this ranges from essentially 'I can get a job anywhere' to 'I'm always at a disadvantage.' When it comes down to the statistics, it must be simply true that women are pair less and it is reasonable that this would be generally missed by both the male and female workers given the secrecy in wages imposed at many engineering companies. To this date I've only seen overt discrimination in the form of a single other student's views on such things (while this is still a problem, it seems the ratio of outright criminals to the average student is higher then that of sexist engineers students to other students). I actually quite doubt that the men in control would reduce wages just to hurt women but rather almost certainly do it for profit, as was noted. If you can pay them less and no one knows the difference then why not do it? While this would normally then create a cycle wherein equally skilled female workers could more profitably replace the male ones, the lack of women in engineering keeps their numbers still relatively low. As a result I think that both of these responses that I receive could be quite true: women are specifically sought in many companies to both increase diversity and likely to drive down costs while still being discriminated against in the form of low pay.
The notion that parents in fair families are more likely to be dismayed when their kids exhibit hegemonic behaviors and discourage them from acting that way is just as bad as trying to get them to act in gender-appropriate ways. A friend of mine labeled it a “dogma”, just taking them out of one kind of box and putting them into another. Dogma is the danger, the evil - I believe that children should not be forced into one set of behaviors (or the opposite set) based on gender. If you have a child that’s nurturing and whatever that happens to be female, you should encourage her to just be who she is. If you have an athletic child who happens to be male, that’s fine. Kids should be allowed to be who they are. Unfortunately, there’s a large enough group of people who raise their kids according to gender “norms”, and children in fair families have to go to school with these “normalized” kids, and they can either conform or be ostracized (or find a small group of like-minded kids). I know how it goes - I was raised in a feminist family, with a slightly younger brother - and now we have younger sisters, too. We’ve all had to deal with going to public schools with other kids who have wildly different ideas about being male/female, and we’re lucky that we have such supportive family and friends who tell us “no, really, there’s nothing wrong with you” for our more egalitarian/feminist views/actions.
Most of the articles we read this week were not interesting at all, especially the one by Kimmel....I did not like the article because I disagreed with his argument..He argued in favor of little boys, but I argue that little boys have always been in the spot light. Little girls/women are the one who had to fight for their rights..attention and privledges, things that little boys/ men automatically have...he stated.."with testosterone surging through their limbs, boys are commanded to sit still, raise their hands, etc...(p.166)'"...I was floored...I recall while growing up this is what the little girls were told to do....It was evident that the boys were doing these things and got away with it a lot more, but the little girls HAD to do these things..I remember .."act like a lady...be still, sit down, dont talk...sit with your hands in your lap. What is this guy talking about? Little girls were always outcasted becasue little boys required so much attention.becasue of their testosterone issues. Know that little gilrs/ women are getting SOME attention, the little we deserve, little boys/men are feeling left out... Aren't they the ones that have received all the attention, since forever?
It is the battling arguments of science vs. socialist. What are little boys made of? is it the testastrone or is it social behavior that determines the active nature many times found in little boys? I have read several books and essays that try to prove one argument is right and the other is ridiculous. I ind the argument that violence in boys is a learned behavior extremlly compelling and I am in agreement with much of what Kimmel says. I also find the choices that he makes about how he presents his argument through the research of others and use qoutations to support his thesis an execllent way to present his argument. It makes it more compelling and articulates his points well. It reinforces his thesis and I am more pursuaded to believe it due to all those whom seem to agree with what he is saying. I found the quote by Kinlon and Tompson "culture of cruelty imposes a code of silence on boys, requiring them to suffer without speaking of it and to be silent witnesses to acts of cruelty to others" very interessting. It makes me re-think the idea that men too share challenges and are affected by a society in which not only genders women but also genders men. I feel that it is important as a feminist not only to study the behaviors of women because of the result of men but to study human behavior and how society generates different behavior to different genders and races and classes and how we as humans are affected by it. I feel that this is the direction that most feminists take, however because of a culture by those whom have the power whose collective attitude based on guilt and fear, the result is to fear feminism and bash it saying it only has a focus of blaming men for female oppression.
In Michael Kimmel’s article, “What Are Little Boys Made Of?” Kimmel points to several places in current writing that authors (white males) are accusing feminism/feminist notions of forgetting about boys and somehow boys are doing “worse than ever” because of feminists (166). Interestingly, Kimmel points to the complete lack of acknowledgment of any sort of male privilege. By not acknowledging the very structural, yet very invisible elements of male power and privilege that shape discourse (primarily institutional and educational discourse—as we spoke of in the conversation about eating disorders) the actual aspects of what it means to be a young male are hidden inside a masculine ideology that works to call feminism out to blame. There is also a distinct danger in this invisibility as it allows naturalization to male aggression that doesn’t explore any relation to racism, sexism or heterosexism except that of dominance and unearned advantage. This also has much to do with Paley’s “Inherit the War.” While slightly distopian, it is important to note the way these structures of male dominance and privilege are reproduced and maintained.
None of the articles this week really stood out to me. Things that were mentioned on every article did not shock me whatsoever. Obviously, girls and boys are different and are treated differently. But I don't think that after a certain point the differences change. Even guys our age shudder to the comments if they are ever compared to a girl - even men do. I do not know if I exactly understand why, but I guess it is a huge insult to a man's masculinity.
I think that being a person of color it is probably more difficult to find a job when compared to a White person. In America today, I think that no matter how much money or education a color person acquires, in most places they will still be treated like a second class citizen or an “other” in most elite social and professional circles (unless you’re like Oprah Winfrey or something). But generally speaking, being a person of color and trying to slip into a “white-collar” world can sometimes be challenging.
Boys and girls are obviously different. Yet, I agree with Kimmel in that the social construction of gender plays a larger role in the actions of boys than some are willing to admit. Boys are generally more rambunctious and even violent than girls, but for what reason? My summer job is at a childcare program, available to kids from Kindergarten to 6th grade. The boys like to play football when we go outside; the girls prefer Chinese jump rope and sidewalk chalk. Kimmel seemed to say that the behavioral differences between girls and boys had little to nothing to do with the biological differences. I think that it is also obvious that boys, without societal influence, are still naturally more rambunctious that girls. While the effects of one’s surroundings contribute greatly to behavioral tendencies, I do still feel as though Kimmel needs to better acknowledge the biological aspects. I do like that he said that we cannot blame biology for the violent acts committed by adolescent boys. At the job I was talking about, there is a particular 3rd grade boy who I’ve worked with the past couple of years, and he has a difficult time behaving himself; he is much more aggressive than the rest of the kids, and has difficulty following some of the rules, while his attitude is very negative. The program ends at 6:00 p.m. and I am the only supervisor there at that point. One day, he was supposed to be picked up by his father (his mother generally came in the early afternoon) but at 6:15 I had to lend the boy my cell phone to call his father, who had forgotten him. Aside from this breaking my heart, I can’t help but wonder if a sense of neglect led to his behavior, which allows him the attention he craves; attention is attention, even if negative. I’m not sure that this is applicable to the article because I can’t explain it in terms of gender differences, but its just something that I started to think about as I read the article.
I think that it is good that a few parents these days are raising their children in families that do not contribute to socially constructed genered norms. However, it seems that even the egalitarian families seem to be encouraging gendered norms except in the opposite direction. The boys seems to be growing up with feminine qualities and girls with masculine qualities. I know that the purpose of these families are to encourage children to participate in both gendered norms, but it seems that boys are becoming girls and girls becoming boys. One parent tried to encourage her daughter to play sports when she did not want to. I think that no matter what a parent does, gender differences will always exist. Parents will still seem to raise a child to grow up with gender differences.
Another important point that I recognized in this reading is that what is lived is more powerful than what is taught. This reminded me of the discussion we had on eating disorders and how to teach about them to younger children. Like I stated in the discussion, it seems that no matter how we approach the dilemma of education, once the children leave the classroom, the information leaves their heads because what they experience everyday still encourages eating disorders. Even if parents try to raise their children in gender crossed families, they will still experience, for the majority of the day and life the truth that what is believed by most people is that males and females differ. For example, the little boy in thte article who pretended to be tough and mean like a stereotypical boy when he is really sweet because he "knows" that boys are supposed to be that way. Until everyone sees the importance of true equality between men and women, getting rid of sex differences will be next to impossible.
I enjoyed the reading by Barbara Risman immensely, probably because she quoted little kids and they said great things. Sometimes we should just listen to what kids say so plainly, because they often voice truths in our society’s thinking. My favorite was “she thought girls ought to have more power in the world because they were better people.” This is what I believed growing up, but now I’ve come to realize the world is not black and white. Everything is gray; boys and girls are BOTH good and bad. If you think of everybody you have ever met, and think of “feminine” characteristics on one side and “masculine” on the other, you’ll quickly see that people are not located at the polar ends. I just had one question from the article: what does the author mean by “post-gendered identities”? Genitalia will still be a part of humans, and people will always split into different categories be it by sex, skin color, or social class. Is the author implying that there could be a society without gender? Maybe I’m looking at that in the wrong way…
I had a very similar experience in elementary school to the one which we read about this week. Not only did the girls play four-square while the boys played football, kids would be teased if they did not follow these roles that were expected of them. I, too, went to a small town Catholic school with about 20 kids in my class, so it's interesting that we had such different experiences. Certain girls who were very athletic were allowed to play with the boys, and these as we got older (fifth and sixth grade) became the popular girls, since they were accepted by the boys socially and therefore sexually; I was the least athleitc person in our class and therefore was teased relentlessly for even TRYING to talk to a boy; once when I was about 9 a boy shoved me for trying to help build a snowfort; when I was 11 another very popular boy, when I told him I thought he was cute, told me he would "not date me but would let me suck his dick for a nickel." (Excuse the phrase please) These were the types of terrible gender typing going on when I was growing up, and it took me years to feel comfortable in any situation where there were boys that I might have to talk to. Clearly, in my case as well as many others, a girl's (or boy's) experiences with gender early in life can have profound and lasting effects on self-esteem and sexuality.
I'm going to comment on the article Girls and Boys together by Barrie Thorne. I think that it has quite a valid point by saying that in most instances in elementary school, there is a very apparent separation between the genders. I however, experienced elementary school very differently. I went to a very small, private, catholic school with only a little over 100 students in the whole school! My class had 10 people; there were 6 girls and 4 boys. We always played together, whether it be football, kickball, or on the jungle gyms or swings! I, believe that it really had a positive impact on the way that I relate to the other gender, and the way that I am able to communicate. So I feel that although Thorne tried to survey schools that had basically the same student "make up" the article missed the other side of elementary schools, where there aren't as many separations.
I thought Barbara Risman was dead on with need for increased expectations out of men. It seems clear that men have actually always been more aggressive as a group and that this is probably bred into the group in my opinion but it is also clearly not difficult to overcome as she argues it is in other cultures. To think that men cannot put down their guns overlooks the reality that I know guys who have never been in a serious fight, I doubt that such a population existed even a few decades ago.
I'd like to question something, however. I can't really figure out why there is always such a push to get men to express their 'feelings.' I assume that this is in a talking-out-your-problems sort of way. I can understand this, with the assumption that we are not simply trying to transform violent acts into violent word but rather to just bring some rationality and tolerance to the situation. But rationality isn't emotion. Rationality and tolerance is the act of putting away you emotions in lieu of a more considered response. If you ask me that sounds like the exact opposite of expressing a feeling, it is repressing a feeling. Which I think generally results in a better outcome for everyone.
And also, I'd like to defend the act of putting on a strong face when you're weak. For starters, everyone does it. Because yea, sometimes you feel like you just can't do it or that you'll never make it and if it is ever going to happen, you just have to do it with infinite confidence anyways. Yes it is posturing and yes it is designed to make a person appear more capable and psychologically solid then they may really be. But I don't see why that isn't a goal state. People want to be stronger then they are. I don't think it's reasonable to ask people to try and act as they are rather then as they want to be. If people want to be strong and dependable, well this is one of the few cases where acting is the same as being. If anything, it is the ones who appear stable and breakdown that we point to as the problem with the ones who are still trying to act strong. If people didn't put on the shiny armor of their outward appearance to hide their inner self-doubt I'd worry that we'd find ourselves in a society where a person did not strive to be who they really wanted to be. One could cite this as another socialization of brainwashing people into what society says they should be, but, while this is clearly also dangerous, we should not condemn people, or even groups of people, for trying to be 'better' then they at least think they are.
Thompson brought up some interesting points in the reading regarding poverty,racism and traumas, and how these issues can affect the way women deal with eating disorders, but I'm very glad that she pointed out the eating disorders affect not only white women, but black/latin women as well. Although race might not have anything to do with having an eating disorder, but I do know class does. Class makes a difference in what eating disorder the woman will have.Most upper class black women deal with the same eating issues that upper class white women deal with. They are also bombarded with the issues that being thin is the only way your going to fit in, while black women in the lower classes compulsively eat, and use food as a scapegoat...meaning that they eat all of their problems away. Society see over weight black women and view it as just being naturally big, but in reality it is not genetics, it is a disorder; abnormal. The stereotype that eating disorder are problems white women deal with has been debunked becasue personally I think black women deal with it a lot more than white women. The obesity problem in the black communities are huge and black women are at the top of the statistics list!
I liked the style of this article - more storytelling/converstional and less dense than many of the others we've read. I agree that hair is tied to identity - it's one of the signifiers we use to present certain images (and their connotations) of ourselves to others. Long, luxurious locks are a sign of beauty/attractiveness and youth, the ultimate femininity, present not only in advertisements everywhere, but also embedded in the (dominant) culture through fairy-tales and such. In addition, I've noticed that older women in articles and ads (in magazines such as Family Circle and Women's Day, which my mom keeps buying) usually have short, practical haircuts.
It's frustrating to read about company policies and such trying to homogonize and de-ethnicize women by trying to force them to adhere to a dominant notion of hair beauty/approriateness. People should be allowed to just be themselves, and not feel pressured to conform, but that's just not how society generally works right now...