Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Occupy Providence in Relation to Texts We Have Read
I visited Occupy Providence a few weeks ago but I did not connect any readings to my visit so I will do that now. When I realized I had to make this connection to two of the readings, two immediately came to mind: Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression: The Roles of Allies as Agents of Change by Andrea Ayvazian and Allan Johnson's article, Privilege, Power, and Difference. Ayvazian discusses being an agent of change from a dominant group. The people camping out at Occupy Providence were mainly men and a majority that I saw were white. Because these white men are fighting for financial equality, Ayvazian would classify them as allies. Johnson would claim these men have privilege and that people with privilege are the only people who can change the system. These white men are working side by side with people of color and women for equality. This would make Johnson and Ayvazian proud.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
If That Is Who You Fall In Love With
Reflection Format
Teaching the Conflicts: (Re)Engaging Students with Feminism in a Postfeminist World by Meredith A. Love and Brenda M. Helmbrecht was a read that did not seem to fit in well with this class. We spent the last two weeks defining feminism and saying feminism is not just for women it is for equality. This article is all about girls, and it seems only white girls at that. I say that because early on Love and Helmbrecht use an example of white women in society and never addresses another ethnicity again.
Love and Helmbrecht's piece is well researched though. I enjoyed learning that 57 percent of people who go to college are women. However I was "shocked", as the students she talked about were, to find that women 77 % of what men make. That is absolutely ridiculous and should not be the case in the 2000's. The article talks about how women can be more than skimpy models but should be able to be equal. Love and Helmbrecht go on to use the female artist Pink, Dove's campaign for "Real Beauty", and the movie, When the Devil Wears Prada, to show how mass media has a wide array of effect on young girls.
I have not gotten to the reflective piece yet but I will get to that now. On page 49, Love and Helmbrecht discuss different reasons why student enroll in courses similar to this one. Personally I took this course because I had taken another course with Dr. Bogad and found the course very enjoyable. The previous course was in 2010 and was called the Foundations of Education: Schooling in A Democratic Society. In that course there was a woman named Cindy who had a daughter. One day Cindy was watching Ellen DeGeneres with her daughter and her daughter said something like "Mom, doesn't Ellen like other women?" Cindy said yes and then her daughter asked her "Could I like another women?" Cindy said to her daughter "If that's who you fall in love with." I think that is the perfect answer to give a little child. It lets them know they have the freedom to choose who they love and they don't have to fear backlash from their parents. That answer can be applied to different situations too. Girls should be told they can be scholars or doctors, while boys should be told they can be gymnasts or dancers. They can be whatever they want to be "if that is what they love."
Points To Share
As a class we have covered many of the SCWAAMP categories. However we have not really gone in depth on the "A"-Able Bodied and "C"-Christianity portions of SCWAAMP. We have covered "S", "W", "A", "M", and "P" very well. We have had extensive readings and discussions on those letters. After the final reading, I was just curious why the "A" and "C" mentioned above were never really discussed after the SCWAAMP day in class?
Teaching the Conflicts: (Re)Engaging Students with Feminism in a Postfeminist World by Meredith A. Love and Brenda M. Helmbrecht was a read that did not seem to fit in well with this class. We spent the last two weeks defining feminism and saying feminism is not just for women it is for equality. This article is all about girls, and it seems only white girls at that. I say that because early on Love and Helmbrecht use an example of white women in society and never addresses another ethnicity again.
Love and Helmbrecht's piece is well researched though. I enjoyed learning that 57 percent of people who go to college are women. However I was "shocked", as the students she talked about were, to find that women 77 % of what men make. That is absolutely ridiculous and should not be the case in the 2000's. The article talks about how women can be more than skimpy models but should be able to be equal. Love and Helmbrecht go on to use the female artist Pink, Dove's campaign for "Real Beauty", and the movie, When the Devil Wears Prada, to show how mass media has a wide array of effect on young girls.
I have not gotten to the reflective piece yet but I will get to that now. On page 49, Love and Helmbrecht discuss different reasons why student enroll in courses similar to this one. Personally I took this course because I had taken another course with Dr. Bogad and found the course very enjoyable. The previous course was in 2010 and was called the Foundations of Education: Schooling in A Democratic Society. In that course there was a woman named Cindy who had a daughter. One day Cindy was watching Ellen DeGeneres with her daughter and her daughter said something like "Mom, doesn't Ellen like other women?" Cindy said yes and then her daughter asked her "Could I like another women?" Cindy said to her daughter "If that's who you fall in love with." I think that is the perfect answer to give a little child. It lets them know they have the freedom to choose who they love and they don't have to fear backlash from their parents. That answer can be applied to different situations too. Girls should be told they can be scholars or doctors, while boys should be told they can be gymnasts or dancers. They can be whatever they want to be "if that is what they love."
Points To Share
As a class we have covered many of the SCWAAMP categories. However we have not really gone in depth on the "A"-Able Bodied and "C"-Christianity portions of SCWAAMP. We have covered "S", "W", "A", "M", and "P" very well. We have had extensive readings and discussions on those letters. After the final reading, I was just curious why the "A" and "C" mentioned above were never really discussed after the SCWAAMP day in class?
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Allies, A Different Definition than from Class.
Connections Format
Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression: The Roles of Allies as Agents of Change by Andrea Ayvazian was a good read that made a very strong and intellectual case for being an ally or an agent of change. Ayvazians definition of an ally, or a change agent, was different than the allies we discussed in class. While our class discussion determined an agent as someone who stands up for someone being bullied, attacked, or targeted, Ayvazian talks about an agent as being someone from a dominant group, i. e. a white person, supporting anti-racist issues. The sames goes for a male supporting anti-sexist issues and so on for every dominant category. While the definition of ally is different it can be very similar in some situations.
I found this reading to be similar to many of the conclusions of other texts we have read. For instance, Johnson has this long article and his conclusion is for dominant groups to do something about problems because they have the power. Same thing with Yamato, she says white people need to "Challenge oppression. Take a stand against it. When you are aware of something oppressive going down, stop the show. At least call it." These conclusions are so similar to Ayvazian's tone of her piece.
Points To Share
At the end of Ayvazian's article she writes, "Like most activists, I carry a dream inside me. As I travel nationwide for my work, I can actually see signs of it becoming true. The dream is that we will create in this country a nonviolent army of allies that will challenge and break the cycle of oppression and usher in a new era of liberation, empowerment, and equity for persons historically targeted by systemic oppression. Within each individual is the potential to effect enormous change. May we move forward, claiming with pride our identities as allies, interrupting the cycle of oppression, and modeling a new way of behaving and believing." After reading that paragraph I was like well that was a good ending and a nice summary to the article. As I was writing my blog I thought "Hey I'll find a video on Youtube to put in my blog.." I went to Youtube and typed in "Antiracism Whites" thinking of course to find a white person supporting anti-racist issues. When I clicked search and found all of these videos instead, I was sick to my stomach. It made me feel like I was searching a dirty website, like if the KKK or Hitler had a website. My first reaction was OMG, quickly followed by WTF! Then I thought do people actually think this? I realized not everyone takes this class or has the desire to take this class. It is ignorant people like this that give white people a bad name. But the video that truly made me feel horrible and made me feel ashamed to be white was this song:
What was your reaction on this find?
Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression: The Roles of Allies as Agents of Change by Andrea Ayvazian was a good read that made a very strong and intellectual case for being an ally or an agent of change. Ayvazians definition of an ally, or a change agent, was different than the allies we discussed in class. While our class discussion determined an agent as someone who stands up for someone being bullied, attacked, or targeted, Ayvazian talks about an agent as being someone from a dominant group, i. e. a white person, supporting anti-racist issues. The sames goes for a male supporting anti-sexist issues and so on for every dominant category. While the definition of ally is different it can be very similar in some situations.
I found this reading to be similar to many of the conclusions of other texts we have read. For instance, Johnson has this long article and his conclusion is for dominant groups to do something about problems because they have the power. Same thing with Yamato, she says white people need to "Challenge oppression. Take a stand against it. When you are aware of something oppressive going down, stop the show. At least call it." These conclusions are so similar to Ayvazian's tone of her piece.
Points To Share
At the end of Ayvazian's article she writes, "Like most activists, I carry a dream inside me. As I travel nationwide for my work, I can actually see signs of it becoming true. The dream is that we will create in this country a nonviolent army of allies that will challenge and break the cycle of oppression and usher in a new era of liberation, empowerment, and equity for persons historically targeted by systemic oppression. Within each individual is the potential to effect enormous change. May we move forward, claiming with pride our identities as allies, interrupting the cycle of oppression, and modeling a new way of behaving and believing." After reading that paragraph I was like well that was a good ending and a nice summary to the article. As I was writing my blog I thought "Hey I'll find a video on Youtube to put in my blog.." I went to Youtube and typed in "Antiracism Whites" thinking of course to find a white person supporting anti-racist issues. When I clicked search and found all of these videos instead, I was sick to my stomach. It made me feel like I was searching a dirty website, like if the KKK or Hitler had a website. My first reaction was OMG, quickly followed by WTF! Then I thought do people actually think this? I realized not everyone takes this class or has the desire to take this class. It is ignorant people like this that give white people a bad name. But the video that truly made me feel horrible and made me feel ashamed to be white was this song:
What was your reaction on this find?
Friday, January 13, 2012
Economic Inequity: A Feminist Issue?
I visited both sites, http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/ and http://cwcs.ysu.edu/, and explored them for awhile, like the assignment said. On the PBS site I immediately went to play the games but only one worked on my computer. It was the one where you picked things to go in your living room and then you get put into a class based on that. I ended up in the middle class which is what I am and I wasn't very surprised. However the choices are very limited to what I could pick because for some options I didn't like any of them. Also on the PBS site I read some people's stories. I read about Ginie Sayles, who Amanda had posted about. However I was drawn to an interesting story of a woman named Val because her story had an ending that made me really think.I'll sum Val's story up in my own words but click here to read it yourself.
To start Val is not in the documentary PBS is producing. Instead she is just someone who has told a story about her life. Val comes from an Italian family that always told her to follow whatever she wanted. She went to college, dropped out, married a guy then divorced him until she met her eventual husband, Tom. During the whirlwind of a time before she met Tom, her parents supported her emotionally and financially. However Tom was a wealthy man so when Val and Tom married, Val didn't need her parents financial support anymore. In fact Val tried to compensate them for the money they had given her. Her father refused to accept any money or gifts and Val feels awkward around them now.
I took from that story that sometimes money can tear families apart, which is something you would not know by watching tv or listening to the media. We live in a material world and money is seen as a must have.
On the Center for Working Class Studies website, there is alot more information to shift through. I found it ironic that their mission is nationally based but much of their research is focused on Ohio because that is where they are located. Don't get me wrong, they have all kinds of literature and different authors who wrote on the working class and they do great work. I clicked here to learn about a law that actually would and should have had only Ohio statistics because it was a state law. This portion of the site was great. It was cool to learn about the 2005 Tax Overhaul and learn how it mainly had a positive impact on the wealthy people and corporations. If anybody finds links relating to other states laws like this on the site can you post them.
On to the main question why is economic inequity a feminist issue? The concept of feminism, while it means different things to others, generally calls for equality. Not just equality for women but equality across the board. There are feminists, who hate men, dislike people of color, and do not like people with disabilities. Those people do not want equality, they want superiority for women. That is different than my definition of feminism but those people are entitled to their opinion. Economic inequity implies that there are haves and have-nots, people with money and people without. However under a capitalist society there are always going to be haves and have-nots so the problem of economic inequity cannot be solved. It is a problem for a lot of people, not just feminists, but feminists do have a share in the problem.
Points To Share
If capitalism is the problem to economic inequity should the system be changed? I don't think it should but there are times you wonder what could be better than the system now. I mean there a lot of little things that could be changed and made better but I'm talking about a significant change to the system. If anyone has ideas feel free to leave them in comments.
To start Val is not in the documentary PBS is producing. Instead she is just someone who has told a story about her life. Val comes from an Italian family that always told her to follow whatever she wanted. She went to college, dropped out, married a guy then divorced him until she met her eventual husband, Tom. During the whirlwind of a time before she met Tom, her parents supported her emotionally and financially. However Tom was a wealthy man so when Val and Tom married, Val didn't need her parents financial support anymore. In fact Val tried to compensate them for the money they had given her. Her father refused to accept any money or gifts and Val feels awkward around them now.
I took from that story that sometimes money can tear families apart, which is something you would not know by watching tv or listening to the media. We live in a material world and money is seen as a must have.
On the Center for Working Class Studies website, there is alot more information to shift through. I found it ironic that their mission is nationally based but much of their research is focused on Ohio because that is where they are located. Don't get me wrong, they have all kinds of literature and different authors who wrote on the working class and they do great work. I clicked here to learn about a law that actually would and should have had only Ohio statistics because it was a state law. This portion of the site was great. It was cool to learn about the 2005 Tax Overhaul and learn how it mainly had a positive impact on the wealthy people and corporations. If anybody finds links relating to other states laws like this on the site can you post them.
On to the main question why is economic inequity a feminist issue? The concept of feminism, while it means different things to others, generally calls for equality. Not just equality for women but equality across the board. There are feminists, who hate men, dislike people of color, and do not like people with disabilities. Those people do not want equality, they want superiority for women. That is different than my definition of feminism but those people are entitled to their opinion. Economic inequity implies that there are haves and have-nots, people with money and people without. However under a capitalist society there are always going to be haves and have-nots so the problem of economic inequity cannot be solved. It is a problem for a lot of people, not just feminists, but feminists do have a share in the problem.
Points To Share
If capitalism is the problem to economic inequity should the system be changed? I don't think it should but there are times you wonder what could be better than the system now. I mean there a lot of little things that could be changed and made better but I'm talking about a significant change to the system. If anyone has ideas feel free to leave them in comments.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Women's Rights?
Extended Comments Format
Adrienne Rich's article, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence was a very tough read but I managed through it. I came on here and read some blogs fellow classmates had written to get a clearer understanding of what Rich was saying. Merylda really seemed to get this article and her blog was awesome, so I am using her blog as the centerpiece for mine
The beginning of Merylda's blog was exactly the summary of this article that I needed. She wrote: "Adrienne Rich's main arguments are that women are afraid to be who they truly are because of society; compulsory heterosexuality is the idea that women are supposed to be heterosexual without a preference just because they are a woman." This piece was long and tough to summarize but if I summarized it, it couldn't be any better.
Next Merylda provides a definition for compulsory heterosexuality. She wrote: "Compulsory heterosexuality is when men command and force women's sexuality." This is exactly the definition of compulsory heterosexuality I came on the blog site looking for. Over time it has become socially unacceptable to do anything other than get married to a male if you are a female. There are "cracks in the glass" as Dr. Bogad would say as there are a few states with gay marriage laws. It is also becoming more acceptable in society to date the opposite sex, not just legally, but from a social standpoint.
Merylda wrote about sexual harassment in the workplace towards the end of her blog: "Because of compulsory heterosexuality, women allow sexual harassment in the workplace because they feel that's the only way they can get a job and keep a job regardless of the job description (p. 86)." Because Merylda wrote a specific page number, I felt like I should get a quote to exemplify what she is saying in her blog post here. I did find one at the bottom of page 86, "Thus, women in the workplace are at the mercy of sex as power in a vicious circle. Economically disadvantaged, women- whether waitresses or professors- endure sexual harassment to keep their jobs and learn to behave in a complaisantly and ingratiatingly heterosexual manner because they discover this is their true qualification for employment, whatever the job description." This quote and entire section of Rich's piece and Catherine MacKinnon's story reminded me of an episode of a show I use to watch as a child. The show was Sister, Sister and the episode wasn't about sexual harassment in the workplace but it was about equal pay in the workplace. (NOTE: START AT THE 3:05 MARK)
Adrienne Rich's article, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence was a very tough read but I managed through it. I came on here and read some blogs fellow classmates had written to get a clearer understanding of what Rich was saying. Merylda really seemed to get this article and her blog was awesome, so I am using her blog as the centerpiece for mine
The beginning of Merylda's blog was exactly the summary of this article that I needed. She wrote: "Adrienne Rich's main arguments are that women are afraid to be who they truly are because of society; compulsory heterosexuality is the idea that women are supposed to be heterosexual without a preference just because they are a woman." This piece was long and tough to summarize but if I summarized it, it couldn't be any better.
Next Merylda provides a definition for compulsory heterosexuality. She wrote: "Compulsory heterosexuality is when men command and force women's sexuality." This is exactly the definition of compulsory heterosexuality I came on the blog site looking for. Over time it has become socially unacceptable to do anything other than get married to a male if you are a female. There are "cracks in the glass" as Dr. Bogad would say as there are a few states with gay marriage laws. It is also becoming more acceptable in society to date the opposite sex, not just legally, but from a social standpoint.
Merylda wrote about sexual harassment in the workplace towards the end of her blog: "Because of compulsory heterosexuality, women allow sexual harassment in the workplace because they feel that's the only way they can get a job and keep a job regardless of the job description (p. 86)." Because Merylda wrote a specific page number, I felt like I should get a quote to exemplify what she is saying in her blog post here. I did find one at the bottom of page 86, "Thus, women in the workplace are at the mercy of sex as power in a vicious circle. Economically disadvantaged, women- whether waitresses or professors- endure sexual harassment to keep their jobs and learn to behave in a complaisantly and ingratiatingly heterosexual manner because they discover this is their true qualification for employment, whatever the job description." This quote and entire section of Rich's piece and Catherine MacKinnon's story reminded me of an episode of a show I use to watch as a child. The show was Sister, Sister and the episode wasn't about sexual harassment in the workplace but it was about equal pay in the workplace. (NOTE: START AT THE 3:05 MARK)
Points To Share
On Page 84, Rich suggests "heterosexuality, like motherhood, needs to be recognized and studied as a political institution- even, or especially, by those individuals who feel they are, in their personal experience, the precursors of a new social relation between the sexes." As a political science major, this really hit home the idea Rich was getting at. I realized in all political institutions, there is a hierarchy and Rich is saying men are at the top of the hierarchy. With the help of this metaphor and Merylda's blog, I was able to understand Rich's article. I am curious to know if this metaphor helped at all to other students?
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Shrek
On the Tuesday before this class began my girlfriend and I went to the Providence Performing Arts Center to see Shrek the Musical. The play was very similar to the movie and ultimately the movie is a better watch (and much cheaper to see.) It is not a Disney movie so I did not want to include it in my Disney Princesses: To Be or Not to Be, That is the Question blog post. However even though it is not a Disney movie, it has many characters from the stories as Shrek is like a parody of Disney. It is my favorite animated film series and its message is better than any of the Disney films. The ending is similar to a Disney princess film but the difference is they are ogres. The ogre Shrek is shunned by society, as all ogres are. He then falls in love with this beautiful princess who becomes an ogre at night because of a spell. In the end she permanently becomes an ogre and her and Shrek live happily ever after. The morale is even someone different and "oppressed" can live happily ever after.
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