intersectionality

I think that diversity issues are lost in all encompassing identity of women approaches because no one has just one identity. We are all members of different socioeconomic classes, different ethnicities, religions and family histories. Different women have different concerns. When many feminists were fighting angst women who felt trapped as housewives, they were ignoring women who had been working outside the home trying to support their families. These women were struggling with other problems, like day care, equal wages, and problems that may not even have been specific to just women such as class and race issues. We read about Asian-American, Puerto Rican, and African American women who have gender issues that were different from those that some middle class white women were fighting for. Some women felt that they didn't want even to be called feminist, even though they did care about women's rights. They said that if they had to choose sides, they would choose to fight for the rights of their ethnic group. They didn't want to leave out men in their struggle for equality and they felt that if they were to join the mainstream feminism movement that they would have to. I think the second wave would have made more progress if people had been more sensitive to the gender issues of all women. If they were truly united in sisterhood, African American women would be fighting for middle class white women's liberation from the home, and white women were fighting to get better wages and day care programs for African American women, Asian American women would be fighting to end sterilization and the testing of birth control on Puerto Rican women, and Puerto Rican women would be fighting angst stereotypes about Asian American women.

module 7

The "Bitch Manifesto" and thinking about what I could talk about if I were at a conscious raising group got me thinking about gender roles at JMU. In most of the reading we have done for class, gender roles have been discussed as wife, mother, or the gender roles of young girls. We have read about women's fight to ensure that we have the chance to go to college and enter the work force. Now that it’s perfectly normal for us to be in college, what about the gender roles of female college students? I definitely feel strong pressure to look and act a certain way because I'm a girl. I am expected to wear makeup (I get A LOT of crap for not wearing makeup. Surprisingly, the people who bug me the most about it are my parents), to "do my hair" to wear stylish clothing and to dress up when I go out. I notice that especially when we go out on weekends, "getting ready" is a social bonding experience for my roommates. I'm weird when I want to go out in my jeans and whatever shirt I happen to be wearing. People will even ask you in class that morning, "hey what are you wearing tonight?" I have one girl friend who will call me when she is on her way to my house to tell me what she's wearing. I feel bad that I don't really care. I often just borrow their makeup and sometimes their clothes, not because I really care if I look right, just to take part in the social experience and bond with them. It also seems like girls have been socialized to love to shop. I don't even mean just shopping for clothes, for girls, shopping is an event. If they need something, anything, they will usually say "Hey I'm going to target, wanna come," and then we all go to target and instead of just walking in and getting whatever it was that one of us actually needed, we walk around the whole store and look at stuff we have absolutely no need for and instantly feel like we have to have it. I'm sure some boys are like that too, but from what I've seen they don't seem to be socialized to consider shopping a fun group activity and then tend to just go in and get what they need. When I was in high school I used to try to fit gender norms, I wore make up, tried to have stylish clothes, went tanning twice a month, ect. Then I started to become more spiritual and concerned about the environment and I started wanting to be less materialistic (actually using my clothes until they were no longer functional and not buying so much stuff that has to be made in factories) and I also wanted to be less vain (which meant not wearing make-up all the time, although I do put it on every now and then, and not wasting electricity on a hair dryer every day.) People who knew me when I did care about how I look don't understand why I wouldn't want to do those things anymore, and some people actually get angry with me about it. My mom is always trying to buy me clothes and make up. She is very concerned about my disregard for my appearance. Yet she has no problem with the fact that my brother, who also goes to JMU, has shaggy untamed hair, a patchy attempt at facial hair, and wrinkled baggy clothes. I also notice that people look at my love of nature, science, and rugged outdoor activities differently than they look at those interests in guys. No one has a problem with the fact that I'm into those things, but they are more noticeable traits about me than they are about guys who are into those kinds of things. I don't feel pressure to be the "occupation house wife" of the 50's but I do still feel pressure to fit gender roles. At the same time however, I don't think that there is anything wrong with girls who like to be "girly." I can be really girly sometimes too. I like to have the option to be whoever I want to be and not to have to fit female roles, or to feel like I should try too hard not to fit female roles. I think those who are interested in women's issues today should just encourage girls to be who they want to be whether that happens to fit traditional female roles or not.

module 6

I think that suffrage and women's rights in general aren't "on the radar" for people today, especially for white middle class women, because we feel like we already have equality. White middle class girls of my generation grew up being told that we can be anything we want to be and that "girls can do anything boys can do." It is now politically incorrect to speak of men and women as unequal. However, all this talk of equality might be masking underlying issues that are still empowering men over women. I personally grew up thinking that women have already achieved freedom, and wondering what all the fuss regarding women's rights was about. I now know that there are still problems for women, and that there is a disconnect between what is being said about the equality of women and what is actually happening. One of the biggest issues with women's equality is that minorities and women who are in poverty still face huge amounts of gender inequality and adversity. In fact women in general are more vulnerable to becoming impoverished than men.

We learned in our lecture about the first wave of feminism that although African American and white women were both very involved in the women's right movement, white middle class women were willing to denounce equal rights for African Americans if it helped their own cause. During the time of the passing of the 14th and 15th amendments, there was a split in those fighting for civil rights between those who didn't want African Americans to have the right to vote if women didn't have it also, and those who were willing to let African Americans have the vote first. Although today most feminists are also concerned about the rights of all people and are well aware of the adversity faced by all classes and ethnicities of women, the general public is unaware of these issues. Despite the many African American feminists of the first and second wave, the women's rights movement has the stereotype in the eye of the public as being a white middle class issue. This is a problem for two reasons. First of all, just because some women have economic security, the opportunity for higher education and to work outside the home doesn't mean that they are equal to men in all ways. Secondly, just because many women today have these rights (mostly middle class women) doesn’t mean that all women have equal access to these things. Both of these facts are largely overlooked by women and men in our society.


Another reason why many people don't understand why all the fuss is about when it comes to women's rights is because many people don't know about the long and arduous fight that women went through to achieve suffrage in the first wave. It took 70 years of activism to achieve the right for women to vote. Until taking this class I had no idea how long women were fighting for this right, and how many people were involved in the struggle. I think that women today should know more about their history, then they might have more of an appreciation for the rights they have now and the rights they have yet to gain.


The one thing I don't have much respect for in regards to the women of the first wave is how some (though not all) of them were willing to abandon those they had been working with for the equal rights of all people at the first sign that others were going to get the right to vote and they weren't. I think they should have stuck by them and fought just as hard for other socially disadvantaged groups as they did for themselves. If they truly believed in equality, that would have been the way to go.

module 5

The circumstances that lead to the creation of The Minneapolis Pornography Ordinance involved a belief by people living in powderhorn park that the rise in the pornography industry in that neighborhood was hurting its value and charm. The Neighborhood Pornography Task force was formed to fight angst this encrouchment. Most of the materials for sale in the pornography book and video shops violated the standards for obcenity made by the supreme court. In 1973 Miller vs. CA defined obcenity with in the context of pornography as being obscene if it lacked any serious artistic or social value, protrayed sexual conduct in a blatantly offensive way and was considered obscene using contemporary community standards. The courts also created difficult procedures for taking civil or criminal action agnst pornographers to aviod too much censorship. Pornographers also had good lawyers, so people agnst pornography had trouble fighting it. They city tried to keep porn away from residential neighborhoods with zoning laws, but they were considered unconstitutional. The Neighborhood Task Force got together with MacKinnon and Dwokin who were professors at The University of Minnesota (Mackinnon of law and Dworkin of women's studies). They co-taught a class in the law school about pronography. The Neighborhood Task force encouraged them to testifyin front of the city's zoning and planning commette about how pronography affects the local community. A member of the city council liked their testimony and told them to write an anti-pornography ordinance for the city. They made this ordinace an additional section on the Civil Rights Ordinance, so it took a civil rights approach on pornography, and considered it an oppressive form ofpower that violates women's rights and encourages sexual violence.

MacKinnon and Dworkin are radical femminists. They see sexuality as a social construct and reject porn because they see it as a way men can institutionalize their power. They think that porn implies an inbalance of power and exploits women. Radical femminist believe that it is a women's rights to be safe from the harm of porn should take precedence over the first amendment. Liberal femminists on the other hand, don't like porn, but they see censorship as directly violating the first amendment. They are willing to tolerate porn to protect the first amendment.

Aside from radical femminists and the Neighborhood Task Force, the ordinace was also supported by conservatives. They however supported it because of moral reasons, while radical femminists supported it becasue they thought it degraded women and supported sexual violence which they see as political as well as moral reasons.

In addition to liberla femminists, it was opposed by other femminists that were afraid it would support government-enforced sexual repression. They feared the distinction between public ad private would be blurred. They saw sex as private and didn't want to support the government making laws about choices of sexual behavior. They also didn't want to support Dworkin and MacKinnon becasue they didn't share the view that hetrosexuality is anti-femminist. Members of the male gay community were agnst the ordinace because they thought it threatened sexual expression of gay men. They needed places where they could feel safe and where they could recognize eachother and the porn shop was one of those places. Lesbiens who were radical femminists however, did support it. Civil Libertarians including the MCLU were agnst the ordinance. Matt Stark, the director of the MCLU siad that he didn't like that the hearings were biased. The audience was unwilling to hear people who were agnst the ordinance. The pornography industry was obviously agnst the ordinace, but didn't worry about it too much becasue they felt if it was passed they would be able to get around it or it would be considered unconstitutional.
The Minnapolis political climate in the 1980s had a lot of progressives who were Democratic-Farmer-Laborers. The conservatives in Minnapolis were moderate republicans. Fraser, the mayor was a progressive politition who was a strong supporter of the first amendment. During the hearings, although conservatives on the committee were involved, conservatives in the community were shut out of the process by radical femminists. They didn't get very much notice about the hearings. The hearings mostly involved testimonies for the ordinance to get passed. Those that did testify agnst it were booed out of the hearing. The council voted quickly on the ordinance so it could be voted on before next term but, the Civil Rights Comission (who would be in charge of seeing cases about it if the ordinance passed) didn't have time to look it over carfully. The council also didn't have time to review the constitutionality of the ordinance. However the council passed it and it went to be signed or vetoed by the mayor. The mayor vetoed it becasue he felt it violated the first amendment of the constitution.

more on theory

I wanted to edit my last post, but I wasn't sure if that would change the date (making it late). I had trouble figuring out why I liked the theory I liked, but I thought about it some more and I think I can explain it better now. I think I like the socialist theory the best, because it believes that capitalism and patriarchy are responsible for the inequality of women. The reason I don't like the marxist theory is becasue I don't believe that capitalism is the only reason, and I disagree with the solution of having a revolution. Patriarchy needs to be included because before the industrail revolution, gender inequality still existed. The reason I think capitalism contributed to the inequality of women is that it creates inequality in the work place, and in the public sphere in general. The way the public sphere and private sphere are set up in our society creates inequality because the public sphere is more highly reguarded in our society and it is the place with all the power. Since we live in a patriarchail society, men get to be involved in the public sphere, and women anre involved in the less highly reguarded private one. There are some societies (I think there are some Native American examples) where women are involved in activities that are part of the public shpere such as making important political decisions. Capitalism makes it so that work is done outside the home for wages. Since work is done outside the home, if both women and men work, someone still has to take care of domestic work and caring for children. This creates a problem. Often the solution to the problem is that women do both, meaning that even when they do work oustide the home they are still at a disadvantage. One solution could be to have men do domestic work, but then they would be disadvantaged. If we lived in a subsistance economy (just as an example to compare agnst capitalism) both men and women would be working in the private shpere to survive and children would be with them so there wouldn't be the issue of who has to stay at home to take care of them. The work of men and women would have to be valued equally (for this type of economy to create equality). We would also have to understand that what's considered "women's" work and what's considered "men's" work is arbitrary. This would make people relize that the two sexes are equal and would also create more equality for lesbian couples. It would mean that two women can function just as well as a woman and a man can. It would also be more advantagous to single mothers becasue they would know that they don't need a man to survive, they can do the same jobs he can. They might need help from friends and family but not becasue they are a women, just becasue there is only one of them trying to raise a family. A single father would have the same disadvantage.
Another part of the public sphere that women has less power in is politics. The patriarchial nature of our society has left women out of politics for most of our history, because it was believed that women were inferior and unfit to be involved in important decision making. I believe that capitalism has reinforced that motion, becasue in a capitalist society, the ones who have all the power are the owners of production. Although today there are women CEO's and executives, the majority of them are men. Even with the same education oppritunities, there are women business majors, but far more of them are men. Ofcourse, changing the gender norms that girls are raised with would probably create more women business majors. However, I think that if the aqusition of profit wasn't the most important thing in our society, it would make equality of gender and class more likely. There is also the fact that since men were the ones with all the power during the industrail revolution, they are the ones who made all the big decisions that shaped our economy. If we created a new kind of economy, or atleast a new way of operating the one we have, and women are involved in the process this time, perhaps it wouldn't result in so much inequality. This would require a revolution, which I already said I'm not sure is such a good idea so I guess I'm back at square one. That's why I don't really know what the solution is. Maybe by if we keep studying the problem, we'll be albe to come up with one.

module 4

I also had no idea how many differend forms of femminism ther are. I can identify with many differend types and I feel conflicted about the on I like best. Some types of femminism I can relate to is either marxist feminism or socialist feminism. I don't agree with all parts of these models, but I do think that capitalism is a big cause of issues for women today. Although before the industrail revolution women were clearly opressed, many of our issues today have to do with trying to find a place in the capitalist job market and also trying to take care of work needed to be done at home. Gender roles need to change so that men and woemn do equal work in the home. However I also think that the nature of jobs need to change to accomidate women being in the public sphere.

module 3

In our lecture for module 3, we were asked to make a list of words to designate men and women. I noticed that for many of the words I could come up with for women, there was a corresponding word for men that had a similarly negative or posative connotation. For example, bitch and asshole, jock and sporty ect. However I noticed that even though there may be a similar word for men and women, such as slut and man whore, and they both have a negative connotation, it is still more acceptable for a man to be a man whore than for a woman to be a slut. In a similar way, although it is negative for a man to be an asshole, it is still more acceptable for him to be so than for a woman to be a bitch. Men who are assholes are usually considered funny or assertive where as women who are bitches are annoying or crazy. This is an example of how language describing gender difference can create privledge.

I would also like to comment on the child x article. I work with young children and this article made me realize how differently male and female children are treated. I teach gymnastics and pre-k sports classes, and I have noticed that teachers consider the boys to be more violent and hyper. They get yelled at more for hitting pushing ect and for not listening. At first I thought this was because they really did act this way naturally. However, girls do hit and push sometimes (although not as much) too. The teachers tend to look the other way more often when they do so, or tell them in a soft kind voice that they shouldn't do that, instead of punishing them. The instructors have the notion that if a girl hits someone they must have done something really mean to them, but if a boy hits it's just becasue he's wild. The article also made me wonder if the girls hit less becasue at home their parents tell them that little girls don't hit and if boys hit more becasue at home their parents consider it normal for them to hit. I have also noticed at work that there are almost never boys in the dance and cheerleading classes. In fact when parents come in to see what we offer, the person at the desk doesn't even mention these classes if their child is a boy. There was however, a boy in the dance class one session. He loved both the tap and ballet part of the class. He was always very excited when he got to class and you could tell he was having a great time. He was also really good at learning and remembering the skills, in fact, he was one of the most talented kids I have seen in that class. He didn't seem to mind that he was the only boy in the class. I remember wondering what his parents must have done to raise him to be so comfortable with being in a "girls" class. Looking back, they probably did many of the same things as the parents of child X (although not as extreme). They probably gave him toys that could be for boys and girls and let him play with whatever he wanted, whether it be a doll or a football. I think it's great that he was able to do whatever he wanted reguardless of whether it had traditionally been considered for girls becasue he may grow up to be a very talented dancer. He might have never known what a gift he had for dancing if his parents had kept him to activities that are "for boys."

module 2

Until I began taking this class I was torn about whether or not I considered myself a femminist. Listening to the first lecture and reading the articles has cleared up a lot of things that have troubled me with women's issues. I have always considered it a given that I am equal to men and that all other women are as well. I never questioned the fact that I would be able to go to college. I always assumed that i would be respected and earn as much money as men that I work with at the jobs I have now and in the future. It was brought up in the lecture that some people think "we're already liberated." However I am glad that I have been reminded that there is still a struggle. I have learned in sociology classes, and been reminded in this class that there are still problems for women. Poverty was beifly mentioned in the lecture and it made me remember the many problems relating to women and poverty i have learned about in sociology and in relation to global issues (issues about such as problems for single mothers who must work and care for their children, some of which have a hard time finding jobs becasue they have been out of the work force for a while) . Another issue I was reminded of is that many women today have full time jobs, as do their husbands. However when they come home at the end of the day they are the ones stuck doing all the house work. I tend to forget about this problem becasue in my house my mom works part time, my dad works full time. However, my dad still makes dinner and does the dishes when he comes home at night, and my mom does other household chores. I have seen in other households, and read that this is not the case in many families.

I mentioned this in one of my discussion comments but I'll mention it again. I think that for women to be equal to men, the system needs to change instead of women trying to change. I guess that was an issue I had with femminism, becasue I only knew about the sterotype of femminism. I thought that women were trying to be more like men and that they were trying to change to fit into a system created for and by men. (which I've always thought was a bad way to go about things. What's wrong with women? Why not be femmine?) Although we haven't gone into detail on this concept I get the picture from the sterotypes that our lecture and readings tried to clear up that I had the wrong idea about femminism. I now know that femminists consider it important for men to understand the privledge they have and to try to find ways of gaining equality by recognizing society for how it is. This could be a good chanel for evaulating things like the work place, and seeing how they are set up to advantage men and disadvantage women. One example I've heard about is that some companies have what' s called flex hours so that an employee must work 40 hours a week, but those 40 hours can be whenever they want, and they can also make up hours later. So for exmaple if someone needs to stay home sick with their child, or leave early on Mondays to pick them up from school (in fairfax county elm school gets out early on Monday) then that's no problem.

Another issue I had with femminism that has been cleared up is the issue of choice (and no i'm not talking about pro-life vs pro choice, that's another issue). I have seen some people who may have been misguided femminists look down on women who choose to be stay at home moms (also on women who wear a lot of make-up, wear heels like in one of our articles, you name it). Especially on well educated women who choose to do so. I personally believe that it is just as honorable to be a full time mom as it is to be a full time mom and a full time career woman (and yes they are both still pretty much full time even if your child is in daycare). Some people don't like day care for whatever reason, and that's ok. I think that it's wonderful that we have a choice what we want to do with our lives. I think that was the point of the femminist movement, to give us choise so that we don't HAVE to do anything. Hearing in the lecture and reading that femminism doesn't look down on motherhood and that it strives to make it better made me realize that maybe some people who I've talked to that claimed to be femminists didn't fully understand the purpose of the movement. I now realize that femminism could actually even help draw attention to women's issues that have to do with raising children, pregnancy, and child birth. I don't think many people think of these things when they think of femminism.