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| Testing Name: Ann Dixon Date: 2004-11-18 11:08:25 Link to this Comment: 11648 |
Here is a test of the second web paper.
Ann
| Testing Name: Ann Dixon Date: 2004-11-18 11:12:56 Link to this Comment: 11649 |
Testing.
Ann
| Governmental Gendering Name: Nancy Evan Date: 2004-11-22 16:17:00 Link to this Comment: 11717 |
Bree Beery, Sara Ansell, Marissa Chikara, Nancy Evans
Introductory Book
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender
Dalke/Stadler
While governmental policies affect all Americans, they tend to affect men and women in remarkably different ways. The following essays will examine gender differences in public policy and the private sector. Specifically looking at welfare policy since 1996, policies dealing with juggling work and family responsibilities, and women in the criminal justice system, we will present a multi-faceted view of governmental actions and the inconsistencies in which they apply to men and women.
For families receiving welfare, or TANF dollars (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), the 1996 Reform created a dramatically different welfare state. Changes included devolving power to states, funding through block-grant money for states, requiring work training and placement, and a five-year limit on TANF dollars. These policies had the most profound effect on women, largely because of their inherently family-focused nature. Since welfare is a program for needy families (and originally a program only for needy children), and since mothers generally care for children in the event of a parental separation, TANF is a program very focused on women. As TANF is up for reauthorization in the spring of this year, new (mainly women-friendly) changes are proposed, such as an increase in child care dollars. Reauthorization, while expanding the scope of the policy, seems to promise to make TANF all the more gendered. Unaddressed questions include what to do with men who do not provide direct care for families yet still qualify for welfare? Is the mandatory reveal of the paternity of the child necessary?
The average working woman also gets about an hour's less sleep each night than the average stay-at-home mom. And men spend more time than women both at their jobs and on leisure and sports." Working women, though having gained ground in the work place, have not budged in the home. The gender roles still hold true in the private spectrum despite women's growing stature in the career sphere. Women are still expected to be the primary care givers. Their new role of a working woman has not demanded a sharing of duty in the home between two parents, but simply a doubling of the work expected of women today. Have women therefore truly taken a step forward due to their growing numbers in the professional world, or have women inevitably been forced to bite off more than they can chew? Women will not be capable of stepping forward on the path of equality and respect without stepping out of their well defined footprints still in place today.
The United States Fair Labor Standards Act has not been revised since 1938. The composition of the American workforce has changed considerably from this time, and so have their needs. There need to be changes to accommodate the modern worker-both male and female. The government needs to implement policies to make the workplace a more flexible environment- not just so women can be better mothers, but also so men could be better fathers. There are a number of effective policies that already help workers in other nations. These policies will give men and women more time to spend at home, which gives the potential of both sexes sharing equally in "the second shift." It is also important for these policies to explicitly encourage men to work fewer hours, in order to relieve the burden on working women.
Much like the governmental policies concerning welfare and women in the workplace, the United States criminal justice system is just another form of social control. However, the affects of this control on both men and women differ greatly. Since 1980 the number of women in state and federal prisons has increased at nearly double the rate for men. There are now nearly seven times as many women in state and federal prisons as in 1980, yet there is still a common misconception that the criminal behavior of females is not a serious problem. Women have often been viewed as victims rather than 'criminals' and their crimes are often dismissed as 'survival crimes,' such as trafficking drugs, selling themselves for money or stealing. For example, if a male was caught trafficking drugs and explained it as a way to earn money for his family, his sentence would be much harsher than that of a female's, who has committed the same crime. This is because of the societal perception that women would and should do anything and everything to protect their home and family. This clarifies why in court, women who fulfill traditional gender roles are more likely than men to receive severe sentences. Therefore the criminal justice system is just another social control used to impose and strengthen traditional women's roles as well as cultivate a reliance and submissiveness of women to society. Like welfare and the workplace, women are caught in a cruel cycle between the public and private. If they try to break out of the private sphere of domesticity and into the public sphere of a patriarchal society, they are always, through governmental controls and policies, forced back into their private spheres of home and family, which is for some women, their own personal prison.
1)NAME OF YOUR
FIRST WEB REFERENCE SITE, COMMENTS ABOUT IT
2)NAME OF YOUR
SECOND
WEB REFERENCE SITE, COMMENTS ABOUT IT
3)NAME OF YOUR
THIRD W
EB REFERENCE SITE, COMMENTS ABOUT IT
ETC (AS NECESSARY)
| BreakOUT: Florida State and the Future of Gay Adop Name: Chelsea Ph Date: 2004-11-22 23:59:48 Link to this Comment: 11726 |
Florida state law currently bans lesbians and gay men from adopting children. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is attempting to get a case before the Supreme Court that could overturn the law. The ban on gay adoption has been in place since 1977, when the state legislature almost unanimously condoned restriction of the rights of its gay citizens. Legislation on the issue was sparked by Anita Bryant¡¯s ¡°Save Our Children¡± campaign, which raged through Florida and even beyond spreading myths about homosexuality and linking homosexuality to pedophilia. At the time of its inception, Senator Curtis Peterson, one of its primary supporters, spoke to the law¡¯s true purpose: ¡°The problem in Florida has been that homosexuals are surfacing to such an extent that they¡¯re beginning to aggravate the ordinary folks. We¡¯re trying to send them a message, telling them: ¡®We¡¯re really tired of you. We wish you¡¯d go back into the closet¡± (1).
The state¡¯s attitude, while becoming more equally divided on the issue, has not changed significantly enough to overturn the law. An appeal was made to a three-person appeals panel, which upheld the law. A request for reconsideration of the decision made to the federal Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which encompasses the geographic area of Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, was denied. This denial has allowed the ACLU to bring the case before the Supreme Court for consideration.
Perhaps most indicative of the law¡¯s blatantly homophobic basis is the fact that the state has no restrictions on using gays and lesbians to relieve the burden on the foster care system. The state frequently uses gay couples to provide homes for disabled and terminally ill children, but refuses to recognize that this more than qualifies them to be adoptive parents. The ACLU case involves three families: two of which are currently providing foster homes for Florida¡¯s children. One of these families in particular has become a rallying cry for those interested in the case.
Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau started their experience with the Florida foster care system almost fifteen years ago. The first of their six foster kids were Frank and Tracy, placed with the two men within a month of each other when both were infants. Ginger, the third, was placed with them soon after, and Bert arrived when Frank and Tracy were four. In 1995, at age six, Ginger died of complications from AIDS, the disease which prompted the state to place her with Steve and Roger initially. It would be rare to find the families so willing to take on children requiring such extensive medical attention.
Bert, now ten, was also HIV positive when he was initially placed with Steve and Roger. However, his course of treatment has been successful enough to make the virus undetectable- a joyous thing for any family. Unfortunately, since the current ban on gay adoption does not allow the men to adopt Bert, the state is actively looking for a family to place him with. So long as the HIV tests came back positive, the state would not place Bert with a family- he was only suitable for foster care with the disease. The intolerable cruelty of the system is never more evident than in this case: two men commit their lives to these children, Steve even leaving his job at the state¡¯s request, and pay the price for their good care of a sick child by making him ¡°adoptable¡± in the eyes of the state.
Bert has become the central focus of the Lofton Case. Frank and Tracy are fourteen, the age at which children are no longer considered actively ¡°adoptable¡± and the two youngest children in the family are from Oregon, where the Croteau-Lofton family moved to be closer to Steve¡¯s parents in Portland. The family¡¯s pediatrician noted what good parents these two men were and recommended them to a case worker. When the state approached Steve and Roger with Wayne and Ernie, both HIV positive, the family welcomed them with open arms. Although the family is large, it is thriving, but the constant threat of losing Bert is taking its toll.
Blatant segregation within the foster care system only underscores the homophobic nature of the ban on gay adoption. Using the state¡¯s gay and lesbian couples, Florida can effectively segregate the ¡°normal,¡± ¡°adoptable¡± children from the ¡°damaged¡± children by placing them in a closet. The system capitalizes on the powerless position of gay and lesbian couples who want to have children and has frankly disgusting latent implications that HIV and AIDS are ¡°gay¡± diseases- making the children suitable for gay couples.
Oregon, where the family is now living, has received mixed ratings from the Human Rights Campaign on gay adoption. The HRC determines its overall adoption score by considering three different kinds of adoption: gay individuals, gay couples and second-partner adoptions (for example, in cases of divorce). Oregon does not have a good record for adoptions to gay couples, but has a good record for gay individuals and a mixed one for second-parent adoption. Individual adoptions, however promising they may look for the future of gay adoption on paper, do not mean that the state is supporting gay rights, merely that it is more difficult to determine the sexuality of a potential parent without a partner present. Unless the state specifically questions the parent¡¯s sexuality, gay and lesbian individuals are being held to the same standards and heterosexual individuals-and being granted the right to adopt just as frequently. This very fact should actually guarantee that gay adoption is legalized. However, the ACLU is not using this evidence in the current case against Florida, perhaps because of the negative impact this fact could have in other states- bringing attention to the loophole could close it.
The Supreme Court¡¯s history when dealing with unconstitutional state laws is promising for the ACLU. The Court has consistently upheld the principle that state law cannot disenfranchise a specific group or be used to express disapproval of lifestyle choices of its citizens. The ACLU will present two cases, Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas, to remind the Court of this fact. Both of these cases deal specifically with laws that targeted gays and lesbians. In fact, possibly the best way to guarantee adoption rights for gays and lesbians in the future is to have a Supreme Court ruling to look to as precedent. Even as the moral tone of society in a particular time and place creates legislation, it is impartial deference to the facts of a case which change that legislation, and so feed the larger societal view of an issue. Political rhetoric plays to the emotions of an audience, but the legislation must reflect facts- and the facts in this case favor the ACLU and the rights of gays and lesbians.
"No study has found any evidence to support the claim that lesbians and gay men are unfit to be parents¡± (2). A number of major psychological studies on varying aspects of parenting have been conducted to determine whether being raised by same-sex parents disadvantages children. The findings of these are summarized here, but will be more fully explored in the final paper. Each of the studies, seven in all, approached the issue in a slightly different way. The long-term psychological health of children raised by same-sex parents was found to be no different than those raised by heterosexual parents. A small number of studies were exclusively devoted to studying self-esteem, and also found no variation between the results in these two groups. Peer relationships are also unaffected, sexual orientation of the children is unaffected by sexual orientation of the parents, and parenting skills among gay men and lesbians are found to be as good as, and sometimes better than, heterosexual parents.
Major questions to be asked of these studies is how exactly test subjects are chosen, and how something like quality of parenting skills is measured. If, for example, there is no screening process amongst the heterosexual test subjects, accidental pregnancies, which cause psychological strain on any family, could be negatively affecting outcomes. Also, many of the studies are on children who are genetically related to one parent- insemination. It is unclear without going more in-depth into the studies whether adoption makes a different or larger psychological impact on children than insemination. It is certainly true in any case, however, that a child of a same-sex couple could not be raised with the belief that they were created in the ¡°traditional¡± way, as is possible when heterosexual couples choose not to tell children that they were adopted. Single lesbian motherhood and single heterosexual motherhood are also compared with one another. However, one of these studies involved a comparison of single lesbian mothers and divorced heterosexual mothers- all of whom had children with their ex-husbands. The potential for calling into question the compatibility of these two groups largely rests on the assumption that the added trauma of being ¡°outed¡± during the divorce process would not affect the overall health of the mother or the child. It is a large assumption to make, and one which must be sufficiently addressed to validate the study.
The examination of legislature and its relation to public opinion, political rhetoric and obligation to the known facts has been difficult to do sufficiently in the five page assignment. The factual and historical evidence presented here will allow for more analysis in the final fifteen page paper, as well as a more in-depth survey of psychological studies which the ACLU will use if the case is brought before the Supreme Court. This court, because of its visibility in the nation and the world, is held to the highest possible standard of impartial decision-making. The authority given to and recognized in the Court is nearly infallible and must therefore not be undertaken lightly; whatever the decision, it will shape the framework in which we discuss the issue of gay adoption. This is true. We must recognize the fearful power of one to appoint these decision makers without a sufficiently balanced congress- it is the ability to embody political rhetoric within a judicial structure. Rhetoric itself may and does sway public opinion, but its embodiment is the ability to set precedents which may be applied in broad-sweeping generalities, rather than the specifics of a single law.
1)ACLU, Background information on the specific case in Florida.
2)Let Him Stay, Specifically devoted to the Croteau-Lofton case giving detailed information on the family, laws and legislation affecting the case.
3)Human Rights Campaign, State-by-state information on both current and pending legislation on a wide range of issues affecting the LGBT community.
| Abortion and Women's Rights: Unification of Pro-Li Name: Claire Pom Date: 2004-11-23 19:28:20 Link to this Comment: 11743 |
January 22, 1973 is a day that, in the eyes of many modern feminists, marked a giant step forward for women's rights. On this date the U.S. Supreme court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade, a verdict that set the precedent for all abortion cases that followed. For the first time, the court recognized that the constitutional right to privacy "is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy" (Roe v. Wade, 1973). It gave women agency in their reproductive choices; no longer were they forced to succumb to second rate citizenship as a housewife, a single mother, or a mother in poverty on account of pregnancy.
Was this decision really a step forward for women, or was it a step backwards? The abortion debate has polarized women, pitting them against each other in the binary of pro-choice and pro-life. This leads to a destructive division between women, one that is detrimental to the furthering of women's rights. How can we, as women, fight for our rights as women if we are so divided? Is there any way to unite these two apparently irreconcilable sides of the abortion debate?
A good starting place is to look at abortion from a feminist standpoint. Within feminism, the debate over abortion is not based in the morality of abortion or the integrity of people who support or are against abortion; it is about how abortion fits into our culture and how a women's choice to undergo or not undergo an abortion influences the status of women within our culture. Abortion has become a double-edged sword for women's rights. Without the right to choose women would be locked into their role as mothers, but being given the right to choose also acts to bypass the greater issues of patriarchy, such as the lack of support for women as mothers within our society. It is important, to further women's standing in today's society, that these two sides on the abortion debate become united through feminism.
Feminism is the advocacy of the rights of women based on the theory of equality of the sexes (Oxford English Dictionary). It is built on the principle that women have innate worth, inalienable rights, and valuable ideas and talents to contribute to society. Feminists fight for equality in every dimension of society, for both equal rights with men and equal respect.
Pro-choice feminism views the right to an abortion as integral to a women's right to sovereignty. Without abortion, women would unjustly be forced into motherhood. From a feminist standpoint, denying the right for women to choose to have an abortion forces them into submissive roles in society. Pregnancy works to condemn women to second class citizenship, since in our society, mothers are second class citizens. Once a woman becomes a mother, her resources to education, employment, and health care become severely limited.
Gaining the access to safe and legal abortions finally allowed a woman to have the basic right of controlling her own body. Prior to legal abortion, women had two options: to undergo an unsafe, illegal abortion that put their bodies at risk or to continue their pregnancy, even in situations that were disadvantageous to both the woman and the unborn fetus. Society has no right to control what happens to a person's body, and does not try to manage men's bodies in such a manner, so the right to abortion has equalized women by giving them the right to manage their own bodies.
Without legal abortions, underground unsafe abortions will still occur at the expense of a woman's health. Denying women the right to abortion serves to diminish women within society. There is the claim that fetus is a person and, by revoking a woman's right to chose abortion, society places more value on the fetus. From the pro-choice standpoint, the implication that an unborn fetus, which is unconscious and without thoughts, has rights equal to or superior to a woman's, serves only to diminish the recognition of women as living, breathing people who are able to consciously make their own decision about their pregnancy. Compulsory pregnancy laws also violate the traditional American ideals of individual rights and freedoms.
Pro-life groups, though often touted as anti-feminist, do not disagree with the need for women to become equals in society. Instead, the feminist pro-life groups see abortion as a mode used by patriarchal culture to keep women in submission by not adapting its structure to encompass mothers. Patriarchal culture has devised abortion as a way to manage pregnancy while maintaining its domineering structure.
The beginning of discrimination against women is based on the simple fact that they are not men. Women's bodies are defined by men through the male gaze that shapes the male dominated culture. Because of our lack of a penis, women are relegated to the periphery of society, unable to succeed. The fact that women are able to give birth only serves to continue to define women as the other. The way women can succeed is by adapting ourselves to the patriarchal society. An example of this is displayed through women's bodies. Socially, women's beauty is defined by thinness. Some sections of pro-life feminism argue that by having an abortion, women are succumbing to the social pressure to be thin; they are not embracing their womanhood. Instead of defining what a "woman" is by the standards of living as a woman, womanhood is defined by men. Pregnancy, one of the times when a woman feels most beautiful and in charge of her body and life, is discriminated against. In society, pregnancy is not considered beautiful and, through medical institutions, pregnancy has become considered to be a precarious condition that must be monitored and looked after. This serves to alienate women from their own feelings of beauty. By not embracing our bodies during pregnancy, we resort to defining ourselves in men's terms.
Not only does abortion serve to alienate women from identifying with what defines us as special, it also acts as a device that eludes the root of discrimination against women: patriarchal culture. Abortion serves as an easy escape from confronting the discrimination of women by taking the guise as fundamental to women's equality. The truth is that women's equality is still based in a man's world. In order to be equal, women must adopt the characteristics of men. To be on an equal level politically, socially and economically, women cannot become pregnant, because that is, quite obviously, something that men do not do. Our society is not made for women with children. There is a significant lack of good, reliable child care. Businesses do not have flexible hours which suit women with children. Women are still considered the primary care-givers to children, keeping the burden of responsibility for children off of men.
Instead of liberating women, abortion liberates men and society. "Abortion on demand liberates men who want sex without strings, promises, responsibility, or the rituals of romance" (Gargaro). Since abortion is an option, it enables employers to not have to make concessions to pregnant women and mothers. Abortion only serves to support the idea that childbearing is solely a job for a woman and, now more than ever, men are exempt from being involved. In the case of an unwanted child it is a woman's "duty to undergo an invasive procedure and an emotional trauma and so sort the situation out" (Greer, 95). Germaine Greer encapsulates the feminist pro-life reaction to the legalization of abortion:
"What women 'won' was the 'right' to undergo invasive procedures in order to terminate unwanted pregnancies, unwanted not just by them but by their parents, their sexual partners, the governments who would not support mothers, the employers who would not employ mothers, the landlords who would not accept tenants with children, the schools that would not accept students with children. Historically the only thing pro-abortion agitation achieve was to make an illiberal establishment [patriarchal culture] look far more feminist than it was" (Greer, 92).
What type of "right" does abortion allow? Most women choose abortion because they feel like they have no other option. How is this real choice? To continue to live happily in the patriarchal world, women submit themselves to the social structures that favor men. As society is structured today, women risk losing everything they have worked for by choosing to have a child. Childbearing, as an option for pregnancy, fits into this society in a marginalized way.
On the most basic level, the abortion issue is not really about abortion, but is about the value of women in society. Feminism is pro-woman rather than pro- or anti- abortion. This is where the pro-life and pro-choice groups can begin to relate to one another. But where can we go from here?
These two groups need to come together for the sake of equality for women. Instead of focusing their energy on protesting each other, they should unite their energy to change the structure of society. Women must work together to create a business world that supports mothers by petitioning for legislation that protects their right to work, even if they have children. Focusing energy on advocating for better, more reliable childcare would help to combat the male bias in business. We must start at the root of the problem, the lack of space for women within our society, and work from there.
Not all of the change can be made by altering the laws that govern our society. We must change our attitudes. Women must stop yielding to patriarchal society in order to succeed. We must demand from everyone around us the equality that we deserve, in both the public and private spheres. This includes pushing men to take initiative and responsibility within relationships to uphold their half of the duties. Women have moved into the workforce, so men must compensate by helping in the home. We must demand from men equal responsibility in caring for the children that they took equal part, and pleasure, in creating.
Only when this change is accomplished and when women and men do equally participate in all aspects of our society, will the abortion issue become actually about abortion within feminist thought. As for now, we have to establish ourselves as a powerful force. We must fight for the acceptance of motherhood in society, but until then we also work to keep abortion legal so that we can live without the fear that everything we have worked for, including the acceptance of motherhood and truly equal rights, could be taken away with one sexual mishap.
Bibliography
Gargaro, Carolyn C. "What is a Pro-Life Feminist?" Problems of Death: Opposing Viewpoints Series. Greenhaven Press, 1997. found at http://www.gargaro.com/lifefem.html accessed on 11/20/04
Greer, Germaine. The Whole Woman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1999. 91-100.
McClain, Linda C. "Equality, Oppression, and Abortion: Women Who Oppose Abortion Rights in the Name of Feminism." Feminist Nightmares: Women at Odds, Feminism and the Problem of Sisterhood. Ed. Susan Ostrov Weisser and Jennifer Fleishner. New York: New York University Press, 1994. 159-188.
Planned Parenthood Website. www.plannedparenthood.com accessed on 11/20/04
Pro-Life Feminism Website. http://members.tripod.com/~SLV80/ accessed on 11/20/04
Young, Iris. "Pregnant Embodiment." Body and Flesh: A Philosophical Reader. Ed. Donn Welton. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1998. 274-290.
| A Space for Intersexuality Name: Elizabeth Date: 2004-11-23 23:24:26 Link to this Comment: 11745 |
In the video Hermaphrodites Speak, many of the individuals present stated that they felt something was missing and wished to convey to others that the surgery is unnecessary and a violation of their bodies, that something is now missing from their lives. In my paper, I will be looking at the circumstances and policies surrounding the birth reassignment surgery to which they are referring. In addition, I want to examine how this relates to our need for categories, specifically the gender categories of male and female. Why is it that we need to perform surgery on babies with ambiguous genitalia in order to somehow make them fit into these black and white gender categories? What would be the consequences of allowing hermaphrodites to make their own decisions regarding their individual sexuality? How problematic is it if they don't fit into a concrete category, and who is it that feels this is a problem?
Inspired by the intersexual character of Cal/Callie in Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex, I decided to turn to the dictionary (Oxford English Dictionary Online) to see if perhaps the definitions of "intersexual" and "hermaphrodite" had changed since the book was published. I was curious to see what the accepted, supposedly educated, view on intersexuals and hermaphrodites was these days. When I looked up the meaning of "intersexual" in the Oxford English Dictionary, I was surprised to see that there was no independent listing of the noun form of the word but only the adjective which was defined as: 1. Existing between the sexes 2. Biol. Typified by or having both male and female characteristics; having some characteristics proper to the other sex. Also absol. as n., an intersexual individual. Aha! There was the noun intersexual hidden within the definition of the adjective. Next, I typed in "hermaphrodite." This time the dictionary yielded results for both the noun and the adjective form. As a noun, a hermaphrodite is defined as: 1. A human being, or one of the higher animals, in which parts characteristic of both sexes are to some extent (really or apparently) combined. (Formerly supposed to occur normally in some races of men and beasts; but now regarded only as a monstrosity.) b. an effeminate man or virile woman. c. A catamite (a boy kept for unnatural purposes). As an adjective, a hermaphrodite is defined as: 1. Of men or beasts: Having parts belonging to both sexes (really or apparently) combined in the same individual.
My dictionary search led me to make several interesting discoveries and serves to illustrate a point about how intersexuality is viewed in society. The first discovery was that intersexual as a noun has yet to gain its own place in our language, that it is still unworthy of having its own place in the dictionary. My interpretation of its inclusion as a noun under that of the adjective is that to be an intersexual is to be one without acceptability, without agency, that even the dictionary has yet to welcome the presence of intersexuals as subjects. It was surprising and disturbing to see that the word "monstrosity" was a part of the definition for hermaphrodite. The fact that the human race had once recognized intersexuality as occurring normally and now considers it a monstrosity seemed to demonstrate to me that we are indeed regressing. The labeling of a hermaphrodite as a monstrosity contributes to the idea of the intersexuals as "other" than normal, suggesting that maybe they are "other" than human. Maybe what struck me the most about the definitions for "intersexual" and "hermaphrodite" was that there were all defined in relation to the two existing sexes, male and female, or maybe I should say the two acknowledged sexes. The language used to describe intersexuals in relation to male and female reveals what is problematic about the place of intersexuals in our society. Sexuality is always defined in relation to what is considered the norm, in this case, the social construction of gender and that what is normal is the idea there are only the two categories, male and female. The lack of a place for intersexuals in language is also apparent in the fact that there is no adequate pronoun with which to refer to intersexuals, who are neither he nor she and never will be. If intersexuals cannot be referred to as such, it does not mean that they do not exist, only that they are outside language and that society remains persistent in denying them a way to voice their identity. It is a way of blocking the normalization of intersexuals, of keeping them on the outside and forcing them to somehow try and conform.
One in one hundred births produces in an infant whose body differs from the standard male or female, and the chances of a baby being born who is neither XX or XY is one in 1,666 births. Intersexuality is the result of a variety of different conditions like Klinefelter (XXY) syndrome, Androgen insensitivity syndrome, Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, Classical congential adrenal hyperplasia, Late onset adrenal hyperplasia, Vaginal agenenis, Ovotestes, Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause), Iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment, for instance progestin administered to a pregnant mother), 5 alpha reductase deficiency, Mixed gonad dysgenesis, Complete gonad dysgenesis, and Hypospadias (urethral opening in perineum or along penile shaft or a urethral opening between the corona and the tip of the glans penis). (Blackless) In other words, there is no one intersexual body just as there no male or female body is identical to another body that is biologically the same gender. It can be said then that there is no typical body, no "normal" body. In addition, it must be pointed out that the nature of genetics is that it is random and that the purpose of mutations is to produce variance. Intersexuals are a natural product of nature, not a hideous monstrosity that was never meant to be. According to the laws of nature, natural selection will take care of useless mutations, and it must be noted that this same process has not allowed the intersexuals to die out.
One or two in one thousand births results in gender reassignment surgery. (Blackless) It seems as though the primary reasoning behind gender reassignment surgery performed on infants with sexually ambiguous genitalia is to "normalize" their genital appearance, since in most cases, it is not essential that the surgery is performed to the infant's physical health. Whatever ambiguous genitalia the infant has is evaluated and based on what would be the least complicated, the infant's body is reconstructed to resemble a "normal" body. Yet, the reality is that there is no "normal" body. There can't be because everyone is different. It is also important to note that Intersex genital surgery is, in a way, irreversible. The infant as an adult will never be able to regain the exact body structure that he/she had originally been born with, the one that he/she was meant to have.
This presents an ethical dilemma. The first principle of medicine is "Primum, non nocerum" which translates into "First, do no harm." Intersexual adults often claim that they feel as though irrevocable damage and violence has been done to their bodies, and these intense feelings are evidence that the surgery is more harmful than it is helpful. Since surgery is performed when they are infants, the only ones who give consent are the parents and not the intersexual whose body it is. In the past, the parents have been convinced by the doctor that it will be in the infant's best interest if the surgery is performed, and no questions have been asked. The option of waiting to perform the surgery was hardly ever presented to the parents, and if it was brought up, it was often discouraged. The argument is since there is no medical need to perform the surgery, why not just wait until the intersexual has reached an appropriate age to reveal how he/she feels about his/her body. Maybe the intersexual will decide that he/she does not want surgery at all.
Normal is a myth, and a damaging one at that. The need to categorize human beings as definitively male or female does not allow a space for individuals such as those who consider themselves to be transgendered or intersexual. It also suggests that there is a male or female model that we must all strive towards depending on our respective genders. The fact of the matter is that intersexuals are not and will never be male or female because they were never meant to be, that male and female are social constructions that are pushing us towards a non-existent norm. The idea that those who are different, who deviate from the norm, are monstrosities who have to be fixed is more than problematic, it is terrifying and tragic. The world is not black and white, and the act of trying to fit everyone into neat categories is an impossibility that must be acknowledged as such. The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) states that they consider their mission to be "devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female." Maybe we should listen to what individuals and families dealing with intersex believe is a step in the right direction for society, that the problem of intersexuality is not one of gender but of stigma and trauma. It is not intersexuality and intersexuals that are the problem but normality and mainstream society that must be "fixed."
1. Oxford English Dictionary Online http://www.oed.com/
2. Blackless, Melanie, Anthony Charuvastra, Amanda Derryck, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Karl Lauzanne, and Ellen Lee. 2000. How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis. American Journal of Human Biology 12:151-166. Available from http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/issuetoc?ID=69504032
3. Intersex Society of North America http://www.isna.org/drupal/
1)NAME OF YOUR
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| Minerva and Vesta: Women's Opposing Roles During T Name: Mar Doyle Date: 2004-11-24 00:47:04 Link to this Comment: 11746 |
Despite the prevalence of war goddesses in most traditions from China to Greece to Ireland, women have been separated from the front lines of war for centuries. Western tradition claims that women are not made for war, but for household work: sewing, cleaning, cooking, and looking after children. Society told women to carry brooms in lieu of swords; to collect firewood instead of ammunition, and to keep house rather than protect a nation. Yet, for centuries, women have fought their peoples' wars, even if they never lifted a sword or fired a rifle.
We rarely hear of these women, though, because they were not on the front line. The AAS Online Exhibitions claims, "The term "war hero" usually refers to a man who unselfishly risks his life to fight1." In many ways this is true. War heroes, especially of wars that were fought earlier than the twentieth century, are almost invariably men. In schools throughout the United States, primary school students learn the names of heroes of various American wars: George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and Robert E. Lee; but rarely do they learn about the women who helped these heroes: Molly Pitcher, Belle Boyd, and Elizabeth van Lew. Women learned to sacrifice their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers for the same causes for which these men sacrificed their lives.
The first United States war in which women fought was the American Revolution: the war that allowed their country to be formed. While their husbands cleaned their hunting rifles and readied their clothing, American women fought the British in their own way. The most prominent form of battle, especially in Boston and New England, was the boycott on tea. It sounds like a simple thing, boycotting tea, but the English imported it to the Colonies and made a great deal of money on the tariffs. When New England housewives ceased to purchase tea, some going so far as to brewing herbal teas with raspberry leaves, the British knew a revolution was in the process. Women boycotted other goods and did their best to support their soldiers2. Some women were forced to host British soldiers, known as Red Coats, in their homes3, but they forbore and awaited the end of the war and the return of their husbands and sons as free, independent men.
Other Revolutionary War women chose to leave the comforts of their homes behind and join the men at war. It was rare for a woman to take up arms and fight as a soldier, but they did as best they could, given their strict social roles. A prime example of this is Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, better known as Molly Pitcher. She followed her soldier husband as he fought. Molly Pitcher earned her title at the Battle of Monmouth when she brought water to the fallen soldiers on the field4. Women were so taken with following the soldiers' camp that the Women of the American Revolution calls the Camp-Followers "one of Washington's head-aches5."
As was traditional during times of war, women took over their husbands' roles during the American Revolution. Women learned to manage businesses, schools6, and farms. They boarded enemy soldiers, taught schools, conducted letter writing campaigns7, and enacted political activity. Yet, all of this came to a halt when the Americans won the war and the British retreated. The rights these brave women had gained during wartime were once again returned to the men8. Men were declared the heroes of the hour and much was, and still is, made of their considerable sacrifices and selfless bravery, but it was done at the expense of the women.
The dual roles of women during wartime recurred during the American Civil War. The same people who wore corsets and hoop skirts, who had fainting spells, and were expected to live in high society were given control as men took up guns and uniforms. Once again, women learned to fight a war without taking up arms. A change from their Revolutionary War mothers, the women of the Civil War took on two true professions as the nation was divided into two: espionage and nursing.
Nursing, of course, was considered a more respectable way to support the soldiers and the war. Most of the Civil War nurses, as with the heroines of the Revolution, remained anonymous, but were a bastion of the war effort9. These selfless women left their homes and children to save a country. They helped to heal wounded soldiers, on both sides of the war, and became known for reading letters from home to the injured soldiers, undoubtedly improving morale10.
The art of espionage was open to women in both the Union and the Confederate States. An advantage of a female spy was her gender: neither side of the war would execute a woman, even on point of treason11. Famous Confederate spies include Belle Boyd, who carried important information across borders and is known for saving Confederate captains from Union troops12, and Rose O'Neal Greenhow, who helped win the Battle of Bull Run by leaking important information to Confederate troops13. Some Union spies were women firmly ensconced in Confederate society, such as Elizabeth van Lew and Mary Elizabeth Bowser. Van Lew helped prisoners of war and watched important Confederate political figures while Bowser was a maid in the Confederate White House itself15.
Despite the fact that women were still not allowed on the front line and could not carry arms with their brothers and husbands, during the American Civil War, women came closer to the battlefields than they had during the American Revolution. They learned to play on the traditional gender roles through espionage. They could aid their causes without risking life and limb with the same recklessness as a male spy. While the men fought and killed, wounded and were wounded, the women of the Union and Confederacy learned to be nurses and to read and write.
These two wars, the American Revolution of 1776 and the American Civil War, were fought by men with horses, muskets, rifles, ships, and cannons. It was men who stood on the front line and faced down the enemy, offering their lives for their country. Men fought, died, and bled in these wars. But what is so often forgotten when we remember war heroes are the women. The women may not have taken up arms and led armies with a battle cry, but they offered as much as their brothers did. When the rebels of the colonies hosted British soldiers, they knew that if they spoke their mind, it meant death or imprisonment. The women of the revolution went without necessities in the hopes that it would help with the war effort. As the ladies of the Civil War nursed the injured soldiers back to health, they ran the risk of contracting the solders' illnesses and dying themselves. When they worked as spies for their governments, they knew that their enemies considered them traitors and would gladly imprison them. It is a sad thing indeed when these women's contributions to the nation are forgotten in the shadows of their larger-than-life brethren.
Citations
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2)NAME OF YOUR
3) Cited 22 November 2004. , COMMENTS ABOUT IT
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1. "AAS Online Exhibitions: A Woman's Work is Never Done." © 2004.
2. "Boston Tea Party: ...drinking to independence." © 1996.
3. Zarro, Alexis. "Women of the American Revolution."
4. "Molly Pitcher (Valley Forge Frequently Asked Questions)." © 1998 – 2004.
5. Zarro. "Women of the American Revolution."
6. Zarro. "Women of the American Revolution."
7. Zarro. "Women of the American Revolution."
8. Zarro. "Women of the American Revolution."
9. "AAS Online Exhibitions: A Woman's Work is Never Done."
10. "AAS Online Exhibitions: A Woman's Work is Never Done."
11. "Hearts at Home: Spies." © 1997.
12. "Hearts at Home: Spies."
13. "Rose O'Neal Greenhow Papers." © May 1996.
14. "Female Spies for the Union."
15. "Female Spies for the Union."
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| "Real" Homosexuality: Robert Mapplethorpe's Photog Name: Deborah So Date: 2004-11-24 03:17:45 Link to this Comment: 11747 |
No medium or arena is free from political assimilation. Perhaps this is why the term "the personal is political" is so reverberant in such a multitude of communities. In the fine arts community, every art piece reflects a personal decision or touch; what medium to best describe a subject or idea in, or the physical shape and making of art by an artist, for example, are ways in which each artist has ownership over their own work. When art is displayed for an audience, the very act of placing a personal piece into the public sphere creates a forum for interactive and political dialogue and judgment. To present artwork in a public arena authorizes the audience to construe interpretation and assessment on that art. The policies and politics that dictate the arrival of art for the public purview are not immune to the authority and judgment-making that occurs once the art is on display. There are foundations and organizations that are founded and funded by the government for the promotion and distribution of fine arts, which of necessity are bound by the legal and litigious dictates of the governing bodies and the public it represents. When artwork or an artist is controversial, it becomes a political issue due to the governmental involvement in funding, and thus approving, of the contentious art or art-maker. For artists who work in the photographic medium, controversies arise more readily due to the realism of the images. In the case of Robert Mapplethorpe, a prominent and sensationalist photographer of the '70s and '80s, his photography was the site for which conservative senator Jesse Helms was able to symbolize the misinterpretations of visual representation for 'real' action.
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) was a gay male artist who died at the age of 43 of AIDS. His technically brilliant and stylistically scandalous images sparked both controversy and contemplation. He was both praised and derogated by his stark and honest appraisal of the erotic male nude, sadomasochism culture and practices, and homoerotic and multiracial portraits. "Mapplethorpe's work has a 'shocking' quality both for his choice of subject matter and the fact that the photograph is intrinsically more realistic than painting because the images are 'real'." (Cooper, 285). North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms advocated an amendment for the defunding of the National Endowment of the Arts in response to their funding of Robert Mapplethorpe, citing that Mapplethorpe's work was "homoerotic" and "sick" due to the homosexual nature of the artist and subject matter. "'Homoeroticism' is, I take it, a term that concedes the indeterminate status of this sexuality, for it is not simply the acts that qualify as homosexual under the law, but the ethos, the spreading power of this sexuality, which must also be rooted out." (Butler, 195). Three months after Mapplethorpe's death, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C. dropped his show due to conservative pressures in Congress. The following year the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center was prosecuted with obscenity charges for showing Mapplethorpe's works, the first time that an art gallery has been brought to court for any controversial work they have shown. The charges against the gallery and the director were eventually dropped, but the questions of censorship, homophobia and federal funding are still echoing from the contentious affair. Helms' criticism raises the question of what can be considered obscene or unworthy of public acclaim, and who has the authority to determine it? "The Helms amendment reinforces the category of identity as a site of political crisis; who and what wields the power to define the homosexual real?" (Butler, 199). Helms' portrayal of the offensive art collided with his insistence on the indecency of the artist himself, "...the figure of Mapplethorpe is already a stand-in for the figure of the homosexual male, so that the target is a representation of homosexuality which, according to the representational theory Helms presumes, is in some sense the homosexual himself." (Butler, 195). This serves to illustrate that attacking the art as obscene translates into an attack on the artist, which many members of society give authority and credence to due to their disapproval and ignorance of homosexuality.
Judith Butler links Helms with Mapplethorpe through the fantastic level of representation to real, construed especially through his use of photography. She writes that it is the homosexual identity that Helms is policing and categorizing. It is the photographic and seemingly documentary quality of the work that allows Helms this interpretive access.
"Helms not only extends those legal precedents that categorize homosexuality as obscenity, but, rather, authorizes and orchestrates through those legal statutes a restriction of the very terms by which homosexuality is culturally defined. One interpretation could claim that this tactic is simply an occasion for Helms to assault the gay male artistic community, or gay men generally, as well as the sexual practices phantasmatically imposed upon them. The political response is then to develop a political resistance to this move by simply reversing the argument, claiming that gay men are not as he says, that Mapplethorpe is more significant and more properly artistic. It is not merely that Helms characterizes homosexuality unfairly, but that he constructs homosexuality itself through a set of exclusions that call to be politically interrogated." (Butler, 197)
How does Senator Helms achieve the authority to question and interrogate Mapplethorpe or his work? "Political groups that mediate between queers and normals find that power lies almost exclusively on the normal side." (Warner, 44). By attacking Mapplethorpe as being abnormal and defiantly alien, Helms is asserting his own status as an opposite of Mapplethorpe, and thus, normal. It is through his assertion of his own normalcy and championship of the ideals of normal and moral society that Helms proliferated his opinions and legislation. However, in his call for the censorship of what he deemed "depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, and the exploitation of children," (Butler, 195), he is actually giving political and media importance to Mapplethorpe's work and vision. "...what Helms performs...is a kind of representational violence.....if prohibitions invariably produce and proliferate the representations that they seek to control, then the political task is to promote a proliferation of representations, sites of discursive production, which might then contest the authoritative production produced by the prohibitive law." (Butler, 197). Negative exposure is still exposure, which is particularly apt in talking about a famed photographer. Through Helms' vigorous attacks of Mapplethorpe, the artists' photography became even more accessible to the mainstream and thus had an increased potential for public education and elucidation.
I am positing that it was not necessarily that nature of Mapplethorpe's sexuality or appraisal of images that enabled him to be so easily villainized by Helms, but rather his use of the photographic medium to capture masculine eroticism. "It is photographers who have mapped out this terrain [of the growth and extension of machismo] most precisely. Their point of view has become one of involvement and participation rather than observation." (Cooper, 284). In its nature, photography reflects a more realistic interpretation of what the artist views in such a way as to allow easy identification for an audience. Due to the clarity of photographs, the separation of real from the representational is easier to collapse. "The anti-pornography effort to impute a causal or temporal relation between the phantasmatic and the real raises a set of problems...by establishing causal lines among representation, fantasy, and action, one can effectively argue that the representation is discriminatory action." (Butler, 192). Therefore, if one interprets a photograph, which is a visual representation, as something that is real and consequently agent, it is logical to assume that there will be real consequences from viewing the photograph. However, this logic is refutable in that no matter the realism of the image, a photograph is not a window into current reality, "The reason why representations do not jump off the page to club us over the head...is that even pornographic representations as textualized fantasy do not supply a single point of identification for their viewers, whether presumed to be stabilized in subject-positions of male or female." (Butler, 193). Mapplethorpe's photography specifically used elaborately staged lighting and posing of models, which belie any immediacy of sexual action in the first place. This is not to say that the effect of Mapplethorpe's depictions are unauthentic or disingenuous, "His particular aesthetic involves crystal clarity which has nothing to do with the snap-shot and flash gun technique of commercial pornography. Thus the most extreme S&M scenes...soon take on a 'natural' quality which can be objectively studied even if some people find the subject matter overwhelming." (Cooper, 286). What is appreciable in this critique is the acceptance of the artistry despite the potentially offensive images. Mapplethorpe's personal preferences or professional interests are explored due to their impact on his art and not for the sake of categorizing him as normal, real, or even homosexual. The understanding of the art form and the process supercede concerns over representation or realism.
An intervention is necessary in order for the art world , the government, or any social movement to fight back in the face of censorship or discrimination in art. A call for education is needed, to better understand the medium of photography and the articulation of queer culture and sexuality therein.
"When you begin interacting with people in queer culture...you unlearn [the] perspective [that the gay and lesbian people have become part of a gay trend.] You learn that everyone deviates from the norm in some context or other, and that the statistical norm has no moral value...you begin to recognize that there are other worlds of interaction that the mass media cannot comprehend, worlds that they can only deform when they project images of...deviant scenes. To seek out queer culture, to interact with it and learn from it, is a kind of public activity. It is a way of transforming oneself, and at the same time helping to elaborate a commonly accessible world." (Warner, 70-71)
Mapplethorpe's personal story stands as a testimony of the power that photographic art has on government policies and political expressions. In order to promote the continuing federal support of artists independent of discrimination more queer community outreach and arts education is indispensable. To continue to discriminate against a homosexual artist, homoerotic art or the photographic medium is a disservice to the necessary art and artists who contribute to our cultural growth.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. "The Force of Fantasy: Mapplethorpe, Feminism, and Discursive Excess." differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 2:2 (1990), pp. 105-25.
Cooper, Emmanuel. The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the last 100 Years in the West. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.
Warner, Michael. Chapter Two: "What's Wrong with Normal?" The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life. New York: Free Press, (1999), pp. 41-80.
| Dangerous Logic: Deciphering Bush's Pro-Life Rheto Name: Jessica Pa Date: 2004-11-24 03:27:38 Link to this Comment: 11748 |
George W. Bush may have a better grasp of the English language than it seems. Though he admits that he misspeaks not uncommonly, he nevertheless shows a certain rhetorical skill when it comes to espousing his pro-life beliefs. He states his views in language that appeals to a wide audience, yet aligns him with a more extreme pro-life segment. His explicit stance on abortion seems moderate: he allows for abortion to save a woman's life or health or in the cases of rape or incest; he has also frequently stated that abortion would not be a "litmus test" for Supreme Court nominees. Throughout his political career he has adopted a degree of moderacy: "I've set the goal that every child born and unborn ought to be protected. But I recognize [that many] people don't necessarily agree with the goal. People appreciate somebody who sets a tone, a tone that values life, but recognizes that people disagree" (Skelton). Though Bush makes these nominal appeals to moderate voters, the way in which he argues his pro-life opinions align him with adamant anti-choice ideology: that fetuses are children, that good people of America have always been anti-abortion, and that abortion is an evil that society must and will overcome.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act in 2004 gave Bush an opportunity to show his anti-choice rhetoric. In Bush's statement before signing the bill, he recognized several families who had been invited to the bill-signing. Each had suffered a horrendous loss of a family member who was also pregnant. "This act of Congress addresses tragic losses such as Sharon and Ron have known. They have laid to rest their daughter, Laci, a beautiful young woman who was joyfully awaiting the arrival of a new son. They have also laid to rest that child, a boy named Conner, who was waiting to be born when his life, too, was taken. His little soul never saw light, but he was loved, and he is remembered" ("Unborn"). He emphasized the family's centrality to the act by mentioning its alternative name ("Laci and Conner's Law") and he noted the collection of families present with similar experiences. The choice to tell the families' stories was, more than simply a show compassion, a strategic rhetorical device. He utilized the individual families' personal experiences as an argument for social change in understanding of the "fetus."
Celeste Michelle Condit explains how this sort of "rhetorical narrative" works. "The repetition and restatement of any such story bearing strong emotional force may create a mythic commonplace. Social myths... generally capture and preserve important truths and portray them with emotional intensity" (Condit 28). Laci's family's story reflects common values of motherhood and retribution for crime. Of course anyone would want justice for this family, and punishment for the enormous loss they suffered. However, the catch is in the conclusion to the story – that fetuses must be considered children in order for this retribution to occur. Though Bush's story relies on social concerns over harm of expectant mothers, Bush then justifies reconsidering the socially-accepted differentiation between children and fetuses. At the same time that Bush decries the villainy and tragedy of the murders, he interchanges what is technically termed as a fetus with "child," "boy," "Conner," and a "life." The families' stories, "because they were transferable into social myths, thus translated widely shared private experiences into a public concern by expressing those experiences through the dominant vocabulary, albeit with a new 'point' to the story. Careful manipulations of language (ie, 'rhetoric') in opportune social conditions thus materialized a new set of discourses in the public realm" (Condit 35).
The rhetorical narrative carries great political potential. By limiting the need for reclassification of fetuses to extreme, emotional situations such as murder, the reform seems acceptable to a wider audience. The real intent of the pro-lifers – to define a fetus as a child in every situation including abortion – is thus covered by a more socially acceptable/moderate justification. Generally, pro-life activists are motivated by a desire to ensure that every potential life becomes a life, not by criminal justice reform. The recategorization of the fetus conflicts with reigning legal and social definitions. However, this contradiction also works to the pro-life advantage: "as a sociopolitical tale is continually retold, the contradictions between new conditions and old beliefs may become more and more evident, eventually forcing some modifications in beliefs or conditions" (Condit 32). The new legal language created by the Unborn Victims of Violence Act necessitates the need to re-examine (and potentially overthrow) the existing logic of Roe v. Wade, that not every fetus should be considered a citizen.
Bush used rhetorical narrative to justify reclassifying the fetus. Another way that Bush utilizes rhetoric to promote pro-life ideology is through what Condit calls "The Heritage Tale." This is a "social myth constructed about a shared past, which gives that past a unified set of meanings, endorses the social formations represented as existing in that past, and thereby constructs a description of what the future should be" (Condit 226-27). In response to attacks on pro-life ideology, pro-lifers frequently rearticulate the story of our past and what America stands for in order to include a strain of anti-abortion sentiment throughout it. In Bush's Partial-Birth Abortion Ban statement, he asserted, "America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalienable right of life. And the most basic duty of government is to defend the life of the innocent" ("Partial-Birth"). Of course, what Bush is alluding to is the opening of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Nowhere does the Declaration say, however, that fetuses count as these endowed "men." Neither does the Constitution or Bill of Rights, for that matter. As Roe v. Wade noticed, "The Constitution does not define 'person' in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to 'person'... But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only post-natally" (Roe v. Wade IX A). Bush's version of the country's founding documents is based on pro-life ideology and is not historically or technically accurate.
The trouble with the heritage story is that it presumes a certain group of people that "we" are – in the case of pro-lifers' preferred heritage, predominantly white, Western, Christian men. The story has to either delegitimize people who do not fit into the scheme or omit dissenting opinions entirely. Bush would have us believe that there have been no voices speaking against the partial-birth abortion ban act: "The wide agreement amongst men and women on this issue, regardless of political party, shows that bitterness in political debate can be overcome by compassion and the power of conscience" ("Partial-Birth"). In fact, the only gesture he makes towards a dissenting opinion is that "the executive branch will vigorously defend this law against any who would try to overturn it in the courts" ("Partial-Birth"). These "any"-persons are written out of the story, or rather, are cast, for lack of a better term, as evildoers. The reality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is that it was highly contested in Congress and prompted enormous public outcry. The Senate approved the act 64-34, the House 281-142. This is hardly universal support, yet none of these 34 Senators', 142 Representatives' or other public authorities' voices are mentioned except as potential challengers who go against the "basic standard of humanity" affirmed by elected officials ("Partial-Birth").
However, simply because a story is technically inaccurate does not mean that it cannot be persuasive. Like the "rhetorical narrative" tactic, the "heritage tale" creates a social myth that appeals to most Americans by utilizing shared values. The ban supposedly stops a practice which is "not only cruel to the child, but harmful to the mother, and a violation of medical ethics" ("Partial-Birth"). In reality, the abortion procedure which involves "partial birth" is typically used only to save the life of the woman. Also, the act can apply to a variety of abortion procedures and effectively ban abortion after the first trimester. But by justifying political change with the most extreme example of "partial birth" when not medically necessary, the ban is framed in mainstream values meant to appeal to a broad base. The combination of a vague historical account with emotionally potent values makes for a persuasive justification of the ban.
Bush uses another skewed yet persuasive story of American heritage: one which places "Roe v. Wade within a strand of 'evil' in history – one of a series of trials that Americans had always been able to overcome" (Condit 49). In this rendition of American heritage, significant historical events such as slavery and Nazism come to represent the battle of principles – the winning side has always valued the "sanctity of life." In keeping with this connection, it is not uncommon for pro-life advocates to connect Roe v. Wade with the Dred Scott decision. Both denied citizenship, and all the human rights and legal protection that entails, to a class of people. Both described that class as property – either the bought property of the slaveowner or the bodily property of the pregnant woman. Both prevent states from overriding this decision (outlawing slavery or criminalizing abortion outright). And both are simply immoral and need to be overturned, regardless of stare decisis, since the original decision was wrong (Pollitt).
Such significant figures as Alan Keyes, Ronald Reagan (in Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation) and Justice Scalia (in his dissent in Casey v. Planned Parenthood) have all referenced Dred Scott in relation to Roe v. Wade. And more recently, in the second presidential debate, Bush referenced Dred Scott in response to a question about a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees. Falling right in line with pro-life (mis)interpretation of the case, Bush described the decision saying: "That's personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all – you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America" ("Second Debate"). The problem is that the Constitution did allow slavery – as Bush seemed to realize mid-sentence, the Constitution did not say we were all equal. Dred Scott was not exactly "personal opinion" – but that is what pro-lifers describe Roe v. Wade as. Of course, there are similarities between Dred and Roe. Both involved Supreme Court decisions, and both are basically about human life. However, this is just enough similarity to make the connection plausible. "Consequently, the two events [appear] as a single line of 'villainy' to be overcome by Americans. As a result of this linkage, abortion [is] not only 'written out' of the American heritage, it [elicits] the same kind of passionate hatred stirred by a long-past Civil War" (Condit 50).
Even though Bush's quote puzzled political analysts, it aligns with common pro-life rhetoric, revealing his true litmus test for Supreme Court nominees. Moreover, Bush was able to reference this pro-life argument on public television without causing any pro-choice activists to stir. He was able to speak directly to the most extreme pro-life activists – the same ones who ended up deciding the election – while leaving more liberal voters baffled as to what he might mean. In a longer project, it would be appropriate to look at other aspects of Bush's rhetorical skill, for example, promoting a "culture of life." He implicitly links fetuses with the concept of "life," a concept which trumps any legal concern (property, equality, or otherwise). It would also be useful to delve into the rhetoric of his opponents' rebuttals. The point of such an extended discussion, however, would be the same: to avoid dismissing Bush's statements as benign or ignorant, and recognize their potential to activate pro-life issues. So long as his speeches are publicly legitimate, they can successfully justify pro-life activism.
Works Cited:
Condit, Celeste Michelle. Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
Pollitt, Katha. "Roe = Dred." The Nation. 13 Oct 2004.
"President Bush Signs Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003." White House press release. 5 Nov 2003.
"President Bush Signs Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004." White House press release. 1 Apr 2004.
Skelton, George. "California and the West; Talking Baseball and Politics with George W. Bush" Los Angeles Times. 5 June 2000.
Commission on Presidential Debates. "The Second Bush-Kerry Presidential Debate." 8 Oct 2004.
| The Second Shift Name: Sara Ansel Date: 2004-11-24 10:16:45 Link to this Comment: 11755 |
Sara Ansell
Knowing the Body
Paper # 2
Anne Dalke, Gus Stadler
11/24/04
The Second Shift
Women have pushed forward in the struggle for equality. Today women are staples in the professional world. More women are attending college than men as proved in recent studies. Women have outnumbered men on college campuses since 1979, and on graduate school campuses since 1984. More American women than men have received bachelor's degrees every year since 1982. Even here on Haverford's campus, the Admissions Office received more applications from women for early decision candidacy than men for the eighth straight year. The wage gap is slowly decreasing and the fight for proper day care services along with insurance coverage for birth control pills are passionate issues for women across America. From the outside, it seems we have come along way. But step closer. Stop looking at the fights we have won and are continuing to fight as measures of our success. Look deeper. Look into the every day life of a working woman today in the United States. What you will find there tells a very different story of a woman's world today.
In 2002 the journal "Sex Roles: A Journal of Research" published a study on women and their roles in the family. The study found that "Seven out of ten married parents believe child care should be shared equally, but two-thirds of the moms said they mainly cared for children....[additionally] women continue to spend about three to seven times as many hours as men on cleaning and laundry tasks." This information does not cease with this study alone. The New York Times recently published an article which also explored the inner workings of an American family. The article quotes its own study: "The average working woman also gets about an hour's less sleep each night than the average stay-at-home mom. And men spend more time than women both at their jobs and on leisure and sports." The results in the New York Times were based on a survey of 21,000 people who were asked to record how they had spent every hour in a single 24-hour period.
Perhaps you are saying to yourself "I already knew this but couldn't prove it." Whether or not you could have guessed this information or have possibly lived to tell your own stories about juggling the responsibilities of family-life and work, the underlying and disturbing question is, how can this be so today? How can it be that modern women who have seemingly come so far in becoming recognized as thriving active members of business, politics, and society in general still be struggling with the same gender roles with which their grandmothers dealt? How is it that women have broken out of many of the confines holding them back from the public sphere, but women are still expected to fulfill traditional roles within the private sector?
The initial answer is that women today can not simply give up their roles of motherhood and wife because they have gained ground outside the home. Household and child care responsibilities still apply to women even if she wakes early to start her 9am job and doesn't return home until 5pm. Yet, this answer is inherently problematic. The responsibilities discussed above should not mean an inequitable amount of time spent on her children and family as compared to her husband. House-hold responsibilities should not result in less sleep than her husband and having less time for leisure. Household and child care responsibilities should not primarily be a woman's duty. Yet why is it that women still fulfill these duties spending twice as much time on them as men?
Primarily, it is society's expectations for women that force them into double duty. Working women are tolerated if not accepted as long as they don't cease to fulfill their primary role: that of being a woman. Women are the nurturing and care-giving sex. Even the term "mothering" applied to the more nurturing women proves this fact. Working men are fulfilling society's expectations by working. Traditionally men are the breadwinners of a household and by working full time; they are being men in society's sense of the word. Yet perhaps the answer lies deeper than this analysis. The answer could possibly lie not in society's expectations, but in women themselves.
The deeply embedded feeling of guilt could be a drive for women today. Women who take on less of the care giving and household running chores feel as if they are forgoing their responsibilities. The Seattle Times article describes this feeling as "the inner mother martyr." An article the Seattle Times ran in 2003 article explains, "Women compare themselves with their mothers, who likely spent more time cooking and cleaning, and feel like they should do more." The feeling of guilt that perhaps holds women back from breaking out of the severely defined gender roles in a household is rooted in more than a feeling of obligation. It is tied to how women define their own womanhood. Women today were implicitly taught that women are to be as their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers were. By eschewing some of the household chores and responsibilities of child care, women are not only letting go of what they see as responsibilities, but their own understanding of what it is to be a good mother and wife, and eventually a woman. In this sense, what a woman perceives she has the right to in the public sector is much more easily molded than a woman's own idea of what she has the right to do or not do within the home. Her own perception of herself is more sensitive and deeply embedded thus more difficult to confront than that of society.
Because the dichotomy exists between women's boundary pushing existence in the public sphere versus the traditional role women still fulfill in the home, what can we, both men and women, do to help alleviate the inequity and confusing position women must grapple with? The first step will be to teach the younger generations that what makes a mother or wife is not the act of cooking dinner or driving to ballet lessons. It is the nurturing and loving relationship formed with her child when they have time together. Splitting the household and childcare duties between two parents will not devalue a woman's relationship with her children and family. Women can dispense love and attention without having to prioritize their time to make up for work the other parent is not doing.
A feminist household should entail that the husband and wife communicate openly about their stress levels and needs. Additionally, women should look into themselves and attempt to answer the question how I can be the best mother/wife yet remain fair to herself and her own needs. Women must begin to look beyond what they have been raised to accept as truth. As women have learned before in past struggles, it is only when women push themselves to be the change they would like to see mirrored that change will occur. By living the change in their private lives, the change will inevitably spill into the public sector. Both the expectations of society in general as well as a woman's own personal expectations will be molded around the new concept of womanhood. Once this new concept is established in the social construct of a more progressive society will our government legislate more feminist understandings of issues such as maternity leave and daycare. Women who are able to answer the question of womanhood in the privacy of their own self will spread this idea to her household. Eventually the private household will become a model for the public sector and eventually, the gradual process of redefining a woman's role will affect the means we organize our own society: laws and legislation. Women must embody the change before society achieves it.
1)U.S. Dept of Education, COMMENTS ABOUT IT
2) "Striking a balance between mom and dad. Women are overloaded at home so how can couples better achieve the equality they say they want?" The Seattle Times 8 May 2004
3) "Survey Confirms It: Women Outjuggle Men" The New York Times Sept. 15, 2004
| Gender Politics in the US Criminal Justice System Name: Bree Beery Date: 2004-11-24 10:38:04 Link to this Comment: 11756 |
The state of women in the United States criminal justice system, an apparently fair organization of integrity and justice, is a perfect example of a seemingly equal situation, which turns out to be anything but. While the policies imposed in the criminal justice system have an effect on all Americans, they affect men and women in extremely dissimilar manners. By looking at the United States' history of females in the criminal justice system, the social manipulation of these females and the everlasting affects that incarceration have on all women, both in and out of prison, this essay will explore the use of the criminal justice system as simply another form of control from which there is no hope of escape. This system of control then leads to the examination of the everlasting, yet never successful, female struggle to balance the private sphere of domesticity with the public sphere of society and the criminal justice system's attempt to keep women within the boundaries of the private.
For centuries women who have entered the justice system have been oppressed, because the system was and still is a system designed by a patriarchal society and implemented primarily to control wayward males. The witch hunts in 17th century New England, is the first of many examples in which society exerted control over women by labeling them 'witches,' yet leaving the men alone. The primary determinant of who was designated a witch was gender, in fact eighty percent of all those killed were women. Of those women, females who were spinsters or widows, rather than wives or mothers "were represented disproportionately among the witches." In the 1800's, imprisoned women suffered the same terrible conditions as their male counterparts, yet they were not allowed to go to "workshops, mess halls, or exercise yards" , but rather were brought needlework and food and forced to remain in their cells. In the late 19th and early 20th century reformatories were created hoping to "uplift" and "improve" the characters of the women incarcerated. The reformatories, however, were created solely for women and no such corresponding development took place within male prisons. Reformatory training was centered on fostering ladylike behavior and turning women into perfect wives and mother, while at the same time repressing their sexuality. It encouraged subordination and isolation in order to instill in these women a new value system. However, the Great Depression and decline in the feminist movement in the 1930's lead these institutions to their demise. Although they are gone, reformatories, and early governmental and societal actions can give us great insight and help prepare us to understand the developments in, as well as the recent state of, women in the criminal justice system.
In looking at the history of women imprisonment and crime, except for the alarmingly increasing rates, not much else has changed. Since 1980 the number of women in prison has increased at nearly double the rate for men and there are now nearly seven times as many women in prison as in 1980. However, the increasing rate of crimes and incarceration of females is still not considered a serious problem. Despite this alarming increase rate of imprisonment, the public outcry continues to be deafeningly silent. In fact some just dismiss it as a result of the women's movement and the associated empowerment of women, essentially saying that gender equality brings about violence in women. Whatever the reason, there is still so little public interest as well as very few studies conducted on female crime and imprisonment, in comparison to those conducted on males. This lack of interest is due to the fact that society chooses to overlook these women because they are not the societal norm and they represent everything that a female should not be.
In examining the oppression women face in the criminal justice system it is vital to look at their crimes and the reasoning behind committing such offenses. Women have always and continue to be incarcerated for minor criminal offenses, as opposed to violent and homicidal crimes. Today, there are virtually no women charged with white collar crimes, such as fraud and embezzlement and very few are charged with homicide, "women's offenses are rarely vicious, dangerous or profitable." Instead, women, as the primary caretakers of the home and family, may be more driven by poverty and societal pressures to engage in more "crimes" of survival. These would include prostitution, pick-pocketing, shop lifting, robbery and trafficking drugs. These acts of stealing or hustling are seen as necessary for the survival of themselves, but more importantly for the survival of their family, because of the economic and/or societal problems they face. Most often women's crimes arise from difficult circumstances within society at large. However, when women do engage in violent crimes, it is often for fundamentally different reasons than men. Many women are much more likely to kill a male partner than to kill anyone else. A majority of the women incarcerated for homicide kill out of self defense and is often in response to years of male abuse. This then leads into the role gender plays in sentencing and the courtroom, which is a rather complicated one.
In the early 20th century many women were incarcerated for public order offenses, also known as 'moral' offenses, which would include fornication, adultery, drunkenness, etc. They were then sentenced to private reformatories, which as stated earlier, would help to 'improve' them. This is interesting because this once again illustrates the battle between public and private. Once a woman crosses over into the public sphere, by doing something as simple as drinking, she is punished and sent away to be to the private world of prison. This struggle still exists in modern day. Because of the equal rights movement many people would consider women to receive the same punishment for the same crime as a man, however, this is anything but true. Women will either receive lesser or harsher punishment depending on their crime. If a woman has committed a minor offense, it is easy to lessen her sentence by playing into traditional gender stereotypes. According to feminist criminologists, Nicole Rafter and Estelle Freedman, women who conformed to the bourgeois definition of femininity and motherhood were punished in a much ore mild manner than those who did not. However, women who commit larger offenses often face harsher punishments, mainly because most of the crimes that they commit are against males. Women who kill or attempt to kill their abusers are incarcerated for several reasons, first to deter other women from believing they can similarly resist, second, to reinforce in women the belief that they have no right to their own bodies and lastly to assert and protect men's power over women. In fact women often face harsher penalties than men who kill their partners."
This inequality of the sexes, presented in the courtroom is then crossed over into many, if not all of the U.S. state and federal prisons. According to a 1990 fall issue of Time magazine, "women are confined in a system designed, built and run by men for men." Women are receiving all the negative aspects of a men's prison, such as maximum security, control units, shock incarceration, etc, without receiving any of the benefits. Whereas men are treated as men, at least out of fear, women in prison are treated as animals or children. Many argue that women's prisons are filled with a spitefully destructive paternalistic mentality; women are perpetually infantilized by routines and paternalistic attitudes. Powerlessness, helplessness and dependency are all systematically heightened in prison.
This method of 'rehabilitation' merely places women back into the private sphere of domesticity by enforcing traditional women's roles and promoting subordination. This is mostly achieved by placing a social stigma on incarcerated females. This stigma, much like Hester Pryne's scarlet 'A', though invisible, serves as a warning to women to stay within the 'proper female sphere.'
Therefore the criminal justice system is just another form social control used to impose and strengthen traditional women's roles as well as cultivate a reliance and submissiveness of women to society. What is tragic about this system is that society prepares the crime and many women, have no choice, but to commit it. Women are thus caught helplessly in a cruel cycle between the public and private. In looking at the past to predict the future, it looks as if there is no way out of this malicious cycle. If women try to break out of the private sphere of domesticity and into the public sphere of a patriarchal society, they are always, through governmental controls and policies, forced back into their private spheres of home and family, which is for some women, their own personal prison.
Notes
1 Gendered Justice: A Select Bibliography; http://www.criminology.utoronto.ca/library/gender.htm,
Compiled by the University of Toronto Centre of Criminology Library. March 10, 2003.
2 Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), p. xii.
3 Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), p. xii.
4 Nicole Hahn Rafter, Partial Justice: Women in State Prisons 1800-1935 (Boston: New England University Press, 1985)
5 Elaine De Costanzo and Hellen Scholes, "Women Behind Bars, Their Numbers Increase," Corrections Today, June 1988.
6 Peter Appleborne, "Women in U.S. Prisons: Fast-Rising Population," New York Times, June 15, 1987
7 Assata Shakur, "Women in Prison: How We Are," The Black Scholar, vol. 9, no. 1, April 1978, p. 9.
8 Angela Brown and Kirk Williams, "Resource Availability for Women at Risk," unpublished paper presented at the American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 1987.
9 Nancy Rubin, "Women Behind Bars," McCall's, August 1987
10 Estelle B. Freedman, Their Sisters' Keepers: Women's Prison Reform in America, 1830-1930 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981)
11 Estelle B. Freedman, Their Sisters' Keepers: Women's Prison Reform in America, 1830-1930 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981)
12 Shelly Bannister, op. cit., argues that women who respond to male violence with physical resistance, and are incarcerated as a result, should be viewed as political prisoners.
13 Sandy Rovner, "Abused Women Who Kill," Judgment, vol. 10, no. 2, June 1987
14 Nicole Hahn Rafter, Partial Justice: Women in State Prisons 1800-1935 (Boston: New England University Press, 1985)
| As We Go Marching, Marching Name: Laura Beth Date: 2004-11-24 10:48:39 Link to this Comment: 11757 |
On April 25, 2004, over a million people of every gender, sex, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, class, and age participated in the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C. Examining the sea of people, I initially did not understand why such a great number of middle aged and older women were so angry. They were reaching the age where reproductive rights were becoming less of an issue for them personally, but I realized my naïveté on two counts: one, they were not just marching for themselves and two, they were fighting to save the laws which they had changed to protect themselves over thirty years ago. They were marching for their daughters and granddaughters and nieces and goddaughters and students whose futures were being threatened just as their futures had been under attack when they were younger. Despite the movement for change of these Second Wave Feminists, legislation has been directed at the cause of gender inequities in the United States but gender equality has not been an effect of the legislation.
In the late sixties and early seventies, the women of the Second Wave of Feminism created a social campaign for gender equality primarily in terms of economics. As Virginia Woolf points out in Three Guineas, women remain in the power of men so long as they are financially dependent upon them. (Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas, p. 132) Housing and food are required for survival and money is required for the attainment of both. Given their history of working in the home and caring for children, American society divided itself up into breadwinners and homemakers: men won the bread and women made the home. Consequently, women have had far fewer opportunities than men to earn money because girls were not raised with the idea that they would someday receive a paycheck with their name on it. Books such as Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique challenged society to think that women should have a choice about joining the work force outside the home. It is important to note that low income women had been compelled to garnish wages for centuries before suburban housewives dared to aspire to any role model other than June Cleaver. Friedan's work sparked the notion that all women everywhere might not be happy with housework and childrearing—women are women and are not only mothers and wives just as men are not only husbands and fathers.
But in order to explore to realize their potential outside the home and establish financial independence, women had to be qualified to work. The United States Census Bureau shows that in general people with lower levels of education consistently earn less money than those who have attained more education, regardless of gender. (4). One of the largest gaps is between those who have received their high school diploma or equivalent (G.E.D.) and those people who have earned their bachelor's degree at a college or university, and "until the 1970's a great many of the nation's colleges and universities—private and public—simply excluded women." (5). Without the opportunity to earn a degree, women were not considered for the majority of higher paying jobs in the country. They were indirectly restricted from earning a moderate to high income independently of their husbands or fathers.
The angry women I saw parading about the streets of D.C. were responsible for inciting lawmakers to write the Title IX Education Amendment of 1972 which states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." All public institutions of higher learning were ordered by law to provide the same opportunities to women as to men in terms of academic and extracurricular activities. Title IX is most often used in reference to gender equity in sports because it prohibited universities from recruiting and offering athletic scholarships to male athletes and not to female athletes, not to mention Title IX required public universities to create sports teams for women. The excitement over sports participation eclipsed the fact that women were now allowed to enroll in the institutions and take classes towards earning a higher degree.
Title IX would not have been possible without the dedication of those involved in supporting the Second Wave of Feminism. Such individuals challenged traditional stereotypes of the "proper place" of women and the capabilities of the marginalized sex. Title IX was indeed one of the largest victories of the Second Wave of Feminism because it put into law the changing social attitudes toward gender inequity, and my generation has since reaped the benefits of their work. In 1994, 63% of female high school graduates were enrolled in college—up from 43% in 1972 (6). As of the year 2000 in the United States, women comprised 56% of the university students in the nation. (Seager, Joni. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World. p. 119)
It is no grave injustice that more college students are women than men because the population of the United States is also tipped in favor of women according to the 2000 Census. Many universities have set criteria which every applicant must meet in order to be admitted, and an increased applicant pool of women will result in increased enrollment of women.
In addition to bachelor's degrees, women have more access to graduate and post-doctoral degree programs. The U.S. Department of Education recorded that rates have significantly improved for women earning professional degrees especially in fields of law, medicine, and dentistry. (8). The success of Title IX can also be measured in the fact that "between 1977 and 1994 the number of U.S. women earning doctoral degrees almost doubled"—clearly women have been taking advantage of the right afforded under Title IX. (8). In numbers, the educational opportunity gap between women and men has shrunk since this legislative turning point. Although it may not be reflected by the agenda of the current administration, social attitudes have shifted to include support for gender equality and the legislation reflects this change.
However, Title IX has not solved the problem of gender discrimination; otherwise the nation's capitol might have been quiet on that day in April. For all the equity which has been achieved in the attainment of degrees, there has not been corresponding improvement in equality in the work force. More women are earning their own income, but "they do so under quite different circumstances . . . women are typically paid less than men for their labor": in the United States overall as of the late 1990s, full-time women workers earned seventy-seven cents for every dollar earned by full-time men workers. (Seager, pp. 62-63) Women were over 70% of the service sector work force in the late 1990s, but women are the anomaly in the high powered corporate world: "In the 500 largest corporations, women held 11% of corporate office positions and only 5% of the most senior positions." (Seager, pp. 64-66) In the field of higher education, one study found that women were far less likely than men to secure tenure at the University of California at Berkley, an institution celebrated for its liberal environment and history of social awareness. Tenure is essential for job security and consequently financial security for professors, and women do not gain this status at a rate equal to men. In 2002, women comprised only 14% of the elected officials in the government of the United States; this percentage is entirely unrepresentative of the make up of the U.S. population. (Seager, p. 119) The women of the workforce in the past several decades are the college students of the seventies who were provided equal educational opportunities by Title IX. Yet these women of the Second Wave of Feminism do not enjoy equal opportunity in the arena most imperative for their financial independence—the workplace.
Women are earning their degrees and working, but something is holding them back from succeeding in the same way as men. Maybe a woman's success is measured by the happiness of her children and husband as proclaimed by some conservatives. Only a generation and a half of women have been able to enjoy the advances gained during the Second Wave of Feminism, and society may need more time to develop the attitudes necessary to create legislation for workplace equality. Perhaps it is not the quantity of women in education but rather the quality of the education which they receive. Currently legislation does not control how students, male or female, are influenced by teachers and administration to pursue certain fields over others. If more boys than girls take chemistry and biology classes of their own volition, then more boys will be inclined to pursue the high paying field of medicine. Schools may not exclude girls from activities, but schools might need to pursue methods to include girls.
1. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
2001)
2. Seager, Joni. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World. (New York: The Penguin Group, 2003)
3. Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas. (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1938)
5)National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education Website
6)The Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA) Equity Resource Center Website
| The Politics of Working Women Name: Marissa Ch Date: 2004-11-24 11:52:16 Link to this Comment: 11759 |
Working women in America are in a difficult and complex state. Women in the workforce are encouraged to compete "like men," which conflicts with the demand for their time during "the second shift". Complete dedication is expected both in the workplace and in the home, and little support is provided by the opposite sex and the government. If the government acquired a larger responsibility for working families, it could implement several policies that have already proven to alleviate the burden on working women and promote gender equality in other industrialized nations.
In recent decades, there has been a visible influx of women in the workforce-many of whom are also mothers. In 1975, forty-seven percent of all American mothers with children under the age eighteen worked for pay, and by the year 2000, this number climbed to seventy-three percent. However, the largest jump in employment occurred in women with very small children; in 1975 thirty-four percent of mothers with children age three and under were employed outside the home, and in 2000, this rate grew to sixty-one percent (Hochschild, XXIV). This growth in numbers can be explained by several factors, but the most substantial is that, in most families, a wife's salary is no longer an option.
Even though women may be sharing the financial burden with their spouses, men have not taken the same steps to share the domestic burden with their partners. This is what accounts for a women's "second shift." Women are expected to fulfill the demands of work and home on their own time. The household chores take a toll on working women with or without children. The hours married women spend performing domestic tasks, hours most men neglect to contribute in, total a substantial amount over time. Women work an additional fifteen hours per week in their "second shift"- this equals an extra month of twenty-four-hour days worked in a year. This can explain why women, compared to their husbands, are more tired and get sick more often (Hochschild, 4).
The heaviest burden falls on working mothers, since their "second shift" includes not only housework but also taking care of the children. Our society still celebrates the role of a mother as the primary care-giver. This conviction that women are responsible for children's welfare has become an obstacle for working mothers and gender equity as a whole. The government can have a supportive role in this dilemma, but instead it leaves child care concerns up to the parents- which subsequently falls on the mothers.
"The assumption that the work-family balance is an individual and private problem undercuts any serious efforts of institutional change" (Blair-Loy, 197). Without government aid and adequate financial resource to purchase private child care services, many working mothers are pressured to leave the workforce in order to fulfill their domestic duties. "Feminists concerned with the family have concluded that persistent gender inequality in the labor market is both cause and consequence of women's disproportionate assumption of unpaid work in the home" (Gornick, 3).
In order for the government to take a more active role, there needs to be a change in how American culture views children. As long as children are a "private" concern, there is no reason why the rest of society should invest in child care. "Substitute child care is an essential form of support for parents combining earning and caring roles; parents cannot commit to work outside the home without alternatives for the care of children" (Gornick, 185).
For the working parents that cannot stay at home out of financial necessity, the livelihood of their children is significantly compromised by the present lack of quality child care options available. Currently, there are "no national standards for staffing, health and safety, or teaching curricula" in child care facilities (Gornick, 190). In the end children suffer and "these 'private' problems create social costs" (Gornick, 9).
Children should be considered more of a "public good," since healthy and productive children benefit society in the long run. One can assume there will be less crime, a better future workforce, and a more stable generation of future parents if children's needs are not neglected early on. These are some of the reasons why many European countries and Canada believe it is the role of the government, through financial contributions of their citizens, to provide better child care options. The Nordic countries including Denmark, Finland, and Sweden have established an "entitlement for care" culture for children from the end of parental leave until the start of primary school (Gornick, 199). The important point to make is that "access to substitute care is crucial for the achievement of gender equality in the home and in the market, because in the absence of acceptable alternatives, it is mothers and not fathers who loosen their ties to the labor market to care for children" (Gornick, 197).
While providing quality substitute child care can have the greatest effect on working families, there are several other policies that already exist that the United States government can enact. Making part-time work a more viable alternate form of employment can give both mothers and fathers the opportunity to cut back hours at work. "In this country, part-time jobs, on average, pay lower wages and grant fewer non-wage benefits than do full-time jobs" (Gornick, 153). These consequences of part-time employment repel men who associate themselves with the "bread-winner" role. Currently, workers who wish to work less than the standard forty-hour work week typically have to accept a work schedule of less than thirty-five hours per week, which is classified as part-time employment. This "all-or-nothing" structure of employment "leaves a sizable proportion of women, especially mothers with young children, disconnected from the labor market" (Gornick, 155).
Providing a more flexible work schedule will help both parents allocate more time to tend to domestic obligations. The Fair Labor Standards Act has not been revised since 1938. The government needs to make the appropriate changes to standard work hours in order to meet the needs of modern families. France is one of the European nations that has moved forward towards meeting these needs, reducing the statutory work week to thirty-five hours in the year 2000. In addition, there is a European Union-wide policy that regulated forty-eight hours the maximum amount of hours worked per week. By comparison, the United States law does not set such a maximum hours for covered workers (Gornick, 161-162).
Reducing standard work hours for full-time employment will also have a direct effect on gender equity, "to the extent that limited options for reduced-hour work propel some American mothers who would otherwise seek a part-time job into full-time employment". In a corresponding way, fewer hours in the workplace means men have the time to be more active participants in the home. It is not just working families that support these policies. Public-opinion research proves that a large share of Americans back regulations aimed at shortening the workweek and public investments in child care (Gornick, 171, 19).
Another government policy that exists outside the United States is publicly financed paid parental leave. Several European countries, and Canada, "have policies in place that grant parents time to care for their children, provide a reasonable level of economic security, and include incentives for equal sharing of caregiving between mothers and fathers" The cost of leave benefits, when incurred by the whole working population, are relatively modest.
To encourage fathers to take parental leave, these policies offer high wage-replacement rates, nontransferable parental rights, and public-education campaigns to change society's views on fatherhood. Contrastingly, the option of parental leave in the United States depends much on the families' resources, which creates strong deterrents for fathers to take leaves for family reasons. A majority of American parents who take a parental leave when a child is born are women. This further reinforces a mother's place in the home and responsibility as the primary caregiver.
One must now address the question why the United States government is not following the lead of other industrialized nations if they are so supportive of "family values" and "moral values." Until there is a public outcry that can no longer be ignored, which is fast-approaching, the government can continue playing with words in order to avoid accountability. The problem exists with how these policies are categorized. The common term applied to such policies is "social benefits." This language alludes to the "social welfare state"-an ideal a liberal democracy like America does not strive to uphold. The American attitude for such concerns is usually along the lines of "you have your rights, now work it out for yourself." However, it is crucial to break down the relation between these family-friendly policies and the word "benefits." The progressive policies mentioned above do not predominantly "benefit" working mothers. Without such policies, women cannot pursue their right to earn a living in the same way a man could. Earning a living is not a "benefit," equal opportunity for employment is not a "benefit"- but a "right." In our capitalist culture, "the one right of paramount importance to all human beings" is the right to earn a living, and in accordance with the law, any obstruction to a fundamental right must be remedied by the government (Woolf, 101).
Works Cited
Blair-Loy, Mary. Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives.
(Massachusetts: Harvard UP) 2003.
Gornick, Janet C. and Marcia K. Meyers. Families That Work: Policies for Reconciling
Parenthood and Employment. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation) 2003.
Hochschild Russell, Arlie. The Second Shift. (New York: Penguin Group) 2003.
Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas. (New York: Harcourt, Inc.) 1938.
| The Politics of Working Women Name: Marissa Ch Date: 2004-11-24 11:52:16 Link to this Comment: 11760 |
Working women in America are in a difficult and complex state. Women in the workforce are encouraged to compete "like men," which conflicts with the demand for their time during "the second shift". Complete dedication is expected both in the workplace and in the home, and little support is provided by the opposite sex and the government. If the government acquired a larger responsibility for working families, it could implement several policies that have already proven to alleviate the burden on working women and promote gender equality in other industrialized nations.
In recent decades, there has been a visible influx of women in the workforce-many of whom are also mothers. In 1975, forty-seven percent of all American mothers with children under the age eighteen worked for pay, and by the year 2000, this number climbed to seventy-three percent. However, the largest jump in employment occurred in women with very small children; in 1975 thirty-four percent of mothers with children age three and under were employed outside the home, and in 2000, this rate grew to sixty-one percent (Hochschild, XXIV). This growth in numbers can be explained by several factors, but the most substantial is that, in most families, a wife's salary is no longer an option.
Even though women may be sharing the financial burden with their spouses, men have not taken the same steps to share the domestic burden with their partners. This is what accounts for a women's "second shift." Women are expected to fulfill the demands of work and home on their own time. The household chores take a toll on working women with or without children. The hours married women spend performing domestic tasks, hours most men neglect to contribute in, total a substantial amount over time. Women work an additional fifteen hours per week in their "second shift"- this equals an extra month of twenty-four-hour days worked in a year. This can explain why women, compared to their husbands, are more tired and get sick more often (Hochschild, 4).
The heaviest burden falls on working mothers, since their "second shift" includes not only housework but also taking care of the children. Our society still celebrates the role of a mother as the primary care-giver. This conviction that women are responsible for children's welfare has become an obstacle for working mothers and gender equity as a whole. The government can have a supportive role in this dilemma, but instead it leaves child care concerns up to the parents- which subsequently falls on the mothers.
"The assumption that the work-family balance is an individual and private problem undercuts any serious efforts of institutional change" (Blair-Loy, 197). Without government aid and adequate financial resource to purchase private child care services, many working mothers are pressured to leave the workforce in order to fulfill their domestic duties. "Feminists concerned with the family have concluded that persistent gender inequality in the labor market is both cause and consequence of women's disproportionate assumption of unpaid work in the home" (Gornick, 3).
In order for the government to take a more active role, there needs to be a change in how American culture views children. As long as children are a "private" concern, there is no reason why the rest of society should invest in child care. "Substitute child care is an essential form of support for parents combining earning and caring roles; parents cannot commit to work outside the home without alternatives for the care of children" (Gornick, 185).
For the working parents that cannot stay at home out of financial necessity, the livelihood of their children is significantly compromised by the present lack of quality child care options available. Currently, there are "no national standards for staffing, health and safety, or teaching curricula" in child care facilities (Gornick, 190). In the end children suffer and "these 'private' problems create social costs" (Gornick, 9).
Children should be considered more of a "public good," since healthy and productive children benefit society in the long run. One can assume there will be less crime, a better future workforce, and a more stable generation of future parents if children's needs are not neglected early on. These are some of the reasons why many European countries and Canada believe it is the role of the government, through financial contributions of their citizens, to provide better child care options. The Nordic countries including Denmark, Finland, and Sweden have established an "entitlement for care" culture for children from the end of parental leave until the start of primary school (Gornick, 199). The important point to make is that "access to substitute care is crucial for the achievement of gender equality in the home and in the market, because in the absence of acceptable alternatives, it is mothers and not fathers who loosen their ties to the labor market to care for children" (Gornick, 197).
While providing quality substitute child care can have the greatest effect on working families, there are several other policies that already exist that the United States government can enact. Making part-time work a more viable alternate form of employment can give both mothers and fathers the opportunity to cut back hours at work. "In this country, part-time jobs, on average, pay lower wages and grant fewer non-wage benefits than do full-time jobs" (Gornick, 153). These consequences of part-time employment repel men who associate themselves with the "bread-winner" role. Currently, workers who wish to work less than the standard forty-hour work week typically have to accept a work schedule of less than thirty-five hours per week, which is classified as part-time employment. This "all-or-nothing" structure of employment "leaves a sizable proportion of women, especially mothers with young children, disconnected from the labor market" (Gornick, 155).
Providing a more flexible work schedule will help both parents allocate more time to tend to domestic obligations. The Fair Labor Standards Act has not been revised since 1938. The government needs to make the appropriate changes to standard work hours in order to meet the needs of modern families. France is one of the European nations that has moved forward towards meeting these needs, reducing the statutory work week to thirty-five hours in the year 2000. In addition, there is a European Union-wide policy that regulated forty-eight hours the maximum amount of hours worked per week. By comparison, the United States law does not set such a maximum hours for covered workers (Gornick, 161-162).
Reducing standard work hours for full-time employment will also have a direct effect on gender equity, "to the extent that limited options for reduced-hour work propel some American mothers who would otherwise seek a part-time job into full-time employment". In a corresponding way, fewer hours in the workplace means men have the time to be more active participants in the home. It is not just working families that support these policies. Public-opinion research proves that a large share of Americans back regulations aimed at shortening the workweek and public investments in child care (Gornick, 171, 19).
Another government policy that exists outside the United States is publicly financed paid parental leave. Several European countries, and Canada, "have policies in place that grant parents time to care for their children, provide a reasonable level of economic security, and include incentives for equal sharing of caregiving between mothers and fathers" The cost of leave benefits, when incurred by the whole working population, are relatively modest.
To encourage fathers to take parental leave, these policies offer high wage-replacement rates, nontransferable parental rights, and public-education campaigns to change society's views on fatherhood. Contrastingly, the option of parental leave in the United States depends much on the families' resources, which creates strong deterrents for fathers to take leaves for family reasons. A majority of American parents who take a parental leave when a child is born are women. This further reinforces a mother's place in the home and responsibility as the primary caregiver.
One must now address the question why the United States government is not following the lead of other industrialized nations if they are so supportive of "family values" and "moral values." Until there is a public outcry that can no longer be ignored, which is fast-approaching, the government can continue playing with words in order to avoid accountability. The problem exists with how these policies are categorized. The common term applied to such policies is "social benefits." This language alludes to the "social welfare state"-an ideal a liberal democracy like America does not strive to uphold. The American attitude for such concerns is usually along the lines of "you have your rights, now work it out for yourself." However, it is crucial to break down the relation between these family-friendly policies and the word "benefits." The progressive policies mentioned above do not predominantly "benefit" working mothers. Without such policies, women cannot pursue their right to earn a living in the same way a man could. Earning a living is not a "benefit," equal opportunity for employment is not a "benefit"- but a "right." In our capitalist culture, "the one right of paramount importance to all human beings" is the right to earn a living, and in accordance with the law, any obstruction to a fundamental right must be remedied by the government (Woolf, 101).
Works Cited
Blair-Loy, Mary. Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives.
(Massachusetts: Harvard UP) 2003.
Gornick, Janet C. and Marcia K. Meyers. Families That Work: Policies for Reconciling
Parenthood and Employment. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation) 2003.
Hochschild Russell, Arlie. The Second Shift. (New York: Penguin Group) 2003.
Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas. (New York: Harcourt, Inc.) 1938.
| Gendering the Welfare State Name: Nancy Evan Date: 2004-11-24 12:10:17 Link to this Comment: 11761 |
The impetus for the creation of welfare in the United States was children . Children are viewed as a social good— the good students (or the troubled youth) of tomorrow or the devoted worker (or the unemployed worker) of the future. However rampant the notion of the free-market, capitalist society, children, argued proponents, are not autonomous beings and should not be treated as so. Therefore, it was morally right and just to create a program providing for children who could not be provided for. Along the long road from New Deal policies, welfare shifted form many times, most notably to adjust to the growing sense that family is also a part of child development and well-being and parents must be included in financial support. The welfare system as we have known it in our lifetimes has been in place for the supposed aid of families and children. This paper will lay out the main components of the current welfare system, test the extent to which the system purports to be women and family friendly and the extent to which it actually is, and locate the place men have within the system. Furthermore, I will look to the current state of welfare as it approaches reauthorization, reviewing proposed changes and suggesting others to fully discover that the United States welfare system, though providing a very necessary service, devalues women and acts as a block against women acquiring agency and independence.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed TANF into law. The 'Temporary Aid For Needy Families' policy created several new distinctions between itself and pre-'96 law. The most important, with regard to scope and effect on women, were the devolution of power to the states, a federally imposed five-year time limit, and mandatory requirement work and/or work training. When the government released power over TANF to states they did so with few stipulations . These mandates included that monthly TANF checks be consistent with federally determined standards and that a certain percentage of the entire budget (though usually an undershot) be spent on food stamps, child care, and WIC . Beyond these limitations, states were free to develop whichever sort of programs they saw fit. As a result, many states poured money into research, pet-projects, and savings rather than funneling the surplus to under-funded areas like child care. One wonders if the politicians ignored the voices of TANF recipients, who are disproportionately female, or if the voices themselves never emerged.
Five year time limits seem to promise to prove disastrous for women. The first wave of recipients were kicked off welfare only in 2001, causing numbers of women to leave its ranks . However, as there have been few increases of women in the labor force, women leaving welfare simply disappear. It may be a few years still before any conclusive report of what these women are doing and where they go can be compiled. Until then, the dual conclusions might be made that women are still needy after five years and that job training is not extensive or reliable enough to prepare women for the workplace.
Mandatory work placement and training has also proven a confining policy for women. As current regulation stands, all welfare recipients must undergo an assessment to determine potential for entering the labor market. As the government is hesitant to become a 'crutch' for its needy, all individuals receiving welfare must be employed or in the process of seeking employment. On the surface, this seems a very women-friendly policy, allowing women back into the work force with training, if necessary. In reality, this is one of the most detrimental aspects for women because it can have negative effects on both their mid- and post-welfare lives. To begin, policy makers did very little to allow welfare to be compatible with education . Any individual may take only one year of their receipt of TANF (note, the clock ticking towards five years does not stop) for education of self-betterment. This does not lend much credence to the importance of women's education. Theoretically, time on welfare may be the best chance women have of going to college of finishing high school; they have a steady source of income without the time responsibilities of a job, they have child care, and they can enter into a work-placement program with new skills after the completion of their education. The government gives little reason for this restriction beyond re-stating that TANF is a policy that has a "work first" ideology6. Typically, women entering the workforce on welfare are somewhat stigmatized. They may be seen as unreliable workers and a risk for employers. Job training programs also encourage women to aim for higher-end, low-level jobs particularly in the health and private care sectors. This means women will not be working at a fast food restaurant, but they are likely to be aids in nursing homes, hospitals, and staffing other jobs that are deemed undesirable by other workers for their erratic hours and inflexible time off, to name a few.
The reauthorization of TANF has been extended several times and is currently set for March 2005 . Several changes have been proposed to welfare, yet no consensus has been reached on whether to include changes or continue with the 1996 system, hence the extensions. Lately, politicians have been encouraging conversation on welfare reauthorization and promising a March decision. With the Bush administration in office for another four years, it seems changes will be made. A major proposal from the right include government allocation of funds for marriage counseling for welfare couples . Proponents believe that "the erosion of marriage has created enormous difficulties for children, parents, and society." Plans include race-specific programs discouraging African American women from childbirth out of wedlock and encouraging Hispanic and Caucasian women to become and stay married. Financial benefits for married couples are also being discussed Feminists worry that this push for marriage will prevent women from acquiring the independence that is a supposed benchmark of the welfare system . It may also increase the chances of a woman staying in a relationship in which she is the victim of domestic violence. These programs are also inherently biased against homosexual couples and especially single mothers, providing no extra benefit to these women despite their single income versus a potential dual income of a married couple.
Some suggestions that have been shot down by the Bush administration include an increase in child care dollars. It seems to many democrats as though fully-funding child care is a solution to many of the problems of welfare. Women cannot seek or attain a job unless their children are cared for. A problem with the current system means mothers can only use their state-issued child care money at certain facilities. This means mothers may have to take their children far out of their way, if approved centers exist at all in their towns. Frequently, states are late dispersing child care money to centers, causing centers to reject a child at the door, which causes the mother to lose a day at work and jeopardize her employment.
More liberal suggestions may take more time to implement but promise to ease both the stigmatic tensions and the stark divide welfare creates between the 'very poor' and 'everyone else'. I propose national child care coverage. This program would resemble the public school system, be funded by property taxes, and take the enormously successful Head Start program as its model. Much like public schools, if more affluent parents place their children in free-state funded day care, not only will quality improve, the stigma will decrease. The European Model is another, albeit more Socialist, option. Perhaps every American, regardless of whether or not they have children, paid a certain percentage of their income towards national child care. Of course, America has not had as long to adjust to the idea of contributing to social welfare directly, but the program would mirror social security in many ways. There are also feasible ways to actually help women from welfare to work. For one, allowing women to become educated while receiving welfare is imperative. Another policy might include tax breaks for companies and small businesses who provide training and employment to women leaving welfare.
These suggestions will by no means "fix" the American welfare system, which in many ways is a useful tool for families living in poverty. The attention to women, promised by the program but not realized in its actuality, must be reevaluated if the system is going to become a tool for empowering women and turning out productive members of society.
| AN ANALYSIS OF GAY BASHING THROUGH EXPLORATION OF Name: Rebecca Ma Date: 2004-11-24 13:08:43 Link to this Comment: 11762 |
If gay bashing is about violence and being gay is at least partially about sex, then what is the relationship between them? What framework attends to both the sexual and nonsexual activities among contemporary American males? In Between Men, Eve Sedgwick sleds light on the boundaries separating sexual and nonsexual male relationships. According to the author, homosocial and homosexual do not necessarily have to occupy two different, non-overlapping spheres. " 'Homosocial desire', to begin with, is a kind of oxymoron. "Homosocial" is a word . . . [that] describes social bonds between persons of the same sex; it is a neologism, obviously formed with analogy with "homosexual," and just as obviously meant to distinguish from 'homosexual'" (Sedgwick 1985:1). Sedgwick contends that it would be more useful to view homosocial and homosexual not as distinct categories but as a continuum. Applying this concept to gay bashing means entertaining the idea that homosociality that often includes homophobia is not intrinsically dichotomized against homosexuality (Sedgwick 1985).
The homophobia that exists within societies in general is not required in order to perpetuate the established patriarchy. For the purpose of remaining at the top of the gender hierarchy, men need not prove to themselves and to other men that they're homophobic. ". . . it has yet to be demonstrated that, because most patriarchies structurally include homophobia, therefore patriarchy structurally requires homophobia . . . while heterosexuality is necessary for the maintenance of any patriarchy, homophobia, against males at any rate, is not" (Sedgwick 1985:4). Sedgwick illustrates that patriarchy's perpetuation does not need the promotion of heterosexism through expressing homophobia during homosocial bonding. The relationship between patriarchy and homophobia exists within contextual fabrics unique to each society. Within context homophobia could be used either as an agonist or an enhancer of patriarchy. To narrow the scope of analysis, I argue that in many conservative US communities obligatory apparent heterosexuality enhances patriarchy (Sedgwick 1985).
On October 6, 1998 Aaron McKinney and Russel Henderson cross paths in life with Mathew Shepard. McKinney and Henderson come from poor rural backgrounds, earn criminal records, live in trailer parks and fix roofs for a living. Shepard come from a more privileged family background and study as a student at the University of Wyoming. Shepard frequents Fireside, a college bar where McKinney and Henderson also happen to drink that particular night. In a casual chat, Shepard tells McKinney and Henderson that he is gay. The three leave the bar together because Shepard believes that McKinney and Henderson are driving him home (Kaufman 2001).
In the truck McKinney begins hitting Shepard, approximately three times with his fist and six times with his pistol. Later in court, McKinney will testify that he assaults Shepard who according to him, places his hand on his leg, seems to be reaching for his balls, and thus triggers his "Gay Panic Defense" which the law stipulates as a mechanism in response to the sexual advancement made by gays. This statue reveals homophobia's lawful place in institutionalized patriarchy. After severely beating Shepard in the moving truck Henderson tie him onto a fence on the lonely mountains of Laramie. McKinney pistol whips Shepard several more times in an attempt to later prevent police involvement when Shepard manages to read the truck's license plate at McKinney's orders. McKinney and Henderson leave Shepard to die midair in the freezing night of the wilderness (Kaufman 2001).
Eighteen hours later a biker discovers a deathly Shepard after having initially mistaken his five foot one inch, seriously injured body for a scarecrow. The biker reports the crime to police and the first officer who arrives at the scene later describes Shepard's face completely covered in dried blood except for the bloodless streaks where his flowing tears ran. EMT rushes a barely breathing Shepard to the Ivinson Hospital emergency room where doctors decide that the patient needs to be transferred to Poudre Valley Hospital for neurosurgery. Ironically Dr. Cantway, the physician who treats Shepard also treats McKinney twenty minutes prior to Shepard's arrival two rooms down the hall (Kaufman 2001).
In an interview for The Laramie Project, McKinney's girlfriend Kristin Price tells writers that the two men went to the bathroom where they plan to put on a gay pretense in order to lead Shepard into the truck and rob him as punishment for "coming on to straight people." Price describes the punishment as a lesson that the two men intend to teach Shepard. Yet is the audience to the violence limited to the body on which it takes place, in this case Shepard's? (Kaufman 2001)
What is created when the body of a gay man becomes damaged through intentional violence? In addition, what does it mean when the gay man's injured body rests in a lofted position for spectacle? Unlike secrete murderers, Shepard's attackers choose not to hide the dying body after inflicting violence. McKinney and Henderson do not burry Shepard in a makeshift grave, a body of water or an abandoned building. They do not cut up, incinerate, trash or induce the disappearance of Shepard's injured body. Instead, McKinney and Henderson tie Sheperd's injured body onto a pole where it remains lofted for public display. Although hurriedly hiding the body of a murder victim could be at times be understood as the attacker's instantaneous reaction upon realizing the seriousness of his crime, lofting a body is certainly not understood as such. McKinney and Henderson are acutely aware that someone will eventually discover Shepard's body lofted midair.
The attackers' conscious decision to hold up Shepard's body stems from their intensions to make public what is private. I argue that Shepard's attacker metaphorically lynch him. In this case, the act of injuring a gay body is private whereas the subsequent exhibition of that injured body is public. Gay bashing entails not only the damage or destruction of homosexual bodies but more importantly the injury's public display. The "lesson" that McKinney's girlfriend describe is taught not only to Shepard but to the public, including the body's discoverer, transporter, caretaker, Laramie residents and readers about the crime. Knowledge of the violence done to a gay man's body resonates outwards from its site of occurrence as learners mushroom in number. Using Shepard's body to demonstrate to its mind that certain heterosexuals do not welcome a homosexual's sexual advances is the private act of punishing one individual. Using Shepard's body to demonstrate to the minds of local and distant communities that certain heterosexuals do not welcome a homosexual's sexual advances is the public act of intimidating gays and people who care about them in general.
McKinney and Henderson utilize one body's injury in order to teach entire bodies of people to conform to heterosexism. Through injuring a gay man's body and exhibiting that injury, McKinney and Henderson struggle to maintain the heterosexual privilege of communicating sexual advances with only other heterosexuals and not homosexuals. I contend that although this umbrella statement may be true in some larger context, it does not encompass many other instances. For example, it does not accurately describe the kind of heterosexual privilege in this particular community. I suspect that in conservative spaces sexual initiation remains men's preoccupations. Since in many conservative communities contemporary American men initiated sexual interest to women, the turf that McKinney and Henderson are defending is the territory reserved for heterosexual men to "hit on" women of interest.
Hitting on a woman does not necessarily equal to expressing sexual interest for further sexual contact. Rather than being a means to an end, that of showing sexual interest for the purpose of obtaining more sexual activity, "hitting on" could be an end in and of itself. "Hitting on" a woman could simply entail visually enjoying her body. To "hit on" a woman means to visually penetrate her, "checking her out" in a way that serves the observer's interests above all else. The right to look is a pleasure reserved for men. The collective right to look makes the male gaze powerful and socially intimidating, without a comparable female gaze that could match in degree. There is no female equivalent of the male gaze. The right to look translates to the ability to objectify human bodies that are female. The male gaze successfully intimidates because it carries the ability to make object what was subject, with respect to the human body. Shepard's attackers see or believe they see that they are being hit on as if they were women. Thus the turf that McKinney and Henderson want to protect is heterosexual as well as masculine. To Shepard's attackers, patriarchy is the right of men to "hit on" women while remaining safe from not being "hit on" by anyone else, especially another man.
Patriarchy, imbued with hierarchical meanings, gives heterosexual men something to loose. As practiced in contemporary America, patriarchy uses homophobia as structural support. Gay bashing exemplifies homosocial behavior's contribution to US patriarchy. The human body is both an object in which one lives and a site of political articulation. The struggles within many societies begin and end within the terrain of the human body, which though has no referential meaning becomes embodied by meaning within context that ultimately has a stake in the body. .
1. Kaufman, Moises. 2001. The Laramie Project. New York: First Vintage Books.
2. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1985. Between Men. New York: Columbia University Press.
| WHO Public Health Reform Name: Mo Convery Date: 2004-11-24 14:00:01 Link to this Comment: 11763 |
International public health policies attempt to reform the social and political systems which influence the health and safety of all citizens of the world. In the past, these policies have been created through the strong reliance on and exploitation of socially constructed systems of classification such as gender, sexuality, nationality, and economic class. It has been a system of correlation between the behaviors which seem prevalent within social groupings and chances that those behaviors will lead to disease transmition or infestation. In January 2004, the World Health Organization announced a radical change in their policies surrounding public health study and prevention in the 2004 World Report on violence and health. Instead of focusing on larger global and national trends, the WHO called for an expansion of policies and increase of resources which focused more on the experiences and support of individuals rather than groups. This value of individual experience holds extreme promise in the expansion and effectiveness of public health initiatives as well has changes many societal systems of classifications.
For the past two decades, the main belief pervading social health policy was that group dynamics are the driving force behind disease and violence within culture. The chance that an individual would endure bodily harm for any such reason was not dependant on personal choice or experience, but rather they were a victim of social constructs. Outreach programs and public health initiatives focused on attacking the social dynamics and beliefs. Those groups with the highest prevalence of disease/violence or behavior believed to lead to such harm where the main targets. The international collation took this emphasis on social patterns by placing public health dialogue into the international forum. The WHO stressed establishment of universal "priorities". Research done at both national and international levels was meant to focus on the problems deemed most important on the international level. Moreover, international scientific forums were established and supported to increase collaboration and exchange of information on high priority topics. Nations abiding by UN laws were required to form National Action Plans with the needs of the international community in mind. While this international emphasis did a tremendous amount of good in forming a forum of public discourse and combating larger patterns of social violence/disease, it had serious deficiencies in practical application on an individual basis.
The recent report made by the WHO projected several ways in they and individual nations can expand this international position to include a more personal approach. Instead of focusing on the group dynamics and larger statistical patterns the WHO urged public health organizations worldwide to place value on individual experience and expand the forums which public health initiatives are discussed. Firstly, they urged the enhancement of data collection on the community level. Instead of relying on statistical correlation between group membership and behavior, organizations should be relying more heavily on case studies and individual experience dialogue. While this position may be more time consuming and financially draining, it will give a more diverse picture of the range of experience, cause, and effect.
The WHO urged for a promotion of primary response for both the victims and perpetrators. They believed that all individuals should feel that their personal rights and health are supported by the state and that they are aware of the proper modes of legal action and disease treatment available to them. This would allow for disease transmition to be limited and victims of violence to be treated accordingly. It also holds perpetrators responsible for their actions. If there are clear consequences for violence directed at another person, it is believed that less people would attempt such actions or at the very least be held accountable for their actions. This system of justice would also be upheld on the international level.
The WHO also urged for a more diverse and comprehensive range of social and educational polices and initiatives in the community level. One of the main deficiencies in the past focus on group dynamic was that "at risk" groups were more educated about prevention and response resources while the rest of the community was neglected. These differences in education lead to large discrepancies between people's knowledge of individual rights and health. What became strikingly clear was that violence and disease were not contained by social constructions and that the groups at risk were flexible. It is more important to educate a community as a whole as a preventative measure than it is to focus on the one group of individuals that were suffering from it at one point in time. When a public health institution is able to more completely integrate their knowledge into educational and social policies, the more individuals will receive the needed information and hence prevent disease and violence rather than just combat it.
It is strikingly clear that this shift to emphasis on individual experience is leading to constructive changes in public health systems and policies. First and foremost this change allows a more diverse understanding of cause and effect for violence and disease transmition to develop. This is extremely valuable to groups that for one reason or another are marginalized in social constructed groups and were not getting the education or support of liberties that other groups received.
This diversity of understanding allows for the formulation of more effective programs for outreach and prevention. In placing value in the individual experience, a more complex and comprehensive understanding of disease and violence is able to form. Patterns within these experience and more direct root causes may be able to reveal themselves. Thus the true nature of the disease/violence is able to form. Thus, educational programs can better address the problems at hand and more efficiently get their point across. Furthermore, when public health organizations no longer limit themselves to working within socially constructed groups, they have much more freedom in the defining the proper methods in which to educate and reinforce health rights. They are able to prevent not only within one community, but many.
Most importantly, this value of the individual challenges the reliance on social constructions and classifications in policy formation. By listening to every individual affected by disease and violence, public health institutions are placing equal value on individuals from varying groups. This stance challenges the tendency to classify behavior with social classifications which often placed blame where blame was not due. It also dares individuals to not be restricted in their analysis of disease to denounce their risk due to lack of affiliation. It forces people to see their risk and role in the prevalence of disease and violence and own up to possible responsibility. Once more individuals are able to assess their true risk and see how their behavior fits within this system, they will be more apt to take a more defined active or passive role.
This equalization of experience is so vitally important to those individuals once viewed as marginalized within their communities. No experience should be overlooked or neglected. Rather, each individual is an integral part of the social framework and whose experience can no longer be neglected. In American culture were marginalized groups are often blamed for social ills or believed to be punished through disease and violence, this international stand forces people to think beyond their insular thoughts. Not only does the WHO officially state that all individuals have the same right to health, but it holds governments and communities up to that standard.
Laws and policies have a way of challenging social constructions where social dialogue is not able. It holds individuals to a standard where consequences are clearly present. While an international approach to disease/violence education and research is extremely important for a global community, public health policies are able to be most effective when taken at the level of the individual. Beyond effectiveness, this stance challenges the very social classifications that often limit people from getting the help and support that the need both at the preventative and response level. These recent amendments to the WHO public health policies promote changes extending far beyond the basic level of health a safety to the framework of cultures that are known to promote oppression.
| The Politics of Gender in the Debate over Same Sex Name: David Litt Date: 2004-11-24 14:46:10 Link to this Comment: 11764 |
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David Little
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality
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Fall 2004
November 24, 2004
The Politics of Gender in the Debate over Same Sex Marriage
Legislation is deeply entrenched in language and the continual process of interpretation. Laws are created as a response to cultural and societal needs, wants and norms and are restructured and interpreted as these desires and standards change over time. The importance of the words chosen and the syntax used in order to translate society's standards into legislation are amplified over time because they are continuously deconstructed, examined, and analyzed. As these laws are applied to and challenged by society, policymakers must examine them and then change them through discourse and dialogue. As current sentiments towards marriage are changing and shifting, policymakers must begin to examine our nation's legislation that dictates how marriage works in our country. They must attempt to create a policy that is ethical and constitutional which at the same time accurately represents the majority's opinions.
The issue of same-sex marriage became relevant in the recent election due to the actions of courts and local officials in both California and Massachusetts. President Bush proposed an Amendment that would limit marriage rights to only heterosexual couples in all states. Many government officials felt that this was unnecessary due to the success of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which John Kerry, who would come to run against George W. Bush in 2004, spoke out against. The Act passed through both the House and Senate with resounding majorities. Because of the media attention of the same-sex marriage debate in this election year, constituents of both parties have examined the arguments that both Bush and Kerry have made for and against legislation which limits marriage rights. By examining the rhetoric and legislative interpretation of both John Kerry's argument against the Defense of Marriage Act and George Bush's call for a Federal Marriage Amendment, one can analyze the ways in which two individuals can deconstruct and restructure the same legislation in order to argue two diametrically opposed points.
In his 1996 speech against the Defense of Marriage Act, John Kerry chose to speak not only of the legal implications of the law but took the opportunity to step back from the politics of Washington DC and consider the human, embodied, and gendered effect of this law on our Nation. John Kerry, in 1996 and 2004, does not support a homosexual couple's right to marry yet he has spoken out against proposed legislation which is based on the denial of a right to someone who is a homosexual. In his speech, he criticizes the use of the word "defense" in the title of the act saying that if it was truly concerned with defending marriage it would, " provide for counseling," "guarantee day care," and "expand protection of abused children" among many other things (232). This, he argues, would be defending marriage against that which threatens it. In order to defend, one must first be put on the defensive by offensive and threatening actions and behaviors. Marriage is threatened by alcoholism, domestic violence, etc. but not by the fact that two people of the same gender love each other.
Unlike Bush and the conservative voice on the issue of same-sex marriage, Kerry, and other liberals, are not afraid of taking about the issue of gender and love when it comes to marriage. Kerry points out, "For a bill which purports to defend and regulate marriage, there has been so little talk of love." (237) Kerry not only focuses of legislative precedent and ethics, but on the human element of the consequences of the Defense of Marriage Act. In 2004, when President George W. Bush, called for a federal amendment that would, in essence, write the Defense of Marriage Act into the constitution, no talk of love, human life, and barely even gender was made.
Bush and other conservatives selected to leave these issues out of their argument citing only court battles, legislation, and statistics. Bush speaks of societal institutions and national interest when discussing an issue of emotion and love. By ignoring the human element of marriage, Bush can disembody and abstract gays and lesbians to an idea that can threaten our, "basic social institutions" and force people not see them as simply people who are in love, which is quite simply what two people who wish to marry are (343). The power afforded to the conservative voice by being able to abstract the LGBTQ population is incredible because it allows them to define how they are represented to the general public and can therefore perpetuate ungrounded fears in the conservative coalition.
By choosing to focus on the human element of the marriage debate, liberals like John Kerry can appeal to the section of the American population which is concerned with the preservation and expansion of a citizen's rights but the conservative approach of playing into the weaknesses and fears of conservative heterosexual faction of American population, they can offer a scapegoat. Many people believe this issue was brought into the spotlight in order to distract people from the deplorable condition of Bush's war in Iraq. It provided the conservative base an enemy against whom it could rally. It provided a cohesion to conservatives everywhere that was lost due to the state of the war. By examining the ways in which each candidate structured there argument considering same-sex marriage legislation, one can gain insight into the interplay between the two parties on a national and a personal level.
| Maquiladoras and the Exploitation of Women's Bodie Name: Sierra Jor Date: 2004-11-24 15:01:39 Link to this Comment: 11765 |
The exploitation of and war on women's bodies in Juárez was set in motion long before they began being murdered in large numbers; it was instigated in the maquiladoras were they were working. Juárez is a popular site for US Fortune500 companies to place factories that have very law cost and optional taxes. The more than 500 maquiladoras operating in Juárez have drawn an influx of Mexicans who hope to get rich quickly. While the workers in maquiladoras are better of financially than they would be anywhere else, the maquiladora environment and cities are far from ideal. Maquiladoras employ mostly young women.(2)
In a machismo culture women are preferred to men as workers in the maquiladoras because they can be paid substantially lower wages, while they also have better manual dexterity. Years of sexist attitudes have created an environment where this pay gap not only possible but entirely acceptable. The average wage is from four to seven dollars for a nine-hour work day and there are no benefits offered to workers. Not only do these US run factories play into the Mexican stereotype of women's inferiority, they also use stereotypes about women's abilities and characteristics. Women are believed to have greater manual dexterity than men and they are therefore preferred by companies who want to maximize their production. Women who are hired for their supposed superiority to men when it comes to manual dexterity, a trade essential to a maquiladora worker, are ironically paid much less despite their valued trait. It is clear that the degree to which the women are devalued is far greater than the degree to which their ability and production is valued. Women's bodies are being exploited in factories where they are being paid ridiculously low wages based on a cultural belief that men superior to women, that women belong in the household and that men belong in the workplace. They are then paid significantly less partly to reinforce this ideal—to keep men as the leaders of the household--and partly in order to reinforce the stereotypes about the submissive and inferior nature of women.
Women, particularly mestizas(3) , are also favored because of "cultural upbringing that encourages total serviceability" (Castillo, 2004). Women in Mexico are raised to believe in compliancy and submissiveness. Women of mixed blood have a double pressure to be submissive because they generally inhabit the lower classes, where the upper classes are generally comprised of fairer skinned Mexicans of European decent. These women not only have to submit to the authority of men, but the upper classes as well. By hiring submissive women maquiladoras are more easily able to exploit the women—who are to them simply bodies filling their factories. They are not only able to pay lower wages, but they are able to offer little or no benefits. Even companies who claim to offer benefits often don't follow through with it. Women are also made to and accept working in dire conditions with often no breaks and very short lunch periods. When the women do try to improve their working conditions they are immediately dismissed. For example, in one factory a few women tried to have a cafeteria set up in the maquiladora and they were immediately fired.
Maquiladoras are able to fire their workers so easily because they consider the women simply bodies in the factories. The women workers are not valued individually for their work for many reasons. One of the reasons is the vast number of women in the area that are able and willing to work. When the factories in Juárez began opening there was a huge migration from all over Mexico and the migration continues in a smaller degree still today. There are many more women available where all of the women in the factories came from and many of them even come to the factories in hope of work everyday. Also, because the labor in factories is unskilled and easy to learn any pair of hands, eyes, or essentially any body is sufficient to do the work. The person is not important as long as the work is done and the product created. This displays the perceived interchangeability of women and their bodies. All women are the same and valued only—and very little at that—for the product that they produce. Therefore women are dismissed or sent home at whim for reasons—real or unreal—such as inadequate performance, tardiness, or delinquency.
Once women are employed by a factory that factory does very little to protect that woman's body, in fact they often put a lot of strain on it and cause harm to it. Women are put under terrible conditions in the factories in which they work. They have to do "relentless, concentrated work" that is very "hard on the eye" which may cause their eyesight to become bad and unacceptable for the job (Vulliamy, 2003). This in turn could cause their body to be no longer usable by the factory. At which point that woman's body will be replaced by another woman's body. Not only do the working conditions wear down women's bodies, but in many cases women bodies are violated by others; they are often raped and beaten while at work. This is perfectly acceptable and rarely prosecuted because it is frequently considered the woman's fault that she was subjected to these actions. In fact, her mere presence in the factory violates cultural beliefs about a woman's place. The men who rape and beat these women may believe that they have a right, even a duty to exert their force on these women to put them back in their places.
The conditions in which women are traveling to and from work also put their bodies in danger. Companies do not provide transportation to and from the maquiladoras. Women frequently walk alone to and from busses and even to and from work. It is usually in this transit that women disappear. Employers also have a practice of sending home women for being the slightest bit late. Claudia Gonzalez was sent home for being only three minutes late for work and she attempted to walk home. She went missing and her body was found a month later. Factories also make shift changes that take women off of shifts with friends and family members and place them on shifts that require them to travel alone. Women are also motivated to take later shifts because they pay a few cents more but the difference is significant enough. These women with late shifts leave after dark with no security present making them susceptible to kidnapping, even making abduction easy. Factories, though, are not motivated to take action and feel no responsibility to provide security for their workers because the murders do not occur on factory property. In fact the "North America Free Trade Agreement exempts the sweatshops from any laws requiring them to provide better security—because such laws might interfere with 'the ability to make profit,'" which is more important to these companies than the women they employ (Dellit, 2003).
The bodies of the women of Juárez are first exploited and injured in the factories. And, there mere existence in the factories goes against societal norms that require them to be at home. This violation of the cultural norm may be part of the reason why their bodies are later abducted, raped, mutilated and later left in the desert. This phenomenon of murder is a clear message to the women of Juárez that they are overstepping their bounds and that the murders will continue—either until views change or the women step back into their prescribed roles.
1. Spanish word for factory. Used to refer to the factories in Mexico run by American companies where many of the women of Juárez work.
2. Although most of these factories have an official policy of hiring only women aged sixteen or older, many workers can forge documents and be hired as young as twelve possibly younger.
3. Mestiza means mixed in Spanish. Mestiza was originally used to refer to someone with mixed native and European blood.
| Mothers Go Political: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo Name: Gilda Rodr Date: 2004-11-24 15:37:03 Link to this Comment: 11766 |
During the Argentine dictatorship known as the Dirty War (1976-1983), thousands of people were systematically abducted by the government in order to eliminate all opposition to the regime. These "disappearances," which the dictatorship never admitted to committing, happened across class and age lines, but most of the kidnapped were young blue-collar workers and students. Despite the fact that associations and meetings of any kind were forbidden, a group of housewife mothers decided to protest the disappearance of their children. They began to gather every Thursday afternoon at the same time in the main square in Buenos Aires, Plaza de Mayo, walking alone or in pairs to avoid being arrested for disorderly conduct and wearing white kerchiefs on their heads to be easily identifiable. By showcasing their grief in public, the Madres turned their motherhood and their bodies into political tools to hold the government accountable for its actions.
Traditionally, motherhood in Latin America is restricted to the realm of the private. Diana Taylor explains that "'public' women [...] are considered prostitutes or madwomen—that is, nonmothers, even antimothers," while "good mothers are invisible," because they stay home with their children (1). However, the Madres carved for themselves a third position that broke this dichotomy. Their identity was based on their motherhood, but they could no longer restrict it to the private, lacking children for whom to stay home. The Madres were in fact called locas (madwomen) by many, who considered that their public grieving was inappropriate. But despite this, no one could deny them their rightful status as mothers.
Considered "one of the most visible political discourses to terror in recent Latin American history," by Mario Suárez-Orozco (2), the success of Madres' movement is dependent on their performance of their role of mourning mothers, even as they apparently contradict the notion of "good" motherhood by going out on the streets. Taylor credits them with "perceive[ing] and literally act[ing] out the difference between motherhood as an individual identity and motherhood as a collective, political performance." (3) The image of the Mater Dolorosa gave them legitimacy and visibility in a culture known for putting mothers in a pedestal. Thus, the Madres, usually outside the political, made the personal political by both crying for their lost children in public and by converting a private/personal role (being "madres") into a public/political weapon (being "The Madres").
Since their political power depended on their conventional role (despite their redefinition of it), it follows that the Madres' form of protest is not violent, disruptive action. While it can be argued that the somewhat passive, or more "feminine," nature of the movement is due to the repression exercised by the military regime, it is also true that the Madres could not risk putting their bodies on the line, as, for example, male members of guerrillas would, because they have a responsibility to care for their homes, their husbands, and possibly even remaining children. Their form of protest goes together with both their identity and the goal they are fighting for. If the Madres die in bringing their children back, who would take care of those children when the movement succeeds?
Elaine Scarry (4) calls war a contest of injury of bodies, where the winner out-injures the loser. The Dirty War fits this description, as the government kidnapped and tortured the bodies of thousands of people in order to maintain itself in power. The Madres struggle is also about bodies: without their children physically present, they have no way of mothering them, or performing their own identity. The concept of bodies themselves became so meaningful to the movement that it eventually resulted in its division. Today, two different groups of Madres still gather at Plaza de Mayo. One, which kept the original name, is committed to bringing the disappeared back alive. The other, Línea Fundadora (Founding Group), has resigned itself to accepting that many of those people were killed. These women are dedicated to claiming the dead bodies that have surfaced and "bringing the perpetrators to justice." (5)
The political importance of bodies goes beyond the physicality of the disappeared. The Madres themselves use their bodies to make statements. The white kerchief that they wear every Thursday has become a symbol of the opposition to the Dirty War, and is even sold as souvenir these days. Furthermore, the Madres turned their bodies into "walking billboards" (6) by wearing pictures of the disappeared hanging from their necks or taped to their clothes, where they also write the names of their children and pleas for their reappearance (7). The dictatorship established its authority by making bodies "invisible;" the Madres responded by making their own extremely visible.
While it was impossible to ignore the presence of the Madres, despite the government's efforts for the contrary, the absence of fathers in protesting the disappearance of their own children was seldom noted. Even though most of the Madres were married, very few men ever joined them in their efforts. Suárez-Orozco refers to this as a "gender bifurcation," where the fathers (and men ergo public figures) turned inward and grieved in private. This apparent switch in conventional gender roles led to some, such as Madres' leader Hebé de Bonafini, to refer to the mothers as "the only ones who had balls." (8) The masculinization of the Madres as somehow having testicles does not take away from their cause, but rather reinforces their redefinition of motherhood as a powerful resource, capable of spawning change or, more literally, to give children to the childless mothers.
It is also true that because of Argentine society's reverence towards mothers and its relegation of women to the private sphere, men would have been at a much greater risk had they decided to speak out against the disappearances. "Masculine," or more violent, forms of action would have resulted on the fathers getting jailed or killed or disappearing in the same way as their children had. Although some Madres did suffer from repressive government action, they were for the most part left alone, pretending they did not exist in the same way the dictatorship pretended it had nothing to do with the disappearances (9). As I said above, the nature of the Madres' movement both suits and relies on their feminine and motherly traits.
Virginia Woolf says in Three Guineas that women are instruments of peace because, unlike men, they are not nationalist or patriotic, but cosmopolitan (10). Although Woolf based this idea on the fact that women used to acquire their citizenship from their husbands, it applies in the case of the Madres in that they were willing to go against the government and, by extension, their country, in order to bring their children back. Woolf calls women the "Outsiders' Society" (11) because they were not afraid to transgress the boundaries of patriotism to do what is right.
The Madres were outsiders in this way, but, more importantly, in that they were able to enter the political realm on their own terms, which stemmed directly from the private/outsider role. Unable, because of whom they were and the historical moment, to use traditional avenues of political agency, they used their own selves (their bodies and their identities) to effect political change. The personal and the political became connected and inseparable for them when their children were abducted. Woolf talks about how forgetting the existing unity of the private and the political leads to "dead bodies, ruined houses" (12) The Madres used that same unity to bring back their children, or even just their bodies, and rebuild their broken homes.
WORKS CITED
1. Taylor, Diana. "Trapped in Bad Scripts: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo". Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War". Durham, NC: Duke UP. 1997. 195.
2. Taylor 191.
3. Taylor 194.
4. Scarry, Elaine. "The Structure of War." The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World . New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 63-121.
5. Taylor 189.
6. Taylor 183.
7. Navarro. "The Personal is Political: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo." Power and Popular Protest. Latin American Social Movements . Ed.Susan Eckstein. 1989. 251
8. Taylor 193.
9. Navarro 244.
10. Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas. 1938; rpt. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1966. 108.
11. Woolf 106.
12. Woolf 142-143.
| For the Love of Shoes Name: Arielle Ab Date: 2004-11-24 17:12:16 Link to this Comment: 11769 |
For the Love of Shoes
As I watch a fellow student teeter down the stairs in the campus center, her normally flamboyant bounce is no where to be seen as she tensely grips the guardrail. She lowers herself delicately down, each step carefully calculated. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot- and she makes it to the bottom without mishap. The culprits encumbering her normally wild grace are easily discerned; her shoes. Her feet are wrapped up in four inch- plus a one inch platform to make for a total of five inches- fire engine red heels. They're strappy sandals that lace half way up her calves with a silk ribbon and have effectively made walking an ordeal. Why do we do this? Well darling, because "Shoes are hot!" (Benstock & Ferriss p1)
That's right, shoes are hot, and the hottest ones of all are high heels. They're collected, worn, and loved by women across the globe. They're everywhere. They run rampant in books, calendars, photographs, album and movie covers, dangling in miniature precious metal versions from earlobes and chains, and let's not forget the most important place- women's closets.
Shoes are no longer something one simply wears on their feet, but a passion, a hobby, one's personal statement, a source of authority, sexual independence and joy. They're a constant obsession in pop culture, endlessly talked about and fetishized in television, movies, song lyrics, and seem to be worn without fail by glamorous celebrities no matter the occasion. The most notorious of the shoe loving pop culture media is of the smash HBO series Sex in the City, in which shoes are one it's main themes.
Physically high heel shoes, and specifically the stiletto, are the source of much debate. More and more studies are emerging with resounding voices saying that shoes are physically detrimental. Foot doctors say that continual use of high heels with narrow toe space can actually lead to foot deformities. A clinical professor of orthopedics, Michael J. Coughlin says, "The deformities that often develop after years of wearing high-fashion pumps are similar to foot problems that were formerly seen in Chinese women whose feet had been bound." (Okie in Benstock and Ferriss) Additionally, long time wear of high heels is also being linked to knee arthritis in women, and most recently, back problems.
While health issues may be the immediate issue of high heel detractors, another is mobility. Whether the nine inch heels preferred by strippers or three inch "kitten heels" being worn by teenage girls, they reduce mobility and physical ease to varying degrees. Anyone who has ever worn a pair of stilettos knows the dangers that can ensue- everything from side walk grating, stairs, slick floors, anything faster than a leisure pace, any distance longer than a ten minute stroll, to the impossibility of crossing a lawn without sinking and being left to yank leg while balancing on the ball of the other sinking foot. Caroline Cox, author of the new book Stiletto, says "Not for nothing do we refer to stilettos as killer heels. These are shoes that blatantly contravene the original purpose of footwear: to protect the feet and aid mobility." Not to say that many don't master the art of leaping up stairs or strutting full stream ahead down an urban street, but really it's an art form and one to be sincerely admired.
Advocates however focus on different aspects of the high heel. Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss, coeditors of Footnotes: On Shoes write, "The high heel elongates the leg and increases the arch of the foot, making it appear smaller. It raises the buttocks (as much as 25 percent, according to Harper's Index) and curves the back, pushing the chest forward." In other words, high heels lend curves, length and muscle definition (especially in the calves which are in a perpetual flexed state) in all the right ways to accentuate constructed feminine sexuality.
Many second wave feminists adamantly condemned high heels for this very reason of constructed sexuality and conformance to male dominated ideals of beauty. (Gamman) However, at the end of the eighties, reclamation of female sexuality and desire swept through feminism. Suddenly women were, if not taking a stand in the name of feminism, seemed to be taking a stand for themselves. They wanted to wear stilettos, they wanted to feel sexy, and they enjoyed their stilettos and all the nuances that went along with them.
Along with this physical aspect of sexual power and autonomy, high heels can create feelings of authority. When wearing high heels, one cannot slouch or hang back. Linda O' Keefe, author of Shoes: A Celebration of Pumps, Sandals, Slippers and More writes, "Physically, it is impossible for a woman to cower in high heels. She is forced to take a stand, to strike a pose, because anatomically her center of gravity has been displaced forward." (p71) This, along with the added height, can automatically function as a psychological boost. Suddenly a woman is no longer walking; she is upright and strutting, wearing an accessory which physically seems to propel her forward in life. Simon Doonan, creative director of Barney's in New York says "High heels create a level of authority."
Many women attest to this. In Allison Pearson's bestselling novel I Don't Know How She Does It, the protagonist is a professional woman who continually refers to the "armor" she wears into the office. Whenever she has a particular need to impress, her suits get more expensive and her shoes get taller, she pointedly says "Walking is not the point." The point is power and autonomy.
Furthermore, in today's world of glitzy-glam consumerism and self discovery, one is often found trying to match ones outside accessories with one's perceived self. Who am I? Who are you? Ferriss and Benstock write that there is "...satisfaction we take in having purchased a pair of shoes that 'is us,' that represents us... The fashionable dress of the Western world is one means whereby an always fragmentary self is glued together into a semblance of unified identity. Shoes serve as markers of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and even sexuality." (p4)
The idea of piecing ourselves together with our things can be applied to any accessory or article of clothing, but I argue that shoes are more than that. Power, sexuality and sheer aesthetic pleasure contribute to a love of shoes. Janet Lyon reflects upon the mystery of the love of shoes writing, "How is one to account for this hypnotic allure, for so many generations of modernity's women, of the impractical, foot-deforming, outrageous shoe?....For fabulous shoes are indeed a joy." (Benstock & Ferriss p273)
This is what my research and ideas has thus produced. In my final paper I plan on elaborating more on the ideas of women's love of shoes, mentioning Imelda Marcos and other cases of extreme adoration. As I focused much of my last performance on the idea of pleasure I would like to bring that element into this paper discussing women's enjoyment. I will also explore the simple aesthetics of shoes, and how they are pleasing to the eye. Furthermore I will elaborate on the idea of shoes and identities and I hope to delve deeper into the roles shoes play in the realms of class, race and gender. After more research I hope to be able to write much more in depth about the aspects of power that high heels seem to have. At this point I do not have my bibliography written out. I can either do one for this paper or wait until I have more sources and do the complete one for my final paper.
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| Football Name: Janm McGow Date: 2004-11-26 21:26:52 Link to this Comment: 11772 |
On the night of February second, 2003, family members in thousands of U.S. households gathered together to participate in what is considered by many to be a great and important American tradition, the NFL Super Bowl. After kick-off, in most respects, everyone watched a game that had all the elements of a typical all American football game. Big muscled men threw a leather ball around, ran with it, and violently rammed into each other to the tune of a cheering audience. There were women on the sidelines wearing very tight, revealing clothing dancing for the crowd, and, after about two hours of all this, it was time for the traditional halftime performance of music and entertainment.
It was during this performance where many argue that things began to shift slightly from the norm. For the second year, the performance was going to be produced by MTV, and perhaps in an effort to get more female and younger viewers tuned in, MTV advertised its performance of Justin Timberlake which promised "to shock". Timberlake ended the performance with a singing and dancing collaboration with Janet Jackson, and faithful to MTV's reputation, there was not a lot of singing, but plenty of over the clothing – crotch grabbing and groping of the singers themselves and each other. However, it was Justin's final movement after the words, "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song", where he ripped off part of Jackson's costume exposing her right breast, that triggered enraged viewers across the nation to cover their children's eyes, and call the FCC for justice.
Although an account of these calls is not available for public scrutiny, their sentiments are probably of a similar range to what newspaper and magazine articles today are commenting on the recent incident in an NFL skit. Before the Monday Night Football game on November 15, Terrell Owens sees Desperate Housewives costar Nicollette Sheridan in the locker room wearing only a towel, and says in so many words that he will stay and have sex with her instead of going to the game. This event is now the most talked about obscenity broadcasting controversy since the Justin/Jackson event, and many are suspicious that it's no coincidence that the common denominator of suggested interracial sexual relations - is hiding deep within the public fury.
Foucault, an expert on the societal obsessions with sex in the 18th century, takes note of what the different public discourses about sex can say about a society and their private views on sexual controversies. Foucault explains that one can discover just as much about the view of a society by examining at what is left out of public discourse for example, as looking at what is included. Foucault clarifies, "There are not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses" (Foucault 27). Thus, in order to get a sense of what the private discourse is on the Terrell Owens issue, a good place to begin is what the public discourse is saying, but also what they are brushing over oh so delicately, and or what they are leaving out completely. I first looked at the NFL's website, and then the less directly involved, CNN and ESPN where I found a good range of public discourse on the controversial pre-game skit.
The NFL writers focused on Owen's uncanny ability to create controversy, "Anything I get involved with, I'm obviously a target," Owens explains, "I always make the front page." CNN focused on the "evils" of big business, centering on the FCC head Powell's , "we get a lot of broadcasting companies complaining about indecency enforcement, they seem to be willing to...keep it hot and steamy in order to get the financial gains..." ESPN reported a range of attitudes, from Donovan McNabb "saying that...people were overreacting", to Indianapolis Colts coach, Tony Dungy, finding it racially offensive, "To me that's the first thing I thought of as an African American...I don't think they would have had Bill Parcells or Andy Reid or one of the owners involved in that."
The varied discourses of each article lay out a different group behind the cause of the controversy, and the party who is getting most hurt by it. The ESPN article seems to get closer to the root of the issue. The NFL article linking the praise Owen gets for scoring touch downs with the negative controversy from the NFL sex skit, as though they are the same thing, doesn't add up. The CNN piece goes a little deeper, looking at the pressure placed on networks to use sex as a selling tool. However, the ESPN piece seems best in that it allows specific viewers related to the skit to speak about what exactly was or was not offensive to them. This type of article doesn't just act like the controversy was just about the inevitable excitement from the public about football or sex, rather it gives the African American viewpoint a voice, both from a playmate and friend of Terrell's, as well as an African American coach from another team.
I was surprised to find that the race issue was not taboo, and that an article from ESPN had talked about it openly giving both sides of the argument. If one looks closer however, one notices that with the inclusion of race, came the exclusion of another group. McNabb is also noted as saying, "I'm not saying my wife would have let me do that", showing the morality and control of married players, and their respect for the women in their lives. However, it does not go deeper that this. It asks the minority African American viewpoint, but completely leaves out the minority female one. I want to know, what does McNabb's wife have to say, what does Nicollette Sheridan have to say about the controversy, what do any women involved in football either as spectators, journalists, cheerleaders, wives of the players have to say? Are they being asked, are they refusing to speak, or are they just not being heard? Perhaps one can begin to answer these questions by looking at where and in what context are women are allowed in football.
Let's return back to the football game. Sports and football especially, seem to be a place less segregated by race than almost any other context, right? All those burly toned men focused on the ball, and if you look through their masks, both black and white faces appear. They play as one, working together for the same goal through teamwork, and by showing the world that hyper, grunt, and run, and agile masculinity is so great. They might not all share the same skin tone, but these are men here, there are no girls...or wait, are there? Oh yes, the women on the sidelines in their own special uniforms. They are allowed on the sidelines in skimpy uniforms, and apparently are allowed in the locker room, not as reporters, but with the same uniform requirement as is required on the field. Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, asked, "I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud", but he is again looking in the direction of an overly exposed opinion as Walt Disney would only be another male view. Harvey Araton from the New York Times was one of few reports in a widespread source, I saw that narrowed in on the woman's issue. He asks, "Is this the message the Walt Disney Company wishes to convey to those pig-tailed soccer girls who want to believe they can't have to be decorative objects of desire to get in the game?" He asked a woman, Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation who commented, "what I really want to know is who actually decides to put this on. Is it a father, a father of a daughter?" She continues, "The problem is larger than sports. It's what children are shown from Day 1 in animated movies, women with two-inch waists and huge breasts."
Football is segregated, on the field and in everyone's minds as strong men having sexual objects on the sidelines. The hierarchical segregation of football is of men and women, not black and white. When I began writing this piece, I thought that I was going to find America's interracial fear exposed, and covered up through feminist outbursts, but instead I find the greater societal fear at least in the protected realm of football, seems to be a fear of letting women out of their role as sex object. The fact that other African Americans saw the skit as "classless", that Terrell Owens was slumming it with a slut in the locker room, and this was offensive to African American men who have morality and sexual control, and could have told the girl, "no thanks" is an offense to women. The fact that black men are more likely to sleep with slutty women than white men ignores the fact that sexually promiscuous women are still called sluts. I think the end of Harvey Araton's aricle sums it up best. It isn't that women don't want to be sexual, and even sexual objects, "it's not about the bra or the towel, but about a male-dominated media industry" focusing on male only-views. "An industry engaging in what one if Harvey's co-workers "calls, 'the same old-narrative' with obvious disgust, she added, 'Can't we try another one?'" Well, can't we?
From football players, to coaches, to FCC chairs, to Walt Disney himself, almost all the viewpoints I found on the recent controversy were asking men to comment on the incident. The skit itself and the reaction to the skit in both who was asked about it, and what comments were given show clearly that in an inside / outside scenario, exists in football. Women are on the outside, but are allowed on the inside only if they are "dressed appropriately." The politics of these articles is a demonstration that society allows racial tensions to subside only if the male dominancy of the gender relationship is kept in tact. It is still true that black-men are hyper-sexualized even more so than white football players, so they have a reason to be offended by the stereotype, but in defending himself, but Tony Dungy said nothing about the fact that a female was being objectified. He only clarified that her behavior was wrong, and that society was insulting black men in their association with her. Like Diana Fuss's description of homosexual politics in her piece Inside / Out , the sexual desiring woman, "rubs up against" the heterosexual male, "concentrates and codifies the very real possibility and ever-present threat of a collapse of boundaries, an effacing of limits, and a radical confusion of identities" (Fuss 237).
Works Cited:
Michel Foucault. "We 'Other Victorians'" and "The Repressive Hypothesis."The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction.Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1980. 3-13, 17-49.
Diana Fuss. "Inside/Out." Critical Encounters: Reference and Responsibility in Deconstructive Writing. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995. 233- 240.
Araton, Harvey. New York Times. November 21, 2004.
CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/17/fcc.indecency.ap/index.html
ESPN.com http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1925333
| American Football Scandals, Race, and Women Name: Janm McGow Date: 2004-11-26 21:29:36 Link to this Comment: 11773 |
It was during this performance where many argue that things began to shift slightly from the norm. For the second year, the performance was going to be produced by MTV, and perhaps in an effort to get more female and younger viewers tuned in, MTV advertised its performance of Justin Timberlake which promised "to shock". Timberlake ended the performance with a singing and dancing collaboration with Janet Jackson, and faithful to MTV's reputation, there was not a lot of singing, but plenty of over the clothing – crotch grabbing and groping of the singers themselves and each other. However, it was Justin's final movement after the words, "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song", where he ripped off part of Jackson's costume exposing her right breast, that triggered enraged viewers across the nation to cover their children's eyes, and call the FCC for justice.
Although an account of these calls is not available for public scrutiny, their sentiments are probably of a similar range to what newspaper and magazine articles today are commenting on the recent incident in an NFL skit. Before the Monday Night Football game on November 15, Terrell Owens sees Desperate Housewives costar Nicollette Sheridan in the locker room wearing only a towel, and says in so many words that he will stay and have sex with her instead of going to the game. This event is now the most talked about obscenity broadcasting controversy since the Justin/Jackson event, and many are suspicious that it's no coincidence that the common denominator of suggested interracial sexual relations - is hiding deep within the public fury.
Foucault, an expert on the societal obsessions with sex in the 18th century, takes note of what the different public discourses about sex can say about a society and their private views on sexual controversies. Foucault explains that one can discover just as much about the view of a society by examining at what is left out of public discourse for example, as looking at what is included. Foucault clarifies, "There are not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses" (Foucault 27). Thus, in order to get a sense of what the private discourse is on the Terrell Owens issue, a good place to begin is what the public discourse is saying, but also what they are brushing over oh so delicately, and or what they are leaving out completely. I first looked at the NFL's website, and then the less directly involved, CNN and ESPN where I found a good range of public discourse on the controversial pre-game skit.
The NFL writers focused on Owen's uncanny ability to create controversy, "Anything I get involved with, I'm obviously a target," Owens explains, "I always make the front page." CNN focused on the "evils" of big business, centering on the FCC head Powell's , "we get a lot of broadcasting companies complaining about indecency enforcement, they seem to be willing to...keep it hot and steamy in order to get the financial gains..." ESPN reported a range of attitudes, from Donovan McNabb "saying that...people were overreacting", to Indianapolis Colts coach, Tony Dungy, finding it racially offensive, "To me that's the first thing I thought of as an African American...I don't think they would have had Bill Parcells or Andy Reid or one of the owners involved in that."
The varied discourses of each article lay out a different group behind the cause of the controversy, and the party who is getting most hurt by it. The ESPN article seems to get closer to the root of the issue. The NFL article linking the praise Owen gets for scoring touch downs with the negative controversy from the NFL sex skit, as though they are the same thing, doesn't add up. The CNN piece goes a little deeper, looking at the pressure placed on networks to use sex as a selling tool. However, the ESPN piece seems best in that it allows specific viewers related to the skit to speak about what exactly was or was not offensive to them. This type of article doesn't just act like the controversy was just about the inevitable excitement from the public about football or sex, rather it gives the African American viewpoint a voice, both from a playmate and friend of Terrell's, as well as an African American coach from another team.
I was surprised to find that the race issue was not taboo, and that an article from ESPN had talked about it openly giving both sides of the argument. If one looks closer however, one notices that with the inclusion of race, came the exclusion of another group. McNabb is also noted as saying, "I'm not saying my wife would have let me do that", showing the morality and control of married players, and their respect for the women in their lives. However, it does not go deeper that this. It asks the minority African American viewpoint, but completely leaves out the minority female one. I want to know, what does McNabb's wife have to say, what does Nicollette Sheridan have to say about the controversy, what do any women involved in football either as spectators, journalists, cheerleaders, wives of the players have to say? Are they being asked, are they refusing to speak, or are they just not being heard? Perhaps one can begin to answer these questions by looking at where and in what context are women are allowed in football.
Let's return back to the football game. Sports and football especially, seem to be a place less segregated by race than almost any other context, right? All those burly toned men focused on the ball, and if you look through their masks, both black and white faces appear. They play as one, working together for the same goal through teamwork, and by showing the world that hyper, grunt, and run, and agile masculinity is so great. They might not all share the same skin tone, but these are men here, there are no girls...or wait, are there? Oh yes, the women on the sidelines in their own special uniforms. They are allowed on the sidelines in skimpy uniforms, and apparently are allowed in the locker room, not as reporters, but with the same uniform requirement as is required on the field. Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, asked, "I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud", but he is again looking in the direction of an overly exposed opinion as Walt Disney would only be another male view. Harvey Araton from the New York Times was one of few reports in a widespread source, I saw that narrowed in on the woman's issue. He asks, "Is this the message the Walt Disney Company wishes to convey to those pig-tailed soccer girls who want to believe they can't have to be decorative objects of desire to get in the game?" He asked a woman, Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation who commented, "what I really want to know is who actually decides to put this on. Is it a father, a father of a daughter?" She continues, "The problem is larger than sports. It's what children are shown from Day 1 in animated movies, women with two-inch waists and huge breasts."
Football is segregated, on the field and in everyone's minds as strong men having sexual objects on the sidelines. The hierarchical segregation of football is of men and women, not black and white. When I began writing this piece, I thought that I was going to find America's interracial fear exposed, and covered up through feminist outbursts, but instead I find the greater societal fear at least in the protected realm of football, seems to be a fear of letting women out of their role as sex object. The fact that other African Americans saw the skit as "classless", that Terrell Owens was slumming it with a slut in the locker room, and this was offensive to African American men who have morality and sexual control, and could have told the girl, "no thanks" is an offense to women. The fact that black men are more likely to sleep with slutty women than white men ignores the fact that sexually promiscuous women are still called sluts. I think the end of Harvey Araton's aricle sums it up best. It isn't that women don't want to be sexual, and even sexual objects, "it's not about the bra or the towel, but about a male-dominated media industry" focusing on male only-views. "An industry engaging in what one if Harvey's co-workers "calls, 'the same old-narrative' with obvious disgust, she added, 'Can't we try another one?'" Well, can't we?
From football players, to coaches, to FCC chairs, to Walt Disney himself, almost all the viewpoints I found on the recent controversy were asking men to comment on the incident. The skit itself and the reaction to the skit in both who was asked about it, and what comments were given show clearly that in an inside / outside scenario, exists in football. Women are on the outside, but are allowed on the inside only if they are "dressed appropriately." The politics of these articles is a demonstration that society allows racial tensions to subside only if the male dominancy of the gender relationship is kept in tact. It is still true that black-men are hyper-sexualized even more so than white football players, so they have a reason to be offended by the stereotype, but in defending himself, but Tony Dungy said nothing about the fact that a female was being objectified. He only clarified that her behavior was wrong, and that society was insulting black men in their association with her. Like Diana Fuss's description of homosexual politics in her piece Inside / Out , the sexual desiring woman, "rubs up against" the heterosexual male, "concentrates and codifies the very real possibility and ever-present threat of a collapse of boundaries, an effacing of limits, and a radical confusion of identities" (Fuss 237).
Works Cited:
Michel Foucault. "We 'Other Victorians'" and "The Repressive Hypothesis."The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction.Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1980. 3-13, 17-49.
Diana Fuss. "Inside/Out." Critical Encounters: Reference and Responsibility in Deconstructive Writing. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995. 233- 240.
Araton, Harvey. New York Times. November 21, 2004.
CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/17/fcc.indecency.ap/index.html
ESPN.com http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1925333
| Bodies Name: Maryssa Do Date: 2004-11-29 07:52:48 Link to this Comment: 11780 |
On October 6, 1998 Aaron McKinney and Russel Henderson crossed paths in life with Mathew Shepard. McKinney and Henderson came from poor rural backgrounds, earned criminal records, lived in trailer parks and fixed roofs for a living. Shepard came from more privileged family background and studied as a student at the University of Wyoming. Shepard frequented Fireside, a college bar where McKinney and Henderson also drank that particular night. In a casual chat, Shepard told McKinney and Henderson that he was gay. The three left the bar together because Shepard believed that McKinney and Henderson were driving him home.
In the truck McKinney began hitting Shepard, approximately three times with his fist and six times with his pistol. Later in court, McKinney would testify that he assaulted Shepard who placed his hand on his leg, seemed to be reaching for his balls, and thus triggered his "Gay Panic Defense" which the law stipulates as a mechanism in response to the sexual advancement made by gays. After severely beating up Shepard in the moving truck Henderson tie Shepard onto a fence on the lonely mountains of Laramie. McKinney pistol whipped Shepard several more times in an attempt to later prevent police involvement when Shepard managed to read the truck's license plate at McKinney's orders. McKinney and Henderson left Shepard to die, midair in the freezing night of the wilderness.
Eighteen hours later a biker discovered a deathly Shepard after having initially mistaken his five foot one inch, seriously injured body for a scarecrow. The biker reported the crime to the police and the first officer who arrived at the scene later described Shepard's face completely covered in dried blood except for the bloodless streaks that his flowing tears had run off. EMT rushed a barely breathing Shepard to the Ivinson Hospital emergency room where doctors decided that the patient needed to be transferred to Poudre Valley Hospital for neurosurgery. Ironically Dr. Cantway, the physician who treated Shepard also treated McKinney twenty minutes prior to Shepard's arrival two rooms down the hall.
In an interview for The Laramie Project, McKinney's girlfriend Kristin Price told writers that the two men went to the bathroom where they planned to put on a gay pretense in order to lead Shepard to the truck and rob him as punishment for "coming on to straight people." Price described the punishment as a lesson that the two men were intending to teach Shepard.
In Juarez, Mexico an unknown, estimated between 300 and 600, number of young women have disappeared and been murdered in the last decade. They are all young, poor, workers or students who look about the same. Often the girls are beaten and gang raped before being killed. Very little is being done about these murders at the governmental level in Mexico, but they have drawn national and international attention. Women gather weekly in Mexico to protest and hold vigils to send a message that these murders must be stopped. While on three different occasions suspects have been arrested, the murders continued, often within days and the cases of the suspects were mishandled.
There is an interesting gender and class dynamic that is in effect in this situation. Most of the young women were workers in Juarez's maquiladoras. The environment in the maquiladora's made the murders quite easy. Women wait for busses early in the morning with no protection, are often sent home from work if they are even a few minutes late and leave late at night with no security guards or protection. A recent debate over rape laws where the sentence for rapers would be reduced from four to one years if the raper could prove that the woman had provoked him illustrates "that, in a society where men cannot be charged with raping their wives and domestic abuse is rarely prosecuted, authorities simply do not take violence against women seriously enough." This is why many believe that the crimes were not committed by one person, but many people because they realize that they can get away with this violence with no consequence.
Madres de Plaza de Mayo is a movement of Argentinean housewife mothers who to this day protest the disappearance of their children and grandchildren during the Dirty War, a period of dictatorship in the 1970s. Since associating and forming groups was forbidden under the dictatorial regime, these women began to take walks around Plaza de Mayo, the main square in Buenos Aires, at the same time every week. Walking alone, or in pairs, their presence did not break the law, but it did allow them to share their grief with other mothers suffering the same plight and, more importantly, to send a message to the government: they wanted their children back alive.
The Madres were ridiculed and called locas ("madwomen") by many in Argentina, because they thought that their cause was pointless, and that, as mothers, the Madres should grieve in private. This illustrates the dichotomy prevalent in the Argentinean gender politics of the time, where a "public" woman could not be a good mother, and good mothers could only exist within the "private" realm of motherhood. By gathering at Plaza de Mayo, the Madres upset this binary. While "going public" is a transgression of traditional motherhood, the performance of their tragedy is only valid and effective precisely because they are mothers. By taking their children away, the dictatorship forced these women to stop being mothers, both because they no longer have anyone to take care of and because they are out on the streets. Bringing back their children would also restore their motherhood.
In Three Guineas, Woolf claims that women work with each other in groups outside the main stream, working away from the patriarchal systems upon which men have learned to rely. She, for the most part, uses examples from her own time period, the 1930's, and place, England. Women have been creating and working within such groups all over the world for many years.
Women, on both sides of the Civil War, worked within the restrictions of their social classes to help with the war. In the South, Southern 'belles' often donated jewelry or other items of value as a 'lady-like' way to give support to the war. In the North, women pledged to refrain from buying luxuries and other unnecessary goods as a sign of solidarity with the troops. Women on both sides became nurses and often read letters from home to troops as a way to improve morale. It was rare, but not unheard of, for women to disguise themselves as men and become soldiers themselves.
"The term "war hero" usually refers to a man who unselfishly risks his life to fight." (AAS Online Exhibitions, A Woman's Work Is Never Done) Few women actually went into battle, but many aided the war effort in their own way. One of the most famous of these women is Molly Pitcher who brought water to the soldiers on the field and worked with the wounded and dying. Other women took over their husbands' roles on the farm or in the family business while he and their sons went to fight the British.
Women have become more and more integrated into the military, especially in Western countries such as the United States. Female soldiers have fought on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Women's bodies have been used in military and non-military capacities in many incidences throughout history.
The human body is both an object in which one lives and a site of political articulation. The struggles within many societies begin and end within the terrain of the human body, which though has no referential meaning becomes embodied by meaning within context that has a stake in and of itself.
| Gender Politics Name: Jana McGow Date: 2004-11-29 07:56:24 Link to this Comment: 11781 |
In our book we explore the possible harmful impact of social stigmatization on issues such as same-sex marriage, intersexual appearance, obscenity in the media and the arts, and the sexualized appearance of women. We will use these topics to highlight the broader implication of social stigmatization through a series of questions: Who is being offended? What exactly is obscene? Who is being attacked? What are the rules, social or legal, regarding censorship or categorization? Do we as a social body have enormous influence over our media and political systems or is it just the opposite? If something is controversial, should it be celebrated or condemned? Through media, rhetoric, art and physical bodies we explore these questions and the social implications of the answers.
Due to the diversity of topics in our book, we will be able to illuminate American pop culture from five distinct lenses. Despite the broad range of topics, they all share a common thread of cultural imposition. We will explore language, imagery, ideals and their interwoven nuances and meanings. We will be looking at agency and the driving forces that are behind each issue. We want to know who is saying what, how they are saying it, and the reasons behind why they saying it in that particular way. Who is behind the decisions we make?
We will examine the myth of normality and what constitutes the "other." This book would like to entertain the idea that normal is an illusion, a social construction that is holding these conservative ideals in place by pressuring individuals to conform. Whether it be the issues of language, high heels, obscenity, marriage, or gender, the fact is that there is no normal. That there are individuals whose identities and ideals exist outside language demonstrate the social pressure and stigmatization that this book wants to emphasize as problematic to our freedom to choose our own identities and lifestyles. It is important to pay attention to language and its inadequacy to speak for those who deviate from mainstream society and its acceptable practices, its norms, because this contributes to the bipolar world of right and wrong of whose existence the current administration is trying to convince us. The world is not black and white but shades of gray, and the act of trying to fit everyone and everything into neat categories is an impossibility that this book will strive to persuade you, the readers, to acknowledge. It is important that we pay attention to how are morals are imposed and whether or not we have the right to self-imposed morals.
This book wants to argue that diversity and the individual are being suffocated and are perhaps even in danger of being wiped out. There is an urgent need for us to examine the world in which we are living and to ask the questions that we seek answers to in this project. Do we create the ideas we see in pop culture, the media, art, classifications, language, laws, and debates? Does this broader culture of morals, stigmas and stereotypes represent us and accurately reflect who and what we are in America? Or does the opposite happen? Do we do as we're told by some larger infamous "they" or perhaps "The Man"? Do we internalize propaganda, media, language innuendos, and then perpetuate the ideals they project onto us? Who controls society, the media, the agendas, the stigmas, the issues?
Our book will examine these questions through the diverse issues of women's love of backbreaking shoes, gendered language in legislature surrounding same-sex marriage, the need to bipolarize gender and how hermaphrodites are forced to be either all male or all female, censorship and what is considered "obscene" art and why, and lastly, the possibility of separating one issue such as race when discussing other issues such as sexuality or gender. In this case it will be through the medium of the Janet Jackson/ Justin Timberlake breast exposure at last year's Super Bowl show.
Our book will explore the ways in which gender and sexuality inform the dynamics and mechanisms of power and how these mechanisms, in turn, inform gender and sexuality. Can progressive attitudes towards gender and sexuality restructure contemporary power gradients along gender lines or will these attitudes merely become appropriated by current systems of power? By examining the way in which this power struggle is codified into legislation and political discourse, one can attempt to understand the motivation for the push and pull for power from both sides of the current power struggle. Does this codification allow for a restructuring of this debate in terms other that conservative and liberal that may be more illuminating as to how power moves within the system of this discourse? These particular questions and concerns will be addressed within this book from several different perspectives and from different subjects.
The examination of the politics and power dynamics of gender and sexuality is incredibly important right now because so many freedoms and liberties awarded to once-oppressed (and in many ways still oppressed) persons are in grave danger due to the sentiments of the current administration. By contemplating and analyzing these political structures of gender and sexuality we can understand better the ways our freedoms, rights, liberties, and power is threatened and therefore be more apt at protecting them.
| Legislation and Societal Attitudes: A Love-Hate Re Name: Chelsea Ph Date: 2004-11-29 08:00:59 Link to this Comment: 11782 |
The debate about abortion is a prime example of a piece legislation missing the underlying problems of society, thus focusing law and the debate over the law on the product of these problems instead of working to fix them directly. Despite the great effort that has gone into the feminist movement, women still do not stand as equals in society. Societal structures, such as the workplace, favor men. Abortion, which gives women more autonomy through the ability to control their bodies, serves to bypass the need for a dramatic change in the patriarchal structure of society. It is through a feminist framework that the two opposing sides of pro-life and pro-choice can unite to fight for this drastic change in structure by attacking the underlying problem of inequality of women. Only after the fundamental problems are settled can legislation accurately reflect what it is regulating.
Florida state law does not permit gays and lesbians to adopt. Passed in 1977, the law is founded on a homophobic belief that homosexuality equates to pedophilia. Even as the moral tone of society in a particular time and place creates legislation, it is impartial deference to the facts of a case which change that legislation, and so feed the larger societal view of an issue. Political rhetoric plays to the emotions of an audience, but the legislation must reflect facts- and the facts in this case favor the ACLU and the rights of gays and lesbians. The refusal of lower courts to overturn the law opened the best possible way to guarantee adoption rights for gays and lesbians in the future- having a Supreme Court ruling to look to as precedent.
The United States federal legislature concretely addressed the issue of sex discrimination in public educational institutions in 1972 by passing the Title IX Education Amendment. The law was took effect during the era of second wave feminism proclaiming that women be liberated from their devalued traditional gender roles. In both academic and extra curricular educational settings, girls and women did not enjoy the same quality of experience as men and boys. Without equal access to educational opportunities, women would always be financially and thus socially dependent upon men; proponents of the movement recognized the long term effects of providing women with the same chances for success as for men. Title IX reflected the change in societal attitudes concerning the increased value of women.s potential contributions, but the legislation did not change the daily practices in educational settings which promote gender inequity.
Laws can inform our social beliefs by indicating that society does and does not find permissable; societal beliefs also shape legislations - you cannot make a law you cannot enforce. Taking another step back, these attitudes can be manipulated through talk about legislation. One such use of cunning rhetoric is in the pro-life's connection of slavery to abortion. In this line of thinking, slavery was wrong because it gave rights over slaves' bodies to slave-owners; abortion is wrong because it gives rights over fetuses' bodies to mothers. In this line of reasoning, the Dred Scott decision and Roe v. Wade were both decided by personal immorality rather than strict interpretation of the Constitution. This story is not accurate history or legal interpretation, but it is plausibly constructed and, moreover, persuasive.
Once the pervasiveness of societal norms in legislation is understood, it is necessary to look beyond this restrictive standpoint to individuality. Focusing on individual cases not only addresses groups of people who might otherwise be neglected, but it also presents a more complete and diverse view of the problem at hand. This extension of public analysis was taken in the 2004 WHO World report on Health and Violence. As illustrated in the report, the increased levels of personal discussion allowed for the development of complex partnerships between once marginalized groups. This allowed for public health officials to gain a greater understanding of the root causes and possible methods of prevention. In legislation this diverse collection of ideas and experiences is necessary in creating statutes that are most appropriate and efficient.
This book addresses the inconsistencies which arise when societal norms are used as the foundations of legislation and public policy. This system of legislation based on this ideal of normalcy allows the needs of individuals to be neglected and repressed when protection under the law is necessary. It is constantly perpetuated through the basic rhetoric and past laws which politicians and lobbying parties present. It is only when legislators are able to identify this reliance and to respond accordingly to a changing and diverse society that the laws will be most valid.
