Feminism's Not Dead

Many have theorized that feminism is dead and no longer needed. I'm here to say that it is most definitely not dead and that it is still greatly needed. Today's feminism focuses on gender and sexual empowerment and equality and environmental justice for all. Women may have gotten the right to vote and to participate fully (for the most part) in the public sector, but we still live in a society where power relationships are key. Viewing the world as a collective group that deserves the same access to opportunities and justice, is what feminism is about to me.

The face of feminism has changed as well. Young feminists are embracing their femininity and drawing power from their sexuality. Although some conservative feminists might find fault in this, there is nothing wrong with loving who you are and what you enjoy. Hopefully the idea of feminism will continue to change, and more people will look at it as a worldview ideology instead of a stigmatized man-hating cult of women. A true feminist would be hard put to hate men, since the idea of hate falls nowhere in the ideals up held by feminists.

It has been hard for me on occasion to tell others that I am a feminist, because while reactions have ranged among the people I've told, few have been 100% positive. Most people automatically assume that I am a lesbian undercover, and they show pity for my husband. It is this stigma that is attached to feminism that must be expelled, and the only way that we can realize the dissipation of that stigma, is to involve ourselves in politics and show the world what true feminism is all about.

Reproductive Choice

I have heard the opinion of many people that poor women are irresponsible for bringing children into the world. Many of the people who held these opinions were generally good, caring, and on other topics progressive folk. The myth that "welfare mothers" keep having more children in order to receive extra benefits is still prevalent, and it can be impossible to convince believers of its falsity. But there should be no one who makes the decision for a woman, on whether or not she can have children. Who is anyone to judge whether a woman brings a child into this world? Unfortunately, that argument only works if the equal value for all life is held as an inherent value.

Many of the people who I have known that were against poor women having children, were paradoxically also against them receiving abortions. Additionally, they have generally been against, or resistant towards, federal funding for public assistance. However, public family planning services are responsible for preventing a %47 increase in unwanted pregnancies, and a %50 increase in abortion rate*. These statistics show the economic benefits gained by supplying access to birth control for those in poverty. Of course the morality of the situation should out-way the financial aspect, as all women should be able to control their reproduction. Without funding for other means of controlling reproduction, many poor women opt for sterilization which is covered by the government, and that should not be the most accessible option. There are many things to consider when deciding to have a child, but society's and the government's opinions should be one of them.

*http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2010/05/17/index.html

Let's End Violence against Women (UNIFEM, 2007)

Here is a you-tube clip on violence against women.

Women and Violence

    According to UNFPA, "violence against women is the most pervasive yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world." UNFPA also holds that the prevalence of violence committed against women is in direct correlation to how the society the women live in few violence. In the United States where one is hard pressed to watch ten minutes of television without witnessing an act of violence, it is not hard to believe that a sexual assault occurs every two minutes in the U.S. Worldwide statistics are even more staggering, finding that one in three women are abused, and one in four women are abused while pregnant.

    Socially constructed power relationships also result in violence. Ideas that masculinity requires control and dominance over others can cause men to act violently towards those who are subordinate to them, and allow their actions to be accepted by society. A believe that women are meant to be a man's property and are therefore at his mercy also perpetuates abuse towards women. Unfortunately, that believe was held in the U.S. for a very long time, which can be exemplified by the fact that marital rape wasn't considered a crime until 1993!

    In order to end violence against women and against all people for that matter, social acceptance of violence cannot be tolerated. Fortunately, our government has made some great strides in the right direction particularly in its establishment of the Violence Against Women Act that was passed in 1994. But there is much we can still do, such as continuing to bring this issue to light, offering support for those who have suffered from violence, and changing our cultural view on power relationships and violence as a whole.

Welfare Women

    Since the Welfare reform that took place in 1996, many poor women are forced into working outside the home for nominal pay. The enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) made it a requirement for poor women to work outside the home in order to receive financial support from the government. While many middle-class women might be ambivalent towards this requirement because they choose to work outside the home, the reality of finding rewarding employment for these women is scant to nil. Women within inner cities, or rural areas do not have access to nearby employment, and this forces them to spend even more time away from their children while they commute (sometimes hours) back and forth between work and home.

    For one Michigan mother in 2000, her inability to care for her son and satisfy her work requirements in order to receive welfare benefits, resulted in tragedy. Forced to move her children into her brother's house, her son (six) found his uncle's gun and shot a six year old girl at his school resulting in her death. Where was his mother when he found the gun, and took the gun to school? Well, she was commuting to and then working in a job that was mandated for her by the state*. While this is certainly an extreme example of the consequences that can occur by forcing a mother to work outside the home, it highlights the danger this mandate poses on the children of poor mothers.

    Instead of requiring women to take on any low-paying job they can find, the government should provide vocational training, and reasonable, quality child care, for poor women who work outside the home. These poor women are not super machines who can work all day, clean their home, and care for their children, all by themselves. Nor has their decision to have children while poor somehow morally condemned them to that fate. We need to work on designing a welfare program that truly lifts women out of poverty (not just on the books), only then can we beat the cycle of poverty poor women and mothers face.

*For the full article visit http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/arp2000/welf-a28.shtml

Working Women

I was raised in a gender role anomaly of a household where my father worked a full-time job and did the majority of the housework. Growing up, I believed that it was normal for a man to be the sole financial provider and yet cook dinner, do the laundry, and sweep. That wasn't to say that my mother did nothing with her time, she went grocery shopping, upheld kin networks, clipped coupons, and well... raised me. While many people may find the relationship my parents had to be a blessing for a child to grow up with, indeed it was a curse.

When I moved in with my boyfriend (now husband), I had absolutely no first hand concept that somehow I was magically supposed to gravitate towards maintaining the house. To the contrary, when I was growing up my parents wouldn't allow me to wash the dishes (they were afraid I'd break them), I had no idea how to do a load of laundry, and my father forbade me from mowing the lawn (apparently from a fear that I would somehow end up mowing myself). The very idea that I was supposed to be the one who cleaned simply because I had a vagina, was enough to set my headstrong self into rebellion mode.

The result was our house was a MESS! I refused to do any more cleaning than my boyfriend did, and it was a standoff that lasted for years. Dishes were constantly piled in the sink and on the counters. Pathways were made through the mountains of clothes that littered the floor of the bedroom. Friends and (his) family protested, but their disgust was always aimed toward me which just made me more indignant. Eventually, I conceded. Not because I felt that it was somehow my inherent duty, but because I could no longer live in squalor.

Fortunately, my husband conceded somewhat as well, and has followed from my cleaning example. However, the environment in which I was raised causes me to become frustrated easily with the domestic activities I complete daily. I think that the disregard for gender stereotypes involving housework in which I was exposed to as a child could indeed become a blessing but only if it was experienced by every child.

Women's issues on a Global Scale

I normally focus on the discrepancy of equality between the sexes in our society, however, today I would like to bring some global issues involving women's rights to light. The first issue is also the one that I find most appalling, and that is the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). This is a ritual that is performed across ethnic, religious, and cultural lines. FGM takes on many different forms and can include the removal of the clitoris and the outer labia, as well as sewing the vaginal opening closed. The procedure is generally done outside of a hospital setting by other women with instruments including razors and is usually completed without anesthetic. Aside from the obvious pain that the procedure causes, it can also cause reproduction problems, complications during childbirth, serious infection, leakage, and many other medical problems. While many countries have outlawed the practice of FGM, it is still prevalent, and in the African countries of Somalia and Dijibouti, 98% of women undergo the mutilation.

Another global issue affecting many women is the lack of control over reproduction that many women have. Many countries still outlaw abortions, causing women to undergo back alley abortions that can lead to serious complications and death. Many hospitals that are located in one of the 72 countries in which abortion is illegal, are saturated with women who have undergone risky illegal abortions. Often these women are very poor and would be unable to care for their child if it was brought to term. These women are forced to seek out harmful solutions, when the procedure could be completed quickly and safely in a proper health setting.

*All information retrieved from globalfeminism.com

Sexual Identity?

    Homophobia has become such a pervasive part of our society, that many people don't even realize that heterosexuality and homosexuality are relatively new concepts. I myself did not know this until earlier in the summer during my contemporary families course. Before the homo/hetero label was invented, there were only two categories, the moral kind of sexual activity (sex for reproduction within the confines of marriage) and the immoral kind (everything else). Relationships weren't scrutinized for their sexual meaning, and this allowed for more intimacy. With the introduction of the concept of sexual identity people were forced to "pick a side," and interactions between same sex individuals gained new rules and boundaries that were not present before the idea of homosexuality.

    Within the course, I discovered that Alexander Hamilton had written many correspondences to a male friend that, although during his time wouldn't have raised an eyebrow, seems like an openly homosexual relationship if read today. Additionally, the relationships between women were much closer and intimate, particularly amongst the middle class. Carroll Smith-Rosenburg did a study on the relationships these women formed in what she called the "separate sphere"*. Clearly relationships were able to reach deeper levels between friends of the same sex before the introduction of sexual identity. It makes no sense why our society has chosen to adopt an either/or outlook over an individual's sexual preference. Only the people who constructed the idea of heterosexuality benefited from it by gaining even more power over "others". I can only imagine the countless number of people who would benefit if the concept of heterosexuality was deconstructed.

*Smith-Rosenburg, C. (1975). The Female World of Love and Ritual.

Restructuring Disability

Many biological characteristics that are considered to be a disability are really just socially perceived as disabilities. Because our societal infrastructure is built on a "one size fits all" model, many people are disable to perform tasks that they could have successfully completed if society had anticipated and reacted to their needs. One need only to look at the architectural makeup of the buildings around them to see that they are built for the able bodied population. However, physical buildings aren't the only structures that cause disability. The idea of success in our society also involves a very fast paced lifestyle. Those who are slower, either physically, emotionally, or mentally, are unable to keep up with the "successful" individual running a mile a minute. Unfortunately this causes our society to ignore the contributions of many individuals, and we could be missing out on even bigger successes.

One way in which it can be evidenced that disability is a social construction, lay in the fact that some groups of people suffer from disabilities more than other groups. The way society contributes to and views disabilities needs to change. We need to start questioning why the selected model of "norm" was chosen, and who benefitted from that choice. Social structures need to start taking measures to become more inclusive and avoid disabling people. We also need to take every caution in preventing future disability by supplying preventative health care, and creating a healthy environment for all members of our society.

Catch 22

In her work Oppression, Marilyn Frye discusses how one distinguishing feature found amongst the world's oppressed population is the double bind. This ultimately means that those who are oppressed are unable to win no matter what they do. Women are often faced with this dilemma. Either a woman is a tease or a whore, she is nurturing or barren, or if not invisible she is a bitch. I have faced this many times in my life, although I didn't always recognize it. For example, over the course of the weekend I generally have to remind my husband several times to do a specific task, such as cleaning the litter box or answering his mail. Notice how I used the word choice of "remind," unfortunately for my husband reminding is considered "nagging." So I am left with the following two choices; to be a nag (or in effect "bitch"), or to oppress myself by being a good demure girl and completing the task for him. There is no win for me in this situation, however there is a win for my husband in one of the choices, and I think that is an additional characteristic of the double bind. If those who have power over the oppressed didn't benefit from this "catch 22" then it most likely wouldn't exist.

Unearned Privileges

While I had been aware of some of the privileges that I held, It was an eye-opening experience to read White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. This essay, written by Peggy McIntosh listed out many of the unearned privileges the author holds simply because she is white. In addition to the privilege of being white, there are many other factors that influence a person's accruement of unearned privileged. I was born with many of these privileges, having been born white, to modest yet secure economically parents, and in a free developed country. It is true that we are socially taught not to recognize our individual privileges. People get stirred up for charitable causes that strive to fix "big" gaps in privileges, such as food and shelter (extreme home makeover-need I say more?), as well as scholarships and other big ticket items. But what about a much needed van for a family of five, or for that fact, the gas money to put in it?

We need to find a way to turn unearned advantages into unearned entitlement, and make positive privileges universal. However, the path to achieving this ideal is unclear, and there are so many layers of privilege inequalities to contend with. It was suggested by McIntosh to avoid using unearned privileges through being aware of their existence, but it would be incredibly hard to escape them (or for that matter want to). Overall, I hope that my new awareness will enable me to use some of my advantages to the advantage of others who do not have them.

In their study, Dating Scripts Revisited, Mary Riege Laner, and Nicole A. Ventrone found that the traditional dating Scripts of the 1950's still hold true today (or at least in 2000 when the study was conducted). Although the study suffered from limitations that would prevent it from being universally applied, it's results were truly frustrating. This is especially true considering the evidence presented that marriages based on early gender scripts are generally not as egalitarian as those marriages who were not.

When reading Laner and Ventrone's study, I was reminded of my very first date. It followed all lines of the traditional first date script. He was my senior by two years (a mature 17), he picked me up at my house, opened the door for me, and surprised me with a flower. Of course he also paid for dinner and a movie at his pre-determined locations. Although it made me swoon at the time, I now realize that it is better to play the role of friend or partner, instead of swooner and swoonie.

Fortunately, my first date with my husband was nothing like that. In all honesty, we never really had a first date, we got to know each other first as peers, then as friends, and eventually it just blossomed into something more. While there is the occasional time that I pine for "romance," I realize that I really am romanced, just not in a way society recognizes. I am also blessed with a very egalitarian marriage, because before anything else we are best friends (albeit best friends who argue over doing the dishes).

When I was a little girl, I absolutely devoured Nancy Drew books. I loved the suspense of the stories and solving the mysteries along with Nancy. In every novel they would explain the physical characteristics of the main characters, and when it came to physical attributes, Nancy Drew was always depicted as "a perfect size nine." I remember thinking that a size nine was what I wanted to be because I idolized Nancy Drew. However, those novels were written in the late fifties/ early sixties and while I don't think that a size nine would be considered overweight, it certainly is no longer the ideal.

When I was reading Susan Bordo's "Reading the Slender Body," I was intrigued by her argument that when women in society exert more power, than the physical female "norm" becomes more androgynous (with more of a male slant). In this way, women are inspired to become very slender and to downplay their feminine characteristics such as breasts or hips. While I can understand her theory, I think that there is another reason for the trend towards thinness and the correlation between societal gender disruptions and the skinny fad.

One thing that was evident from Bordo's and other class readings was that our society plays a major role in determining what the ideal body type is. For good or bad our society is based on a patriarchal, capitalistic system. For these reasons, I hypothesize that the "normal" female body becomes smaller when she becomes more powerful, and that this happens because it enables men to feel physically bigger and superior. This allows them to continue their power domination in at least one area. In this way the trend for thinness would be a way of widening the physical gap between the sexes instead of moving towards androgyny.