Man of the house

Who is the Man of the house? Yes, traditionally men bring home the bacon. But who decides where the bacon goes? Traditionally women to the dishes, they take care of the kids and the house but they are not as powerless as we say. In one of my favorite quotes from "My big fat Greek Wedding"..."The man is the head of the family but the women are the neck and they can turn the head any way they want". After the presentation in class today we discussed our fathers and mothers roles in our own households quite extensively. It seemed, looking back on the discussions that every house is different in terms of who is allotted the work. In some it is more the mother than the father, in some the children do it, and in some households that isnt an issue because of maids. I did not hear anyone say that their mother or their father did all the work, 100 percent of it. Like the presentation stated, attitudes towards women working is becoming more accepting. In one of the videos we were shown in class the man and woman were sharing responsibilities of taking care of their children. The woman even stated that working gave her a fulfillment that contributed to her happiness. Unlike in the past when it was assumed that the only way to make a woman happy was for her to be working as a full time mother we are seeing woman expressing the need to fulfill themselves in other ways as well.  Another part of the discussion that I found very interesting was when we talked about what happens to relationships when a person supports their spouse while their spouse gets an education and then they split up. We also discussed how men who have girlfriends or wives that earn more them justify themselves by stating that they supported their wives while they were going to school in order to get this high paying job.

So children...Sex.

How do we teach a topic that we hardly talk about in our daily conversations. We already feel like it is a taboo topic. Sex means different things to different people, different religions, family cultures, regions, everything. This is one issue that the article entitled "Sex Ed in Washington" was talking about. It argued that the argument between whether we should teach sex education in terms of abstinence or contraception should not be brought to Washington because it needs to be fought over locally rather than nationally.  If sex education is going to be effective decisions about how to allocated money need to be made. A program that focuses on abstinence will work in some places and not in others. It cannot be said that teaching sex education in terms of abstinence hasn't worked because the amount of teenage pregnancy has improved during the implementation and use of this sex education however change is needed in locations in which it is known that simply saying that one should wait till marriage is not enough because most students will have sex before they are married.  A good point was brought up in the article entitled "How to End The War Over Sex Ed." In this article it is said that no matter what kind of education system is implemented social and cultural pressures outside of the classroom are what is going to be the deciding factor in if teenagers have sex or not, the show "teen mom" may dissuade kids from abstaining from sex or using a condom as well as sex education in school.

Woman as suicide bombers

Today the presentation was about women and conflict. In preparation for the class we were told to pick two articles out of three to read. The one that I am going to discuss is the one that talked about suicide bombers in Chechnya. The article stated that even though women blew themselves and others as a political statement women were still treated as different from a "male suicide bomber". Women suicide bombers stories are covered more extensively. For example when a woman suicide bomber attacks the media asks questions like "What happened to this woman's husband for her to have done this?" or "What happened to this ladies children?" The media does not see woman as being able to fight for a purpose larger than family and home. As there are more and more woman suicide bombers I think it will help show that woman can fight for more than what others say they can. Women fight for their country, women fight for an ideal or politicians. Women do not need to be fought for. Another sad way to look at this article is to say that maybe the women in such war torn areas do not have anything else to live for apart from what they have been told and believe is imortant. Maybe their husband is dead and their children too. To quote from Dr.Widman "the most dangerous animal in the world is a mother with young". I think that this is defiantly true but I do not think that the only way for a woman to be dangerous is if her young were harmed in any way. Women as much as men suicide bombers are brainwashed into killing themselves for a cause that is bigger than them.  I think that although suicide bombings are terrible and should not happen it is empowering women for them to be part of the violence rather than on the side lines.

Sex Trafficing

Today's presentation was about sex trafficking. A sad topic affecting women, children, men and transgendered people all over the world.  It is horrible to think of sex and human bodies being bought and sold like a commodity and treated as if they are nothing less than animals. The issues that make up why sex trafficking occurs are complex. Mostly, women are sold because they live in impoverished countries. Their families may have had a bad year in terms of crops or are in other ways financially desperate. They may sell their daughter in order to keep feeding the rest of their family. This issue needs to be addressed on the supply side through development of impoverished countries. On the other side of the supply and demand of humans there will always be a supply of humans when there is a demand for humans.  When we were going more in depth on how we might go about ending trafficking of humans in class it became obvious that any real solution would be very long term and would probably not directly help the lives of people being trafficked currently.  I think that if we legalize prostitution it would mean that the government could better regulate how women were treated as well as brought to the country. This would mean better living conditions for people in the business, this may also help regulate who is brought into the trade and if they had been brought it legally or not. However, I do not think that a government can condone such prostitution acts such as rape, child prostitution or any other harmful sexual practice in the same way it would not be right for the government to legalize hard drugs such as cocaine or heroin. The think is, is that people will always want to use this drugs and there will be people who will always have horrible sexual fantasies that they want to play out. Another way to help stop human trafficking is to punish those who use services rather than punishing those who provide it.

Security

Today in class we discussed what security is and what it means to be secure. At first I had brain freeze when I looked at the piece of paper asking me. "What is security?" I am always secure and feel protected so I never think about security that much. Yes, we talk about security in terms of country security, food security, airport security but day to day security? The fact that I don't think about weather I am secure or not every time I wake up in the morning is real security. But what makes me feel this way? I do have a sense of protection, I also do not think that anyone would target me. I liked when someone in class brought up the idea that the feeling that one was respected aided in feeling secure. I agree with this, I think that the feeling that you cannot or would not be harmed because your presence is wanted or needed where you are is a big part of security. We also talked about security on a larger scale. Z brought up the point that just because the law says that you are secure does not mean that you are.There are many examples of when the law can bypass its legislation and harm those it says are protected underneath it.  Security is peace, and peace is the absence of conflict. Conflict occurs because two groups have opposing interest that both cannot meet without harming the other. I think that security is found in feeling like even if you don't get exactly what you want you will be compensated. For example, in the work space. If people knew that they would be protected and sustained even if they lost their jobs they would feel secure. Security is the feeling that you will be protected in good times as well as time when you are threatened be it physically, financially, or socially

The power in the words we choose to use.

In one of the readings that we had to do under the heading of "security" there was a discussion of the language used in the office, and area of the people who make weapons and nuclear war heads. This article called "Slick'ems, Click'ems, Christmas trees, and Cookie cutters: Nuclear Language and how we learn to pat the bomb" by Carol Cohn is about her observations of how people working at these weapon making sights deal with creating a object that will in the end result in the death of millions of people. The largest answer I got from her was language. These people use language that distances themselves from the realities of what the warhead will do, for example instead of saying people dead they say collateral damage. What I though was interesting was that Carol Cohn, a educated woman herself found that while using these words it became harder to think the thoughts that she had previously, before she learned to use this new language thought. This reminds me of our use of language in the work place and other, non-weapon related areas of life. We have discussed this issue before in class. That when girls are tough they are referred to as "having balls" etc. Basically to compliment a girl on being tough or smart is to say that a girl has masculine characteristics and the opposite it true for men. If language had enough power to hinder an educated persons view on making and using weapons then using it daily, without scrutinizing it obviously leads to supporting the notion that men are better than women.

Children in war

We cant claim that the sex trade is bad, that child pornography is wrong and that using women as a commodity is sick and think that because of our views and our views alone it will stop happening. In his article called Visible Wars and Invisible Girls: Shadow industries and the politics of not knowing Nordstrom writes about Shadow industries. Prostitution and Porn are included in these types of mulit-billion dollar industries that lie beneath the surface of our society, lurking in the shadows.  Laws against these activities may help cut down on the activities but without cutting the demand we cannot cut the supply.The use of child pornography and prostitution is prevalent in war but the fact is, is that it does not only occur in war.  Nordstrom states that children are abused as a terror tactic, as a "social political" method as well as just because they can be.  Just because we have the power to abuse them we do.  War occurs for the same reason, one country will attack another because the other by nature isn't equal in power.  This would mean that conflict doesn't arise because two countries are competing for scarce resources, like conflict theory teaches us.

War

This weeks readings were sad. Yes, the others were sad too but reading about the discrepancy between men and woman is less painful when it does not involve murder, sex, rape, and abuse of women. In the article by Goldstein on Sex, Rape and Exploitation in war time he states that during war the amount of prostitution rises, there is more rape, women are used as basically a commodity. One large reason for this is because during war people feel that they can do whatever they want to. When you are killing masses of people everyday, something that normally you would go to prison for prostitution and exploiting woman does not look like a crime that would carry much weight. Because woman are seen as a symbol of the home country, the "mother land" raping the opponents women is usually done in war fare. Men raping other men is also common. During war a common weapon for degrading the opponent is to womanize or emasculation them which leads to sodomy.  The phallic symbol of weaponry is something that we have talked about in class as well as being mentioned in this article. I do not agree with the idea that men like to use guns and sword because it reminds them of their penis, but i do think that the power of using guns and weapons contributes to soldiers boost in feeling powerful. Power infiltrates to woman during war because when men are at war women must do the jobs that have previously done, taking women out of the home and into factories. 

That mans a slut, that girls a pimp.

So, Snow white is ruined for me now as well as a lot of other movies I have been watching lately. Over all Glee is still a show that I watch and think does a good job of not getting too caught up in what every other t.v show does.  So many shows buy into the stereotypes, I guess the reason for this is because we buy into them as well. Rich professional woman are seen as bitchy, young defenseless woman are sexy, it is sexy to not be able to protect yourself. I think of the origins of why we think like this. Is it really because men in our society are threatened by woman. Do we really start wars because men and women roles in a society are equalizing. May bee to a certain point, but definitely not completely.  I don't know why we think like this, why have we accepted that boys can sleep around and be fine and girls when they sleep around are called sluts.  I don't think it is completely innate for guys to want to "spread there seeds" and girls want to stick to one person. I know girls and guys who want to sleep around and girls and guys who want relationships. So I do not think that this is the reason for the Virgin vs.Slut debate. In class we came to the conclusion that virginity is a commodity. This is painfully true. Why isn't virginity a commodity for boys? When did girls start to get traded like goods? Its not fair.

Feminity

The Feminity reading assighned in the Femninity sector of this weeks reading was by Sojournors truth. Sojournor was a black lady who made a speech on woman's rights at a venue where people did not want to hear what she said. Sojournor spoke about a man who said that women must be helped over ditches and treated like there were petite things that couldnt take care of themselves. Sojournor refuted this and talked about how strong she was and how much like a man she was, but ended it "Aint I woman". This leads to the conversation of what femininity has to do with being a woman. What is being feminine? Is it related to all woman. In an article writen by Johnetta B.Cole called commonalities and differences she states that we woman should not view themselves as all the same just because we are all woman. Woman are all meant to be feminine, what does that mean. Is a woman from America more feminine that a woman from Gambia. Femininity has different meanings in both these countries, this makes woman work towards different ideals showing that they are indeed different.

Protect Girls, but dont forget about boys

There is a definite discrepancy and unfairness in the way that men and woman are valued in the work place, in socially groups, and at home. In the work place women are given less promotions, in groups people listen to men more than women and at home women still do most of the house work. The view that women are at a disadvantage because of a system that needs to be changed is also present in school. People complain that girls in school are valued less than boys. In the article called "What About Boys?" by Michelle Kimmel he talks about how the protection of girls from bias towards boys is not helpful in schools because girls are actually excelling compared to boys.  This is true and I can relate it to what happened in my high school where the girls were doing much better than the boys at studies. It wasnt just one or two of the girls who were doing better, it was a real trend.  I wasn't surprised when I found this out about my twelfth grade male comrades. They hardly worked, they hung out after school while us girls would be in the library doing work. I attributed them doing worse than us to them being lazy but Kimmel brings up points that I didn't think about. Boys do not do as well in school as girl because they are faced with much more violence. Boys are three times as likely as boys to be victims of violence.  Homophobia is also another thing that Kimmel states suppresses boys in school. Women have less of a problem fitting into the box in school than guys do. The article basically says that we shouldn't forget that guys as well as girls do not have it easy in school for different reasons

Sex, its everywhere

I dont like to watch t.v with my parents late at night because I do not know what we are going to see.  I don't know what to do with myself when the "girls gone wild" advertisements come on like an add for shoes or shampoo. Sex on t.v has become normal. In her article "Pop Culture Gone Wild" Valenti talks about the amount of girls in magazines and on t.v being sexual. It is sad, and thankfully she does not support the views of young feminists that argue that this kind of behavior is empowering to women. In her article Valenti talks about the conundrum that women face in terms of how we are meant to act. We are told to be a Virgin, but be sexy. We are told to like sex, but don't come. We are told be available, yet unattainable and have the sexy image of a lesbian, who likes men. It tells women who are of color that that is only acceptable in stereotypes. Her argument of how women cannot possibly fit into everything that society tells them they should be without splitting into an array of different people