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Reflection #6

After reading that last few articles assigned for this class, I can only say that the perception that women are inferior to men, affects them socially, physically, and personally. This perception has led to us (women) devalue ourselves to try and gain some importance in society. Since I was little I have been suggested by aunts to find a man who has money and get married so that he can support me. They think that finding a wealthy man is the only way women can thrive in society. After learning about the gender wage gap having a man solely for the money he makes when working makes sense since men are guaranteed more money simply because they are men. This did upset me because it is not reasonable that even women and men working the same job are paid differently, with men being paid more according to The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation article. The wage gap exists among all races, however, the largest gap is between white men and white women. I am left wondering why this is the case? Men are also more likely to be hired when up against a woman who is just as qualified as him for a position.

My mom has always told me to make something out of myself before thinking about marriage. I have listened to my mom’s advice partially because I think all women should be independent and follow all of their ambitions before marriage but I do still think about marriage. In my fantasy I am an amazing housewife, however, I do not think that would bring me the satisfaction I hope for and now I am no longer sure about even wanting to get married. Growing up with a single mom has demonstrated to me that not having a husband around can be advantageous. My mom has friends who are married and they and their daughters cannot stay out too late because it will upset their husbands, they also sometimes have to hurry home to make sure they have cooked before their husbands come home from work. I hate cooking so I know I would not be happy being expected to cook everyday or every other day for my husband. I also enjoy traveling and having time for myself, which is something wives do not get to do often without their husbands tagging along too.

Reading about how some men make women feel like they are in debt to them and that they need to repay them, in the article by Boston Women's Health Collective, made me feel sick. It reminded me a comic picture I saw that made me feel uncomfortable because it demonstrated that some people take it as a joke. In the comic picture there’s a female rabbit that wants an expensive gift, the male rabbit buys her it and in the last comic box the females repays with sexual intercourse. It’s disgusting. I was in a relationship with someone who would always buy me expensive gifts and do favors for me and after we broke up he made a fuss about all the money he had spent on me. For a while I felt like a horrible person but I also knew that I could not afford to buy him gifts with the same or similar prices. I also knew that I never asked him for any of the gifts and even if I did the final choice was up to him.

I appreciated the insight on the fact that when you get married you do not have to take your husband’s name mentioned also by the Boston Women’s Health Collective, we could create or pick a completely new last name if I ever decide to get married. I also liked that this article included the voices of different women who have experienced trouble in their relationships because of how being a women is perceived by society. I found it horrible that many had sacrificed themselves for the men they loved only to end up being mistreated and under valued. From this article I think it is important to understand that women need to put themselves before any man in their lives because men already have so many advantages. It will take a lot of effort from both men and women to balance out these advantages among all people. Women should not put everyone above them out of love because then things will not change. By sacrificing themselves for the wellbeing of others has led them to be considered inferior to men. And the men who love women should be making sure they help women thrive without expecting any rewards or special favors from women.

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Reflection #5

Masked Racism: Reflections on the Industrial Prison Complex by Angela Davis was an eye opening article for me because I had not realized that prisons were a big business. I had never known about what happened to people in prison except from what I saw in movies. However, incarcerated people were always painted as criminals who deserved less than the people who are not criminals and I did not bother to question it. I bought into the belief that if a person was in prison it is because they were evil, without questioning what would drive them to commit the crimes they did. I honestly did not even realize that there is racism in prison until I was in high school.

The Black Lives Matter movement was very public during my years in high school, and I was in a Law and Society major so my teachers talked about the disparities between the number of white men and the number of colored men in prison. They also spoke about how based on their race and the race of their victims they could receive different punishments within one state because of racism. I was in disbelief because I could not believe that some lives were more valued than others. I grew up believing that the police could be trusted and that you should go to them whenever you needed help. I also had a belief that the justice system served to help make the world safer by incarcerating those who threatened the safety of others. During that time, I also learned that even though it is said that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, individuals can be incarcerated without being guilty. Two examples, I remember learning about were the Adnan Syed case and an incident in Central Park where a woman was raped. In both cases, there are allegations that the police coerced people involved to plead guilty. In the case that occurred at Central Park, in this class we also learned that there are another rape case that was just as if not more horrific than it. However, it did not receive as much attention by the media because the victim was a black woman.

Now, it does not seem so shocking that the same thing occurs with women in prison especially since we know that they have always been seen as inferior to men. It is horrible to realize that many of them end up in prison because they were “accomplices”, when in reality they are also victims and not just of the men who forced them into being accomplices but also of the society that does not permit for justice to be served equally across all cases by taking into consideration the circumstances that drove them to that.

The business aspect did catch me by surprise because I saw any they did in prison as hobbies and educational programs that were meant to help them get into the mentality that you could work for what you need instead of committing crimes. I did not know that corporations could have prisoners work for them to produce merchandise that would be sold to make the more profit for corporations. I thought this was only done in foreign countries, not only to gain more profit from merchandise but also to evade taxes. Doing this to prisoners seems to me like exploitation because they all want to get out eventually and have some money saved up to get back on their feet so they will accept anything they can get. It makes me feel guilty for believing that prisoners deserve for bad things to happen to them, however, now I realize that society is engineered in such a way that minorities are not given many options and they are constantly being mistreated to benefit those who already have so much.

In my opinion, more time should be spent on analyzing what circumstances drive people to commit crimes and work to mend those. Like Davis mentions, those circumstances are social problems that are created due to the disparity that people of different social classes and race experience in society. Focusing on this instead will lead to new solutions that will not force poor people and people of color into having to break laws in order to provide for themselves and loved ones.

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Reflection 4

Since I can remember I have been brought up as a Roman Catholic. My great grandma was a very religious women and since my mom was raised by her, my mom grew up believing in the same things my great grandma believed. However, believing in them and being able to live by them are two different things. My mom had children out of wedlock and did not frequent church until she and I began living with my little sister’s dad. He was an alcoholic and sometimes he would not show up to the apartment from Friday night to Sunday morning. He always came drunk on Sunday morning and acted irracional, sometimes he would be angry and yell, other times he would be crying about something. My mom, trying to protect herself and me, would wake up early to make us breakfast every Sunday and then we would go to mass. Even though, she had not practiced her faith since a little girl because my great grandma would drill her and her brothers to learn prayers and it was something she despised back then, she always believed a higher power existed and I guess she also hoped that it would help things get better.

My mom was told to not end up pregnant by step dad's parents because he had issues. My mom however, wanted to have one last baby, regardless of whether things worked out between her and my step dad. After having my little sister she got a tubal ligation to not have anymore children and shortly after my little sister was born, my mom left him because her dad was not getting any better, he had gotten worse. Recently my little sister has been a bit down because her dad does not call her at all and feels like he does not care about her. My mom asked her grandparents to talk to her to try and get her to understand that he is a sick man. They ended up scolding at my mom for getting pregnant in the first place after they had told her not to. This upset me because my mom has been trying her best to meet all my sister’s need. I thought my mom has been a responsible mother to the best of her ability.

Now, after reading, Jeanne Flavin’s Our bodies, Our Crimes, I realize that my sister’s grandparents were trying to restrict my mom’s reproductive rights and when they did not succeed at this they resulted to trying to shame her for exercising them. I do not think my mom even knows that they were doing this, and who knows if they understood what they were doing themselves. However, from the reading, I have also realized that what they did is not uncommon and women’s reproductive rights are not respected and women are categorized with different restrictions. Poor women are stigmatized for many social problems, which is why there is a belief that their reproduction should be regulated.

I have heard about the abortion debate in the past and I have friends who are pro-choice, however, most of the people I know are pro-life. I have in the past been pro-life with some exceptions. Now, however, I am pro-choice because I understand that it is like women are intentionally getting pregnant to have abortions. I have learned that not all women have the same access to contraception and other means that can help them control their reproductive rights. Just like men can walk away from a pregnancy, women should have that choice too. This is not to say that abortions are just like walking away from being a parent because women cannot just walk away from a pregnancy without going through some process and or procedure.

It is true that in Catholicism abortion is considered a sin and there are multiple ways of why they see it like that, however, it is important to realize that outlawing abortions, puts in danger all women. Women, who do not want to be mothers, will find ways terminate an unwanted pregnancy and these ways put them at risk for death, sicknesses, and for violent acts to be committed against them. They should not just be valued for the ability they have to bring more devotees into the world. Them having an abortion does not mean that they are evil or murders, it goes to show how much inequality exists, between social classes and many other things. They face enough restrictions in terms of how they should look and behave because they are women already, more should be done to respect women’s reproductive rights and ensure that all women, not just a select few, can exercise those rights.

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if you’re ever scared you’re not a good person, remember that bad people don’t care about being better 

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Reflection #3

While reading Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color, I could not help but feel angry because to me it reminds me that there is still a long way to go before all women can be seen as equals. I am a Latino and a woman, which has led me to have a different experience from white women and I realized this early on. When I first arrived to the United States, I went to a school in Brooklyn, by my mom’s job, and it was a predominant white neighborhood. There my access to people who looked or spoke like me was limited. That and the fact that I had come a small town in Mexico where school days had seemed shorter and less restraining, In Mexico I could go home for lunch, so I hate school in the United States because I had no contact with anyone from home and in school I had no friends. I would throw tantrums when my mom had to go.

My classmates were kind to me in class but I was never invited to anyone’s birthday party and girls would ask me why I wore such strange earrings and why my hair was so dark and thick. Boys would say I was strange looking, spoke funny and was not as pretty as the other white girls in the class.  I did not look like them. I never felt truly welcomed. I felt frustrated in class that I could not understand everything my teachers said and that I did not understand the homework. I did not think it was fair that I was the one who had to adapt to their language. There were white girls who had immigrated from other countries like me, I know because I would see them when I had to go to my ESL program. However, they looked like the students who had been in the United States all their lives. They were also well off financially from what I remember, whereas my mom and I lived in a room in the basement of the home where she worked as a housekeeper.  These differences made me aware that I was different and I do recall wishing I looked different, I still sometimes do.

Recalling just my first year of school and the United States, I agree with Crenshaw that the experiences of women varies on other dimensions of identities, such as race and class. I do not think my mom and I ever experienced violence. My mom was once in a relationship with a man who was an alcoholic and could get aggressive but she put my sister and I before anything so she left him as soon as she realized that he was not going to change, at least not anytime soon. However, my mom had been in the United States for some time before getting into the relationship so she spoke, read, and could understand English. She had jobs, even though my stepdad had insisted she stop working after they found out she was pregnant because he would care for all of us. She did not feel intimidated by the police and was not afraid to involve them when my stepdad came home drunk and angry. Who knows if things would have been different if she has entered this relationship soon after arriving from Mexico. The thought is terrifying because who knows how different things would have been if my mom had listened to my stepdad and stopped working as soon as she found out she was pregnant with my youngest sister. I have learned that there are many women who are made dependent on men and they often do not have the resources or knowledge to protect themselves. Because of this I think the amending of the Immigration and Nationality Act to protect immigrant women seemed like the government was simply trying to shut the mouths of critics. Women can have many different experiences so it is not correct to make or amend laws simply based off the experiences of one group, more dimensions need to be accounted for.

I know that after the relationship with my father ended instead of people judging my dad for having cheated, they judged her for leaving the United States while six months pregnant with my younger sister instead of waiting to give birth here. She is still blamed for this, which upsets me because I am certain she left because she did not have the resources to take care of herself and two girls on her own, she probably wanted help and support from her family. This where I see culture is another dimension of women’s identities that makes their experiences different. In Mexican culture, you knowing how to cook and clean and you listening to what a man says is what keeps a relationship going and if another woman comes around and takes a man away from you it’s because you were not good enough. It is also expected that you are only supposed to be with one man. My mom was blamed for not having been a good woman instead of recognizing that relationships are made up of two people and both should be held equally responsible for things not working out and the consequences.

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Reflection 2

As I read “Nights to his Day”: The Social Construction of Gender by Judith Labor I could not help to think in all the different ways society has made gender a fundamental way to categorize everything in society. When she wrote about seeing a baby and not knowing what its sex was at first glance she used cues to “do gender” I realized that we all do it, we feel such a strong need to determine whether someone is male or female and are not satisfied or sometimes stop looking for cues until we come to a conclusive answer. Sometimes I feel so ashamed for guessing the wrong sex of a baby after gathering gender cues and it is even worse if the parents are offended by it and I have never understood why. We all do gender even though we can never truly know what a person is unless we ask the person directly but babies cannot speak and by the time they do, their sex is obvious because they have become gendered by their surroundings.

Doing gender as a whole is negative since it leads to the oppression of women and justifies it. It brings about differences between men and women instead of focusing on their similarities and could potentially lead to them being considered equals. It allows for men to do things that women would be punished for, and for individuals to change themselves so that fit in with the rest of the group that they are perceived to belong into. It also leads to negative thoughts, comments, and actions towards anyone that does not conform in one of those two categories, when there is nothing wrong with that. There is proof that there is nothing wrong with not fitting into the categories of either male or female because in other cultures people who are different are respected and not made off to be seen as unusual or strange.

One thing that caught my attention was when she mentioned that in China, women would bind their daughters’ foots into stumps to heighten their attractiveness. I remember learning about that in a world cultures class I took as a sophomore in high school. I remember feeling shocked that women would do this to young girls. Through the paragraphs I found it to look painful and incapacitating. There I learned that doing this increased a woman’s attractiveness to marriage since having small feet was a sign of beauty and of wealth. Women of noble birth did not need to work hard to help their families live so they could sit all day and look pretty, their families could afford to have servants to do all the work around the house. Whereas poor women had to constantly move to clean, run errands, and work the fields so that their families could eat. Men would be more inclined to marry women of wealth so that they would not have to support their own family and the family of their wife. What is ironic is that even poor families began binding their daughters’ feet with the hope of them landing an upper-class match. In that class, I also learned that in some African countries long necks were a mark of beauty so women would wear rings to make their necks longer. This shows how women will change themselves and other women in many ways to be the same as the women who are most “beautiful” which can also be restated as the most “feminine”. Doing gender is so embedded into society that it is sometimes mistaken for beauty and we end up hurting ourselves more than making our lives better. 

I am not trying to say that women should stop wearing make-up or stop doing anything that they enjoy doing. I just hope that they do not do things simply because it is something that is expected of them or because they are trying to fit in with a majority. It seemed ridiculous that at after the 1976 dance at West Point, female soldiers had to wear skirts if they wanted to attend a dance. No one should be forced to do something they do not want to do simply because it made some people uncomfortable to watch. Those uncomfortable should have been told to close their eyes or not attend such events.

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Reflection #1