å September 2017

As Pascoe discusses in her book, the ideations of gender and sexuality begins forming during childhood, and is further explored during the adolescent years. When students enter high school, a highly sexual place full of raging hormones, new feelings of self-discovery begin at a rapid speed and it is during the school environment when teens are most impressionable. The beginning Mr. Cougar contest was an example of how gender lines are drawn by our peers within our society. Excluding girls from the competition, gives the feeling that there is no mutual respect for the girls in the school. Having their Mom’s escort them, demonstrates a machismo attitude where the boys are seen as men of the house, and are cared for and given away by women (Pascoe, 26) It is during the second chapter that the most examples of fear, division, bias, and hate occur. One of the parts I found to be most disgusting was when the art teacher jokes with the auto shop teacher about the student flipping him the bird. Telling him that he should be fucking girls and not giving him the finger was childish and ignorant (Pascoe, 37). It felt to me as though the art teacher was asserting his own masculinity towards the auto shop teacher, by showing him he can be “one of the guys”, with his locker room banter. It makes me believe that he probably speaks about the girls in the school the same manner. I am surprised that Pascoe failed to speak up to the derogatory comments made by the art teacher, I would not have been able to hold myself back from letting him know how his comments are not appropriate for a teacher, who is supposed to be a positive role model. The popular social science teacher Ms. Mac missed the mark, by not turning the awkward and debatable condom subject, into a positive learning experience about sexual conduct. Instead she fell into her feminine role, shying away from talking about sex or anything related to it, because that is not what nice girls do. She had a great opportunity, to use her popularity as way to reach the students, to teach them about the risks involved, as a matter of fact she should have just let Arturo teach them because he seemed to have a better way of handling it. This experience, along with the inappropriately named Man Party, the political club designed by the students which basically made a mockery of women’s rights, and River High School’s White Heritage clubs are disturbing examples of how uneducated people are imposing negativity and social division, regarding gender and identity

Gender and sexuality at River High is mostly shaped by the environment to which students are exposed to. C.J. Pascoe claims how students begin to explore their identity through sexual conversations and activities. The interactions adolescents have everyday structures their actions accordingly to a fall under a category of gender. She uses various examples to show how the system employed in the River High molds the gender and sexuality of their students. One of the scenarios she mentions is when they are performing in the Mr.Cougar competition. The response from the audience is key to the outcome of the competition and molding of gender. When the behavior of the student seem too feminine or too masculine the crowd will cheer or laugh. This shows that the gender is categorized by the way their voice sounded, or the body movements they made that somehow fulfill the expectations of the audience. Also, teachers played a role in the formation of the gender and sexuality of the students. When the principal places a dress code for the students it creates a form of inequality and a division between gender. There were times when teachers made jokes about sexuality to their students to address the topic but at the same time not being open to the students views on sexualitty. Mr.McNally was the only teacher that freely explained his students about classifying gender. However, he continue to joke about another student physical appearance looking too feminine. His interactions with the student vary but it created an environment where students were able to create their own definition of themselves.  Furthermore, the comments teachers made based on their experiences in the dances showed how they somehow allowed the students to dance how they wanted. But before the dance students were given the dance rules. Limitations were constantly made by the teachers but students always behaved expressing their own identity. There are various environment by which gender is defined based on each individual own persperctive.

The students and faculty at River High were very influential in sustaining cultural meanings behind sexuality and gender as seen in their traditions such as the Mr. Cougar skits, school dances, and even everyday conversations. The Mr.Cougar skits were very blunt with how they depicted gender norms by showing how men are supposed to look and behave. They showed that men are supposed to be masculine, heterosexual, and display their strength to show dominance. There was one skit in particular were nerdy boys lost their girlfriends to gangsters, and they had to work out to gain physical strength as well as change their appearance to rescue the girls. The girls in this skit weren’t of extreme importance. They were just kidnapped, rescued, or used in comparison with the nerdy boys to show how physically weak they are. The message these skits show is that it is better for young men to be masculine, straight, dress and act a certain way. Before their transformation, the nerds were seen as being comical because they weren’t the ideal type of boy. These skits are approved by administrators which shows that they see nothing wrong with the message it sends. At the school dances the music that is played tends to have derogatory terms for women used in the songs. Both the boys and girls sing along cheerfully. The administration would allow for this kind of music helping to push certain gender norms. Also, the rules surrounding the dress codes were gender specific. Boys couldn’t sag and girls couldn’t show their midriff. The wording of the dress code implies that girls can sag and boys can show their midriff even though one can assume the administration won’t approve of this. They gave the clothing a gender instead of saying all students are banded from wearing crop tops and sagging their pants. Comments that were intended to be innocent or humorous can also contribute to the cultural meanings of sexuality. The teacher Ms. Mac jokingly referred to her male and female students as being a couple. Her comment was heteronormative because it pushed the idea that a male and female relationship has a sexual undertone. Mr.McNally also jokingly hit on one of his male students and one could take his comment as making homosexual flirting seem humorous

Due Sunday, October 1st, by midnight. Word count: 300 words. Please make sure everything is in your own words. No quotes should be used. If you paraphrase from the text be sure to include the proper citation (either MLA or APA). Late assignments will be accepted for partial credit if they are submitted no later than one week after the original deadline.

Drawing on specific details from chapters one and two of C.J. Pascoe’s book, explain how students, teachers, and / or administrators contribute to the cultural meanings around gender and sexuality at River High.

The concept of “monstrosity” bridges both Morgan’s and Davis’ works.  In Morgan’s work, the history how European countries justified the exploitation and the enslavement of black women is explored. In Davis’ work, Davis further explores the history but also connects the “dehumanization of slavery” and the role of a black woman as a slave in America.

Morgan discusses how Europeans saw the physical features of black women as flawed. Morgan shares that through the writings of English authors, these physical features were being compared to European women. An African woman’s features were depicted as less beautiful and more “monstrous”. This image of “monstrosity” dehumanized women and was used to justify the enslavement of African women. Further images were depicted of women delivery children without suffering and pain. Moreover, these women supposedly fed their children with their long sagging breast while their children were on their backs. These horrendous images further portrayed African women as barbaric and even as cannibals. Morgan’s establishes the history of how by dehumanizing African women, Europeans were able to justify why they enslaved African women.

Davis connects the European history of the enslavement of women to further justify the exploitation of black women in America during slavery. Davis’ cites that because the Europeans already dehumanized black women, the womanhood of the black woman was also taken away. The ‘monstrosity” concept lived on in America. Davis implies that they had no identity in society, and could almost be seen as being “genderless”. A black woman who was a slave had a clear role to slave owners. Black woman were their possessions and were not seen as individuals. Their roles were to work and reproduce in order to ensure the future of the workforce. Davis describes woman as being “breeders”. Because of the “monstrous” and “dehumanized” images of black women slaves, Davis cites that this was not only justification for enslavement, but also justification for the horrendous abuse that women faced at the hands of their slave owners.

Women are often told how they should raise their children. Often time if a mother does not live up to society expectations they are subjected as bad mothers/unfitted mother only to have their children taking away by social services and placed in an orphanage home. Women continuously fight against political and social structure to keep their children. Only one slip up and their child or children is taken away. Consequently because of the oppression these women faces Davis and Morgan emphasize in their novel about motherhood and how women are seen and treated based on demography and ideology as their core structure. Morgan emphasis that African women were savage and cannibalism; their only purpose for children is to feed the population. Many of these women didn’t take any pride and consolidation in murdering their children. They only purpose of having children was for survival. These women didn’t portray motherly instinct of protection towards their vulnerable toddlers instead they were simply means of nutriment. Similarly, Davis emphasizes that women did not only fought against slavery but fought for the emancipation to free their children. Davis uses Sojourner Truth to illustrate that women were not only workers but breeders. Even though they rear children they were subjected to giving them away. Like cows and dogs after labor they would return to work with their babies placed with another slave child, retired black midwives or sadly lay their new born at the end of the row of corn in the blazing sun. These women did not have a chance to see their babies grow into a man or woman instead like cows and dogs once their babies were wean they are simply sold . Women fought back when they were told their children will be sold. Davis uses the narrative from Uncle Tom’s Cabin of this good Christian slave house keeper who rebelled against the idea that her son will be sold. She believed if she was a good house keeper to her white family her son would be save only to find out that the family couldn’t provide for the house hold and selling a member was urgent. She soon took her son and ran away. She risked being killed only to protect her son. She loved her son even though blacks were portrayed as breeders and emotionless instead she felt like a mother and did what any mother would do, which is to protect. Both authors writes about motherhood but their conclusion and assumption of motherhood were based on social economy and demography.

The concept of Motherhood is discussed, both in Frederici and Morgan’s works. Both of them addressed different time periods in which the concept was being developed differently. In “The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Difference”, Frederici takes a more modern approach to the concept of motherhood. She starts to discuss how the women were already being controlled alone with their bodies. After the Black Plague, natives were dying or even killed by the Europeans, who had brought this burden to them. But in order to keep the population balanced, as people were dying more needed to be born. But after the oppresion society had been onder, specially women, they had decided to take stand up for themselves and protest in some way. The introduction of birth control was now a new cause for society to attack women for wanting to control their bodies. Women were trying to decide amongst themselves when they wanted to be mothers or if they wanted to at all. But now it would be almost impossible for them to take those decisions themselves. Pregnancies started to be almost a requirement for women. But in the other hand we have Jennifer Morgan, in “Some could suckle over their shoulder”, discussing the base for how motherhood was seen in a much earlier time. In around the 1500’s , conquistadors were criticizing women in the new lands for how they maintained their bodies. They described how it was nothing to these women when it came to giving birth. They continued to describe with very degrading words, how to them these women were having basically animals. Motherhood was said to be absent from this time, which was something just outrageous for these Europeans. It could had been better one of the main reasons as to why women started to be controlled when it came to pregnancies and the way they were mothers

Both Morgan and Davis works, talks about the concept of labor within woman and how overtime they were oppressed with little opportunities given to them. During these time periods, women were not treated with equal rights. In Morgans work, he described that when the English men and women were settled into the New World colonies, they had struggled with the females being too weak to do any work. They needed both White and Black women to do the hard manual labor. The women were forced to do these hard labors no matter what condition they were in, if they were sick or even if they were pregnant, they worked. People would disagree that the women shouldn’t be working if having any of these conditions but they would not back down from the job. In Davis work, it talked about how women had faced many obstacles with oppression but more so Black women then White women.  Black women have worked outside of their homes. Since Black women were considered slaves, the labor they went through took over their lives. Women were viewed no less than men, so they were viewed as profitable labor units. One of the scholars in Davis work said that the slave woman was first a full-time worker for her owner, and then a wife, mother and homemaker. Back then women’s roles were emphasizes as nurturing mothers and gentle companions and housekeepers for their husband, however, Black women were anomalies. Most Black who were slaves were either a house servant or a nanny. Both of these works talked about the struggles regarding the harsh labor the women back then had to experience. I believed regardless if you were a women, the difficulty of the labor back then was more determined on what race you were if anything. I think Black women had faced more serve labor than a White women faced during this time period. What made these too works connected was that these women would refuse to give up  doing labor because they felt like they needed to do something for themselves, by sustaining a proper and consistent lifestyles.

In this response I am focusing on the concept of “motherhood”, and how it’s been covered in different readings. Throughout the readings, we read about how women were oppressed and given very little opportunities. In particular, we read about how mothers had severe expectations placed on them, such as obeying their husbands and taking care of their children. However, in this passage, Davis discusses how this ideal of motherhood doesn’t fully apply to female black slaves. “The slave system defined Black people as chattel. Since women, no less than men, were viewed as profitable labor-units, they might as well have been genderless as far as the slaveholders were concerned. In the words of one scholar, “the slave woman was first a full-time worker for her owner, and only incidentally a wife, mother and homemaker.”10 Judged by the evolving nineteenth century ideology of femininity, which emphasized women’s roles as nurturing mothers and gentle companions and housekeepers for their husbands, Black women were practically anomalies.” (Davis, 9) Like Davis, Morgan talked about the different standards that applied to black mothers. “Like his predecessors, Ligon offered further proof of Africans’ capacity for physical labor-their aptitude for slavery-through ease of childbearing. “In a fortnight [after giving birth] this woman is at worke with her Pickaninny at her back, as merry a soule as any is there.” 104 In the Americas, African women’s purportedly pain-free childbearing thus continued to be central… “when slave mothers go to work, they tie the young children onto their backs. While they work they frequently give their children the breasts, across the armpits, and let them suckle.” In less outlandish terms then, Spoeri worked to reconcile the tension between mothering and hard labor.” (Morgan, 48-49) In this passage, Morgan discusses how travelers reconciled the contradiction between the hard labor that would be expected of black female slaves and the usual expectations of motherhood at that time. At that time, (white) women were expected to be nurturing, gentle and to not work.

Davis and Morgan both discuss the concept of motherhood and how it is applied differently to white and black mothers. In my opinion, these standards are applied to maintain white male supremacy. When it comes to white women, these men want women to be obedient and gentle, and not work (not have economic power). As for black women, these man want them to preform hard labor. Therefore, the expectation or stereotype placed on women is that they can handle both hard labor and child rearing.

One concept that is mentioned in Morgan’s and Federici’s works’ is labor. In Federici’s book, she discusses at one point of the conditions women had to often go through in Europe in order to survive. In Morgan’s book, she discusses mostly about how women are perceived in the New World and Africa. These perceptions often dealt with marriage, children, their bodies, and labor. Even though both authors’ views were based on different locations, there is still a connection between the two works.

Federici mentions how women were often left behind to take care of the home and the children. Their husbands would work and it was not enough to sustain a life, so this would cause the women to work. During that time, women did not get paid so much compared to men. They often had to purchase the cheapest food thy could get. Even that was not enough and it would lead to riots in France. They had to leave their children behind at home just to work since they were living in a lower class area.

In Morgan’s book, Vespucci mentions that women would never refuse labor even when having children. However, it did not seem appropriate for them to do that since they are women. They should be maintaining the home and taking care of the children. He never saw it as something more modern. The women also would not work in the house because they were too busy trying to do labor to sustain a life as well, just the women in Europe of Federici’s book.

In both books they discussed the labor of women of different locations, but still seem to be connected through the fact that they could not refuse labor because it was their way of sustaining their own life along with their children’s. It does not matter of the location but women were still getting the same kind of hassle.