fAntonella has 13 post(s)

In Lila Abu-Lughod’s essay, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” she deliberates on cultural explanation and the organization of women. Throughout the War on Terror, there was an emphasis on Muslim women. Lughod discusses the linking bound between the War on Terror and the cultural mode of explanation.  After the catastrophic attacks on both The World Trade Center and the U.S Pentagon had occurred, there was a necessity from the Americans to better understand the culture of the attackers. Americans wished to better comprehend the meaning behind their religious rituals and know about the Islamic faith along with the women who helped the people grief and figure out the reasoning behind these attacks.  Lughod makes a strong argument about the essential need to learn about the Islamic culture. She questions that how can knowing about the culture of the region, particularly its religious belief and the treatment of women, is going to help us better understand why these disastrous events had occurred. Instead of concentrating on Muslim religious beliefs, people ought to have focused on the role the U.S had with relation to the development of the repressive regimes. The U.S had decided to use the oppression of Muslim women to help justify going into war as a necessary help to free the mistreated Afghan women. During the time the Taliban were in control, the Afghan women were enforced to wear burqas and if seen in public without wearing one, they’ll be punished and occasionally be killed. Numerous individuals had believed that act of punishing women for not wearing these burqas are a violation of women rights. When the U. S took control over the country, there were countless claims that they had succeed and helped the Afghan women be liberate. Though even after they were free from the Taliban, the Afghan women continued to wear their burqas due to it being a fragment of the Muslim religion. Lughod reasoned why should there be a relationship between the way people culturally dress and political problems. There shouldn’t be a reason to define people from a certain culture as oppress due to the way the natives dress, and major political decisions should not be made as oppressive as well.

“Sex tourism”, a term used by Amelia Cabezas are approached through the different perspectives from both the citizens and the tourists. For the citizens, sex tourism is a form of labor that helps them to survive in their countries or help them migrate to a different country. However, the tourists are keen on having a companion with them throughout their vacation and are open minded to the idea of falling in love with a citizen of that alien country that they had sexual relations with. She mentions the role that race, class and gender play a part in categorizing who are sex workers or as foreigners. Nationality separates the people into groups that are defined through similar characteristics that would fit properly to where they reside. However, when Cabezas explain how the relationship between tourist and citizens of certain countries begin to form. They appear to show one way or another how these barriers separate people based on the ethnic groups they belong to fade. Borders are viewed as the main source of separation between nations, which could limit and force independence from other people of different backgrounds. Nevertheless, this article shows the opposite as the people are unified either thru sex, labor or any other sort of relationship that removes any stereotypes and individuality between citizens. There is no difference in the privileges of the people due to both the foreigner and the native are eager to exploit the chances they have or are offered to partake in having a better life. Cabezas research on sex tourism displays that people from different parts of the world form bounds through the relations between love, money and migration. She gave a variety of anecdotes and definitions of the various discourses under each category that eliminated any traditional ideas on citizenship and nationality.

For us to better understand why there was migration among the South and North, we must focus on the concept of “the commons”. Arlie Hochschild, Lise Widding Isaksen, and Sambasivan Uma Devi deliberate on the philosophies that are affected by migration are care chains, commons and the problem of capital. In “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chain, or Commons”, the authors mainly converse about the migration that mothers from Southern countries make to the United States. The authors remark on what is the concept of care chain, which is essentially the eldest daughter in the poor family would take care of her siblings in her mother’s place while the mother works as a nanny caring for the children whose mothers migrated to take care of the children of rich family.  The care chain can cause both positive and negative effect on the family. Certainly, the child life has been improved due to the payments send to them, but, they are missing a key part of their development where they grow with a stable, union family. The communities where the families live in are referred to as the common in this article. In the care chain, everyone is dependent on each other for support and survival. To make enough money to support their family, these mothers migrated to the United States. Theses mothers would earn about five times more money than what they would have made in their native country. In many of these circumstances, the migrant mothers would choose to leave their children with family members or even their eldest child for them to be able to go to the United States. Once they arrived in the United States, they would find jobs as either nurses, housekeepers, and caregivers. Many people regard migrant mothers to be selfish, materialistic and bad moms for the reason that they choose to be separated from their children. Even though when the reason they’re separated from their children was to help provide for them.  The money these mothers sent back to their native countries, permits the chance to improve the lives of the children that were left behind.  The money sent back to these countries in forms of payments also help to contribute to the nation economic development.

For most of my life I was basically an outsider. When I first started elementary school, I was placed into a class filled with English speakers, while I was the only Spanish speaker. Being in these classes had caused my Spanish to gradually disappear, this had caused me to even become an outsider in my own home. My Spanish has now become a mix of both Spanish and English. I had at this point become adjusted into American culture and started to classify myself as an American. Growing in Uptown Harlem, there was always an issue with my family being fully Hispanic living in generally African- American neighborhood.   In both Middle school and high school, I had different taste in music, clothes, and interest compered to everyone there. I didn’t understand any of the slang they used nor the music either. None of the shows they watch interested me what so ever. None of the events that they were excited for caused excitement for me. I was more of a reader in most of my school career. My favorite place was always the library, I would sometimes be the only person in there reading a book. I frequented it so much that the Liberian had known my name. There weren’t many readers in my schools, the students were more of dancers and musicians. They would only use it to either skip class or watch a game. Something that I noticed that even in groups of friends there is an outsider. There is always that one person that is less social than the others. There is always a person who must work on their things whether it be school or work. I was busy with school work, so I wasn’t able to hang out some friends or I was extremely scared to become close friends with them due to my past experiences.

The fourth chapter of “History of Sexuality”, Foucault introduces the concept of the ‘technology of sex.” He places a significant importance on the fact that it had affected the whole state and not only the church. The society norms of the period had forced individuals to abstain from sex and it give the impression as if there was a keen interest on those who had an input in these “illegal” sexual activities. The technology of sex was used to control sex while also measuring the impact it has on society. Medicine was seen as a cure to sexual “diseases.” The current Knowledge of medicine for the period had helped developed the eugenics movement, with the popular practices of control breeding and controlling the genetic quality of the population. The technology of sex began taking the involvement of church and religious aspect out of sex. They had begun implanting more facts and scientific based approach on sex and reproduction. The idea of controlling the genetic quality of the population had started with the control of certain hereditary characteristics of society made people more interested in sex. The Studies of hereditary made people more familiar to a certain biological responsibility with regards to future generations. The possibility of transferring diseases and un-normal hereditary traits made people more aware of the consequences of sexual activity. Medicine was being used to have sex more about life and people. The science behind medicine had taken the shame and punishment out of sex. This had allowed sex to become a more plausible topic of interest. Foucault remarks that there were certain hereditary traits such as homosexuality that were able to be passed down and that it was not able to be controlled. Homosexuality was viewed as a disability that hampers the views that society holds. Foucault attempts to explain how the society had characterizes sexuality that had decidedly changed the way people view sex. When discussing the characteristics of sex, we see how society held the lower class to a little to none standard when it came to sex. The lower class were viewed as people that did not have sex and had no knowledge of it. The lower class was seen to have no worth and the bourgeois had controlled the sexual aspects of women and children in order to eliminate any hereditary traits that would harm the future children of society. The technology had embodied an improvement over past belief on sex, though the use of eugenics to control the population still considered a faulty idea.

In part one of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault clarifies that sexuality was not a thing that was regularly discussed due to a set of extremely strict guidelines that people had to followed regarding to their sexuality. Foucault starts to describe the sexual practices of the English people in the seventeenth century. The sexual practices were quite casual with no shame involved about what they did. Yet near the end of seventeenth century, the new Victorian regime was introduced. Many of the practices in English society had become more rigid and oppressive. One of them being sexual practices. Sexuality was no longer allowed to be practiced outside the home. In the home, those who were allowed to practice were only the married couple of the home. Sex had now become a private matter that no one could talk about aloud anymore. It had become a taboo subject. Foucault believed that the new Victorian regime had started the concept of sexuality became repressed. He then shifts the focus of part one to discuss how brothels and mental institutions had become the places where illicit and unconventional sexualities were acted upon. In these places, people were not restricted to act upon their desires unlike the chaste outside world around them. Foucault deliberates a belief that the bourgeois had order the repression of sexuality due to an emergence of capitalism that had blossomed during that period. A popular idea that was circulated around was that sex had become incompatible thru a rapidly increasing and vital work order. Foucault had disagreed with this notion, he thought that the repression of sexuality was created to be a part of a political cause. Foucault declares that the reason that we had defined the relationship of sex and power through the terms of repression. If sex is repressed, then the fact that if someone had dare to speak about it, it would make them look like they’re committing a wrongdoing. However, a person who would try to be someone different while also not conforming to social norms by disrupting the established rule. Foucault declared that people were eager to speak out sex because it was a form of rebellion to the norms.

Hooks describes the concept of the others as people who are not of a similar ethnicity as yourself. The introduction of the others was seen as a way to add something interesting to our mundane lives. However, the others were extremally vital to the lives of the whites and white culture. There was a form of cultural taboos about sexuality and desire are disobeyed and was used to help media overwhelm the viewers with a message of difference. Without any ideas based on any white supremacist assumptions. The new form of media had then installed this Idea of fantasies and interest of the others in a fashion of an aspect of white supremacy. Hooks believed that the relationships with the others is good for both parties in order for them to open the thinking and understanding of the side that isn’t the other and for the other half would remove the dreaded status quo that forces out the individuality to remain motionless and allows the racial boundaries to continue. The other relationship that Hooks would describes as a respectable thing due to the fact that this inspires the people to experience more than what they believed to be possible when they have a good relationship. Hooks gives several references and example to showcase her argument of how the other is desired. She writes about a film, Heart Condition. Heart Condition is about a white racist cop, who has a heart transplant and receives a heart from a black man. The white man has been trying to destroy because the black man started to date a woman that the white man loved. Due to his “black heart,” the white man learns to become more seductive and change his attitudes towards people of other races. Hooks see this as a literal dramatization of “eating the Other” and accepting the upright qualities that they bring out to us, which allows us to become better people.

C.J. Pascoe starts out her book by looking back on a school event she had seen during her fieldwork in River High School. The Mr. Cougar pageant was descried to be a celebration where the student body would vote for the most popular senior boy out of six candidates performing skits. She focused on the skit that was performed by two boys named Brent and Greg. So, the skit starts off with these two boys dressed up as the stereotypical nerd trope. They started a laughable dancing performance involving outdated dance moves like the Running Man and the Roger Rabbit. They would then have rubbed their butts together in tune with the music. Two girls had shown up playing the part of the nerd’s girlfriends, dancing with the nerds. These two so called “gangstas” appeared and started to push the “nerds”. The “gangstas” then steal the two girls. Whenever the nerds would speak, they would do so with a high-pitched feminine voice. This girl dressed in sweats came in to teach the “nerds” how to quote on quote become “men”. With this new strength, the nerds went on to the gangstas’ hideout and rescue their girlfriends. Finally cementing their transition into manhood (Pascoe 2007 1-3). The teacher Ms.Mac had started to take away these condoms that were handed out by the safe sex party. Though the reason that Ms.Mac had taken the condoms would be that be seen as a discretion in the classroom. Pascoe begins to point out that condom was a cultural object to show the importance of heterosexual activity to masculine identities. The male students would then see the condoms as proof of them acting on their heterosexuality and their masculinity (Pascoe 2007 34-35). A student named Huey, he was an outsider compared to most of the male population due to his clothes and just the way he was. He would try to fit in by pulling some sort of stunts to gain their approval. Both the Mr.Ford and Mr.Kellog would tease Huey due to his lack of success with the female sex. At times, Mr.Ford would go from the art class to the auto shop class just to make fun of Huey. One instance where Mr.Ford had told Mr.Kellog that Huey had flipped him off during a lesson. Mr.Ford would then tell Huey that he should be doing that to girls and not to Mr.ford. These teachers would also point out that as Huey was a male that he should be having sexual relation with girls and not Mr.Ford who is a male (Pascoe 2007 35-36).

Motherhood is known as the practice of being a mother and having a sense of maternal instinct towards your children. Both Angela Davis and Jennifer Morgan mentioned the concept of motherhood though in different explanation based on historical facts and their opinion.  Morgan starts off the discussion of motherhood by mentioning how the women were seen at first by many accounts written by various explores. The explorer, Richard Ligon, had first seen a black woman as an utmost stunning creature whose beauty and grace match that of Queen Anne. Later, more travelers and explorers had begun to write about how the black women was an object of desire. However black women were also viewed as unwomanly compared to white women and were marked by a reproductive value that was dependent on their sex and the concept of the black women’s lack of femininity. Ligon had changed his views of the black women seen them as monsters with breast the size of their torso appearing to look as if they had six legs. Through this concept, mothers were monstrous and were believed to have only had one child in their lifetime. According to The Travels of Sir John Mandevill, when women have children they may give them to what man they had conceived the child with. Painting the native women as a foul vision of a woman further dissociating the concept the Europeans have about motherhood. To add to the concept of being as a foul mother by The Europeans was that according to BattelJ, women were extremely fruitful with fertility. However, they were not interested in their children so they would be buried alive so that there was no child to care of. The image of Savagery had begun with cannibalism and ended with the mothers who had consented to the killing of the children they bore. (Morgan, 1997:13-30) Davis starts off the discussion of motherhood by mentioning that black women were seen no less than                black men, they were viewed as an equal profitable labor-units, to the point of being genderless in the eyes of the slaveholders. To quote one scholar, the slave woman was at first a full-time worker for her master and then a wife, mother and homemaker outside of their work from the needs of the master. However, the concept of Black men and women seen as genderless. Black women were practically an anomaly due to the developing nineteenth century philosophy of femininity which emphasized women’s roles as nurturing mothers and gentle companions and housekeepers for their husbands.as well as the fact that many Slave owners saw that slave women were not mothers at all but more of slave breeders. (Davis, 1981:9-11). The concept of motherhood for black women were not seen as mother until the publication of the anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Where the creation of the mammy stereotype had helped view black motherhood in a different light with the traits of having a superior Christian morality, an unfaltering maternal instincts, gentleness and fragility with the character of Eliza, who Davis sees as white motherhood personified in blackface. (1981:31).

The first chapter of Jennifer Morgan’s book, Male travelers, female bodies, and racial ideology explains how as the travelers who came to explore the native people’s homeland had begun to see the women as objects of desire and as something that is very much different from the pure white women. Jennifer Morgan has this reoccurring motif in this chapter where the men would always compare the native women to white women. However, on pages sixteen and seventeen the writers of the books about the exploration would focus on the socio-sexual deviance to specify the savagery of Europeans while also applying similar ideals were placed on the native Africans and native Americans for the Europeans to understand their sexual customs in their terms. In the Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the writer would mention that in countries such Africa or Ethiopia the natives would lie down fully naked and that the women have no shame of the men. This may possibly infer to how there is no form of control between native men and women during the act of sex. The author later mentions that the natives would marry but there wasn’t a wife because all the women were common and that when the women have children then the women would give the child to the men that the women is seeing. Morgan begins to talk about Deviant sexual behavior that is possibly caused by the breakdown of the European beliefs on natural laws. Deviant sexual behavior is the concept of an absence of disgrace, an inability to identify lines of inheritance and lineage. The concern with Deviant sexuality is that it is used mainly for the descriptions of women as a theme of the travel writings of the early modern age of Europe and so these explorers and travelers had brought expectations to their voyages to the new world and Africa about women with distended breasts and the expectation that these women have a dangerous sexuality that would allow the travelers to have their way with the natives. The concept of the female body and racism that Jennifer Morgan is elaborating on is that some of the focus of these travelers might be related to the glory of finding island but also finding this sex filled paradise with these native women who have open minded practices about sex and monogamy.

A question I have is how many writings were there about voyages to islands that were publish that was just about the natives they had seen?