fKeithlyn has 13 post(s)

Hate and fear is inevitable in every society. As infants, we often portray some hate toward our parents when we do not have our way. As we grow, we continue to strengthen our hate based on various factor including social class. In her article, “Affective Economies,” the authors wants to address that the economic induces us to hate another. She uses the immigration issue to illustrate division among groups. For instance, a white person believes that immigrants are coming into their country and taking over their jobs, due to this Americans portray hate and fear toward these immigrants. Over time, this hatred progresses to prejudice. With the over growth of foreigners, laws are establish to reduce migrants from entering the country or administering visa in poor countries. She emphasize that we often portray some right to illustrate hate when a group interfere with our safety and security. On the contrary, it is true the unemployment rate in the US is the fault of the immigrants. Many American believe this is sole the immigrant’s faults. However, losing of a job is not the immigrants fault, and why is it believe this problem started solely because of migrants. Many jobs in the US have moved overseas because of cheap labor and in turn, many immigrants flee in hope of making more money in foreign countries, so that they can take care of their family. They author wants to point out that hate comes from within, it come from the frustration of the economy, this comes from the lack of avenue and means. Yet the only way to solve our problems is to blame the outsider. She wants us to openly share our nation and welcome all to its fruitfulness. A nation is build starting with one not me.

In her article, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving”, Lila Abu Lughod writes that Americans blame Muslim countries for terrorist attacks and by going into war, they will liberate Muslim women. She emphasizes that the American society does not regard what these Muslim women truly believe is liberating. Americans believe that a women showing cleavage is liberating but to these women it’s not about dress code, but fixing the inequality they face in the country. Most of the women are illiterate and by any means wants to access the same resources as the elite. On the contrary, only elite and middle class Muslim women that are educated have the option to wear scarfs and have access to better jobs excluding political jobs. In addition, Elite women are given privileges yet many are outraged with the system and want all women to have an education. Thus, with more women that are educated, they can bring great change to the society and someday become politicians themselves. Most Muslim women are afraid to stand up and protest due to their lack of income, degree and security only to becomes homemakers and fear if left without a husband they too will wear the scarf homeless women wear. The author wants to express that war should not be about ethnocentrism but more so leaning to cultural relativism. We should not impose our culture on another group because what may seem normal to us maybe deviant in another culture. We should use our sociological imagination and accept other culture and way of living. Another key point the authors wants to address is that going to war is not going to change the situation these women endure. The reason for these women struggles and depression is because of the Taliban. For example, it is believe the ultimate sign of oppression of Afghan women under the Taliban and the terrorist were force to wear the burqa. Liberals women sometimes confess their surprise that liberated from the Taliban they did not throw off their burqas. The only solution to end their suffering is to replace their government with new a government that gives every citizen equal rights and justice and building an egalitarian society. The author wants us to make the decision as to whether the American should go to war to liberate these women from wearing the burqa or removing corrupted politicians and giving everyone totally freedom over their body, mind and social equality; while giving every citizen the same means and opportunity as the wealthy.

Society has portrayed women bodies with sex. Women are view as a sex object. For instance, naked women are display in music videos, on the cover of magazines or models depict during commercial all this to earn a salary. Many of these women sometimes sleep with their employer, not for love but simply for money, to help support themselves and family.

Cabezas in her article, “Between Love and Money” indentified during her research than many Cuban and Dominican women traded their bodies to tourist in search of money. Many of these women were destitute and became a prostitute to provide the necessities for their families. In addition, many women migrate to work in tourist resort where there befriend, a visitor in hope that their affair can continue once the tourist return to his homeland to sends money back. Many women form relationship with these men simply for romance. Consequently, many tourists travel to these countries for prostitute and pleasure not for love.

Cabezas wants us to see the stereotype many women face being a Cuban or Dominicans women. Tourist thinks of these women as prostitute and nothing more. Automatically when a tourist sees a native woman, they quickly offer money for sex. Visitors believe that women are objects and nothing more. Woman moral, values and norms are disregard. Consequently, the norm of marriage is descending rapidly while the cultural norm of prostitution is ascending. Sex tourism is the only means of survival in this tense economy while the latent function of prostitution is helping to grow the economy. Sex tourism help worker to get by and to get ahead: recreation, consumption, travel, migration and marriage. Cabezas wants us to see how poverty can stigmatize a group or society and what was once a self-respected country becomes label as a deviant where civilian would do anything just for a mint. Also she wants us to see how foreign money have such great influence on poor countries and being from another country provide wealth to its civilian and why immigrants would leave their country in search of wealth and opportunity

Many families are divided
because of migration. In countries like the Philippines, a child may define family as an extension of relative or extended family while a child in another country may define a family as nuclear. Hochschild explain in her article, “Global care crisis” that many women leave their children with extended family or kin in search of opportunity. Many college graduate women are unfortunate in seeking jobs in their competitive society. Furthermore, migration became a norm for families to live an abundant and fruitful live. Children of migrated parents are giving the opportunity to attend good schools; wear fashionable clothing and accessories than children of non-migrated women. On the other hand, children of migrated parents never experience the mother- child bond every child wishes. Children from migrated mothers suffer from depression and wonder what life would have been if their mom were around.

Due to the loss of their mothers, young children form bonds with their extended family. In contrast their mother’s bond with their new family as their nanny. Capitalism forces women to migrate to others countries for opportunity so they can send money back to their families oversea for their responsibility in taking care of their children. Family abroad often send money back to their country to build a home, in exchange that their brothers or relative to care for the elderly parents whom in turn care to their children.                                                         Capitalism forces women to travel to another country so that government officials can profit from their labor. For instance, when a person sends money through money gram or western union they are charge a fee and the recipient is also tax by the bank in their country. Migration becomes “the common” for women without means. Hochschild wants us to see the reason women migrate is, they do not have the means, and is  force to leave their homeland, to be exploited for their labor, thus  to care of their families. On the other hand, women with the means can remain with their children as good mothers do. For this reason, migrated mothers are stigmatize as bad mother and is therefore forever taboo as a bad mother. Migrated mothers can provide entire gifts to her abandon child but she will never be a hero to her community or child. Capitalism creates division among the rich and poor and the migration trends will always be a solution to having commodities. Without migration countries will not profit from cheap labor as wells as families of migrated women would not have the abundance of wealth/ money.

Patricia Hill Collins takes us on an oppressive journey. A time when white male were the dominant race and women were the lesser gender. Patricia opens with a very heart breaking detail of how both black and white women were extremely oppress except in different ways. Black women were the white man’s mule while white women were his dog. In order words, black women are exploit, for their labor, while white women were simply his wife and mother. In the end both women are dehumanize by patriarchal society; they were assign to different race, gender and roles. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​Patricia wants us to see the inequality and stereotype that women face in the past and what we encounter today. The history of inequality continue to live among us except, it changes it form, as society changes. I can relate the Ms. Collins. I too had experience stereotype and inequality. I once worked for a white male who did not pay me for sick days, no time and a half for holidays, I would never receive Christmas bonus, vacation pay not even a card for my birthday. Furthermore, there was a white employee; she was giving all these commodities while I was not. I remember one summer there was a heat wave and the house was blazing hot. I was sweating profusely and I asked, if the air condition could be on. He complied only to have it on, then quickly shutting it off after 10 minutes.
​Seconds later, his son arrived the air condition stayed on until he left. I remember his son commented, on how wonderfully cool it was in his home, and how he wish he could remain indoors than sadly having to go outside. This was the dealing breaking point in my life, I decided to quit that very day. I told him this is not a sweat job and by law, the air condition should be on not only when some arrive. I decided it was not worth losing my life and dying over some meager pay. In the end I understood what lies for me; I realized the importance of race gender and class.

Sex has always been a topic few people feel comfortable discussing. Female teachers often teach sex education conservatively in schools. Parents are afraid to educate their children about sex; they believe that with this knowledge, they would want to experiment.
Foucault’s history of sexuality part 1 takes us through the 1800 century theory of sex or the “repressive hypothesis”. During this era, sex became more of a means of reproduction rather than pleasure. The bourgeois design this system where people worked so hard that they often relied on the reproduction of children to help with labor as a means of income to the growing families. The new system takes away women’s freedom to engage in other relationships.
Sex was strictly between a husband and a wife. This gave the men dominance over the women who faced abuse and rape and couldn’t share it openly. Religion forbade adultery and getting a divorce was considered sinful in the eyes of the society. These women were considered to be wicked and therefore should never be married again.
Foucault spoke about women who openly rejected the norms of marriage and fornication. Prostitutes were deviant in regards to following norms. They believed that sex should be in the open and should be pleasurable. Sex should not just be limited to having children so that they can inherit the father’s names and continue their legacy, but more than that. Prostitutes were fighting against political power. They wanted to put an end to the norms of how a woman should behave. Society set up rules that are beneficial to men and not women. Men didn’t want their woman to have outside affairs yet they would have affairs with prostitutes. Prostitution was bad yet it wasn’t banished throughout society. Prostitutes revolted against bourgeois by not working a “9 to 5 job” but being self-employed.
Capitalization wanted to control sex because it threatened couples work ethic. For instance, if everyone were to engage in sex during their jobs, work wouldn’t be done and too many women would be home due to pregnancy. With couples working all day, it is hard for them to return home to have sex. Instead prostitutes saw what society or capitalization brought and deviated from that. They wanted to build their own sub culture. Foucault shows us how sex has changed from the Egyptian period (prostitution) to a society that follows the strict sex moral conduct. With less play and more work the rich will always be power

Q: why was sex enjoyed during Egyptian period but in present day it’s seen as taboo?

Bell hooks opens with the conquering and colorization of African women by European men. During slavery, African women became submissive to the patriarchal culture where they endure abuse such as rape by white men. Rape was a means of punishment that these black women endured. White men didn’t categorize black women as wife material but only as the “other mistress”. To protect their social image or conduct social order, relationships with black women were kept in the dark; it was seen as taboo or disdainful to the dominant culture. Hooks describes, that young white boys’ interest to “the other” (different ethnic group), is to explore their sexual fantasies. This bold discussion of ethnic female bodies is repulsive to early white supremacist culture.White males believe that having sexual relationships with ethnic girls compared to white girls will bewilder them. They believed that black girls inherited sexual promiscuity from their fore parent so therefore, they could enjoy this sexual roller coaster. Nevertheless, White boys considered black girls and Native American girls as “the other” because they were subjugated as different from white girls. In addition, White boys didn’t seek an intimate relationship with those who were considered “the other” (Asian blacks, Native American), but only sought these types of females to explore their sexuality. Furthermore, after their encounters with “the other”, they typically returned to have relationships with white females.

“The other” role for white boys was to bring pleasure and dominance. Hooks characterizes the relationship with the “otherness” to be productive due to the fact that it was something that was always occurring among white men. When Bell Hooks mentioned, “eating the other”, she meant that white racism, imperialism, and sexist domination prevailed by courageous consumption. It is by “eating the other”, that one (white males in this case) was able to assert power and privilege. Taking into account racial hegemony, Bell stated that spices were flavoring and flourishing into the American mainstream. White males often relate to other ethnicities, like tossing spices to entice their appetite. Spices were used in the context to explain the fact that diversity added heat, it added, “flavor”, it is a commodity which was desired in certain quantities that didn’t threaten or undermine white dominance in any way.

Early white men use slave’s bodies to satisfy their sexual urge; because they were looked at as property, they believe they were entitled to slaves bodies anytime. Similarly, young boys use the bodies of the black girls to prove masculinity. Hooks wants to use a comparative historical method to show that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Children don’t identify race into classes. We often see when we bring kids to a park they all play together whether they are black, white, Asian or different ethnicity. As children grow they begin to differentiate themselves from the other races by classifying themselves based on their ethnicity. On the contrary, how are children able to make such a drastic change? The truth is society teaches them. As we continue taking them to the same park after being influenced by society we observe them playing with children of their own race. We see this problem in CJ Pascoe research. She proved how society, school, family, and administrators force boy to develop heterosexual masculine discipline. She proves this by placing men into different categories for masculinity as listed (Hegemonic masculinity, complicit masculinity, subordinated masculinity, and marginalized masculinity). Due to these various category, every man wants to be in the hegemonic category, if not they will be bullied and fluid with identity with epithet as fag. School and religion teach boys that it is only right to be heterosexual and a sexist instead of being attracted to same sex.

Consequently, this belief strength and encourages boys to practice normative behavior like dating, going to prom, dance, running for student government, sports and so forth. We have taught boys that real men don’t show emotion and if they cry they are considered to be gay. For instance, my friend confided in me that his girlfriend broke up with him. He said to me with tears in his eyes that he related to his mother this issue. She uttered to him, men don’t cry. Immediately he felt weak and less than a man. He told me his mother confined in his father who later called him a girl. He told me he will never cry over a woman again because real men don’t cry. This proves what CJ Pascoe written about in her research where she observe boys often tease other boys  who portray such behavior when they did something out of the norm.

She further relates another scene in the opening of the book to show that boys with soft voices were seen as women and given no respect. Due to this humiliation and inequality force them to establish muscle so that they can be seen as men. She related similar instances whereby heterosexual boys indulge in auto shop and weight lifting activities than participating in drama class due to this culture these young boys refuse to indulge in feminine course to prevent from being an outcast and condemnation. We suppress them from trying different activities and forced to live a body where they are controlled by a control that switched on or off. We force them to hold in their true feeling. We force them to live in a dark and lonely world. A world that shut them off from being who they are and a world to what we expect and want. She uses ethnography to prove that it’s is our culture and surrounding that make us homophobic and if more parents and institution are educated on that topic this division among masculinity will be shared equally The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. An individual shouldn’t be forced into undesirable category because of masculinity

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.

Social division is prevalent throughout this world. Minorities are constantly being oppressed by the system. We are constantly placed into categories based on complexion, hair texture, shape, size etc. Certain ethnic groups are considered to be inferior and less civilizedwhen compared to others. Today, we continue to see this unfair pattern within our society. Most manual and degrading jobs are done by the poor (blacks Mexican, Hispanic). We are assumed to be the less intellectual than most and are stereotyped as savages. Morgan explores her views on this stereotypical behavior against blacks. She expanded this ideology on page 35 where she stated that blacks develop flat noses based on the laborious activities performed by the mother. A study was done by Nicholas villaut who made the distinction of children having regular noses when their parents didn’t do laborious jobs. He draws a conclusion that because many African women worked in the field they would breast feed their infants with their breast over their shoulder. The laborious movement,the suckling of the child and the knocking against their mother’s shoulders causes the child’s nose to flatten. Overtime, flat nostrils became a feature within the black community due to natural selection.Historiansused another case of blacks’ aborted fetus to construct a believable theory of the birth of flat nostril among blacks. Thus, this ideology is false and the author wants us to stop this belief that the formation of black’s noseswere established from hard labor of black women compared to the Europeans who had straighter noses from the lack of domestic work. The author wants us to know that our physical traits were developed based on climate. For instance,in hot climates women had wider nostrils compared to white European women. This variation comes from the different establishment of theirorigin. In colder weather, a person breathes in less air; this causes the air to become warm before going into ourbrain. Homeostasis causes the temperature of the air outside to be the same as our body temperature to prevent freezing and deterioration of our cells. Therefore, African women breathe more rapidly than a white European female. Natural selection selects the stronger traits and these womencontinue to have distinct features.

Another issue explored by the author on racism and the female body is that many Europeansbelieved black/African women had sagging breasts because of their manual labor. They believed white women had smaller breasts because they weren’t domestic workers and had little to no children. African women were categorized as domestic animals (dogs, cows). This is due to the fact that they were said to look like a 6 legged animal when they were weeding and when laying on their backs they were accompanied by the young ones nibbling on their breast. As a result of their sagging breast and nuditythey were seen as uncivilized and savage people. The Europeans use black’sphysical makeup to profit them. For instance, black laborers bared the pain of child labor, whipping and long hours.They had elongatedbreast for feeding while laboring. Additionally, many Europeans believed Africans didn’t suffer when undergoing child bearing. Thus,it became a custom for them to have multiple births. Consequently, many believed these women didn’t need assistance while giving birth. Most births were done independently; they weren’t given any medication to suppress their pain nor were they given mid-wives to assist.Instead, they were sent out into the fields to work during the post-partum period.

Morgan wants us to raise awareness to the fact that Africans are subjected to having many children and why having children doesn’t affect their mobility. She wants us to see the inhumane acts that the Europeans brought upon their enslaved women. She also wants us to know that these practices were seen by other blacks in Africa and that theEuropean adopted this notion that if you areblack you are labeled to work and reproduce. They assumed Black women didn’t have stretch marks or wrinkles on their stomach from giving birth; their bodies were believed to be an elastic. Consequently, their only role in society is to be like farm animals.