fAndrea has 9 post(s)

Sara Ahmed discusses emotion and its significance to human connection in her article, “Affective Economics”. When analyzing the concept of hate and love, Ahmed shows how much of the tension and political uproar we see in America today against migrants, is not necessarily due to hatred. She says how hatred is never the core emotion, but that it is concocted thru feelings of endangerment for the things we love. When it comes to migrants, white nationalists don’t hate them for who they are, but hate how the things they love (their idea of a perfect nation, jobs, and society) feel threatened. It almost seems that hatred is a key effect of fear of change. Ahmed discusses how this is a significant problem among many white people and their collective passionate hate against threats to nationalistic ideas. Many share a strong love for their society, nation, and shared whiteness, and any intimidations to such cause combined chaos amongst them. Ahmed also notes how many people don’t have significant rights against accusations associated with this hatred. For example, many can be accused of terrorism and detained even if their connection to terrorist groups are very weak (like similarity in names, race or residences) with no real rights to fight against such detainment without prominent cause. I think Ahmed is trying to note how these false accusations and detainments are in a large way the effects of irrational hatred. She also explains how people concoct impressions of entire racial groups, for example middle eastern people are painted as terrorists; and how this can cause unnecessary fear on all sides of the equation. When discussing “grounds” Ahmed notes how unsupported racist evidence such as a person being middle eastern with a similar name to a terrorist could very well be the grounds for detainment today and how this is unacceptable.

Lila Abu-Lughod argues in her article, “Do Muslim Woman Really Need Saving” that people need to stop trying to “save Muslim woman” from their culture, and learn to appreciate their cultural and historical differences. She says that this idea to save others has a tone of dominance and would lead to unnecessary violence. For example, Afghan culture does not necessarily look at the burqa as a symbol of oppression but as a socially acceptable form of attire. Yet, western culture has a strong opinion that such dressing is subservient and in no way liberating. This mindset led Americans to justify bombing and intervening in Afghanistan affairs, because it would “save the woman”. I think the problem Abu-Lughod has with this is that Muslim woman were so important to this “war on terror”, yet were not considered in any other political conflicts. This cultural mode of explanation used them to tell the public why the war was happening, and symbolized the oppression that America was trying to liberate. I think this leads to a lot of today’s problems concerning discrimination in America. People still view Muslim traditional dress as a symbol of oppression and connection to terrorism. What I find really interesting about this all, is how many white American men, shame Muslim woman for dressing too modestly, yet also shame woman for dressing to revealing. Why do men feel the need to control and shame woman based on their dress, and with concern to Lila Abu-Loghod’s argument, why must Americans associate cultural dress with political problems as if they have anything to do with each other. Maybe woman dress in certain ways because they simply want to, without any other motives or symbolic message behind the threads. A lot of violence and death could be avoided if we simply (like Lughod noted) accepted one another’s cultures, and diversity, and didn’t use them to provoke and justify political decisions.

Arlie Hochschild, Lise Widding Isaksen, and Sambasivan Uma Devi discuss “the commons” of migration and its connections to financial and social capitals, and to children’s relational world in “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chains, or Commons?”. The article talks about how mothers from southern countries (South America, Northern Africa, etc) will leave their children in the care of others to migrate to more economically stable northern countries (North America, South Europe, etc.) to care for children not of their own. In doing so, these migrants are able to make much more money that they can send back home to cover a series of expenses they otherwise would struggle to pay. Theses global care chains move social capital from these southern countries to the north and takes financial capital and sends it to the south. I think the authors’ concerns surrounding the concept of “the commons” is that these migrant workers look at their migration as a private struggle. Yet, these migrants are a part of a socio-emotional common community; if they don’t recognize this common between one another, discussions about this migration as a public issue will cease to exist. Another issue the authors find is that people look at these migrants and only see the advantages of the situation. Yet there are costs these women pay for being migrants. Many constantly worry about the care of their own children and feel a sense of shame in being viewed as “bad mothers” for leaving their children. Other costs pertain to these migrant children’s relational world, which is filled with feelings of doubt, sadness, and envy. I think the authors wish to reframe the mindset that these migrants are only gaining from this situation, that there are large social repercussions these migrants face; and the sooner we view these migrants as a common community, we can open more discussions concerning such.

For my entire life, up until college I had grown up in a very synchronized, non-diverse, suburban town on eastern Long Island. Most shared the same class, race, political standing, etc. And while my family fit within many of these categories, I found myself an outsider due to being overweight, unlike most of my peers, neighbors, etc. Though I was not the only overweight youth in my town, I was one of the very few. For the longest time, even today, I felt excluded from the mass majority of people my age. I could never run as fast, wear the same types of clothing, or look anything like my friends and peers. I constantly feel inferior due to my body and the pressures media possess can make me feel even more so an outsider. In a world where woman’s bodies are constantly scrutinized, judged, labeled, etc. it feels frankly impossible for a girl of my size to not feel like an outsider. A woman’s value today seems to be determined by her appearance in so many peoples’ perceptions. I at times feel oppressed being an outsider, because many devalue me as a person simply based on my appearance, while my true self is dismissively overlooked.

I can connect my feelings of being an outsider to Paticia Hill-Collin’s essay, “Learning from the Outsider Within” by focusing on what she says about stereotypes and how they can be a defense mechanism against threats to the patriarchy. When discussing African American woman and how stereotypes can make them feel devalued, she notes how these stereotypes could have been constructed so that black woman would not threaten the power of white men. (page S17) I think that what Hill-Collin is trying to say is that if we let stereotyping control us, and devalue us, we are just giving up our power to those that already hold it most. Connecting this concept to my own life, stereotypes surrounding overweight woman can make us feel powerless. That we are lazy, ugly, undesirable, etc. These labels can strip away our self-worth. But if we can take what Patricia Hill-Collin is saying, and look at our feelings of being outsiders, and interpret that as an advantage, we can fight these feelings oppression. Maybe if I stop letting these nasty stereotypes against overweight woman control me, and see my body as something that has taught me strength and a clearer perspective, I can feel more inner power.

In Part 4, Chapter 4 of Focault’s “History of Sexuality”, the term “technology of sex” is frequently used. Focault talks about how earlier on (within the 17^th century) sex was looked at as a private matter, one that had no association with medicine or the state; society found no reasoning for it to be a societal topic of discussion. The body was meant to be concealed outside the boundaries of the private marriage. Sex did however find itself appropriate to be discussed under the church within the confessions. Yet as time went on discourse concerning sex emerged from confession rooms and bedrooms and eventually made its way to matters of the state. Due to advancements in education, medicine, and economics, sex became a topic of analysis. Relating more specifically to medicine, Focault explains that people began to distinguish a difference between medicine of sex and medicine of the body. They looked closely at sex related diseases and studied those disease’s possible impacts on future generations. Through the new technological analysis of sex, eventually sexual discourse would evolve once more. Though it started as an exclusively private and secular matter, then grew to be discussed and analyzed openly, it eventually began to retreat as the state started regulatory actions against it. “The sexuality of children and adolescents was first problematized, and feminine sexuality medicalized.” (Focault, “History of Sex” pg 120) Society constructed criticisms and regulations surrounding sexual discourse as a response to these new advancements in the “technology of sex”.  Just like in modern day, aside from legal regulations around sex, sex before marriage is still something society has constructed to be shameful, especially for women. Woman are portrayed as disobedient and wrongful if they express their own sexuality. These social constructs and regulations up until modern day I think Focualt recognizes to be stemming from the original Christian Church’s belief that sex and desire is sinful and must be shut down.

Bell Hooks in “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” defines “the other” or “otherness” as someone that racially, ethnically, sexually, etc. defers from you. Otherness is her own way of describing diversity. Hooks describes otherness as fun and interesting compared to the dullness and strictness of white culture. She states that having a relationship with the other can give you excitement, that it can introduce you to new ways of thinking. I think something Hooks wants to note at is that not having a good relationship to the other can influence ignorance and divide among people in society. By not interacting with the other, you may find yourself to be “normal” and “superior” to anyone who defers from yourself. I think she also has a problem with how many do interact with the other. When discussing the thought process behind the white male having sex with the other, she states that by keeping the desire to be with the other a secret or taboo, it only assumes dominance over the other. But for boys that openly express their desire to be with the other, they can be changed in a positive way that can break boundaries and societal restraints. Having a good relationship with the other can show defiance towards the history of western culture, and can bring a person to a primitive state before society constructed racial dominance. When talking about the movie “Heart Condition” she notes that while the movie promotes diversity by the main white character embracing the other in his life, this expression of diversity is slanted because it still places the white protagonist in a dominant position. I think Bell Hooks main idea here, is that it is important to have relationships between ones self and the other, but such relationships must be approached without narcissism for one’s own being, but open acceptance for all others.

In Federici’s chapter “The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Women”, she talks about the enclosure movement in Europe, and the struggles women endured through such a time. Federici notes that many enclosure riots included a vast majority of women (some even led by women). Women would destroy enclosures by taking down fences and ruining hedges, ditches, etc. (pg 83) They were desperate to dismantle these enclosures, even more so than men. The enclosures not only brought on economic hardship to many of these women and their families, but submerged them in a dangerous atmosphere. Once people could no longer support themselves off the land and had to rely on work and money to survive, society labeled women’s only contributing factor to be reproductive labor. Women were responsible for producing the future workforce and were excluded from paid occupations.

This degraded women by not only forcing them to be financially dependent on working men, but also informed them that whatever talents or intelligence they possessed were far less valuable than the talents their reproductive system held. Women could not live nomadically to support themselves like their male counterparts, for their reproductive labor would interfere, whether that be restricted mobility during their pregnancies or having to much responsibility to care for their children. Even if such reproductive labor didn’t interfere with mobility, it was also hard for women to migrate due to violent acts they could encounter from men during travels. (pg 83) I can see how this could make a woman feel helpless, in a world of misogyny and financial turbulence, she did not have the accessibility to earn her own wage and support herself or her children. To demean her and separate her from the capitalist work force, she was stranded on a path only leading to a farther unequal relationship to men.

Cited:

Federici, Silvia. “The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Women.” Caliban and the Witch, readings.elizabethbullock.com/igssf17/federici_caliban.pdf.

In Chapter 3 of “Woman, Race, & Class”, Angela Davis touches upon Class and Race in the Early Women’s Rights Campaign. At one point, she clearly expresses how the North (though known to be the anti-slavery side of the civil war) was not guilt free, for it too was immersed with racism and danger for the black population. She describes the unrecognized hateful attitude of the north, by noting the hardships anti-slavery and women’s rights leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony had during their travels spreading words of emancipation in upstate New York. At their meetings and speeches, they were met with riots and groups of men that expressed a violent pro-slavery stance. Davis goes on to tell how once the northern draft was implemented, these same rioters became inflamed. They brought on violence, opposition and even murder to free black men and women with at least 1,000 people killed and wounded. (pg 72) I find this information really interesting and surprising. While learning of the civil war and anit-slavery movement in high school, it was always noted that the northerners were the “good guys” and held a safe haven for black men and women. I now see how the north may have not been the sparkling safe land it was always noted to be; and that there is far more to this storyline that has yet to be exposed and taught to many young students. I believe that here Angela Davis is trying to justly inform the public of the real dark history of issues regarding race, gender, and class in America; that what many of us have grown up knowing about the anti- slavery movement does not necessarily depict the whole truth. I think she wants to give justice to those that have struggled through the oppression, who have lost their lives through the violence, and who have fought for their voices to be heard by correcting historical thought.

Hi my name is Andrea Anketell, and I’m a new transfer sophomore here at Hunter College. I’m from Shoreham, New York, a small town on the east end of Long Island. I intend to double major in media studies and film studies in hopes of becoming a film/television producer or director. I’m really excited to take this class because I think gender and sexuality is a large part of the media and film industry, and sometimes can be misrepresented; therefore I hope what I learn can really help me with the projects I work on in my future career.