fKeisuke has 11 post(s)

In the essay ” Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving”, Lila Abu-Lughod criticizes Westerners how they tried to “Liberate” Muslim women who they think they do not have freedom. After the 911 attack Laura Bush suddenly brings up Muslim women’s right which they never had before. She first mentions “War on Terrorism” which is about the Middle Eastern occupation of the United States. She also criticizes they justification Westerner made which America can occupy the area because they attacked America. She also criticize the logic since they are evil, we can beat them even though it was actually for economic benefit.  America went to War in Afghanistan against Taliban who controlled Afghan, and took the control of the country. Laura Bush said the Muslim woman is free after the invention. Women in Afghan wore burqas when Taliban control the region, and they were not allowed to go out side without it. If women in Afghan does not cover themselves they would be punished or harmed. Westerner thought it is a violence to the Muslim women right. However, even after United States took control of the country, they were still wearing them. Furthermore, she criticizes how  Laura Bush says they had been successful and that the invention of that country is helping Afghan people especially women. However, women are still oppressed in Afghanistan. I think saying something like “liberate” the area is actually looking down on people and their culture. Therefore, the way America did was totally against their will and it barely changed anything. People there have their own culture and if some outsider says something about this or forcing, I think it is really difficult for them to change suddenly. They have lived their lives with the culture, so instead of forcing to change, their regional power has to do something to it little by little.

In the Article by Amelia Cabezas, she is talking about countries benefit from sex industry all over the world but especially Dominican Republic and Cuba. The two countries are different each other, but they are similar at some points. Both countries used to be under control of the United States. She approaches to “sex tourism” in different points of view which is from the tourists who pays for sex and from the sex workers who get money for having sex with the tourists. It is so easy to be a sex worker in those countries. If you are struggling with living, you will easily consider to be a sex worker because that the only way to get out of poorness.  For the workers, the labor helps people to get out of the counties where women only can get enough money by doing that job to survive.  For example, there is one lady in this article who was a young mother of three children. She was working as a sex worker and the working condition was terrible. However, she had some opportunity to get helped by that job. She found some boyfriends who helped her financially. Some people actually find men taking them to their home countries. For the government, they knows allowing sex industries are immoral, but they have to pretend what is going on in that kind of industry. For the tourists, they are traveling to the countries because there are less restrictions on prostitution or other sexual industries. It is hard for the workers fell in love with them because the tourists are just coming to those countries to have fun, and they are not looking for nothing serious. I think it is very important to think about the country or people’s situation and understand the complicated relationship between citizens, industries, and the government instead of just judge them if it is morally bad or not.

When I first felt that I am an Outsider is when I moved to a school in different region in my country. The first one week in the class, no one talked to me. I could not talk to anybody so I was totally isolated. After moving around three month, I remember finally made some friends. Another experience is when I went to Canada for school. I did not speak any language and there were only white roommates. If i try to go to a party, I couldn’t communicate because of the language. Even after I got more comfortable in English I still felt that I am totally outsider because the culture they have was so different to me. It took some time to get used to the flow of the conversation. Most people were very nice to me, but I could not be as open as people in Canada. This might be because I was born in a country where has a little bit totalitarian atmosphere for 18 years without being critic about it. Of course Japan is a Wonderful country, but the country has very special culture. I had been in Japan until I was eighteen, and I still remember I barely made own choices. I only had to do what everyone does without thinking. The society has pressure to be “normal”. Since I was taught to be normal in school, I was so surprised that everyone in North America has own decisions. That’s why I felt so outsider. However, there were some people who are obviously looking down other race who actually say they don’t like specific race. I was told that directly too. Form the reading, I realize that the difference is actually a stereotypes can be advantage. Stereotype actually made me stronger and taught me how to live in countries where I wasn’t raised in.

In Chapter 4 of “The History of Sexuality”, Faucault indicates that sexuality has been a taboo topic and that repression caused the necessary development of “technology of sex” through medical, Christianity and the social class.
In 19th century, technology of sex took a position in medical term. Appearance of sex related medicine was affected by the idea of eugenic. Community took a value for well-being of future generation because they believed it is one’s responsibility to receive a specific treatment for sexual related symptoms such as perversions or homosexuality. As Faucault mentions “it appeared to be the source of an entire capital for the species to draw from.”[1978:118], I believed that hope or anxiousness for the next generation improved the sex of medical technology and which applied deeply into the community and became a part of method to rationalize sexuality. Faucault also emphasizes about the contradiction between two different social classes. While the proletariat, the working class, tried to minimalize the contact with sex though their attention is more on health, the bourgeois, the ruling class, established the deployment of sexuality by focusing on the political reason. Faucault explained that the bourgeois created their own idea of sexuality which was based on the protection for their own health and royalty. The bourgeois claimed that concern for sex is preserving their noble bloodline and delineate a line between them and commoners.
Despite of the fact that sex is one of the essential and principle factor of human nature, it has been always repressed and prohibited in the history. However, the society manages the way to release their struggle of controlling the sexuality by adjusting their life. “Technology of sex” was the small hole of the balloon. The hole helps to release some air to avoid the rupture. From my perspective, Faucault characterized sexuality as an instinctive power for human kinds.

In part one of “History of Sexuality” by Michel Foucault, she basically states how and why sex had become repressed. At the beginning of seventeenth century, sexual frankness was was still common. The laws for the course or obscene was quite loose to the ones in nineteenth century. Once the Victorian Bourgeois showed up, the flexibility was completely removed. The subject of sex became the rule to be silent and when people make it too visible, they would have to pay the penalties. Children were allowed to talk about sex because they were thought not to have gender, but they surely were not allowed to have sex. People at that time were only allowed to expose sexuality at brothel or mental hospitals, and in other places, talking about sex was considered as taboo. She also mentions some people say that the free sexual expression was removed by capitalism because it would make the economic and reproduction system inefficient. This is because people sat that time thought that if sex was not rigorously repressed people would lost their motivation to do general work. The demand of sexual freedom became bigger and bigger. Even though it was strictly repressed to talk about the sex in the society, people were allowed to confess their sexuality to the church. Therefore, more and more people started confession at the church. That means people wee still seeking pleasure of sex in the era when exposing sexuality was strictly prohibited. She says that the repression might have not been obvious. This is also can be said to our current society too. How the sexuality should be can be blurred. Question 1: Why how sexuality was considered taboo, and why people were repressed t to talk about their sexuality? Question 2: Why people now have so much passion and resentment to the fact that we had once made sex a sin?

In “Eating The Other”, Bell Hooks uses the term “the other” as the race which you are not.  The other is basically about people who are not white because the term was used mostly by white people who are looking down other races as inferior. In this piece, she explains the relationship between white people and “the other”. To begin with, she brings up white boys who had sexual interaction with non white girls, but they are interacted by them just because they are not white. White people were thought to be absolutely superior to the others at that time.  For them, they were thought to be inferior, but they thought it would be a different and interesting experience. This is because the boys thought they are more sexually active and experienced just because of non white people’s culture are though to be behind and they were looking for excitement with the others that white girls don’t have. It was obviously just for fun, but as the more they intact with non white girls, the more they understand non white cultures and they started thinking as the old norm, that white people have interaction with white people, is old and few steps behind to them. In this case, she thinks it is a productive relationship to “Otherness” because they went over the racial boundary because they used to think non white people are superior to “the other”, but it was an opportunity for them to think about racial equality. It was not the idea that could threaten white supremacy, but it could add “flavor” to the idea of diversity. I think why she called it productive is even though the first intention was irrelevant which they thought sexual interaction with non white females would be better because they should be more experienced, the outcome of that action was positive because they no longer see them as inferior.

In “Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School” by C.J. Pascoe, the author illustrates how the gender and sexuality have been culturally built. The administrators and teachers in River high seems to only have cultural idea of male and female relationship, and they seems like to not want to talk about sexuality. For example, in the first skit, two most popular boys in the school  are dressed as nerd which does not fit them. Then, they showed up with female costume that made a lot of laughter. Moreover, when the female couch lifted the barbells, the audience was cheering. This initially seems like the show is supporting diversity of sex, but it actually illustrates how important to be in the cultural idea of sex because it’s obvious if the two handsome boys dress like girls or the female gym couch lifts the barbell, it must make students feel strange. It implies that boys should be masculine and girls should be feminine. It also makes the students feel like if they are not what people think cool, they will be laughed at. The second example is the teacher Ms. Mac. she had a good reputation in students just because she is so interested in romantic relationship among students. She made a joke about two male and female students being a couple because they are close friends even though they are not dating. However it shows that how she thinks only heterosexual relationships are beautiful and does not think about other students who might not be heterosexual. Further more, by saying that in front of all students, it makes pure high school students think about what they should be. They might think about students, who are not heterosexually attractive, are wired. Moreover, another teacher unbelievably teases a male student about what he said is homosexually.

In the first chapter “Male Travelers,  Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology” of Jennifer Morgan’s book, she mainly talks about how European countries were exploding West Africa and how the white explorers looked black women for sending America to work as slaves. In 15-16th century, Europeans started travel over the sea, they knew African continent exist unlike the Americas, but they did not know what was there. Then, they found African people who are totally different from white Europeans and started label them as savage. Some documents shows that white Europeans viewed them as nonsexual animals, monstrous, human savage. Some people expressed as monsters with six legs. They basically looked them as not human, and they usually couldn’t distinguish their sex, and the only crew to distinguish their sex was whether or not they have breasts. This majority view for African women is one of the main causes racism and degradation of African women. Furthermore, they are thought to be inferior because of their cultures and customs that was totally different from European region. For example, African people at that time were naked constantly and they did not have idea of chastity because African women usually had sexual intercourse everyone in the group. Moreover, they had to work while they are pregnant. This was really savage for white Europeans. This caused them to behave inhumanly and sell them to America as slaves. These cultural and physical differences were enough for Europeans to justify racism. They might have thought like they are useful for white people and they don’t even have to be treated as human. Some document says that they are not sexually attractive at all, but they are good enough for reproducing slaves.

Discussion Question: What made European explorers think they are inferior to white Europeans?

The Second chapter “The Accumulation Of Labor and the Degradation of Women” of “Caliban and the Witch” mainly talks about the period when feudalism was about to disappear and capitalism started to appear. First of all, land privatization changed people’s life. People used to be able to supply themselves, but after the privatization, people had to work under someone. Women were thought to be at home and shareable and convenient workers people were able to use at will(97). However, in the new idea of women which was constructed after privatization, they became just a power for reproduction. Around that time, slavery was efficiently systematized in the Americas while women were used as profitable reproduction. The main reason of degradation of women was the development of legal systems for making women disadvantaged. For example, women had much fewer rights to be independent. Their action was always under surveillance, and if they do anything wrong, the punishment was heavier than men. Therefore, they had only choice that was being home and accept the social system. However, there were movement against for required working home by society, and women started reading literature which was usually about women beating up men. Because of that, men were scared of women to have power, they went against that movement. She also points out that slave seem to be equal, but even in slave society, there was obvious unequality like sexism. For example, female slaves can be attacked sexually, be pregnant. Moreover, they were weaker for starvation than men.  She thinks that capitalism would not exist if women had not turned in to instrument for reproduction because capitalism could succeed owing to low cost labor which are women and slaves. I think if women’s position were equal to men, capitalism would not work, and the society now would have been completely different.

In chapter 3 of “Women, Race and Class” by Angela Y. Davis states that how it was hard for black women even to raise a voice. First of all, there was a convention which was held in London, and this convention was for women’s right. Davis points out that the convention was significant because it was a convention about women’s right even though slavery system still existed at this time. However, it did not contribute for American women’s rights because American female activists were excluded by majority vote. Few years later, convention was held at Seneca Falls in New York. It obviously was for rights for women in United States; however, no black activists were allowed to join the convention except for a male activist. Even though it was a convention for female in United States, it wasn’t for black women. There even was no mention about rights of coloured women. Most of middle class white women were opposed for giving rights to black women because unlike lower class white females, they had social distance to black people, so they still had strong racist view to them. Davis thinks that middle class white women who had some power lacked to think about black women’s situation that they have been used for housing labor as slaves; furthermore, they had the problem being as a female, exact same struggle as the white females had. Black women at that time had a struggle as being women such as violence by men, and as african american, they had been discriminated. However, there was a man, Frederick Douglass, who was capable of introducing the issue of women’s rights to the movement of liberation of black people. He had a strong passion of claiming that because of the unfortunate experience of his sister as a black women. The movement of white women looks like an advanced thought, but they only thought about their racial and sexual group.