fLeslier has 13 post(s)

Lila Abu-Lughod explains the way in which women are characterized accordingly to the circumstances and believes of a culture. She describes the issues faced by women having to cover themselves and were threatened by the Taliban if they were to break the norm. Women were oppressed by the current political issues in their country. She uses the veiling of women to show the limitation they had in the community. There were many expectations oppressing the behavior and appearance women should had in order to be accepted and respected. They were manipulated by the Taliban to an extend where their culture was pursued to implement the values and regimes he established. One important points she brings up in her essay is that the way in which the role of a women is shaped by its surroundings should not be ignored. The line between the oppression and the culture is so blurred that people began to forget about the distinction and what makes them each different form each other. She encourage people to acknowledge the unjust treatment women are having and that there should be a human right that assures them a complete freedom. Even though people might have different ways to measure what would be an ideal way of living it is important to do something about it. The powerful movement of the war on terror is overtaking the classes and even gender of a nation. It is interesting how this explanatory power can force people into a certain behavior that all of the sudden it becomes normal. People need some guidance on how to act in reward with others, however when women or men are not given the freedom they deserve then it is irrelevant and a dangerous situation. Overall, the oppression faced by women cannot be hide and there should be something done in order for there to be justice.

The term “sex tourism” used by Amelia Cabezas is differently approached from the perspectives of the citizens of the Dominican Republic or Cuba in comparison to how a tourist will define it. Citizens might see it as a form of labor that helps them survive in their countries or even make possible migration to a different country. On the other side of the spectrum, tourist are just willing to have a companion during their vacation and are open to fall in love after any sexual relationship that they might have with the citizens of that alien country. She also mentions how race, class and gender play a role on categorizing people as sex workers or as foreigners. Citizenship separates people by groups that have similar characteristics that fit accordingly to the place where they reside. However, when Cabezas explains the relationship formed between tourist and citizens of certain countries it shows how one way or the other those barriers that separate people based on the ethnic groups they belong to kind of disappear. Usually we see borders as the main separation between nations which at some point it can limit and force independence from other people with different backgrounds. But, in this article we see the opposite because all people are unified either by sex, labor or any other sort of relationship that erases any stereotypes and individuality between citizens. There is no difference in the rights each individual has because both the foreigner and the native are willing to exploit the opportunities they have or are offered to have a better life. Cabezas research on sex tourism blends people from different parts of the world 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.

In “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chains, or Commons?” various scholars argue that the concept of “the common” is important to drive their point on the issue of South-North migration. Their concern on the migration of women is that they leave behind their children and the effects of that separation are extreme to both of their lives. The market and the society are the causes of this issue, by exploring history they realized the relationship between the two is very similar to back then but now it took a different from. Women are pulled towards the market of the North while the social relations are deteriorated in the south. From one side of the spectrum it might be beneficial for the economy and well being of the family but on the other side the emotional and development of the children will suffer a lot and weaken.  According to the authors, it is necessary to look at it a whole which is made up by integrity of a family by gestures of love and physical connections plus a fair economy to survive. The concept of the common is required for the completion of the whole because if it is ignore then it will be narrow to the realization of the impact it has on the children life whom are the future generations. When children are separated from their mothers their ability to connect to an unknown world will be weaker than others that grow up with both of their parents. It can be argued that the market is necessary but not as the care a mother and a father should provide their children. However, there is a lot of pressure forcing parents to migrate and as a consequence their children and other family members to be affected for good or bad.

A time in my life when I felt an outsider was the first time coming to the United States. I was born in Colombia and the transition from one country to a whole new one made a great difference in culture and the behavior of the people within each country. I was part of the society of this new country but I felt like that was not fit for it at all. One of the issues was language, I had to learn how to communicate and the treatment received from some people was discouraging to keep trying to speak and to be part of their society. However, the self-evaluation I gave myself limit my chances to be fully a human. It can be a very simple experience but it shows a lot on how even when I am a part of a different group of people I still can be a “stranger” due to my own perspective or from the other people. Not knowing the language portrayed also an image about me that people immediately were able to place me under the category of immigrant due to all the knowledge and stereotypes they have gained. But now that I learned the language I am able to defend my position and to communicate with others.  Patricia Hill- Collins’s essay explains how black women have experienced oppression as result of the image the society developed about them. While women are oppressed they were able to develop a standpoint after all and be firm in mentally and physically. Patricia gave an example on how in you don’t have a mind of your own then people are going to take advantage of that and begin to define who you are. Therefore, it was important for women to fight any kind of injustice that approach them and try to bring all people together.

Sexuality was defined by all of our senses, by what people said in their confessions, by what they heard and by what they saw in the physical body of others. The discourses developed from the knowledge people gained from all those observations impacted their behavior. Foucault uses class to help us understand what he calls “a technology of sex”. He argues that people were the utensils or machines to develop the knowledge of sex. As the production of new discourses was processed and modified people started to applied them in their families and children. He wants to prove that humans are the creators of all the concerns about sex. Foucault explains that a group of people during the mid-eighteen hundreds were occupied “with creating its own sexuality and forming a specific body based on it, a “class” body with its health, hygiene, descent, and race: the autosexualization of its body, the incarnation of sex in its body, the endogamy of sex and the body”(1978:123). The bourgeois dedicate themselves to apply key principle to secure their power and self-affirmation to pass on to future generations. Its was important to for them to maintain their sexual principles clear because they wouldn’t want their wealth to be distributed to other classes. By the bourgeoisie willing to keep a health and clean physical appearance the outcome will be beneficial for them but it will exclude other people. People are mostly driven by the superficial appearance and foucault uses this example to prove his point of how sexuality is a cluster of economical, political and physical factors that molds the sexuality of people. Also, we can see the limitation sexuality keeps having from having norms to prevent people to talk about sex to having divisions within a group of people were sex is highly manipulated and restrained from the poorer class.

Foucault recounts some of the history and some concerns towards the discourse of sex in his book “history of sexuality”. During the seventh and eighteen hundreds sex was not a topic someone will address openly mostly due to religious believes or even law. Foucault uses the word censorship to describe the way sex was presented to the society. He argues that sex should be a secret because if a society was so concern about there should be even more confidence in exposing the topic than hidden it. However, sex was key for the procreation of humanity which benefits an entire country in order to be powerful and rich. For a population to grow the use of sex was a must, but it continued to be repressed due to a set of limitation established by political, economic, biological determinations about sex. As time goes by the censorship of sex does not get any better, instead it changes the form by which is delivered to the people. New methods and strategies are developed to lower the shame individuals have to address this topic which is of such importance for a society. Also, he mentions how school faculties were so alert on the behavior of students pointing towards any sexual conduct but still didn’t spoke to them openly about sex. If they believed sex is something dangerous, not right in the eyes of a judge for children to have sex then why don’t they take action and educate them. The sense of power is intervenes in the liberation of speaking about sex without any shame or prohibition. Kids are more curious to know what is the reality when they are being overprotected and not allowed to know and experience it themselves. Therefore, the ideologies created to place sex discourse as blur and discrete as possible can make the secrets of sex of each individual more public and uncovered. Now my questions are if sex was to be openly discussed would it have real effects on overpopulation, maybe parenthood issues  as back in the day they were so concerned about it and as they still do but just in a more discrete way ? And what can are some ways in which sex discourse can be equilibrate and managed in a society?

Bell Hooks describes the “other” as a human being that is sexually possessed, culturally invisible, used as a label to increase consumption of products and as someone that is eventually used and dehumanized due to their “otherness”. It seems as if otherness is used as the general term to define the race of that “other” individual. When Hooks describe the “other”, she uses sexuality, race and market to develop her argument. For example, she gave an anecdote about a group of white students trying to be sexually pleasured by the Other in which race played a primordial role for selection of that one female. We can say that white superiority and willingness to oppress color people using a relationship towards the “other” just as Hooks describes. They want to form a bond with the “other” by acting as if they want to heal the past be part of their new beginning. However, their motive it’s completely different because Hooks mentions how Mooney obtains a heart from a black men and suddenly obtains all and the women Mooney and the black men were in love with. In other words, once the black person is death and the white men accepted the diversity in race then he was able to fulfill his pleasures. There is gain in this white men meaning that there is effective production for the white as they accept a black people. For example, when they contract a black cook to make their food or when they allow them to be the cover of a product they are advertising. This is what Bell Hooks characterized as a relationship to “otherness” as productive. Making some modifications and not limiting to a group of only one racial group will eventually open new doors and generate different forms of wealth for the white. To prove this Hooks used the example of the consumption Pepsi products by black people and in their how on their advertisement the use minority race representations as a strategy for production.

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.

Labor was given depending on gender and race, Morgan and Federici developed similar arguments regarding this concept. Both authors focused on the positions women had in the labor industry during the start of capitalism. Labor is the physical work where one expose their body to perform a task in exchange of a piece of valued printed paper that will allow them to fulfill the requisites of survival in a society. However, the intensity and effort one must do varies among each owner or boss leading the group of individuals. Some might not have any ambition of gaining power while other might have being advantageous and exploited its workers. Women were an easy target for the labor oppression. As Federici argued that each shift in the society such as the incrementation the prices of good and food as well as the jobs offered made inferior and powerless. Similarly, Morgan explains how the physical appearances of women deteriorated their value and were not respected by the descriptions of travelers which diffused race ideologies making owners of slaves discriminate and exploit the black race only by the way they look. People depend on what they can they do with their own hand in order to not starve, have a place to live and have a coexistence. However, the divisions created by the people due to their own concupiscence on humanity made labor unbalanced. White supremacy played a role on creating that distinction and women were given the domestic labor which when it comes to the entire system of labor their work is despised. In addition to their arguments, they both mentioned the way women played their role as mother while working. Some women will have to carry their babies on their backs as they also feed them. Their role as mothers was not taken as an important task to be perform but for them to exploit women in labor was of major importance. It was inevitable to not do any kind of work, the exceptions were not allowed. Under all the circumstances labor was a priority for the survival of the African women and men.

In Jennifer Morgan’s Male Travelers, Female bodies, and Racial Ideology, the correlation between the female body and racism is explained through different passages and some important historical events. One of the passages she mentions was written by De Marees on page 31. Through that passage the body and motherhood of African women was graphically described. In the scenario there was a mother feeding her two or three month old child with her breast over her shoulder. The wording he uses gives us a sense of a brutal behavior from the mothers towards their children. When he uses the word “dugs” to describe women breast he is aligning them to animals to deliver the idea that they are like animals. Even though that was the term use during that time it shows how inhumane women were seen by others. Morgan shows how the idea of savagery of African women was reinforced and used to categorize African women as the “over-shoulder breastfeeding” race. In other similar ways other writers were able to imprint such observations of women from various places and target their “physical imperfections” that will make them fall under certain groups or races.

Body descriptions made by the travelers persuaded them to write about sex and reproduction. Therefore as a society begins to reproduce new individuals labor is maximized and starts togenerate more profit. Unfortunately, the bodies of black were exposed to all the traders and incoming sailors which record every detail of their physical appearances. Women were objects to their racial ideologies. Seen black women naked bombarded their thoughts with features that classify that group of people by race according to their own perspectives as superior or inferior. Based on the behavior of those women scholars were allowed to argue the definition of a race and what characteristics made them different. Unfortunately there was not time to appreciate their hard work, instead they were driven by the white superiority and just encoded the racial difference.

Question: To what extent are ideologies about race and gender able manipulate one’s behavior towards humanity ?