fKatherine has 9 post(s)

In Ahmed’s piece, she argues that people’s emotions are not innate nor personal. Instead they are shaped by the myths perpetuated in one’s environment. The author uses psychoanalysis to show how white fears of “the other” are often rooted in unconscious beliefs shaped by deeper histories. Through the use of fear white people mobilize feelings of hatred of the perceived other. This hatred is justified through ideas of the white subject’s rights and the nation’s ground they view as under threat of the other. The nation is imagined as white which is believed to be synonymous with purity. The “others” are perceived as violating this purity and their entry is framed as overwhelming the white population viewed as the rightful owners of the land. The nation is also viewed as a white female in that the entry of immigrants is seen as a violation akin to rape. Ahmed argues that these feelings work to stick together identities such as that of an asylum seeker and the terrorist boogeyman. By conflating these two identities the nation is perceived as “securing itself” by not allowing asylum seekers. Since these people are viewed as dangerous the few that are allowed entry to make the nation be seen as charitable or righteous. White people are viewed the same way that the home owner that murdered the 16-year-old burglar is seen. Protecting property is shown to be more important than human life. Even though the boy was murdered the real victim is the home owner whose property was thought to be under threat. The grounds or nation is viewed as under threat by the other and white people who perceive themselves to be the “home owners” see themselves as having the right to secure it at any cost. The author also shows the way language in speeches reveals this fear in the use of words like “swamped.” These words carry connotations of asylum seekers as dirty and as intruders which mobilize national attitudes to be anti-immigration and refugee aid.

In this article Lila Abu-Lughod discusses the way the image of the oppressed Afghan women and her victimized femininity were mobilized in efforts to justify the U.S post 9/11 wars in the middle east. She analyzes two major moments in media where this can be clearly seen: One was her interview with a PBS reporter and the other was Laura Bush’s radio address.  In her interview with the PBS reporter she discusses the way culture, women’s roles and Islam were evoked as a way to explain terrorism. Instead of analyzing the way U.S involvement created much of the instability in the region prior to the events on 9/11, the media chose to focus on Muslims and middle eastern culture to try to make sense of the attacks. The veil was evoked as a symbol of female oppression and a clear example of the “backwardness” and “barbarism” of Islam and middle eastern culture. In turn, the war was presented as necessary to “free” oppressed and victimized Afghani women. In Laura Bush’s radio address her manner of speech conflates the Taliban and the terrorists while framing the western world as the benevolent entity that would save the “women of cover.” This approach to Muslim women’s identities, their perceived oppression and victimization under the veil is problematic in different ways. Not only does It help mobilize the west to see themselves as more “civilized” and therefore superior, it also ignores Muslim women’s agency within their own cultural and religious tradition. While women face oppression and disenfranchisement in Afghanistan they fight their hardships by drawing on philosophy that makes sense in their context and through reinterpreting religious doctrine. Ignoring the way Muslim women carve out their own unique brand of feminism is an instrument that maintains the “war on terror” running by gaining support for western countries in the name of freeing middle eastern women from middle eastern men.

Hoshchild, Isaksen and Devi argue that “the commons” are eroded as women migrate outside their countries producing what they term as a “care drain.” This “care drain” is the movement of women from their native countries into first world countries to secure jobs in nursing or as domestic workers. Following the assumption laid out that women are the main care givers in these cultures it follows that as women leave their own families to care for those of their employers in the north their own children suffer the loss of their primary caregiver. While the term “common” was previously used to describe communal lands in 15^th century Europe, they have added on to this term to bring about the idea of a “social-emotional commons” (407). This social- emotional commons relies on the trading of services and goods within a society. These “global care chains” exist in order to move capital from the south to the north through care labor but also from the north to the south in the form of money and presents. This money and gifts sent to relatives and their children are what supply the commons with more material capital. Through understanding how the commons work and how capital is moved we can better understand why migration is seen as “eroding the commons”. For children left behind the absence of mothers which are seen to be the pillars of culture and care caused grief. Many children and adults expressed dissatisfaction at having their mothers leave and the bonds that were unable to form because of this. Some even felt resentment towards their mothers and insisted that the material wealth created through migrating were not worth the destabilization of their family lives and childhoods. Through these accounts we see that while migration serves as a way to bring capital to third- world countries it causes what the authors believe to be a break down in the commons and in family structures in these countries. While economic capital is brought in care capital is exported leaving generations of children raised by aunts, and grandparents. I believe it’s important to be critical of these conclusions. Would children feel this amount of grief if women were seen differently in their societies? Can women ever be both economic women and caring mothers?

Cabeza’s research touches on a largely ignored component of research in sexual tourism in the Caribbean: How these “sex workers” identify themselves. According to her work the term “sex worker” cannot be applied to men and women who have romantic and sexual relationships with European tourists. In both The Dominican Republic and Cuba these men and women reject the idea of themselves as prostitutes and see their relationships with these tourists as friendships that can help them acquire some capital to rise out of poverty. Most women do not see these encounters with tourists as an exchange of sex for money but would rather receive gifts that could build the relationship and lead to marriage and migration. While both men and women participate in these sort of arrangements women receive much more scrutiny. In Cuba men that date foreigners are seen as national heroes for “conquering” the bodies of foreign women (118). Meanwhile women are placed under heavy surveillance and their behavior is criminalized. Light skinned and dark skinned women both participate in courting tourists however only dark skinned women are met with abuse and disgust. Light skinned women’s relationships with the tourists are seen as “romance” while dark skinned women are always thought to be prostitutes. Mass roundups of dark skinned women in clubs and even individual women walking alone at night are read as prostitutes. They are arrested and made to pay fines for their “immoral behavior.” Women’s “deviant” sexual behaviors are tied to nation building and citizenship because their means of survival are criminalized and they are constructed as outsiders in their own countries. While the government, tourism industry and the police work to “protect” tourists from the unsightly dark-complexioned poor they punish the native population for attempting to better their lives.

The author’s field work at River High exemplifies the ways our understandings of gender and sexuality are culturally constructed. Pascoe gives multiple examples of the ways administrators act as both regulators and facilitators of the creation of sexual identities and genders. One of her first examples is the Mr. Cougar competition where male students put on a skit and take part in a ceremonial event that Pascoe explains as a sort of coming of age ceremony. In the skit the boys are transformed, through the acquisition of physical strength, from weak nerds who can’t protect their girlfriends to strong macho men who act as saviors of damsels in distress. This skit enforced various ides about gender and sexuality. First, it centered successful heterosexuality as the ultimate goal and what is most celebrated. Second, it casts femininity as weak through the boys’ use of a feminine voice before the gaining of physical strength and the fact that their girlfriends in the skit were waiting to be rescue and could not defend themselves against the gangsters.  The second part of this event was equally encoded in cultural meanings about gender and sexuality. Pascoe likens this part of the competition to a wedding. The boy circles the gym going from bleacher to bleacher to receive the cheers of the audience as he leads his female escort and mother around the room. The mother then sits and the son gives her a kiss on the cheek before proceeding to walk the rest of the way with his date. This is similar to the way a bride’s hand is given off to the groom at a traditional wedding. It once again reinforces hetero-normativity in the need for a ceremonial display of the contestants in such a clearly sexualized way. It’s important to remember that this is a school event meaning that it is hosted and approved by the school administration. In this way the administration displays an agenda towards creating gendered meanings within the school walls and aims to show what is deemed as appropriate gender displays and sexuality rituals.

In chapter 1 of Jennifer Morgan’s book she explains how African women’s bodies were dehumanized in order to justify slavery. Early European travelers wrote reports of both Native American and African women. These reports included images and writings that shaped ideologies that othered non europeans. By painting these people as savages, specially the women, Europeans were able to set the groundwork for what would result in the race classifications and the exploitation of black and brown bodies that continues today. One trope that was spoken about throughout the chapter was the idea of black women as having extremely long hanging breasts. Not only did this trope further the idea of black women as reproductive factories it also allowed Europeans to liken them to domesticated animals and beasts. The image of the black mother carrying her child on her back and throwing her breast over her shoulder for them to suck on was an image propagated throughout europe. This image not only helped to solidify black women as  monstrous beings but it allowed for a clear distinction between white women and black women. While white women were weak, dainty and pure black women were depicted as unnaturally strong and masculine. One of the main ways this difference was made clear was through accounts on black women’s childbearing practices. Much of the literature spoke on black women unnatural reproductive abilities. They were said to not feel pain during childbirth and were capable of bearing children and go tend to  their daily work almost immediately after. When compared to white women who were aided by nurses and demonstrated pain and fragility during childbirth it cast black women as in the same category as livestock. If pain during childbirth was a biblical curse that god put upon Eve, the fact that black women apparently did not feel pain proved they were not descendants of Eve and therefore were in the same realm as animals. The hanging breasts were also used to liken black women to beasts. One informant wrote that a woman’s breasts were so long their grazed the floor as she bent to do field work creating the illusion of six legs. Another example was the use of the word “dug” when describing their breasts, a word commonly used for animals. These images all worked together to solidify the idea of African women as subhuman savages. This idea was used to legitimize the enslavement of both african women and men.

Question: What were the differences and similarities between the depictions of Native American women and African women? Why did these differ? Can we see some of the same images being perpetrated in today’s society?

In Federici’s work she details the rise of capitalism in Europe. Specifically she addresses the ways this shift from a feudalism to capitalism hurt women in particular. One detail I found compelling was the presence of women in peasant riots. She writes that the riots were driven by food scarcity caused by the hoarding of goods and the raising prices of food items. Women were the most affected by a shift to capitalism because the privatization of land and the creation of wages left them with no way to provide for themselves. Women made only fractions of the already meager wage men earned and were also not allowed access to many jobs. They were then driven into becoming housewives who were completely reliant on men to even feed themselves. Pushing women into the home created a devaluing of things seen as “women’s work” such as the rearing of children. For this reason women were often the agitators for peasant riots or made up a large percentage of the rioters. By the 16th and 17th century famine and starvation was commonplace something that put women and children at the highest risks. She writes that out of the thirty one food riots in France during the 17th Century six were initiated by women. They also made up large numbers in even the ones they didn’t start. The Cordoba uprising in 1652 is notable because it began from a woman mourning the loss of her son to starvation.  Women’s ties to the home at this time made them the “care-takers” of their families which created an even deeper desperation to secure food. These conditions led to the degradation of women because the lack of opportunities for gaining income were not accessible leading them to commit petty theft, prostitute themselves or fall victim to the rampant “witch-hunts” of the era.

In Chapter 3 Davis guides the reader through the creation of the Women’s Movement. She does so by creating complex tapestry that weaves in issues of race, class and gender. In doing so she shows us the ways that all three are interconnected and most importantly how the struggle for the rights for women, black people and workers are all dependent on one another.

Davis explains that the women’s movement was born from the involvement of white northern women in abolitionist activism. Through this activism they realized they could assert themselves in the public sphere and were just as capable as men in leadership roles. In this we see the way white women’s struggle for rights was inextricably tied to the abolition of slavery. However, Davis notes that within the abolitionist movement there was widespread sexism which resulted in the silencing and exclusion of abolitionist women from public speaking. In 1840 at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London women were barred from speaking and forced to sit behind a curtain where they could quite literally be neither seen nor heard. Events like these inflamed abolitionist women who realized that in order to play a real role in anti-abolitionist movements they had to assert their rights as women. This sparked a need for a conversation on women’s rights which led for the case for women’s suffrage. In the Seneca Falls Convention the discussion of suffrage rights for women brought about opposition from many. Frederick Douglass a prominent black writer and activist stood with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and advocated for the full equality of women. This is significant because Davis is attempting to demonstrate how the Black Liberation movement stood with the fight for women’s rights.

However, Davis also notes that the Seneca Falls convention was not attended by a single Black woman. How could a convention proclaiming the need for women’s rights and equality, born from the abolitionist movement not include a single black women? The black women, who stands at the intersection of both racial and gender oppression, was forgotten. At a convention in Akon Ohio Sojourner Truth an ex-slave spoke passionately about this dual oppression when men claimed that women’s inherent weakness would not allow them to exercise suffrage if they were to gain it. Citing experiences as a slave she countered that she was in no way weak, carried the same loads slave men carried and was never afforded with the gentle treatment white women did. With this she proved that these ideologies were false and women were just as capable as men. The white women in the audience many of which sneered and worked to bar Truth from speaking in the first place now cheered her. This I think is an interesting show of the ways white women accept black women in their movements so far as they perform labor for them.

Along with being a white women’s party The Seneca Falls Convention was almost entirely one comprised of wealthy white women. The Seneca Falls Declaration did not mention nor recognize the thousands of working class women and girls for whom a women’s rights movement was not only ideology but survival. While the convention revolved around the oppression of wealthy women by their husbands, the denial of opportunities to pursue education and being denied access from political realms white working women in factories saw the cause for women’s liberation as something that was tied to their rights as workers. The conditions in the mills led to disease, terrible diets and exploitation something these women worked to resist. As the conditions worsened the daughters of farmers began to be replaced by immigrant women whom Davis explains had no land to fall back on and whose labor was their only means of survival. The women’s movement attempts to be radical failed because they were supportive of capitalism. William Loyd Garrison proved this with his vehement opposition of workers forming their own political parties. While they fought against slavery they did not rally against worker’s rights not realizing that the oppression of slaves and that of the working class derived from the same source: Capitalism. Once again women like Sojourner Truth represent the intersections of Race, Gender and Class. Black women who never enjoyed the comfort that married life gave wealthy white women had been laborers from the very beginning. In this way Black women faced oppression at every side. The Women’s movement did not recognize workers as tied to their liberation because it’s leaders were the wives of northern capitalist or were capitalist themselves. They were not inclined to bite the hand that fed them. Davis is able to show the connection between all these social struggles and allow us to reach the conclusion that the Grimke sisters made: Progress could only come from coalitions formed through the joining of Black, women, and worker’s liberation movements.

My name is Katherine De La Cruz. I’m originally from the Dominican Republic and live in Brooklyn.  I’m an Anthropology major in my Junior year. I have never taken a formal women and gender studies class so I am excited to learn more about women’s movements and activism.  I believe that being knowledgeable about issues of sexuality and gender will make my anthropological research more complex.