fFelix has 16 post(s)

As Pascoe discusses in her book, the ideations of gender and sexuality begins forming during childhood, and is further explored during the adolescent years. When students enter high school, a highly sexual place full of raging hormones, new feelings of self-discovery begin at a rapid speed and it is during the school environment when teens are most impressionable. The beginning Mr. Cougar contest was an example of how gender lines are drawn by our peers within our society. Excluding girls from the competition, gives the feeling that there is no mutual respect for the girls in the school. Having their Mom’s escort them, demonstrates a machismo attitude where the boys are seen as men of the house, and are cared for and given away by women (Pascoe, 26) It is during the second chapter that the most examples of fear, division, bias, and hate occur. One of the parts I found to be most disgusting was when the art teacher jokes with the auto shop teacher about the student flipping him the bird. Telling him that he should be fucking girls and not giving him the finger was childish and ignorant (Pascoe, 37). It felt to me as though the art teacher was asserting his own masculinity towards the auto shop teacher, by showing him he can be “one of the guys”, with his locker room banter. It makes me believe that he probably speaks about the girls in the school the same manner. I am surprised that Pascoe failed to speak up to the derogatory comments made by the art teacher, I would not have been able to hold myself back from letting him know how his comments are not appropriate for a teacher, who is supposed to be a positive role model. The popular social science teacher Ms. Mac missed the mark, by not turning the awkward and debatable condom subject, into a positive learning experience about sexual conduct. Instead she fell into her feminine role, shying away from talking about sex or anything related to it, because that is not what nice girls do. She had a great opportunity, to use her popularity as way to reach the students, to teach them about the risks involved, as a matter of fact she should have just let Arturo teach them because he seemed to have a better way of handling it. This experience, along with the inappropriately named Man Party, the political club designed by the students which basically made a mockery of women’s rights, and River High School’s White Heritage clubs are disturbing examples of how uneducated people are imposing negativity and social division, regarding gender and identity

A woman who embodies traits that are caring, giving, strength, kindness and love could be considered to have the qualities a mother figure should have. Motherhood is expressing these characteristics towards a woman’s child. In the readings by Angela Davis and Silvia Federici, the joy that is supposed to accompany the motherhood status is practically obsolete. There are no sweet stories of mothers and their children in either piece; the roles women had to endure during those times were that of fear and pain. Given that the African women entrapped in slavery were seen only as laborers, the acts of mothering children was subsequently taken away, and the label of “breeder” was pasted unto them (Davis, 11). This also made it easier for the slave owners to yank young children away from their mothers and sell them as slaves as well. In this respect the women were somewhat overvalued than their male counterparts, because they could do work in the fields and bear children which could be sold off and therefore increase profits of the slave owners. They were able to disassociate the beauty of motherhood from female African slaves and turn them into breeding appliances. Similarly in the Federici reading, women were degraded and their rights were controlled by the European government. Expecting mothers were no longer able to rejoice in childbirth surrounded by the other women in their community and midwives were scrutinized by male doctors, who eventually stole their roles in the delivery room. The government put precedence to the unborn child over that of the women requiring midwives and doctors to save the child and not the mother in life or death situations. Women were victimized and punished under false allegations of infanticide or even reproducing without the government’s consent. The European government wanted full control over the population during the era of accumulation and just as the slave owners did in Davis’s reading, were able to turn women into baby making machine (Federici 102,103).

Racism became evident as England began searching in West Africa for strong and profitable workers to migrate to America and establish new colonies. English writers wrote about their views of African women’s bodies, viewing them as nonsexual animals whose sole purpose was for childbearing and labor. English explorer Richard Jobson wrote about how the African man’s penis and the women’s breast were not sexual organs but more like troubled appendages. As part of their culture the women did not wear clothes. White European’s more or less so called African women animals, describing their breast as low low hanging animal utters. There were also Mexican, Floridian, and Virginian women who were dark skinned and walked nude, however these women had breast that did not hang low and appeared unused and because of this, these women were not seen as savages,for the mere appearance of their breast. African women were seen as savages whether it was because of the shape of their body or their loud behavior, people did not view them as real women,and compared with the beastly behavior of the Garamantes women (Morgan 28,29). The beauty of these women was not allowed to be talked about, instead they were continually depicted as beast who were picked and sold into slavery for labor and reproduction for more labor. These images stuck with the African women all the way through into America where their differences between themselves and the white woman became even more and when racism flourished. White women could not understand how the African women would give birth in front of everyone without the help of a nurse or midwife (Morgan 27). They believed that black women were not cursed because they seemingly experienced pain free child delivery, and it further solidified the racial barrier because they saw them as witches and animals.

Had the Richard Jobson wrote about the beauty of African women instead of making them out to be savages, would people have accepted and been more open to their culture?

Woman were never seen or treated as equals to men. They were only seen as subordinate, housewives, whose sole purpose was to serve man’s needs and reproduction.This is the role that in general, we are told and believed to be factual. The truth of the matter is that women often played an essential role within the military and acquisition of land,and also lead protest not only alongside the antislavery movement and women’s suffrage but also by going on strike in opposition of having their bodies used as baby making machines for either their slave owners or the men in the military (Frederici, 84,106). Woman fought on their own to integrate themselves into society and be seen as equals however as much as they fought, men always had ways to degrade women and continually squash their hopes of ever be treated fairly. The jobs of midwives were even taken away by male doctors, who became the dominant authority in the delivering babies. This allowed the government to gain power over the population ratio to ensure that there was enough food and supplies to go around. Midwives, prostitutes, and unwed pregnant women, were either charged with infanticide or forced to terminate their pregnancies. This was the ultimate form of degradation to the women during those times because being capable of bearing a children, was the only real power that they had left. And yet this miracle of life that only women could provide, was taken away, their bodies were used, abused, discarded like trash and thrown in jail. (Frederici 101). Any control women had over their bodies and pregnancies was eventually taken away, as governmental policies changed to gain capitalistic power, essentially turning women into incubators, breeding future labor workers to multiply capital accumulation. Though this all may have occurred in the middle ages, presently the government still has laws that control women’s bodies and their ability to procreate. (Frederici 106) Abortion and birth control laws are heated topics of debate in congress and even used as campaigning strategies, perhaps not completely for accumulation, but most definitely to gain popularity and win elections within different political parties.

Felix Saldana
Dr. Bullock
WGS 10000 Section 09

Throughout chapter three, Angela Davis discusses how women’s suffrage, and equality in the workforce, had sort of latched onto the anti slavery agenda, allowing the voices of both black and white women to be heard. One example is Elizabeth Stanton, who came from a wealthy family and had advantages as young girl that most didn’t have. Strengthened by her father’s support, Elizabeth crossed the gender barriers at a young age. Learning how to ride horses, studying arithmetics, and Greek, she was the only female that graduated high school in her class. She even went on to study law with her father (1981:53). It seems that Davis wanted to point out how progressive Stanton was in her youth, only to end up like most of the other wealthy white women; a married, middle class, housewife and mother. Davis also points out that it was Stanton’s background that led up to her feelings of oppression and undervalue, as a women. In a letter to Lucretia Mott, Stanton discussed her home life and how disgruntled she felt. Though it sounded more to me, that she was complaining about her “white privilege”, and how not having the help of servants, led her to feel the same feelings of a black slave. Stanton used this moment as a platform to continue the efforts to gain equality for women and slaves by speaking at the Seneca Falls Convention, the nation’s first women’s rights convention. She was even able to convince Fredrick Douglas that women had a right to vote, to which he then became a male voice for all women. I believe that Davis effectively shows that even if helping white woman was Elizabeth Stanton’s initial unconscious agenda, she was able to channel her knowledge and fortitude from her youth and apply it to a greater cause and fight with the anti-slavery movement while attaching her own incentive, the equality of women rights.

Hello, my name is Felix. I just finished my associates in science at Laguardia Community College and transferred here to Hunter College.  I am most likely majoring in Physical Anthropology as a gateway into a PA program, but haven’t quite figured it all out yet.  I became interested in gender and sexuality a couple years ago when a friend told me she was non-binary, which I learned means that she does not express her gender with being feminine or masculine, it’s kind of a mix of both.  I also learned that gender does not define sexuality and vice versa.  To be honest it’s confusing because I have known about gay, lesbian, and transsexuals, practically all my life, but it was this new term that made me want to understand more about what gender is really, how it’s different from sexuality, and how we are all affected by the these roles of man or woman. I believe that we humans are constantly evolving and that gender and sexuality perhaps is evolving alongside us.  I’m hoping to learn more about the history and evolution of gender  and sexuality roles so that it can aid me in my future career and for personal growth. Overall, I am excited for my first semester at Hunter. Good luck to all of  you!