fKimberly has 14 post(s)

Sara Ahmed opens her essay by with a quote from the Aryan Nations Website. Many people view them as being hateful with the way they view others, but they perceive their feelings as coming from love. They have a love for their country, people, and culture and they view others as being a threat, even comparing interracial couples to child molesters and rapist. It is the love of preserving themselves that they believe other people confuse for hate. This is an alternative way of viewing their lifestyle and it is accomplished through the use of emotions. This has the power to change they way they are perceived. She talks about the rights of the people and the grounds of the nation in this essay both of which are under attack according to the Aryans. One emotion that was discussed was fear, and how it is something that is felt from the outside and works its way in. There was a white child that saw a shivering black man and interpreted his action as aggression causing him to be scared. His perspective gave him the right or the grounds for feeling scared. Fear creates a divide between people and by expressing his fear the white boy is said to expand while the black man being the one who is feared is said to be contained because he is afraid of the impact of scaring the little boy. Emotional work has the power to bring people together, spread them apart and/or develop places in societies. Ahmed describes what they Aryans say as imaginations and fantasy and through emotional work they can bring them to life. Once people become conditioned to view the other as dangerous, it validates mistreatment. The boy was taught that black men are dangerous so seeing a black man with a natural human reaction produces fear. Once he has that real intense feeling it is hard to dissociate fear from the black race. He will feel he has a right to want to protect his own and his nation.

In Lila Abu-Lughod’s essay she talks about the need to define what it means to be a Muslim women and have Islamic beliefs from the western world perspective. In doing so, an us versus them atmosphere was created between the two regions. There was a focus put on analyzing the culture, faith and gender dynamics rather than the history behind the current state of the government that the U.S was involved in. Everyone wanted an explanation, so religion and culture became the scapegoat instead of getting to the real root of the problem. There was a very specific picture that was being created where the westerners had to go in a save the Muslim women from a life of oppression as seen in the juxtaposition between first lady’s speech and the women in burqas. Muslim women were used to justify the war. In Laura Bush’s speech she made a distinction between people she saw as civilized, or the westerners, and Taliban. She expressed sympathy for the women and children sustaining the idea that we need to intervene and they need to be saved. She wanted to make it seem as if the American bombings were necessary to save the women and children saying that our intervention women have more freedoms. She equated the war on terrorism to be the war against the oppression of Muslim women. This was critiqued because it simplified the struggles of Muslim women ignoring the poverty and malnutrition they faced which can only be worsened with bombings. She believed that they had “selective concern” where they focus on specific issues that are seen on the surface but ignore the root of the problems. Often times the root of the problem is also similar to the issues in the west. For example, there was a fight to end the practice of sati and child marriage in South Asia, but there was no effort to give women a solid educational foundation where marriage wouldn’t be such a focus or necessity. Some of the men fighting to liberate these women were against women in their countries voting. It can make you question if the real goal is to liberate women or is it to make everyone oppress women in the more “acceptable” way.

Citizenship took on the form of being both oppressive and liberating depending on the country they were a citizen of. Citizenship is seen as belonging to a country through unity and an emotional tie to ones country, but not necessarily in the physical or sexual sense where your body is seen as being the nation. Many of the Cuban and Dominican women that were interviewed came from poverty where they were expected to not only take care of their children, but often times take care of their parents and siblings financially. A citizenship in another country worked as a symbol for hope and opportunities. One of the women interviewed,  Yolanda, formed serious relationships with some of the tourist. One wanted her to quit her job, and be with him exclusively. He continued to pay her rent and support her children who she was left with after her husband abandoned them. Her previous relationship with a tourist ended because she felt he wasn’t as committed to the relationship as she was. What comes to mind when people hear of sex tourism is just women sleeping with foreign men in exchange for more money than she can make elsewhere. In actuality many of the women wanted something more serious than what was described. They often times would prefer to get presents than money which seems more like a relationship instead of some exchange. What a lot of these women are searching for is a way out. After obtaining an intimate relationship with the tourist it is common that they bare their souls and express their desires and dreams for better. Their sexuality is used as a gateway to lead to marriage and migration. Their sexuality is also connected to their citizenship in their native country. Sex tourism became such a major part of what brought people in to the country and helped stimulate the economy. Cuban women having sexual relationships with tourist was seen as defiling the pride of the nation. The female body belonged to her nation because when a male had sex with a tourist no one considered the Cuban body to lose its value. The woman’s citizenship differed from the man’s because she was seen as physically belonging to and representing her nation while he gets to be seen as a defender of the nation when he “conquers” the invaders or tourist.

The commons was originally a term used in the 15th century in relation to land that was used for livestock to graze. This land was intended for shared use for everyone. The commons can also take on a different meaning that takes the form of a community rather than land. Within this community, people are expected to work together and provide services for each other. In the 15th century land became privatized so people weren’t able to share land they way they used to. Land became restricted, and the same thing happened to communities through migration. The way people can work for and with each other changed. The meaning of this concept in relation to the concerns discussed by the authors, is that there is a strong need of the commons within third world countries. Able bodied adults are heavily needed to provide their services as caretakers to the elderly and children, or as nurses and teachers, but this is also the same population of people who are leaving their countries to go to other first world nations in order to do work for a higher pay so they can financially support their family. We require this concept of the commons in order to understand how complex issues related to migration are, and how the efforts to provide a better life can lead to other problems especially for children. The idea of the commons could be applied to land use, family dynamics and community dynamics so it, along with financial gain, is necessary to understand in order to see how it impacts everyone like the children for example. The children who didn’t have their mother around them didn’t do as well in school, and experienced feelings of sadness that impacted their lives in many ways. Because women weren’t able to physically care for their children their love became commodified. Gifts and money were exchanged for taking care of someone’s child. The psycho-social growth of children became a great concern because of migrating mothers.

Growing up, there were many times that I felt like, and was treated like an outsider. One example of this was in my 8th grade English class where 2 people in my working group of 4 decided to have a side conversation about black people by making fun of black hair, and even started to make fun of specific students from the school. I’ve always for the most part been very quiet and not really confrontational in school, so the way I used to respond to hearing things like this was to pretend I didn’t hear anything at all, but given the small group setting it was clear that I heard everything. They spoke as if I wasn’t right there, and it made me feel a strange combination of being invisible and like I’m standing out too much. Patricia Hill-Collins feels that by going through situations like this helps us learn more about sociality and oppression. What she is saying is that though being in a marginalized group comes with painful experiences it also can help bring you closer and feel like you are apart of a group, based on shared experiences. She says that the black women has a unique point of view on what they experience within this specific group. You can further analyse how specific black women see the world through the eyes of a black women who is also gay or a black women who is also a senior citizen and so on. All of these black women could find common ground through their physical similarities that lead them to have similar life experiences that vary to some degree. She also speaks on how oppression has many forms. In the comparison of black women being like mules and white women being like dogs we get a better understanding of this. Both groups of women had to deal with harmful stereotypes and treatments that pushed the idea that they were inferior, but there was still a hierarchy. The mule is to be worked and physically abused while the dog is to be obedient, can be loved but is always viewed as less than a human. The human is the white man. Both the black and white women can relate to being oppressed, but they can not completely relate on how they are being oppressed.

What Foucault means when he writes about the technology of sex is that sex was starting to drift away from being so strongly connected to the church yet it still maintained a connection to sin. It became a topic of interest in relation to medicine, economics, and educating the youth. Knowledge in medicine was applied to the sexual lives of people with the purpose of progressing the eugenics movement. There was more of an interest sexual physiology in women particularly. An example of the technology of sex being applied to sexuality is the broadening of the medico-psychological field of study in order to replace everyone’s moral beliefs with a more scientific or fact based belief. Studies relating to heredity became more prominent causing people feel they had a biological responsibility to future generations. There were studies on how homosexuality is linked to mental or physical disability from someone’s line of descent, implying that it was a type of disease or illness that was hereditary. There was no scientific evidence yet it was pushed as fact. Genealogy helped to make homophobia more acceptable. I think that what Foucault is trying to say through his characterization of sexuality is that it is very highly influenced by public belief. If the public seems to be drifting from being under religious control a better way to control them is through logic or medical theories. I think that Foucault wanted to show how strategic people were in order to gain power from popular public views. Educating children on sex in the way they did was the perfect example of abusing the power that came with distorting information for mass consumption. The technology of sex was used to sustain the idea of the norm when the fear of an eternity of punishment in the afterlife wasn’t enough, we had to introduce the idea of a life of mental and physical sicknesses for you or your decendents.

In part one, Foucault says that at the beginning of the 17th century people were more liberal in the way they discussed and felt about sexuality. It wasn’t something that was as stigmatized and kept a secret as it later became because of the Victorian bourgeoisie. Sex was now seen as having a purpose which was to reproduce only. It became linked to the home and conjugal families. The beginning of capitalism happened around the same time the public opinion of sex shifted. A focus on sexuality went against the belief of focusing on work, and production. Labor capacity was said to have been exploited under capitalism. Everything became about production and not really pursuing pleasure. This connection could be tied into sexuality being repressed and people feeling like sex is only for married couples to make children. The repression of sexuality made talking about sex something that was somewhat revolutionary. It was going against what people were raised to do believe was the right thing to do. Foucault believes that the reason people speak of sex in a formal way today traces back to how it was repressed then and how it is still repressed now.People are very aware that by speaking on this topic is breaking an unwritten rule. It goes against what is socially acceptable and children are raised to see it as taboo. Sex also began to be linked to sin. Linking it to sin changed it from being a social issue to a moral issue. Foucault says that the process to free ourselves from the repression of sexuality will take a long time, and we will have to condemn it many times in order to see a change in how it is viewed and talked about. The prohibition of sexuality is a very complicated subject that involves censoring but isn’t limited to and shouldn’t be reduced to the surface level negativity.

Questions

1)Foucault mentions that we speak of sex in a solemn way nowadays. Do you agree or would you say that we are reverting back to the times of the early 17th century where people were more frank about sexuality?

2)Capitalism and the repression of sexuality happened around the same time. If we moved away from being a capitalist nation do you think it will impact how people view and talk about sex?

The other as described in bell hooks’ essay would be racial minorities who have cultures that differ from western norms. White people are seen as the default, or the standard and because of this some of them feel the need to rebel against this by taking on another cultures identity. In an attempt to add excitement to their lives, prove progression, or go against expectations, white people can sometimes submerge themselves in another race’s way of life which is their relationship to the “other”. hooks characterizes this relationship as productive because there was a time period where the other was completely shunned and any relationship to the other lacked consent. Not to say that this isn’t an issue today, but we have moved forward in racial relations even to the point where people would actually want to have a consensual relationship with someone from a different cultural background for various reasons. The desire to claim an identity makes the other seem appealing instead of appalling which is a step forward. Some white people have a desire to be changed in someway by obtaining the other. Either becoming more sexually advanced since people of color are stereotyped to be more experienced, or becoming more culturally aware because people of color are seen as being more worldly. Publicly expressing an interest in a person of color is a radical action in comparison to what is the norm for white supremacist. It helps to push away from the stigma of interracial relationships that are both platonic and romantic. Though the relationship to the other is somewhat productive it is also very flawed. From the very idea that there even is a default and an other, and the assumptions made about people, to people having a motive behind an interracial relationship rather than just liking an individual.

The students and faculty at River High were very influential in sustaining cultural meanings behind sexuality and gender as seen in their traditions such as the Mr. Cougar skits, school dances, and even everyday conversations. The Mr.Cougar skits were very blunt with how they depicted gender norms by showing how men are supposed to look and behave. They showed that men are supposed to be masculine, heterosexual, and display their strength to show dominance. There was one skit in particular were nerdy boys lost their girlfriends to gangsters, and they had to work out to gain physical strength as well as change their appearance to rescue the girls. The girls in this skit weren’t of extreme importance. They were just kidnapped, rescued, or used in comparison with the nerdy boys to show how physically weak they are. The message these skits show is that it is better for young men to be masculine, straight, dress and act a certain way. Before their transformation, the nerds were seen as being comical because they weren’t the ideal type of boy. These skits are approved by administrators which shows that they see nothing wrong with the message it sends. At the school dances the music that is played tends to have derogatory terms for women used in the songs. Both the boys and girls sing along cheerfully. The administration would allow for this kind of music helping to push certain gender norms. Also, the rules surrounding the dress codes were gender specific. Boys couldn’t sag and girls couldn’t show their midriff. The wording of the dress code implies that girls can sag and boys can show their midriff even though one can assume the administration won’t approve of this. They gave the clothing a gender instead of saying all students are banded from wearing crop tops and sagging their pants. Comments that were intended to be innocent or humorous can also contribute to the cultural meanings of sexuality. The teacher Ms. Mac jokingly referred to her male and female students as being a couple. Her comment was heteronormative because it pushed the idea that a male and female relationship has a sexual undertone. Mr.McNally also jokingly hit on one of his male students and one could take his comment as making homosexual flirting seem humorous

The concept of motherhood is addressed in both Davis and Morgan’s work, and in both works it is used to show the contrast created between black motherhood and the ideal mother. Black women were seen as breeders rather than mothers during the time period discussed. They both seem to place an emphasis on the fertility of black women being appreciated in order to increase the slave population. In Morgan’s work, the contrast was used as a way to create a division between the races. The physical differences between the races were observed in great detail from body types and hair texture to the shapes of noses. The role of the black mother was not only to create more children, but to pass along their genetic traits to sustain the racial hierarchy that allows slavery to exist, and all of the benefits that comes with free labor. Morgan also wrote about Moota who was an enslaved woman who had children that never truly belonged to her. Women like Moota gave birth, but they never got to understand what is was like to be a mother  She also wrote about the difficulties black mothers had forming a motherly connection with their children while being enslaved.This proves that for these women, motherhood went as far as giving birth to increase a population and not really much after this point. The black woman’s ability to be a good mother was attacked by making her the scapegoat for the physical differences between the races, thus making black people inferior.When Davis talks about enslaved mothers being seen as breeders, we know that this view is used as a way to justify the selling and buying of children. Mothers were legally stripped of their claim to their children. The division of motherhood and what black mothers were seen as, made it easier to pass such outrageous laws. Morgan and Davis both showed us how mothers were dehumanized in order to justify all of the terrible thing that are done to them, and how motherhood was used a weapon against them.