fSumaya Akter has 11 post(s)

Lila Abu-Lughod discusses in her essay, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving”, the connection between the Islamic faith and Muslim women through the effects of the War on Terror. Due to this war, the topic on Muslim women and Islam has changed and became sensitive and Abu-Lughod connects this with “cultural mode of explanation”. One way Abu-Lughod was able to interpret this change was through the media and historical context.

Abu-Lughod explains how supposedly terrorists are connected with the Talibans as if they were one word, and there was not much difference from each other. This was a horror to see because this was just connecting it back to Afghanistan. Laura Bush emphasizes that the United States was able to provide Muslim women rights that they did not have before. However, not everyone will believe that because in fact it was the Westerners that has caused in colonialism but not many are aware of their effects. One particular issue was the British invasion in south Asia. These white men perceived themselves as saving these brown women from brown men, but in reality most women were oppressed and could not seek an education. Another incident was the French rule over Algeria. Algeria has long fought for their independence, but this did not occur to these two girls mentioned in Lughod’s essay. The two girls went as far as associating freedom with Christianity. As if, not following the religion automatically meant you were oppressed, which I believe Lughod was trying to point out in this text. People often mistake certain terms with freedom and not understanding why do some people practice terms that are not considered “normal”.

At the end of the day, people should be able to practice whatever they want because it is their right. In fact, the problem is that people do not go into depth of the idea and let something like the War on Terror to influence them. Instead they should look at context before that.

According to Amelia Cabeza’s article, there is sex tourism in many places around the world especially in developing countries like Cuba and the Dominican Republic. These two countries are actually very different from each other, but there are few things that they have in common. One being the fact that they were both occupied from the United States and the other is sex tourism is popular and used for similar purposes. Cabeza discusses that sexuality and sexual identity in the role of sex tourism can be defined with such certainty instead it should be looked upon as a theory that is growing. She along performs an experiment that contributes to the connection of sexuality and citizenship.

One woman from the article named Yolanda who is from the Dominican Republic. She is a young single mother of three that was struggling to make ends meet even when working at her uncle’s resort. She was constantly getting harassed from the male guests and was fed up with the condition she was presented with. However, this was how she met some of her boyfriends. She met one man from Germany that did take care of her but it seemed temporary for her, which was not good enough. Soon after, she met an Austrian who provided everything for her that she did not need to work. She was able to find a relationship that was long-lasting. Some of these sex workers were in it for money but there were some that were in it for pleasure or rather more of the security like citizenship elsewhere or providing for their family. This even occurred with male sex workers and they would engage in activities with gay men even though they were not gay themselves. This was because it was more remunerative.

Sex workers greatly contributed from this and cling on to tourists because they are the ones that are more likely to cooperate versus locals. This is because such countries like Cuba and the Dominican Republic are more known their exotic economy e.g. mafia controlled casinos, world famous dance clubs, etc. (Cabeza:994).

The authors in, “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chains, or Commons?”, view how the concept of “the commons” impacts on the role of migration from the south to the north. This would lead to the influence of capital along with the connection within the child’s “relational world”.

There are multiple factors that influence people to migrate to stronger economic countries. However, there seems to more female migrants versus male ones (405-406). Also they tend to stay in the country they migrate to longer and this could be the result of simply providing financial support for their family. However, this can lead to problems. When female migrants take on the role of financial support they would fall into the two categories. They are either a family woman or economic woman (406). However, it is never both. This means that these female migrants are either mothers or helping themselves, which is often the case. They would resort to “the commons” in order to help their family because it is the easiest access to work with higher pay that they would not receive in their home country. “The commons” is a place where actually everyone relies on and holds a value because without it society would fall apart.

There are always consequences to every action made. When the women that are also mothers that migrant they risking losing the communication with their children. Children that fall into this scenario understand the circumstances. However, they feel a sense of loneliness along with the discouragement of not wanting to do anything better for themselves. This results in them not wanting to go to college even though is part of the reason why the female migrants sacrificed to contribute a brighter future their family. Sometimes, the more connected the parents are in their children’s lives the better they would perform.

There was two incidences that revolved around me being an outsider. However, these experiences did impair view of the world I was living but at the same time helped develop my personality. These incidences happened when I was quite young so my views have changed a bit over time but it does erase the oppression that is there.

I developed a skin condition called Eczema, which altered my life forever. To this day, I have no idea why I got it but it is a part of me and I accept it. However, when I was younger I had no idea what I had was not normal and it was not until kindergarten I realized that. On the first day of kindergarten, a girl noticed my hands and she immediately told everyone in our class that I had a disease. She even mentioned that if anyone got near me they would get it too. I was isolated instantly. No one dared to come near to me. This taught me that not everyone was kind or to be trusted. I oppressed based on my skin just because it was different from everyone else. This difference became special to the other kids and took advantage of it. There was no difference between us but the fact I had a skin condition they could never really include me into their group.

I went to a middle school predominately Asians. I had a lot of friends that were Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc. Basically it was a different part of Asia that I was from. I got along well with them. It was very competitive, we were constantly comparing our grades and I was able to keep up with excellent grades. However, I knew I was still not fully accepted regardless of our cooperation. There was always this sense I kept getting that I should not get too close you have no idea what they were thinking about you. Eventually I met my best friend’s mother and that was when it officially kicked in. She absolutely adored me because I was a student and wanted her daughter to be like me but nothing more than that. She thought my health was poor and I was very fat. She tried to give my mother books to help me lose weight and change my diet. This coincides with what Collins was trying to say with racial and sexist domination. My best friend’s family was naturally skinny and had a different kind of diet that I was not used to. When you were south-Asian, your portions were huge and the more you eat the better. With east-Asians, their portions were rather smaller and were encouraged to eat healthy. Most of the people in my family developed diabetes and other health problems and they had more weight on their body. This ran through my genetics so it was easier said than done to lose weight for me.

Michel Foucault often discusses about the term “a technology of sex” in chapter 4, periodization. During the end of the eighteenth century, sex had more meaning than a secular one but had more depth through pedagogy, medicine, and economics. This would play out throughout history in which sex actually had a role in. Foucault provides examples where sex had a contribution in all three categories in not just the past but even in the nineteenth century as well. By showing this, it showed the “application” it had on sexuality. Especially during the eighteenth century, sex impacted on the sexuality on children, sexual physiology pertaining to women, and the demography.

Sometimes there can be disorders or birth defects that can occur in children at birth. Because of this, people would refer back to methods of Christianity to justify this. One incident this occurred was in the nineteenth century, where Heinrich Kaan explains in his book called Psychopathia Sexualis, about certain diseases were hereditary (1978:117-118). This was the reason why life expectancies were not very high because the diseases or disorders possessed at birth prevented them from it. He mentions specifically that it was a biological responsibility (1978:118). This further developed his ideology of the new coming of medicine in orthopedics relating to sex. If the sexual relations were not controlled then the future generation may be at risk and might become deformed.

I believe Foucault is trying to say that the technology of sex became an essential part of life to regulate and built discourse in order to save the disasters that were happening. Hoping that by spreading these words and building new “medicine” would make a difference and contribute to “a technology of sex”. This controlled who were allowed to have sex through their genetics if there was a fatal disease then it could not happen.

Bell Hooks often uses the term “the other” in her essay. For many years there has been a need of superiority within races and sex. As discovery of other races there needed to be a comprehension of how to handle the diversity and possibly the need to be in power. Anything that was not a white male was considered to be different and this difference impacted the modern society. Commodity culture in the United States took advantage of the orthodox concept of race, gender and sexual desire through racial difference and racial sexual encounters (Hooks:367).

Anything that was not white and male was different and was considered to be called “the other”. According to Hooks, during her time teaching at Yale university, the white boys would shop for women the same way you would shop for classes (Hooks:368). Race was a key role on ranking these females. Black was top priority along with Asians. Hispanics would not be seriously considered because there was not a significant number of them in the area. Hooks further develops why these men felt strongly having sexual relations with women from other races. By doing so, these men would no longer feel restricted in one universe. Instead, race was visualized as experience. Women from other races were as exotic and they wanted to enhance their experience. Color in this sense was not negative but productive because it contributed to being sexually experienced.

The relationship “the other” that Hooks is describing is not supposed to be bad but a way of escaping from a small-minded world and experience. Sex just happened to play a major role on that. “The other” would become gain superiority in a sense when it came to the modern times because white men wanted to know what it was to be a part of other races and sex was an easy way to grasp that.

C.J. Pascoe elaborates on how students and faculties within the school can impact on gender and sexuality. There are certain cultural meanings that determine what each gender can do and when challenging them, it questions your sexuality. If you do not do what you are “supposed” to do, then you are no longer considered heterosexual rather you become a homosexual. However, something to keep in mind is that these stereotypes should not matter and do not define gender and sexuality. These stereotypes come up between our peers and administrators that we do not pick up sometimes subconsciously.

People are set up to do certain things based on their genders and these are stereotypes. Most of the times gender stereotypes are perceived to be universal, but Pascoe admits that gender stereotypes are materialized locally not universal. She proves this through Butler’s Theory, which shows that people participate in activities to prove their gender without realizing it. At River High, the curriculum is set a certain way for the boys to interact. This shows that it is the administrators that is at fault for this because they contributed to the interaction of boys, which shows what they perceive this gender should do. This led to some girls going against their gender practices and participated in activities that were considered masculine.

Sometimes, differences in our genders have separated us in what activities we should participate in, who we can hang out with, what roles we should take on as we get older. Even in schools, we are taught to be a certain way without realizing because there are cases where one activity is predominately of one sex versus the other, which means there is segregation within the sexes already. Also, administrators are allowing this to take place because it is a way expressing themselves regardless, but we should encouraging diversity that it is okay to break gender practices.

One concept that is mentioned in Morgan’s and Federici’s works’ is labor. In Federici’s book, she discusses at one point of the conditions women had to often go through in Europe in order to survive. In Morgan’s book, she discusses mostly about how women are perceived in the New World and Africa. These perceptions often dealt with marriage, children, their bodies, and labor. Even though both authors’ views were based on different locations, there is still a connection between the two works.

Federici mentions how women were often left behind to take care of the home and the children. Their husbands would work and it was not enough to sustain a life, so this would cause the women to work. During that time, women did not get paid so much compared to men. They often had to purchase the cheapest food thy could get. Even that was not enough and it would lead to riots in France. They had to leave their children behind at home just to work since they were living in a lower class area.

In Morgan’s book, Vespucci mentions that women would never refuse labor even when having children. However, it did not seem appropriate for them to do that since they are women. They should be maintaining the home and taking care of the children. He never saw it as something more modern. The women also would not work in the house because they were too busy trying to do labor to sustain a life as well, just the women in Europe of Federici’s book.

In both books they discussed the labor of women of different locations, but still seem to be connected through the fact that they could not refuse labor because it was their way of sustaining their own life along with their children’s. It does not matter of the location but women were still getting the same kind of hassle.

Jennifer Morgan discusses how women are viewed through multiple travelers that have wrote on their journeys to express the connection between the female body and racism. Some writers believed that women from outside of Europe were quite different like they were pleasant beings but would still degrade them, which made it all the more contradicting. Others sometimes referred these women to be savages and not pleasant to look at. Regardless of what the writers wrote, the women that were examined set how society should be run.

In Vespucci’s passage, there was a woman that really showed beauty to him. He makes remarks of the women’s bodies. In his perspective, their bodies were clean and smooth due to them often washing. The women also never refuse to do any labor while even having children. However, in after all the good remarks he made about the women, he still manages a way to degrade them on their body which can be connected through racism if you further interpret it. When he discusses about their bodies being clean and smooth, he says that they’re still filthy in other ways and have no shame but does not specify it clearly in what terms he was trying to mention. He notices that women are free when it comes to marriage. There was no legal set of rules to how to deal with marriages. A man was allowed to have as many women as he pleased, along with leaving them whenever he wanted with no obligations. These indigenous women were nothing like white women of their gentleness and modesty and were able to do more things, such as working and easier pregnancies.

Black women were able to do labor and far less complications with pregnancies than white women did. They were still degraded on the fact that they were more free than white women were. They could be in any marriages they wanted without issues versus in Europe where religion played a huge role. My question to this passage is, what makes an evolving civilization if women and men cannot make decisions for themselves?

Silvia Federici has a chapter dedicated to show how women were oppressed through political and economic conditions during the 1500s and onward called, “The Accumulation of Labor and Degradation of Women”. She specifically mentions how land privatization developed a social hierarchy, which women were often the victims of. Often the land privatization led to slavery and capitalism. Federici was able to defend these points by using certain events that occurred during that time period and these events are related to “the degradation of women”.

Federici paraphrases Alice Clark’s statement of how women’s social life were during pre-capitalist and it showed how women really did not have much social power or a place where their opinion mattered besides the commons. The commons was a very popular place in the peasant community. It was filled with festivals, games, and gatherings, and it became a social function even for women. Alice Clark discusses that the commons was the center of their social life because it was the one place where their voice would be heard and people actually cared (Clark 1968:51, Federici 2004:81). Federici even mentions during the 16th and 17th century, merchant capitalists would take advantage of cheap labor that could be found in rural areas in Europe. Products were often produced at the lowest costs. These industries that could be allowed this kind of unusual economy was only made possible on the labor of women and children (Federici 2004:81). Women were often taken advantage of in the economy and it was easy to do so because they had no social power.

Federici was able to show that women were being oppressed for such a long time by even going back to feudal Europe. Women especially during that time could not do anything but work because not only were they lacking social power but economic as well. They mostly did not have money which meant no social power, which made them suffer through oppression.