Poli 328 Blog 6

Ever have those days where you can hear yourself talking and wish you could stop? Or at least wish you could better articulate your point? If nothing else, this class has taught me how important it is to to get your point across in a concise manner, because feminism and women's issues are such tricky topics. When talking about women's equality, I do believe that it is difficult to be equal if women want to be treated differently than men. While the "add women and stir" method falls short of recognizing that women have different needs and problems than men, it does treat all people the same. For me, equality means everyone gets the same opportunities; the status of women needs to be improved and their important contribution needs to be recognized. That was the point I was trying to make in class today, and somehow ended up on an unfortunate tangent that was completely out of context.

While the international community has made incredible steps toward equality, we still have a long way to go from here. The video we watched in class showed that scholars do recognize that there is still a lot of ground to cover. However, I wonder if the World Bank is the best institution to handle the future challenges. Financially, it makes sense because the World Bank can fund programs to improve the status of women such as the program to have both the husband and the wife's name of a land lease.Yet the World Bank is known as an "evil corporation" that perpetuates the exploitation of Third World countries and makes it harder for them to repay the loans that they desperately need. Are they really the best equipped to deal with advancing the status of women? I think they might as well have a chance to try. Sure, they might not end up improving anything, but at this point it is going to be difficult for them to make things worse. The progress that has been made will not be easily overturned, but we cannot stop while we're ahead.

Globalization has affected women differently than it has affected men. As discussed in class, globalization is a spread of ideas. It is also a perpetuation of masculine norms. Globalization can be criticized as being the spread of white, Western, male ideas and norms that have been imposed upon others. Rather than forcing these norms and Western culture on other regions, we as a culture should use the technology provided by globalization to explore and understand other cultures. Women should take advantage of the abundance of technology to learn and understand other women. Globalization has contributed to the spread of technology, such as cellphones and the Internet. Thanks to globalization, women have been able to speak out in ways some never thought possible. Who would have thought that a Saudi Arabian woman would be able to post a video of herself driving, to prove a point? Who would have thought that women in Asia and the Middle East would be able to instantly connect over the Internet with women from Europe or North America? At the same time technology has also had a negative impact on the social aspects of life; people talk via Facebook, Twitter or MSN instead of face-to-face. Transnational corporations, non-government organizations and global movements have taken advantage of globalization yet people on the ground have not necessarily benefited from those policies. Globalization has not drastically improved the condition of not just women but people in general.

Although we have made incredible progress since the beginning of the 20th century, there is still a long way to go before women can be considered equal to men.

Poli 328 Blog 5

This week in class we discussed the role of women in power, government and labour. In class, when we broke up into smaller groups we talked about the devaluation of women's labour in our previous/current workplaces. Personally, I have noticed that the service industry is female-dominated. It is very rare to see a male server; men occupy managerial positions or work in the kitchen. At my workplace, the men are not "cooks" they are "chefs". There are no male servers and we only have hostesses, not hosts. This is a common occurrence in restaurants as women are cast as caretakers and men are the providers of female necessities; whether it is for the woman herself or cooking the food for her customers. This model is also easily applicable to higher up positions. As the Seager text illustrates, it is rare to find women occupying more than 50% of seats in government. Women are rarely CEOs or other high profile positions in companies. More often than not, women are responsible for service positions, such as servers, flight attendants and cashiers. Only the very well educated women seem to climb the social ladder. Women are the "workers and breeders of the state" (Federici, pg.46) not the employers or decision-makers. Even if they did reach a position of power, motherhood could take that away. As noted in the Federici piece, there are some rather harsh constraints placed on women of child-bearing age. Nowadays the government is not so harsh as to have surveillance on women but in some fields the first signs of pregnancy can lead to a woman's termination. As discussed in class, some employers would rather hire men than women because they don't want to deal with maternity leave.
On the other hand, male labour and masculinity have been put up on a pedestal that might be starting to shake from the pressure. Society expects men to be the strong soldiers bringing home the bacon for their woman to cook. The men who don't fit that norm are seen as defective or dysfunctional. Stay at home dads are looked at with scorn despite the fact that they have their family's interests at heart. It isn't fair to say that men give up more than women do to stay at home with their children.Why is it so hard to understand that a man actually wants a relationship with his kids? My dad worked during the day and watched us at night while my mom went to work, and some of our fondest memories are of the nights dad was home. He even took parental leave when my brother and I were born. Some of our family friends have done so as well, and they have better relationships with their children. So even though women are "the breeders" according to Federici, men have a very important role in upbringing of their children. If men always have to be the strong soldier how can they be fathers too?

Seager, Joni. "The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World"
Federici, Silvia. "The Devaluation of Women's Labour"

Poli 328 Blog 4

The late Dr. Wangari Maathai taught women how to plant trees in Kenya. She did not provide the women with seeds because she believed they had to learn to do it themselves instead of relying on someone else to do it for them. By helping them to re-plant the forests they had lost, Dr. Maathai was able to show the women the link between the environment and their own well-being; just like the story of the tree and the stream at the beginning of the movie she is able to show them the benefits of the forest. It was an added bonus that the forest was able to provide certain civilian groups with refuge from the government. However, by teaching the women to plant trees Dr. Wangari was able to show the women how they can make a change themselves. She showed them that they are important, that they can make a difference for themselves and future generations. Although this reinforces the idea that women are caretakers and the givers of life, I believe it empowers women; the well-being of their community is in their power. She also highlights an important issue when she says that the government did not intervene with her project until a few years in. At the beginning, the government was willing to allow the grassroots movement to go about their tree-planting in peace. It was almost as if the government acted as a parent allowing their children, the women, to do what they pleased until it became a threat to their authority. This is an important issue because it plays to the predetermined gender roles. Women are able to go about their business until it gets in the way of men, at which point they must be stopped.

The Puechguirbal reading in the Shepherd textbook this week was quite interesting. When dealing with peacekeeping missions, most people think of protecting the weaker groups of society: women, children and the elderly. However, most people don't think of women as being part of the actual peacekeeping, as the ones doing the work after a conflict. The reading this week discussed how the contribution of women in war and in peacekeeping is often overlooked. There is a belief that women have no place in peacekeeping because they have no place in war.  This reading ties in with the previous Adam Jones reading about the genocide in Rwanda. Puechguirbal makes it clear that women should not be left out of peacekeeping. The previous reading about the role of women in the Rwandan genocide highlights the role that women played in the actual killing. It is clear in both the Puechguirbal and Jones readings that the international community still struggles with the idea of women as villains. This belief goes back centuries. It has long been believed that women's hands were not designed to hold a weapon and that women are not strong enough to even carry a weapon. Of course we can see from modern armies that women do assume the mantle of soldier even though not everyone believes they should. Both Jones and Puechguirbal agree that women play a key role in war and in the aftermath.

The Puechguirbal reading and the movie about Dr. Maathai make it obvious that women play a significant role in many different aspects of life. They also make it clear that women can make a real and important difference in their communities. However, certain conventions still stand in the way. The belief that women can go about their business until it gets in the way of masculine objectives spreads in the public and private spheres of war, peacekeeping and nurturing the community. Women should not be delegated to the role of either a soldier or a mother; women have proven time and time again that they can be both.

Nadine Puechguirbal "Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Resolution" Shepherd
Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

Poli 328 Blog 3

This week's readings were not quite my cup of tea since economics might as well be a foreign language. However, the Seager textbook is just so reader-friendly that it was able to get my rusty economic wheels turning. What strikes me most about this all of this week's readings is how much I can relate to them.
I'll admit it, I'm very high maintenance. If I didn't have a wide array of products to chose from I would be a very grumpy girl. If I had lived in Bulgaria during the Communist era I would have done exactly what the women in that article did. Perhaps we were looking at the article in the wrong way. Rather than conforming to a Western view of a consumerist woman, the Bulgarians were rejecting the oppressive Communist mold while expressing their individuality. Instead of all smelling the same, the women would rather have their own distinct smell. How can we condemn them for that?
Just because a woman buys make-up and shampoo and feels pretty when she buys shoes doesn't mean that she is a weak-minded consumer. Personally I don't see anything wrong with retail therapy. Men do it too. Anytime my dad has a few bad days he buys himself a nice new golf shirt. After his first heart attack he splurged and bought an entire new golf bag. The problem I have is with the advertisements. Preying on the low self-esteem, the tendency toward jealousy or the desire to be like everyone else is a truly awful tactic to rely on. Advertising agencies prey on the weakest parts of us and that is why it makes women seem so "weak" for wanting to buy things. Highlighting the "weak" moments women have while ignoring the exact same moments that men have is why I have an issue with commercials and ads in magazines. Just because I like to smell like coconut and buy new shoes does not mean that my tough older brother is stronger than me.
On the other hand, the Seager readings dealt with employment and wages. I am lucky enough to have a job that pays depending on your position. For the longest time, there were no women working in the kitchen. Instead, it was like there was an imaginary line drawn between the kitchen and the restaurant and only men were allowed on the other side of the line. Sure we "waitresses" could cross the line, but only for a little while. But then about a month ago something extraordinary happened. The kitchen manager hired two girls to work in as cooks. The entire year that I've worked there, all he and the other cooks have said is that "girls aren't tough enough to work in the kitchen". Yet now we have two women working in the kitchen and not only are they two of the most efficient workers in the kitchen, their presence has motivated the guys to show off. The best part is, those women are being paid the same wage as the guys that hold the same job. And one of those women is about to be promoted instead of one of those guys.
Unfortunately, my workplace is the exception and that is a sad reality. Not all women are paid the same as their male counterparts and few women are promoted instead of men. Maybe the glass ceiling doesn't exist at my current workplace but it certainly exists elsewhere.

Poli 328 Blog 2

This week in Poli 328 we discussed several subjects. The most interesting was the Sullivan article about trafficking in human beings. It seems silly to think that people only associate trafficking with sex trafficking, though it is understandable. The image of a young woman forced into prostitution has a much stronger impact than that of a human being of any age forced into some other form of labour. However, as the article notes, trafficking with the intent to prostitute is a minority of the cases. This leads to troubling questions about the silence surrounding the other forms of trafficking. This article reminded me of a great movie I watched last summer. It was called "Human Trafficking", starring Donald Sutherland. It was a movie following three different trafficking victims: one was tricked by her new boyfriend, one was tricked by a fake modelling agent and the third was a little girl kidnapped while on vacation in Asia with her family. It was an eye-opening movie for me and it horrified my mother. As much as I enjoyed the movie, I found two problems with the situation. First of all, it did not address the victims who are trafficked for other reasons. Although they are not being physically violated the way sex trafficking victims are, does not mean that they are not suffering. They deserve just as much attention as the sex trafficking victims. Secondly, the movie pointed out that, even if they are lucky enough to be rescued, trafficking victims are often treated as criminals. They can be treated as illegal immigrants and sent back to their home country to be indicted. They can also be arrested for prostitution. Not only does this perpetuate their suffering but this also makes victims very hesitant to approach law enforcement. Of course, this was a Hollywood movie so it is not entirely trustworthy, but at least it was much more realistic than most movies about the subject.
This week we also watched the Ross Kemp movie about human trafficking. In this, he made a common mistake in talking to those women. He made it sound as though they were too trusting or that they made a mistake or did something wrong. In the Donald Sutherland movie that I watched, the victims are presented in a similar way. However, both of these movies are perpetuated the misconception that these women are tricked or duped or make a mistake. But what about the women who are simply looking for a better life? What about the women who immigrate to another country with the intention of joining the sex trade? Many studies leave out the majority of the victims, and yet no one seems to notice this massive gap in the literature. It is a disturbing thought to say the least.

Poli 328 Blog 1

This week we talked about Carol Cohn's article "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals". It was a very interesting read. Not only was it easy to read but it was also incredibly thought-provoking. For me, it brought up a question along the lines of which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is defense language sexualized by itself or did we make it sexualized? Words like "penetration" or "virgin" are just words. Words have the power that we give them. Granted, the image of putting a phallic shaped nuclear war head inside a silo evokes a sexual image, but how is that any different than lead into a mechanical pencil, or a debit card into a bank machine? Both the lead and the debit card penetrate the pencil and the machine but no one would giggle in class if those were discussed. Admittedly, as a woman it is irritating to know that this language is widely used when discussing such a serious subject as national defense and security, but that's a tough job and maybe this is one of the ways that makes it bearable, Honestly, even as a woman, I'd rather those defense intellectuals talk like that while doing their job than suffer the consequences of them being unable to do their job properly.
Another reading that I found quite interesting this week was the assigned pages in the Seager textbook. Reading about maternal mortality made me realize that motherhood is still a dangerous role; I always thought of it as a thing of the past considering the medical advances that have been made. However, in regions like South Africa, it is still alarmingly common. A friend of mine reposted a blog to her Facebook page which tied in with the Seager readings. In that blog, a woman had gone to Africa and was shocked to find how many women suffer from Obstetric Fistulae. These women are ostracized and many die, all because their pelvis has not had enough time to develop. This blog really made me think about how dangerous pregnancy and labour can be, and not just because of death but because of other debilitating medical conditions. The blog, if you're interested in reading it, can be found here: http://hkboyle.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/let%E2%80%99s-talk-about-sex%E2%80%A6/
Well that's all for this week, but next week's readings look just as promising as this week!