fAmar has 10 post(s)

In her article, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others”, Lila Abu-Lughod explores the different interpretations in which western civilizations have often misconstrued the Muslim women by. Western views have numerously portrayed Muslim women as oppressed due to their political agenda in regions such as the middle east and Afghanistan. Lila even quotes important female figures such as Laura Bush Cherie Blair to show how they’ve contributed to the misunderstanding of Muslim women by associating terrorism with their oppression. Lila also makes a very good point when she questions how the Taliban, an organization originally funded by the CIA to fight Soviet Union forces, has suddenly become a face of terrorism in the region. I think this point leads us on to her next one when she begins to talk about the real oppressive factors such as poverty, education, and malnutrition that hurt the people the most, yet are still overlooked by the west. moreover, Lila points to how the west construct and see problems within Muslim cultures that are not of significance. For example, many westerns often misconstrue the hijab and burqa as a symbol of oppression rather than a cultural tradition that women accept and allow in their lives. Even after being “liberated” many women still choose to wear the burqa as a representation of their modesty. Reflecting on my own experiences here in the US, I find this point to be very true. People in the US often see other cultures as “wrong” or “oppressive” due to the misinterpretation and lack of knowledge that they possess when it comes to other Cultures or religions. From this problem stems other problems and wrong views that people hold regarding muslim women “needing help” as Abu-Lughod describes in her article. In the end of her piece, Lila describes Laura Bush’s remarks about American troops “saving” and “liberating” afghan women as ineffective because it is just like trying to fix a “problem” that we don’t even understand. Instead, Abu-Lughod proposes that we should make the world a better place by showing coalition and alliance with people who face unjust living conditions instead of salvation.

In her “Between Love and Money: Sex, Tourism, and Citizenship in Cuba and the Dominican”, Amelia Cabezas explores sex tourism to deeply study the relationships, political and economic opportunities that the interaction between foreigners and locals propose. Sex tourism refers to both national and international travel purposely done for sexual activity or intimacy with natives of the land. Cabezas focuses on the international travel due to its prominence and roles that it plays in shaping a country’s social, political, and economic life. This focus includes third world countries, such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic, in which colonization may have affected in the past. Due to corruption, poor living conditions, and anarchism in those countries, the economy becomes very unstable and the dependence on foreign investments and currency becomes the driving force in economy of such countries. According to the article, this sector of the economy has surpassed other professions due to the opportunities that it provides the locals with. Incoming foreigners offer the locals many benefits such as income, materials, migration assistance, and in some cases even marriage. Although there are many social and economic benefits from sex tourism, a lot of problems also arise from it. Such conflicts concern the division of labor based on gender, class, and background, these issues mainly fall between natives causing a stigma on women labor. When a woman engages in sexual activity and sexual autonomy, she is a deviant that violates social and moral conduct. But on the other hand, when a man does it, his labor is praised and seen as a boost to the national economy and his sexual activity is justified as a natural male urge of sex. It is not only the women who are oppressed by the heteronormativity, it is also other minority groups such as palestinos, pingueros, and jineteros who face harassment by local authorities. I think that this is what Cabezas is referring to by “sexual citizenship”, it is the sexual identities that these workers hold.

In his “Aberrations in Black Toward a queer of color critique” Roderick Ferguson critiques the capitalist economy as the cause for the class segregated economy and inequality that is imposed on people of color. According to Roderick Ferguson, this capitalist economy serves the white patriarchal family model which divides the labor based on gender, race, age, etc. This hierarchy of labor ranks men on top and leaves women and children at its low. Ferguson also provides an intersection where property, capital, and prostitution cross or associate with one another. While property is defined as land, or something in which someone has ownership of, one can attribute humans as property in cases of slavery. However, in general it is better to think of property as a commodity or a product that humans buy and sell. Capital on the other hand, refers to human labor, which Ferguson believes that it turns into property that belongs to the institutions or employers that people work under. Furthermore, the relationship between capital and property turns people into properties that have been bought for their labor. Money then becomes the most important resource for survival so people start to get exploited and exploit themselves (prostitution) to make a living. According to Ferguson, prostitution is seen as a threat to the heteronormative state because people gain access to money in different ways than what the capitalist system has set and thus queers break the institutionalized heteronormativity. This is what Ferguson talks about in his “queer of color” analysis, their potential to break away from the patriarchal system. Queers portray a threat to the heteronormative ideals because they deviate from the oppressive system by ways that go against it socially, legally, and economically. Queers gain money that goes uncontrolled by the oppressive system and therefore gives them more power over the system’s oppressive ideals.

In her piece “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens”, Cathy Cohen discusses queer politics, an idea that many people thought would transform the structure and operations of oppressive systems especially against the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities. However, Cohen argues that queer activism is not an efficient way to transform oppressive conditions. According to Cohen, a downfall to queer politics is their dichotomization of sexuality and exclusion of other oppressed groups. Focusing on sexuality has cost the movement any potential growth due to their consistent isolation. The government’s domination over sexuality was critical because it used a “scientific” standpoint to prohibit and obstruct sexual identities that the queer movement has been focused on. Such intervention made it harder for people to associate freely with sexual behaviors that go against the law. Furthermore, the divide between different groups that were oppressed made it more challenging to change the politics surrounding sexuality and the identities of many. I think Cohen suggests a more successful transformation if the queer movement has connected with other minority groups who were also oppressed. The fight would become bigger if different groups joined all together as one and faced their oppressor (government).

Cathy Cohen suggests that in order to bring change and be more effective as activists, we must critically study power and the role that gender, race, and class play when it comes to its distribution. This is a very important point because it seems true that queer activist have overlooked other contributing factors to their oppression rather than just their sexuality and what people identify as.  It is very significant to bond with different groups of people in order to understand different forms of oppression from many perspectives. Not only does this concentrate more power to the activists, but it also strengthens the cause in which they are all fighting for (equality).

In “are women human? It’s not an academic question”, peterson and parisi argue that we should focus on and study the connection between human rights and heterosexism rather than emphasizing the androcentrism of human rights. I think that peterson and parisi have a good argument because the focus on androcentrism has been the scope when it comes to studying how humans are defined based on the binary genders. I think what the authors are trying to encourage onto the readers, is that we should critically analyze the conditions, causes, and methods used to preserve the inequality between genders through generations in order to break the barrier of gender-based inequality in our current times.

The chapter also talks about heterosexism, a way in which the subordination of women becomes a social norm that serves male interests. Heterosexism has foreclosed any alternative bonds that women could have, such as woman to woman groups and relations. It also imposes a role that women must follow, despite the weakening effects that it has on woman socially and politically. The exclusion of women from human rights is another evidence that upholds human rights as gender-based and gender-oriented. One way in which the law excludes women from their human rights is dependant upon the fact that institutions differentiate between the public spheres and private spheres. It is certain that the law would neglect women vulnerabilities and experiences because it is mainly the men who are in charge of creating the law, which lacks a female perspective.

Heterosexism has always promoted unfair advantages and privileges that have made men become dominant over women. The way institutionalized heterosexuality plays a role in society is very imperative to analyze. Women have always been the victims of patriarchal systems and part of these systems is heterosexism. It is a method that the state utilizes to control people and maintain power over them.

In her chapter, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”, Adrienne Rich argues that heterosexuality is institutionalized and provides many examples to prove how the institutionalized heterosexuality(of women) has always benefited the men. Adrienne believes that the institutionalized heterosexuality of women has always given men physical, economic, and emotional access. The institutionalized heterosexuality has also made it seem as a norm for women to be heterosexual and to follow the standards/regulations that men have both explicitly and implicitly imposed on them. Such compulsory sexual conduct has been in both public and private spheres. It’s been in the public sphere in many forms such as clitoridectomy, sterilization, marriage, prostitution, slavery, in the workforce and much more. This oppression is also present at home whether it’s through father-daughter/brother-sister incest, marital rape, wife-beating and the list goes on.

The control that men possess over women also shape the way that women behave, the way society is structured, and how the social and sexual standards are set. In Rich’s chapter, she talks about how men exploit women in the workforce and hold power over them by the higher positions that they hold. Rich also brings up how women also serve in secondary jobs such as waitresses, secretaries, and nurses, which continues to set them in the mercy of sex-valued jobs that serve the male transactions. Another way that heterosexuality is institutionalized is through the absence of lesbianism in the arts, literature, and history. No matter which medium it is, most literature, arts, and historic document have excluded lesbianism in order to eliminate any evidence of its presence and to demonize it or make it seem as something that is “unnatural”.

I think that Adrienne Rich does a great job in providing examples of how the institutionalized sexuality of women has always kept women from achieving equality and how society has not allowed women to be who they are, instead it gave them a role to follow.

In the first chapter of “Caliban and the Witch”, Silvia Federici highlights the transition from feudalism to capitalism. In this major shift, the value of production also changed and the way of life at the time changed significantly. Unfortunately, women were major victims of capitalism, which led to their degradation and dropped their status not just economically, but also socially and politically. In the first chapter, “The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Women”, Federici emphasizes how the new capital system will be built and achieved by using enslavement, violence, war, and colonialism as its foundation, not only in Europe but also in America. Marx’s Primitive Accumulation theory also led to a huge vacuum in labor as well as a growth in human exploitation. The privatization of land forced many peasants and farmers out of their jobs causing massive working populations to be out of the lands where they originally worked. Women especially were severely affected by the shifting economy.

As the new form of economy was developing, women’s labor was not remotely considered as a real job. But when men did the same exact job, it was considered highly productive and was acknowledged by the market. At the time, women were encouraged to stay at home and only serve as a support to their husbands rather than going out and directly participating in the economy. This subordination led to immense drop in women’s status in society and an inclination to their dependency to men as their only support and source of income. This degradation led women to exploit their selves in order to gain access to money or food to live on. This exploitation was usually either through slavery or prostitution.  Not only did these women lose their participation in the economy, but they also lost the right to represent themselves in court, because they were officially labeled as “imbeciles”. The loss of power made women very vulnerable that even their presence in public would lead to their assault or ridicule.

Suzanne Kessler’s essay, “The Medical Construction of Gender” studies the nature and factors that influence intersexuality since birth. Intersexuality refers to a condition where a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy which does not resemble that of a typical male or female. In the late 20^th century, scientists used medical technology that allowed them to determine chromosomal and hormonal gender; this method was the biological aspect of it. However, physicians who handle cases of intersex, also consider the cultural factors when determining, assigning, and announcing the gender of a particular infant. These issues are only “peripheral” compared to the medical issues of intersexuality. According to the article, physicians who deal with intersex cases ultimately rely on the cultural understanding of sex.

Three major factors that affect how intersex conditions are seen and dealt with are the advancement of science technology (genital construction), questioning of the valuation of women according to reproductive functions, and gender identity or the gender that one mostly associates their self to be whether it’s male or female.  Based on the gender theory proposed by John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, gender identity is changeable until 18 months of age. The theory requires several conditions to be met in order to develop a successful gender identity that synchronizes with the gender assignment. This theory requires intimate supervision and administering of intersex infants in order to clearly decide their true genders without having to reconsider any early decisions made about the child’s sex. However, some factors and issues that arise from this can be as the parents not knowing their child’s gender even after birth, dealing with the social and cultural boundaries that are set on gender. It is a very hard process for the physicians as well as parents. And the fact that people expect the infant to be either a male or female also makes it hard to handle the condition scientifically. Since birth, the very first inference people make about the infant usually concerns their gender so society is built upon the belief that anything (any gender) other than male or female is unacceptable. While many physicians, who were interviewed, believe that it is extremely important to keep social factors out when assigning a gender to the intersex infant, they also believe that once the infant is leaves the hospital, social factors become the main contributes in assigning the gender of the baby. And instead of medically working with the condition to fully understand it, social/cultural ideologies begin to characterize the infant without any real understanding of its condition.

In her essay, “Skeletons in the Closet: The First Illustrations of the Female Skeleton in Eighteenth-Century Anatomy”, Londa Schiebinger analyzes the social and political circumstances surrounding the eighteenth-century search for sex differences. These sex differences were often physical, focusing on the physical differences in the anatomy of men and women.  However, these physical differences were also used to justify non-physical attributes such as mental capabilities, social/economic status, opportunities, duties, and even rights that women held at the time. For example, Things like the larger pelvis of females compared to the men’s were used to argue that women were naturally created to serve as mothers, while a bigger male skull indicated that men enjoyed more mental capacity than women. Such “scientific” claims were very effective and appealing to the medieval public because science was associated with empirical data that was often perceived as the raw truth and “nature” of how things were.  These physical differences were mainly referred to in order to portray women as inferior to men in almost every aspect of life and to push political/social agendas, rather than scientific discoveries, which hindered any potential development that women could have achieved towards equality. I think that Londa Schiebinger does a great job of setting a strong base to her argument by emphasizing the obscure history that has undermined the equality of women to begin with.

In a male-dominated scientific world during the 18^th century, the purpose of science has become more political rather than factual. While some scientists viewed the sex differences neutrally, many scientists used them as a way to prioritize the male gender over the female due to social, political, and economic surroundings that have favored the man more than the woman. Through her essay, I believe that it is within Londa Schiebinger’s objective to highlight the failed centuries of dichotomy between men and women based on physical differences that were used to justify political agendas that have empowered men over women, rather than embracing the differences and valuing each other as different genders that are made to complement each other.

In her “Class and Race in the Women’s Rights Campaign,” Angela Davis provides us (readers) with different accounts of what was going on during the abolitionist and women’s rights conventions that began during the 1830s. In the beginning of the chapter, Davis emphasizes the importance of the coalition between women and men in the abolitionist movement. Such union was very significant because it empowered and benefitted both groups who fought for women’s rights and anti-slavery, and ultimately strengthened their cause. Some abolitionist believed that the women’s fight was different than theirs because women would compare marriage to slavery, which makes the liberation movement seem mediocre and lose its original intent. However, I think that this union highly portrayed the seriousness and devotion that the two groups had and their ability to stand together and undermine their oppressors.

The Seneca Falls convention was very successful, however, the absence and exclusion of mill girls and African American women was a huge downfall. Many of their stories were unheard so their struggles remained eclipsed. One important figure of the Seneca Falls convention was Charlotte Woodward who worked at home. Her major concern was the decline in social and economic status of women especially after losing their jobs at home. I think that she was one of the most important figures in the convention, because unlike many of the other women, she represented most working women who belonged to a lower class. Another problem at the Seneca Falls convention was the absence of black women, and no mention of them at all, which shows another weakness of the movement at the time. It is very difficult for me to understand how such exclusion can take place at a convention that is both for women’s rights and anti-slavery. The convention’s disregard of enslaved black women is contradicting to the entire objective of the movement. On the positive side, the convention helped raise awareness and participation of more women especially black women.

At the first national convention, the efforts of Sojourner Truth, another ambitious activist, became the highlight of the convention because she represented black women and their stance on the movement. Her speeches and defense of the movement strengthened its caused and demonstrated her strong sense of leadership.

I think that Angela Davis is trying to emphasize the power of unity. As more people from various groups and backgrounds joined the movement, the movement became much more powerful and effective. In the beginning, the women’s movement joined the abolitionists and gained more support for their cause. And as time progressed, working women and black women also joined and created great momentum to the women’s rights movement. Without this solidarity, the movement would have not been as successful.