fGabrielle has 4 post(s)

Thanks to the previous ways of racial domesticity, many african american women have had poignant ways of looking at white life and household realities. Working extremely closely, and sometimes living with white families while still not being part of the family was cause for an understanding that could have only come from black women of the time. Many black women were responsible for their employer’s domestic duties around the home such as cooking and cleaning, and were often considered second mothers to the white children they had such significant parts in raising. However, regardless of their hard work and importance in these households, black women were often disrespected, ignored and discriminated against, and therefore left to feel a harsh distinction between themselves and their employers. This dichotomy of physically being a firsthand witness into the daily home lives of these families, while still not being accepted and held to the same regard as white society gave black women very important and unique sociological insight on this insider/outsider way of life. It was this very up-close and personal position that made it clear to black women that blacks and whites were not separated due to intellect, intelligence, class, or anything having to do with merit. The separation was solidified as pure racism, discrimination and oppression. This not only gave african american women grounds to reject the status quo, but granted many a much stronger sense of inner strength and self-value.

This particular insight is incredibly important to the way scholars and contemporaries of modern times look back on this time period of racism because of the time period’s strong favoring of white, male ideals and interests. Both women and black people of the time were so often silenced, oppressed and denied of their voices. Therefore, this exclusive insight was crucial in the further liberation of black women.

Silvia Fredericci’s, Caliban and the Witch makes many valid points on capitalism and its detrimental effects on women, both emotionally and monetarily. She disproves the idea that “the women’s place in the home” was something that naturally came about within the economy, and shows that capitalism pushed sexism and female devaluing. Along with the workforce greatly favoring men, it also completely relegated women’s monetary value in labor and further prevented their progression in society. Witch hunts were also used to intimidate women out of work outside their homes, speaking to just how far people went to maintain their gender oppressive way of life.

The workforce of the time oppressed women in a number of aspects. Women were extremely discouraged to work outside of their homes, and were therefore much less valued within the workforce. Reproductive work had been a way some women earned wages in their homes, but it was deemed “natural responsibility” and invalidated as a form of labor. This again displayed the misogyny and disregard for women normalized and promoted by authority. Due to the invalidation of their work, many struggling women turned to begging and prostitution in order to feed themselves and their families. These lines of work were obviously dangerous and hardly ever sufficed in helping women get by.

The Witch hunt also had its ways of negatively affecting women’s monetary stance. The movement allowed for women to be accused of witchcraft for reasons not excluding desire for independence and work outside of their home. The Witch hunt was often used to intimidate women out of the workforce and keep them confined and dependent on men. By instilling a fear of these women with “powers” into society, men were able to be able to accuse women of witchcraft on often vague and elementary observations/suspicions, therefore putting them through trials in which the end result was invariably death.

Suzanne Kessler’s, “The Medical Construction of Gender” focuses on the harmful ways western society’s social construct of gender has influenced medical knowledge and decisions in regards to intersexuality. When a child is born intersex, they have genitalia that does not possess female or male qualities and are therefore gender ambiguous. It is then up to the family and medical professional(s) to make gender decisions on the child’s behalf. As imaginable, making gender decisions regarding someone who cannot yet think for themselves has its many flaws. Gender biases and societal pressures often get in the way of ethics and the ultimate welfare of the intersex individual.

A definitive gender is required on every child’s birth certificate. Yes, every child. This rule does not exclude those whose genitalia is ambiguous to gender during infantry. This requirement is one of the many aspects of pressures imposed on the medical community in regards to early assignment of gender. Pros of early gender assignment argue that parents need to know the gender of their child in order to begin to properly raise it as male or female as early on as possible. However, this is only true if one deems gender identity necessary in raising a child. By that logic, gender identity is necessary in developing any kind of significant relationship with any gender ambiguous person.

Intersexuality in infants is also subject to gender bias. Due to our patriarchal society’s preference of men, many families and doctors alike find themselves bias toward deeming intersex infants male. This can ultimately be extremely detrimental to the individual because the decision made for them during infantry regarding their gender has a 50/50 chance at being wrong. In fact those decisions are very often wrong, and the individual must face a society that will ostracize them for a gender issue imposed upon them before they could even possess conscious thought.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, attempts were made from the scientific community to justify and promote chauvinistic sexism through the medium of anatomy. Linda Schiebinger’s essay, Skeletons in the Closet sheds light on this, as well as the motives and manipulations used by men in science in order to exclude women from respected professions, prevent female progression and define their role in society.

The anatomy of women and men was used in an attempt to validate and promote male supremacy, but failed to be impartial and ethically sound. At first, women’s larger skulls were thought to be a sign of their superior intelligence. This theory was later “disproved” when Barclay compared women’s large skulls to those of children, giving the impression that they were immature and childlike. This made it easy for men to deem women intellectually inferior, and therefore unequipped to participate in respected professions outside of the home such as science and politics. Women’s large pelvises were also said to be ideal for childbearing, while their smaller bodies made them much less valuable than men in manual labor outside of the home. All of this came together to create the image that women were much less valuable and intelligent than men, but naturally prone to nurture and motherhood. AKA: “The women’s place is in the home, be a good wife and mother.”

This attempted justification using what was considered to be “natural law” was extremely flawed in its supposed scientific truth. All of the scientists who gathered and interpreted this evidence were men, causing their findings to be partial to the male agenda. In addition, all of these men used male anatomy as the standard, placing its importance over female anatomy and skewing scientific conclusions. Unfortunately these “findings” became commonly thought of as truths and further delayed female advancement in society.