fJing has 11 post(s)

In the article, “Are women human? It’s not an academic question”, Peterson and Parisi argue that we should interrogate the connection of “human rights” in connection to heterosexism rather than focusing on the androcentrism of human rights discourse. The author states that in the heterosexual society, heterosexuality was the only “nature” and “normal” relationship between men and women for people. He mentions the sexual inequality between men and women. The hierarchies happened including gender, sex, political. social-economic,and in family. Men have power to control women. Women were suffered from the sadistic heterosexuality. Under this condition, institutionalization of heterosexuality happens through the economy, women were gets lower paid compared with men. The inequality between men and women force women to rely on men since they didn’t have enough incomes to support themselves. In addition, if possible, women will get sexual harassment from men to get the job.

Compare with oppression that women get from the society, they also gets the oppression in their family. Even when females are single, they have been tied with the reproductive role. They force to play in the role, and it have been consider as the value of women. If women did not want to having a child, they will be consider devalue for society,.

In her essay, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” Lila Abu-Lughod argues that discourses on humanitarianism and human rights in the 21st century rely in some way on constructions of Muslim women. When we talk about Muslim women, the first thing came up on our mind might be: They wear the veil or the burqa. This may consider a sign for Muslim women. It is common popular knowledge that the ultimate sign of the oppression of Afghan women under the Taliban and the terrorists is that they were forced to wear the burqa. The burqa covered from their heads to toes, the cover may symbolized the restrict behaviors, they didn’t get the equally rights and respect compare with men or other women.

The save of Muslim women also included to help Muslim women to take off the burqa. For them, burqa was such as a sign of the oppression they got under the Taliban and the terrorists. So, take off the bueqa for some Muslim women may represent the fully liberated for Taliban.

But wear the burqa may not just consider the sign of oppression, for some Muslim people, it may also consider a way to for them to represent the culture and religion.

According to Cabezas’ reading, sexual citizenship can be considering as a kind of relationship between the people that involved in sex work. In the article, Cabezas explained the sexual citizenship with a specific example called sex tourism, it refers to the sexual acts between people that depends on money. Those “sex worker” and individuals were viewed as “sexual deviants” by society, usually this views were given by their socioeconomic class, race and gender, etc. In the other hand, those who were not consider as sex worker, their social views will be treated as romance and friendship.

The gender equality was also related with sexual citizenship. In usual, those who consider sex workers, women will occupy more percentages than men. In the society, if a woman had sex with more than one man, it’s treat as promiscuous, but if this situation happened in a man, this person will be regard as normal, because people think man should had those sexual needs to be look as a normal man. This situation shows the gender inequality between man and women, because the society gave more tolerance to men than women.

Cabezas also referred the term “sexual citizenship” to the acceptance in the public life of the different sexualities, particularly those women outside heteronormativity. She gave the people inCuba and Domonican Republic as the example of the different sexualities. In those countries, the people treat those solitary women, lesbian and other sexual minorities will not respect. They are target for moral panic and harassment by police.The society viewed them as not normal and unmoral. Compare them with the women in heteronormativity, those sexual minorities may be treat as the lowest class.

According to his text, “Aberrations in Black” Roderick Ferguson characterized the relationship between property, capital, and prostitution with the “queer of color” analysis. Under the background of the society of industrialization and capitalism, the social status were seems more clearly, especially between different races and gender.

Property was a commodity and social standard for people. The property can be consider as a land or slaves. The owner provides land for labors to producing foods, but the labors should pay or giving their foods for owner as a interests. Slaves can also be treat as an owner’s property, the owner had right to sell them.

Within capital, there was a social class or hierarchy between the workers, depends on the ability they have. The working wages were also pay within different social class. Women and children were consider the lowest class, they got the lowest pay but working for highest amount of works.

Under the society of capitalism, women were consider in lower class, low pay and lack of working chance make their lives become more difficult. The prostitution treated women with no respect, they were being treated and consider as a product that could be selling and exchanging in the market.

According to the text, Roderick defined the “Queer of Color” analysis as ‘the interrogates social formations as the intersections or race, gender, sexuality, and class, with particular interest in how the formations correspond with and diverge from nationalist ideals.’ In other words, queer of color was as a kind of social reconstruction which involved the idea of Marxism and capitalism, also interacted with different race, gender, and social class.

In the situation of the reading, “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significant of Black Feminist Though,” black women were consider as the “Outsider”, they were working for white families, became honorary members in that “families,” and make themselves more likely to being a “Insider”. Even the black women were trying to be more closer to the “Insider”, there still had the wall of race and gender between them. According to Collins reading, She argues that, “Black women’s experiences highlight the tension experienced by any group of less powerful outsiders encountering the paradigmatic thought of a more powerful insider community.” She attempts to explain this point by examining the sociological significance of the Black Feminist thought stimulated by Black women’s outsider within status. She explored the idea of three characteristic themes: The black women’s self-definition and self-valuation, the interlocking nature of oppression, and the importance of Afro-American women’s culture.

The importance of Black women’s self-definition and self-valiation is it involves challenging the political knowledge-validation process has resulted in externally-defined, stereotypical images of Afro-American womanhood. The stereotype usually gave the negative image of black women.

The interlocking nature of oppression for Black women is in two way, they were women, and they also were black. The double oppressive make black women faced more difficult situation. And make their standpoint to create the black feminist theory.

In the study of Afro-American women’s culture, the black feminist found out the unexplored areas of the black female experience, they also identified concrete ares of social relations where Afro-American women create and pass on self-definitions and self-valuations essential to coping with the simultaneity of oppression they experience.

In Rich’s article of “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”, she discussed the idea of people think heterosexuality was the only relationship between men and women, and it was consider the “nature” and “normal”. In fact, heterosexuality is most common sexuality in the society, but there still other sexuality existed in the history such as homosexuality. In the society of heterosexuality, the situation of compulsory heterosexuality and the lack of the history of lesbian existence forced women to be heterosexual even if they were not.

She first argued the society of compulsory heterosexuality with the theory of Kathleen Gough. In Gough’s theory, she shows the sexual inequality between men and women, men have power to control women and children like abortion. Women were suffered from the sadistic heterosexuality. Under this condition, institutionalization of heterosexuality happens through the economy, women were gets lower paid compared with men. The inequality between men and women force women to rely on men since they didn’t have enough incomes to support themselves. In addition, if possible, women will get sexual harassment from men to get the job. For lesbian, the probability to get the job was lower.

Another institutionalization of heterosexuality is the ignore of lesbian existence cause people to believe there is only type of sexuality which is heterosexuality, and it is the only way to having a sexuality. In that time, lesbian would be forced to play the role as the heterosexual women.

Also, the institutionalization of heterosexuality happens through the media. The media forced people to have the idea that only heterosexual is the ideal sexuality, and that’s the way they need to live with. They consider this as the ‘right’ and ‘normal’ way for men and women to be together, otherwise it will be told as not normal.

According to Rubin’s article, she states that sexuality was seems to be an unimportant topic in earlier centuries. It has its own internal politics, it’s political. Rubin began the argument of sex from England and the United States during late nineteenth century about chastity, eliminated prostitution, and discourage masturbation for the young. In that time, masturbation was consider an unhealthy practice for children. People thought the premature interest in sex would impair the health and maturation of the child. In order to protect the young, parent would tie their children at night to prevent them from touching themselves. But this idea was harmful to the young has been chiselled into people’s mind, this may affected the social and legal structures and make minors lacked the knowledge and experience about sex.

In 1950s, the topic about sexuality shifted to ‘homosexual menace’ and ‘sex offender’. The term ‘sex offender’ sometimes applied to rapists, sometimes to ‘child molester’ and eventually functioned as a code for homosexuals. During the time period from 1940s to 1981, the polices raided in gay bars and bath houses, arrested hundreds of people. This results the increasing of ‘Queerbashing’. The crackdown was not been limited to homosexuals. In 1977, the child pornography laws were claimed to protect the minors. All photographs of naked children in anthropology textbooks and movies was banned. This may not be a perfect way, but in people’s opinion, naked was always involve with sex. So it did have some help to protect the minors.

For many people, society must worked with the ‘moral’ way. But the ‘morality’ they believe may not be true, what they say as moral was the life style which majority people believe it’s true. Otherwise, it’s against the rule, it’s immoral.

In Silvia Federici’s reading, she described the degradation of women’s social status in the period of Capitalism. The article had mention that in 14th century, the women can got half the pay of man, but in the mid-16th, they only earn one-third of man’s wages. This fact states the degradation of women’s social status. During 16th century, women’s power was being crushed, they were forcing to worked on the jobs that were unpaid or low paid. They were excluded from many wages occupation, even they had the same job with males, they still earn less compared with males.
In 19th century, there were more women that became full time housewife, in relation with men. The rate of more women were dependence on men was increasing, because there has no access to earn wages for unmarry women, they were under the condition of poverty, economic dependence. The only thing they can do were to rely on men.
During the transition of Feudalism to Capitalism, there was a time period called Patriarchy. In that time, women were lived as a ‘Wages-slavery’: The man was receiving his wife’s wages, the woman didn’t get the money even she worked so hard. In this way, women was impossible to have their own money.
In conclude, women’s social status was being degraded. Their wages get low, and the chance of work opportunities were limited for them, the way for women to survive was rely on men. They were also being insult and assault by men with inequality treatment. Their social status has became more inferior to men.

In this reading, Kessler provides many factor that impact the way physicians and parents understand of intersex children. The physicians believe in the theory that gender must be determine by eighteen months gender ambiguous infant. According to the theory, the correction of gender should be take as soon as possible. If the infant is assigned to be a boy, the repair of penis will undertaken in the first year, and the surgery will be completed before the child enter school. In another hand, if the infant is girl, the repair of vulva will begun in three months, and the surgery will be done in early childhood.

The case of an intersex child will give more pressure force to the doctor rather than the parents. In this situation, the doctor will say things that are inappropriate, such as telling the parents to raise the boy infant as a girl. But the parents will more rather to just remember it’s a boy, and forget the main part of the conversations. And the reason of doctor telling the parents in the inappropriate way is that parents will get ahead and give a name and tell everyone, if the result of the identification of child gender was opposite, it will turns out the way the child has to be raised in the opposite sex.

Since in this society people are just consider for being in two kind of genders – either female or male. The culture determines how people live in the society for being a men or women. Other than this two gender, intersex child must be stand in the lower class in this condition. that’s why it’s so important to identify the clear gender of the intersex children before the child reach the puberty and work on the society.

In “skeletons in the Closet,” Londa Schiebinger mentions the arguments about the sex differences for men and women on physical, race and ethnic. Through out the history, many people believe the men have more capability to stand on the public spheres of government and commerce, science and scholarship, and women supports to be motherhood, doing house-works. They base on the anatomical evidence which ‘Woman’s skull was smaller than man, woman’s pelvic was larger than man’. Rely on this, they result men were more intelligent than women since they had larger brain. This is what they believe for “nature”. Base on this natural reason and the dignity of man, they reject woman to join the government, or stand on higher social events. But, another anatomist Soemmerring and student find out women have heavier brain than men. So this may not be a method to justified the social status for women or men.

In ancient world, Aristotle argued the women are colder and weaker than men. Galen also believed that women are cold and moist while men are warm and dry. They used those reasons to justified women’s inferior social status.

In seventeenth century, many feminist used explicitly medical arguments to buttress pleas for the social equality of women. They states that in anatomy, the head of women and men are the same size, also have same memory and imagination in their brains, women’s eyes can see as clearly. Those feminist’s argument have make some influence i Renaissance and early modern medical circles.

After the influence of those feminist, some anatomist have stand up states that they did not believe in sex difference. Such as Eliza Haywood, she believe the natural reason which anatomist gave is incorrect, she think female brain may not less strong than male.

The comparing of the anatomy of women and men was an important topic because since many people justified women and men’ social status depends on the brain size and how strong they are.