Sex and the City Voters, My Ass

Women are underrepresented participation- and representation-wise in politics, and it's a damn shame.

                  My grandmother is the only woman in my life who has followed politics and who is not afraid to state her opinion. In many ways she one of the most strong headed women I know. If it was not for her I would have thought growing up politics was simple just a "man thing". Whenever my grandfather left the room she would turn his Fox News television station off and say to me and my sister, "Never listen to this bullshit girls." Now that they have moved into their new house, she has banned Fox News from the living room all together. She said he can watch it downstairs or they can fight every night. Needless to say my grandfather now watches his Fox News downstairs. As my sister and I got older every time we visited my grandparents there was always some political debate going on between my them. My sister and I often found it funny and amusing to listen, even though most of what they were saying went right over our heads. My grandmother would always sigh as my grandfather marched out of the room, and she would say "Psh what do men know! Nothing, and yet they are the ones running everything, wooptie doo." For a long time I never understood what she meant by men running everything, but now I completely understand, shown to me by the lack of women in our government.

                Bringing attention to this topic is Jessica Valenti in her chapter called Sex and the City Voters, My Ass. In Sex and the City Voters, My Ass she addresses the vast amount of men that hold spots in our national legislature compared to the few women who hold spots, and she forms her theory as to why the numbers are not changing to create a balance between men and women. To explain why many young women are not pursuing jobs in politics Valenti writes, "My own opinion is that young women especially are steered away from all things political from such a young age that by the time they get around to adulthood, they're freaked out and intimidated by the process"(Valenti, 214). And this is very evident in our country. There is the nonprofit White House Project, which is dedicated to getting some interested in politics, but there is limited amount of programs or little to none classes in schools that are geared towards young women to spark interest in politics. There is also a lack of role models, as we discussed in class, for young girls and women to look up to and learn that women can have a job in politics and have a seat in congress. From my own personal experience, no women in my family pay attention to politics besides my grandmother, but most every man does. This made me think at a young age that politics are mostly for men, and not women. "There's also the fact that many young women don't feel like politicians speak to them and the issues that matter to them-we're talked about more than we're talked to,"(Valenti, 214). And this is because it is men who mainly make up our government. We need young women to see role models, and for there to be programs or classes to spark their interest instead of steering them away from politics. The more women who make their word heard, and the more women who pursue a job in politics are the only ways to make 51% of our population feel like they are being talked to instead of talked about. Women "issues" should not be "special issues" when women take up more than half of our country's population. And this is something my grandmother has felt all her life. She and my grandfather have never agreed in a single election, and this is usually because whoever candidates that my grandfather has liked, addressed women as people with "special issues". The need for women's involvement in politics that my grandmother has always hoped for, and that Valenti addresses in Sex and the City Voters, My Ass is shown in the alarming statistics in the short film Women in Political office. 

               In addition to these lopsided statistics Women in Political office brought up another important reason why women are not running for any seats of political power that relates to Valenti's reasoning, and it is when it comes to political networks and money, women are more limited than men are. What women need is support so they can will run in a race that has an open seat, but also in races against an incumbent. This support needs to be targeted at young women and girls as Valenti points out, so they will not be steered away by politics that freak or intimidate them.

            On top of women being steered away from politics at a young age, women also face more ridicule and media coverage on their looks, behavior, and personal life when running for president, a seat in congress, or any political position. "While all women are subject to being judged by their appearance, women in leadership positions get it like crazy. . . But of course, it's not just appearance that women politi­cians are attacked for. It's their personalities. The most com­mon insults? "Ballbuster," "bitch," and the like. Because clearly, all women who work in politics are "unfeminine" and annoying," (Valenti, 215, 217). Look at some well known women in politics such as Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin. Both women have some different political views, but one thing they have in common is media coverage on their personalities and appearances. Valenti addresses how Hillary Clinton was referred to as a bitch, and unfeminine, which were seen as "good" by some critics because those are qualities that are "needed"for a woman in politics, because if you are nice and "pretty" you are too "soft" for politics, and cannot handle the job. Sarah Palin was often called "hot" or "dumb" and most stuff that came out of her mouth was discredited because of this view that was created by the media as not worthy of having any type of role in politics. This also relates to how women newscasters receive more attention on looks than their male counterparts as seen in the film Miss Representation, as well as more interest in their personal life. Katie Couric has had several media articles covering her love life, where there are no such articles for a male newscaster. This similar situation is seen among women in politics. Media will cover more of the men in politics's opinions and plans, but when it comes to women in politics, their outfit, hair, and personal life are all fair game to be covered.


Question: How can we change these stereotypes and targeted personal ridicule on women in political roles?

For one, our society needs to change and be more open to women in power seats. And our media corporations need to take them serious as well. Such as when Valenti wrote about how The New York Times covered a dinner that was to celebrate women in our government, and they put the coverage in the "Styles"section along with a graphic of a pink purse. If this dinner was to honor men in politics, would it have been ran in the "Styles" section with a pink purse? No, didn't think so. Our country needs to open up to the fact that women are people, and are more than half of our country's population, and that women's issues are not special issues. Our country prides itself on being a leading nation, but when it comes to women in national legislature, we come in 90th compared to other countries. It is time for our country to step out of our unbalanced, rigid patriarchal ways, and to take women in politics seriously, understand our nation would be better off, and to pride ourselves for being in the top 5 instead of 90th.

Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In

"The military, of course, is not gender blind, especially in a war zone (Myer,1)."

                Women in the military face many obstacles with working in an institution that is male-dominant. Two struggles that women have faced when joining the military are stepping their feet over an imaginary line our country has drawn that separates men and women, and sexual harassment. In the New York Times, the article Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In by Steven Lee Myers addresses both of these issues, along with some first hand knowledge coming from female soldiers who fought in the Iraq-Afganistan War.

              More and more women are joining the military which has slowly began breaching the gender gap between men and women. Women soldiers have required new protocols and services to meet their personal needs and this has been the main push that has made our military start to accommodate both genders and push patriarchal beliefs, such as women not being able to pursue any fighting roles in combat, and taking care of their general health and hygiene. When women first started sifting their ways through the barrier to fight in war, there were many aspects that were not yet suited to accomodate women soldiers. Basically in simple terms the military was not equipped for women; it only catered to men's needs. "On a practical level, the military was not prepared to house and otherwise address the specific needs of women in a war zone — including issues like health and privacy (Myer, 1)." When women showed up suited and armed, they were not provided with their own space or supplies to take care of their needs properly. The Iraq-Afganistan War was when our military saw for the first time many roles being placed with women that were outside their traditional jobs such as nurse or equipment handler. These women, whose number was increasing, pushed for new protocols to provide better for women soldiers. Changes slowly began to take place where now when women soldiers go to war they have their own CHUs (containerized housing units), and their own bathroom and showers. There is a gynecologist they can frequent when needed, as well as access to free birth control. With having there own showering area, and a place to go to for their health issues, there was no longer a valid excuse to use a woman's health and hygiene against giving her a fighting position. In addition to providing for women soldiers, a device called a feminine urinary director was created which allows women to pee standing up when on duty, as men are able to. This saves time with having to take off less clothing when a woman needs to urinate. These new protocols and products that are geared towards women soldiers are reshaping our military. You see women searching Iraqi women at checkpoints, and female gunners, such as Specialist Jennifer M. Hoeppner, who face just as much danger as their fellow male soldiers. These changes within our military have slowly let the gender line begin to blur, with having more women in fighting roles stepping out of their traditional job titles of nurse and equipment handler. 

                       Women have made major gains in the way our military goes to war, however regardless of these improvements our military is still not gender blind. The article Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In touches on the serious issue concerning sexual harassment against women in the military. "Sexual harassment in a still-predominantly male institution remains a problem. So does sexual assault. Both are underreported, soldiers and officers here say, because the rigidity of the military chain of command can make accusations uncomfortable and even risky for victims living in close quarters with the men they accuse (Myer,1)." It is a soldier's duty to protect our country, but how can our country go so far to protect millions of people from outside enemies when we cannot even protect our soldiers from inside perpetrators? Millions of dollars each year from the Department of Defense go towards programs to prevent sexual assault and harassment within out military every year, but the amount of sexual harassment has risen over the years. The rising numbers could be because these programs may help women speak out about harassment and assault they have experienced, because very often in the past, and still even today sexual harassment or assault is often very underreported. The women soldiers who have been assaulted or harassed are scared of the consequences if they speak out because they live in close quarters with their perpetrator, and the perpetrator could also be a commander, or above authority, and there would be no escaping them, and reporting them could make the abuse worse. There is also the mindset in the military that men are more powerful than women, making the women's word not as powerful as a man's. A precaution advised that Myer wrote is for the women to walk in pairs, therefore women would not be alone making it harder for an attack or any harassment to take place. Chapter 10 in Women's Lives also adresses the seriousness of sexual harassment within the military, and gives statistics to show the predominance of sexual harassment that is inflicted on women soldiers. In the Veterans Administration study, one third of the women reported they had been raped, and ninety percent reported they had been sexually harassed while serving. These large numbers are obscene, and show that sexual harassment and assault is a huge problem within our military that needs to be addressed beyond advising women to walk in pairs, or having them afraid to use the bathroom after 3:00 such as the women mentioned in Chapter 10. "..regarding several women who died of dehydration in Iraq because they stopped drinking fluids after 3 or 4PM. 'They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers of they had to use the women's latrine after dark' (Kirk, 500)." Prevention programs will help, but sexual abuse and harassment live off of control and violence, which does military does as well, so in order to eliminate the large percentages of women in the military who have experienced abuse so restructuring and redefining need to take place within our military to alter it to run on a more egalitarian structure, with the ways we use violence and control altered as well.

Question:

In the article Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In, it was mentioned that women have ended the debate over their role by their performance, so then why are we still debating their role in the military right now? Why do women have to go way beyond and prove themselves when all men need to do is meet general requirements, and not continue to have to prove themselves?

This is direct result of our deep patriarchal roots. Our military is an institution that was created on the basis of male dominance that protects a patriarchal society. Militarization has made our country very pro-war with the Bush Administration having Hollywood make pro-war movies, as well as it is seen in our clothing (camo), in children's toys such as G.I. Joe, and in popular video games that are filled with violence and killing. These famous culture aspects of our nation are the fuse to keeping our military a predominantly male institution. Even with more women soldiers in combat, and high authoritative roles, and fighting roles, most women jobs in our military are ones of traditional female roles such as nurses, food service, and supply and administration workers. Even when a women makes it to the top, she is still banned from fighting in the front line because that is just "not right". And these women who make it into combat fighting roles still have to prove themselves daily to counteract the brash they get from their male counterparts that ridicule her expertise just because she is female. So in reality even though women's performance in war may be superb, it still has not ended the debate of women allowed in the military, in fact there is a long way to go before that debate is ended.

The Mommy Tax (blog entry 10)

                 The Mommy Tax by Ann Crittenden brings to light of the cost of being a mother in today's society and how mothers are the most disadvantaged in the workforce. She shows the discrimination by calculating estimates that average about $100,000,000 lost total in a lifetime to a woman who has a middle class job and decides to have a child. This one million dollars lost is what Crittenden labels as the "mommy tax", because it is the cost if she chooses to bear a child. She also mentions in her text that for fathers who are the main caregiver to their children do pay a "daddy tax" but because in our society women are still the main caregivers to the home and children, there is more commonly a "mommy tax".
              Ann Crittenden had first hand experience with the "mommy tax" after she left her job at New York Times to have her baby. She estimated how much money she would have had if she did not take a break from her job to have her child, and that was about $600,000 to $700,000 not including the pension she would have received is she had stayed working for the company for ten years, (Crittenden, 338). This is a large sum of money that any hard working family could utilize in many necessary ways, but because of choosing to bring another life into the world they are deprived of it, and the sad fact is, is that every mother who works and decides to have a child is burdened with a "mommy tax". "..this seems an unreasonable penalty on the decision that contributes to the general good by adding another productive person to the nation," (Crittenden, 339). After having a child, you no longer have one mouth to feed, and one body to care for, you have two. So you would think it would be common sense that parents need to keep their same income or even have it raised in order to properly care for a third, or fourth human being, but in today's reality you have to pay a penalty that is around one million dollars, or the "mommy tax" in order to have children. And this money is taken out of each woman's income after they have a child. This is a main reason why more and more women are putting off having children and are deciding to have fewer children because the longer you wait to have children and the less children you choose to have, the lower the "mommy tax" is.
               After learning how large the "mommy tax" is, most people ask "why are companies doing this to families?", and their logic behind placing mothers as the most disadvantaged in the work place is because they are not "ideal workers". Companies want "ideal workers", and "ideal workers" are people who will dedicate their life to their job. All of their focus and energy is channeled to being the best possible employee, and doing whatever will benefit the company most. When raising a child, not all your time and energy can be focused on a job, but needs to be focused on the child. Women are people who raise children the most which makes them the least likely candidate of the "ideal worker" and this is why women's pay is lower, and why they are denied the best jobs. What it comes down to is that our society discriminates against women because they have children. "One could even say that motherhood is now the single greatest obstacle left in the path to economic equality for women," (Crittenden, 337). And this fact has had pushed many women who wanted to have children to pay the biggest burden of the "mommy tax" and that is to not have any children because they could not afford the one million cost without living in poverty. Acting like a "man" and putting off having children, sometimes even till it is too late, is one strategy more and more women are using to eliminate that pay gap between them and their male counterparts. This strategy however robs women of the joy of childbearing when one wishes to do so, and this is why our society needs to be restructured so having children is not a burden on families. Our country needs to follow Sweden's lead where the government, employers, and husbands help contribute to eliminate the "mommy tax" so having a child does not threat each woman into poverty.


Questions:
Having children is something that is looked as good and what is "right" in society, so why doesn't our society make it easier for families who are raising children? Mothers need money the most because they are caring for not just themselves, but for another human being, so why are companies robbing them of $100,000,000? How can we make this "mommy tax" go away? How can a jury look at Virginia's situation at Aetna and agree with the company? They thought women with children could not do a good job??? What would happen if she were given the hours she could live by instead of them being increased?
Thoughts on Questions:
I think how our society that views childbearing as right, but then discriminating them against pay is just another double standard that our society lives by such as how girls are expected to look "hot"and "sexy" or as one may say "slutty" but they are not supposed to actually behave "slutty" or have sex with whom they wish. This just shows the major flaws in how our society is structured, and how difficult it is to be a women in our country. Making the "mommy tax" go away brings up challenges of change in our country, but it is what needs to be done. We need to follow other countries strategies such as France and Sweden that have a system that is much better structured so having a child is not a burden like it is in the U.S.
Maybe if Virginia was given the hours she liked she would have been able to do a supreme job. I would like to go out on a limb and guess most members of the jury were either men or women without children who maybe did not fully understand how to balance a job and a family.



                In Mommy Tax, Ann Crittenden writes about the pressure put on women in the workforce that have children, and how they are discriminated against by getting a lower pay compared to men and childless, young women. In her story there is a cartoon picture with captions with one person is ending a fairytale and the other responds.
Storyteller states: "So then the knight slew the dragon and married the beautiful princess and they both went to work for a major law firn AND in addition to her job she had primary responsibility for the housework, and when the kids were home sick she.."
Listener states: "Does this story have a happy ending?"
(Kirk, Chapter 7 pg. 338)
              The pressures of being a mother in the workforce that Crittenden writes about and this cartoon insert in her text both relate to the section on chapter 7 in Women's Lives where the concept of the "second shift" is brought up. The "second shift" is when a woman works during the day at her job, and then comes home to a house that needs cleaning, a family who needs dinner, and children who need attention. The work awaiting her arrival at home needs to be done, and is basically a "second shift" that she needs to fulfill. The "second shift" highlights how a woman who has a job and children has work to do both in and out of the house, but gets paid less than men and childless women who do not have to tend to a "second shift".

              In the movie Motherhood Manifesto a family is shown where the mother was fortunate to work for a company who recognized and catered to women with children. She was able to take time off to spend with her child, and when she went back to work she was able to rearrange flexible hours that allowed her to make taking care of her child a first priority. Many families do not have the luxury at their jobs to do so, such as Virginia Daley who Ann Crittenden wrote about in Mommy Tax. Virginia Daley was a loyal employee at Aetna Life & Casualty for almost ten years, but after having a child and trying to arrange more flexible hours at her job, she was denied so she spoke out about her situation, and was fired. What our country needs is more companies that accomodate women who have children like the mother in Motherhood Manifesto who was able to rearrange her hours for her family, not companies like Aetna Life & Casualty that Virginia Daley worked for.

Radical Pleasure (blog entry 9)

                 The reading Radical Pleasure by Aurora Levins Morales is a short, but very powerful piece where she writes about surviving sexual abuse and torture as a child. From the dark, and evil experiences inflicted on her as a young child, she takes them and uses them to write a wonderful piece about the radical pleasure in the path of the healing process from sexual abuse. She explains why people who were abused need to reclaim sex, and how the process of reclaiming and surviving abuse is not linear, but has its highs and lows.
             Reclaiming sex is about being in control of your sexuality. It allows people who were abused to put victimhood behind, and become a survivor. Aurora Levins Morales views reclaiming sex as a need, but also an obligation. It is an obligation to oneself to take control of your life and be a strong individual. Every person is entitled to being a powerful human being who has total control of oneself and their sexuality. If you do not decide to leave victimhood and let your abusers hold onto your sexuality, you stay weak and wounded. You forfeit your responsibilities and give up control and hand it over to your abusers. "By making the damage done to us permanent and irreversible, we lock both ourselves and the perpetrators away from any hope of healing," (Morales, 284). Here, Morales brings up a viewpoint I had never considered about how if you do not try to heal, you are not only blocking yourself from healing and becoming a survivor, but you blocking the perpetrator of doing the same. "We saddle them with an even bigger spiritual debt that they have already incurred," (Morales, 294).  By allowing them to hold onto your control and sexuality, you lock them into being a perpetrator. It is not until you begin the path of healing to survival, when the perpetrator can begin to heal. By allowing them control you are remaking yourself by reflecting the abusers and are locking into and allowing the circle of abuse to happen. If the perpetrators have no one to control, they have a better hope of healing their minds.
                Healing and the path to recovery and survival from sexual abuse is a struggle filled with lows and climaxes. It is not a steady, linear path that brings you smoothly into healing. It is more of a radical up and down journey that is filled with pleasure, and shame while the survivor works on reclaiming their sexuality. "My sexuality has stuttered ever since, flaring and subsiding in ways I have not known how to manage, ricocheting from intense excitement to absolute numbness, from reckless trust to impenetrable gaurdedness," (Morales, 293-294). Survivors healing from sexual abuse have an inner struggle of learning to balance resistance, desire, and trust. Resistance is something that survivors have felt at their very core. Learning not pleasure, but forced interference with their sexuality. Trust is not something that they are comfrotable with or used to, and learning to trust and letting down their guarded resistance to give into healthy desires is hard for many survivors to do. Some days can be filled of highs with trust gleaming in their souls and welcoming pleasure into their cores, and other days can be filled with feelings of shame with a thick gaurded mind filled with resistance. Learning to control and keeping your emotions on a steady path is a struggle, and these emotions can come in waves knocking the survivor up and down along the path of healing. Similar to healing from a physical injury, there will always be the scar. With healing from sexual abuse, these highs and lows are the scars left behind creating radical pleasure. As Morales further explains how the scars are the "unsteady rhythms of fascination and disgust, obsession and revulsion through which we experience sex as evidence of what we know to be true," (Morales, 284). Healing is a process, and even when the survivors are healed, scars are still left behind.

Questions:
When she writes about how the survivors of sexual abuse need to heal to allow the perpetrators to heal, will the perpetrators want to heal? They are freed from one victim, would they choose healing or find another victim? Do perpetrators know abuse is wrong? Why do they do it?
Thought on questions:
 I think that healing for the perpetrator needs a realization that their actions are wrong and want to and make an effort to heal. Similar to how people who were abused need to want to heal for themselves, to reclaim their sexuality in order to flourish as a person, perpetrators need to want to heal. I would like to think that if the perpetrator knew their actions were wrong, they would stop them. But that may not always be true. Some individuals may be very troubled and find release with inflicting abuse. These are the people who need the most help and to learn how to channel their emotions in a healthy way. Some may abuse others because it was a learned behavior from their society, or it is how they learn to express their control.

                 Radical Pleasure by Aurora Levins Morales relates to Rena's presentation when she explains the road of healing and being a survivor is not linear. She says how it does get easier, but there are still waves of ups and downs that are still felt. When she told her story about how she is a survivor of abuse, she felt a strong reaction from her story that she does not always feel when telling it. Rena said she has now told her story many times, and she can tell it without feeling a strong reaction, but there are still times when recounting on her story she feels a wave of emotions. She felt one of those low waves during her presentation, and she may not feel those strong emotions the next couple presentations she does, but she may feel that wave again after she tells her story another six times. This is exactly what Aurora Levins Morales meant by radical pleasure. Morales explained how there are climaxes of trust and pleasure, and lows of shame and guardedness. These feelings come and go and are all part of the process of healing.
               Also a part of the film V-Day, where they showed people from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. One of the men in the film, Marlin Mousseau, used to abuse his wife. He said how it was a learned behavior; he grew up around similar violence. His two year old son once had to protect his mother from him. He learned his actions were wrong, and he is now a healed perpetrator. This relates to Radical Pleasure because Aurora Levins Morales writes about how perpetrators can be healed, and Marline Mousseau is an excellent example of this. He has changed his life completely around and is now a co-founder for a safe place that women can go called Cangleska.

Abortion: Is a Woman a Person? (blog entry 8)

                Abortion: Is a Woman A Person? by Ellen Willis brings important attention, that is often overlooked when debating the morals of abortion, to women and their rights. The problem with antiabortionists, or "pro lifers" is that when they argue against abortion they hardly if ever mention the woman or her rights. "In their zeal to preserve fetal life at all costs, antiabortionists are ready to grant fetuses more legal protection than people," (Willis, 390). There is nowhere in our constitution where it states that a fetus is a person, nor can our country's best scientists agree when the exact moment human life begins, so in the end antiabortionists are defending the potential and forgetting the life that is already existing, which would be the woman's who is a human being with rights.
              A great example that Ellen Willis brings up that shows how forgotten women can be in the whole abortion equation is a piece written by Gary Wills where he compares the snail darter's right to life and the killing in Vietnam to abortion (Willis, 390). Not only are there flaws in his conclusions, but there is even a bigger flaw to his whole piece: Not once were the rights of women spoken of or even touched on. You cannot argue something without thinking about the bigger picture and the context, which in the case of abortion would be the woman and her rights. What antiabortionists need to take into consideration is why women have abortions and also the consequences and implications to the the mother and potential child when a pregnancy is forced to term. Forced pregnancies could harm the woman's body or mind, and the child would be in an atmosphere where the child is not wanted. This could lead to neglect or abuse of the child. Forced pregnancies would also push women to taking matters into their own hands which could include ending the pregnancy themselves or seeking illegal abortions that are not safe and could cause serious health issues or even death.
            Another important point Willis made was comparing abortion with self defense. This was a take on abortion that I have not heard of before and after reading her explanation on how abortion is clearly self defense it made complete sense within our society's context. Even though feminism has brought men and women closer to equality, there is still a gap that has yet to be breached. Our country still functions within a patriarchal structure where men are still deemed to be dominant in politics. Our congress and leading positions in large companies mostly consist of men. There is still  unequal pay between genders, with men making more. And the list can go on as Willis writes: "We live in a society that defines child rearing as the mother's job; a society in which most women are denied access to work that pays enough to support a family, child-care facilities they can afford, or any relief from the constant, daily burdens of mother­ hood; a society that forces mothers into dependence on marriage or welfare and often into permanent poverty; a society that is actively hostile to women's ambitions for a better life. Under these conditions the unwillingly pregnant woman faces a terrifying loss of control over her fate," (Willis, 389). So what I do not understand is why a topic such as abortion that solely affects women is being decided by the government which so happens to be made up of mostly men. This is taking a choice that affects a woman's life and putting her fate in the hands of men, which again is limiting the rights of a women. What this comes down to is how women are seen and treated in our society. If women were solely considered equal, this whole argument on abortion would no longer be brought up or questioned because it is a right women should have to freely express their sexuality.


Questions:
How can you argue against abortion without mentioning women? Shouldn't women be the one's making decisions about abortion and not men...since men aren't the ones needing the right to abortions? If pro life people are so focused on the fetus, and potential life, than why aren't they thinking of the environment that the fetus would be born into? Is it really better to have an unwanted child that is vulnerable to neglect and poverty instead of giving women access to abortion?
Thoughts on Questions:
If people who argued against abortion with mentioning and considering women's rights there arguement would probably not make sense or it would be weaker than ignoring womens rights and using something as awful at killing in Vietnam to compare it with. Women need to get into congress to make decisions concerning women to be fair, the problem is getting congress equal of men and women. I think pro life people do not think of or I'm not sure if it even comes into their minds of the bad environments the potential children could be born in. Maybe if they considered such aspects to banning abortion their views would change.

                  Abortion: Is a Woman a Person? by Ellen Willis relates to Thirty-Four Years Old Today by Pam Houston because Houston writes about how she cannot imagine a world where she did not have the option to decide what to do with her body and in Willis' text it talks about how the antiabortionists are trying to change the world into just that. Houston brings up great points on how she cannot fathom how the senator of Kansas could make her carry a pregnancy for nine months and raise the child for 18 years because that is such a personal and life altering decision she should be able to make, not some senator. Houston talks about different people she knew including herself, who have had abortions and some of the aftermath to their choice, but she draws an important conclusion that how in the end, the way a woman feels about her choice, or how she is living her life does not matter. What matters is she had the choice. And the choice is the right all women should be entitled too and that is what the antiabortionists that Ellen Willis writes about are failing to see.

The Importance of Birth and Birth Stories (blong entry 7)

"We now find ourselves in a situation in the US and in many other parts of the world where women are increasingly  being denied what is perhaps the most powerful and primal experience a woman can have: the right to give birth without the use of medical interventions unless these prove necessary," (Gaskin, 6).

                  In The Importance of Birth and Birth Stories by Ina May Gaskin the concept of natural birth is discussed and how it is increasingly being taken away from women by birth being no longer in the hands of women, but more so controlled by men in a medicalized atmosphere where surgery and drugs are playing a bigger role in what is supposed to be a natural process. Ina May Gaskin's purpose for writing her book is to encourage women to become more involved in the maternity care policy and help teach young women and men about birth, and one way to educate others about birth is through birth stories.
                Birth can not be explained in any other way besides a natural process. So why does our society keep trying to make it something it is not by treating it as a disease that needs critical medical attention? "The natural birth philosophy . . . is based upon a fundamental respect for nature that recognizes that nature mostly gets it right in birth," (Gaskin, 8). There is no case where drugs have improved the natural process of birth. Even in cases where the cord is wrapped around the neck of the baby, it almost always still safe for the baby to be born vaginally. One out of every five babies are born with the cord around the neck, proving it is actually rather a normalcy and is not the super dangerous condition that it is made out to be, which usually results in a cesarean section that is not needed (Gaskin, 6). Nature mostly gets it right in birth. Another scenario Gaskin talks about is due dates, and how they are often wrong, being pregnant at 42 weeks alerts doctors as dangerous which results in that woman being induced, instead of letting her natural hormones determine when labor should start. Being induced by synthetic hormones when the body was not ready to begin labor often results in a C-section, which could of been avoided if the body was left to go into labor when it was ready (Gaskin, 6). Again, nature mostly gets it right in birth.
               Birth is an empowering event in a woman's life. It is an event that reaches her innermost self where she discovers her body's capabilities and amazing strengths. This is why it is so critical that every woman should be entitled to an empowering, safe birth. In traditional cultures, birth has always been considered a woman's domain, which makes absolute complete sense since it's women having babies, not men. "Because only women give birth, indigious cultures that were widely separated from each other all considered it obvious that women were the people most qualified to decide what sort of care was necessary during pregnancy, birth, and the newborn period," (Gaskin, 2). However in the US and more frequently in other countries, women's power around decisions that concern their child's birth are limited. Midwifery care is often not heard of and has little influence on present day's birthing "industry". Because hospitals (that consist of mostly male surgeons) have been the primary atmosphere for birth that women and men have been exposed to, it is important that women should be taught that they have a right to a safe, positive birth and that a medicalized hospital birth is not their only option. A way of teaching mothers about birth so they will not be scared and turn to a medicalized birth is by giving them confidence by telling positive birth stories. Stories that do not include the mother on heavy doses of drugs, or mothers who "had to have" a C-section. Stories that talk about the natural process of birth, stories that will diminish the fear that has been placed in them by telling them they will not be able to handle the pain. Stories that will give women the credit they deserve, because our present day medicalized births have one thing behind them: fear. Fear that was created that undermined the confidence of all women. Women need to claim back their domain in birth, because women can handle it, it is part of their nature.


Questions: When did this fear about giving birth start? Why did our society medicalize it so much, when in the beginning we always knew it was natural? When will Midwifery care become more well known again, and more utilized than medicalized birth?
Some thoughts to my questions: Our society is trying to fix something that is not broken. Put birth in the hands of men, and they can't handle it. They can't relate to the process, they think drugs will help, when really all drugs do is increase C-section rates. C-section, being a surgery, surgery something that is really in their domain, making it something they can handle. Because these male doctors that are obstetricians are surgeons. Fear for birth in women started when the painkilling drugs started to be used. This made them think they can't handle the pain and they started to forget how it is a true natural process.

                This chapter by Ina May Gaskin was at the root of all of our class discussions.  When our guests Chris, Dani, and Vanessa came in a lot of what Gaskin wrote about relates to what they had to say. Such as when Chris and Dani discussed how they inform each mother-to-be of the positives and negatives of each test to allow them to make their own decisions on whether or not each test is right for them, whereas a doctor would just tell the mothers-to-be to get the test done. This supports what Gaskin wrote about how in the US medicalized birth's, women have limited say about what happens to them during their birth. Where as in Midwifery care they have every say to what happens to them, and Chris and Dani support and told us that.
                Also how Gaskin wrote how birth is an empowering event that shapes a woman's most innermost self, and how every woman should have a right to this kind of birth relates to what Vanessa had to say during our discussion. She who had a hospitalized birth with doctors and home birth with a midwife said how they were night and day in comparison. After her first hospitalized birth, she said she felt like she missed something. She wanted to hold her baby right after giving birth, but the doctors took her baby away. She had a limited say as to what happened to her. She was given drugs without full knowledge of the side effects, and she was told to rest after giving birth when in reality resting was not something she needed at that moment. What she needed was to see her baby. In contrast to her home birth, she got that positive empowering birth she was was not given the first time. Yes there was pain, but she was able to handle it, and was allowed to be with her baby right after giving birth, she was in full control of what happened the whole time. Her second experience was similar to the empowering births depicted in the "At Home in Maine" films. In these films you get to witness what a true natural birth is by them showing many woman at home giving birth. You can see after birth how happy each mother is after the journey through labor. This happiness is what birth is all about, and this happiness is what Ina May Gaskin wishes for all women.

Size 6 (blog entry 6)

"He controls the whole fashion industry, from cosmetics to underwear. The West, I realized, was the only part of the world where women's fashion is a man's business." (Mernissi,54)


          Size 6 written by Fatema Mernissi addresses a very important concept of women's oppression in the Western Culture: size. Mernissi herself is not native to the Western Civilization but is from the Eastern Culture where she lives in Morocco. In her culture men use the veil and space to oppress women which she uses to compare to the oppression in the Western Civilization where time and size are the oppressors used for women. The veil is an article of clothing that is forced upon all women by the police and by space she means that women are kept from the public arena. They do not have a say in anything political. What she means by time in the Western Culture is how only young women are considered beautiful. Women are most beautiful at a younger age, teens through twenties, which causes older mature women to look and dress like the many years younger. Besides freezing time to look young, being thin is also considered a "norm". Size 4 and 6 are the "norms" in America which is where the title Size 6 originates from. In her country there are no sizes. "I come from a country where there is no size for women's clothes....Actually, I don't know what my size is, to tell you the truth."(Mernissi, 53) In a country where everyone and their sister knows their size, where that single number comes up in daily life, a number that everyone is fixated on, could you imagine nobody knowing their size? Not being able to compare to each other to make sure you are just as "thin"? Mernissi walked into a store and in one glance the store clerk knew that her size was not in the store, and she had no problem telling her this. Mernissi felt ugly and lost her self confidence, which is a feeling many American women feel daily. "..beauty in the West can hurt and humiliate a woman as much as the veil does when enforced by the state police in extremist nations such as Iran, Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia." (Mernissi, 51)
            Some may argue yeah but the veil is enforced by police, and in the Western Culture the police do not enforce size. But the thing is "size 6" is enforced, not by police but the media, which so happens to be soley controlled by men. Men control what is publicly seen as "beautiful". They control the images of the flawless skinned, size 6 women that we see everyday and eveywhere.  "..the saleslady suddenly gave me an anxious look. 'The norm is everywhere, my dear,' she said. 'It's all over, in the magazines, on television, in the ads. You can't escape it. . . .'" (Mernissi, 52) Creating something that  no women can escape sounds just as powerful if not more than the police. The media is something women are exposed to everywhere constantly haunting them. Whether it is a magazine in your bedroom, or a commercial on TV, all the women portrayed in these media devices are not what all women look like, in fact they only represent a small portion of what women look like. Some are not even real, but digitally altered. And these are the women America focuses on as beautiful. This constant reminder that you have to be young and thin in order to be beautiful has the same intention as the veil in the Eastern Culture. They are both tools used against women. "By putting the spotlight on the prepubescent female, the Western man veils the older, more mature woman, wrapping her in shrouds of ugliness. This idea gives me the chills because it tattoos the invisible harem directly onto a woman's skin." (Mernissi, 53)

* I did a mini experiment and typed in beautiful women into google search and this is what I found:

Most all of the images were similar to these three women above. All thin, blonde, and flawless skin. This just proves to show how our society strongly thinks this is what beauty is. Now go to a local public event and tell me how many women you see there that look like this. Not very many. But go into a store and you will find hair dyes, skin creams, and anything you could ask for that will help you look like these women on display. This just goes to show you how the media and our "beauty" products are all focused around the false concept of beauty that objectifies women. The pressure to look like this is everywhere, and if you ask Fatema Mernissi, she is thankful that her culture does not make size 6 a "norm"as the veil currently is.

 "I am so happy that the conservative male elite does not know about it. Imagine the fundamentalists switching from the veil to forcing women to fit size 6." (Mernissisi, 56)



Questions: I wonder what it would be like to live in the culture where there was no such thing as size? What would the media look like if women's bodies weren't viewed as objects, and all bodies types big and small, old and young were viewed the same?
         I can envision a store with colorful clothing throughout the whole store displayed on mannequins that range in sizes and skin colors. Where you wouldn't walk into a room and see miniature white mannequins sporting the same shirts that only flatter thin people. You would walk into stores that showed variety. Variety in color, size, shape. And if you ask me, everything the same is boring. Variety is where fun happens.



            In Size 6 the lady in the store said how size 4 and 6 were the "norm" and how you cannot escape it. In the film Missrepresentation the women who spoke picked apart the media to show how deeply embedded objectifying women's bodies is in our culture. From women politicians to women newscasters there is an evident difference in the way the media portrays and views them. In the film it says how Katie Couric's love intrests are written about in the media. Do you see them writing about any male newscaster's love interest? Didn't think so. The film also shows pictures during campaigns that were taken through Sarah Palin's legs. Did you see any pictures taken through Obama's legs? Didn't think so.  The film constantly made its audience think about the differences of how men and women are portrayed in the media as well as how each looked. All ages of men are seen everywhere, but it is mainly only young women that are seen in the media. This is also something Mernissi writes about in Size 6. After getting a closer look to the lady working in the store she realizes they are about the same age, both older women. However the lady in the store made herself appear like a young girl. This shows how strong the media affects how we choose to dress ourselves and Missrepresentation showed exactly how strong the media influences are. They are as strong as the veils being enforced in the Eastern Harem by the police, possibly even worse, Fatema Mernissi would say.