Prof. Gwendolyn Shaw
Material feminism puts capitalism and patriarchy as the focal point of women’s oppression. Gender is a social construct and material feminism is one tool used to construct it. Gender roles come from society. what society tells us woman should do and what men to do. Gender roles are like women being the caretaker of the children and care for the house and men being the breadwinners and going to work and mow the lawn.
Proposal: An Intervention or offering
Based on my research and my area of interest, I have spent a lot of time reading about the gender pay gap. It was not the original topic of my Independent study final project, but after hearing a little about it in another class I decided to take a look. Once I started reading my interest peaked and I kept on reading. The gender pay gap is the difference between men and women’s median earnings. On average women earn $0.80 to a man’s dollar. It relates to women studies because in this class we learned about previous women’s movement. We learn about women’s fight for equal rights and I think this should be one of them. Being paid less because they are a woman is not equal. This impacts women everywhere including me. My mother makes a good amount of money but with equal pay she could be able to work less on weekends or spend money on herself more instead of the children or putting most of it away in savings. This impacts working mothers, households with many members to support and the minorities who are already discriminated against enough without factoring unequal pay. Maybe to bring more attention to this issue we can start on social media first. Influencers hold power and draw attention. By getting a few influencers to talk about the gender pay gap, it can become something that trends and brings new people to see and fight for equal pay. A solution to this problem would be to start giving and treating all women equal to men in the workfield. Equal pay for equal work. To make it happen, I will first look toward two people that I know who are not too big on social media but big enough that they have thousands of followers and connections to bigger people. They can promote it on their platforms. Once it gets to some bigger people we can petition to make the law pass the equal pay act like they passed the law against discrimination.
For the last post on this class sight we are to post 3 topics that were most important or impactful to me. I am going to be boldly honest, none of them were very impactful for me. Maybe it is because of the shift In learning and I was not learning but rather than submitting work. The only one that I really likes was week 8 and how the bridge on my back related towards me and my family. I really connected with that one but I think that is the only one that was impactful. As for my definition for feminism, it has not changed. Feminism is still advocating for women’s rights on the basis of equality between men and women. Im sorry. Maybe it is because I was not really invested in this class to apply myself harder.
Butler is talking about how a woman and a man are not born that way. The female and male is born as part of your biology. But man and women are not just that it’s a gender. Gender is not something you are born with it is something that is ascribed. You perform gender on a daily basis and the things you do are gendered and therefore it because of your actions a gender is given to you. Cooking and cleaning are usually women’s tasks while mowing the lawn or taking out the trash are men’s tasks.
One example of performing gender from a personal/cultural appearance is cooking. The women do most of the cooking and sometimes all of the cooking. I tend to do a lot of it and although I have many brothers that know how to do somethings in the kitchen it is mostly me. And the housework usually falls on the women aka me and doing gender also means the taking care of children.
I think the culture wars can be defined as a struggle between social groups for dominance within the society. They have similar yet different goals and ideas. This relates to feminism because they are both fighting for the same thing yet women of color have setbacks being women of color. There is no progress because the two are not working together. Feminism for whites have a privilege but the women of color have to work twice as hard to get halfway what the whites have. It relates to feminism because they both want equal rights as men in society . They need to work together and then the progress will start to be seen. ” While black women’s particular location provides a distinctive angle of vision on oppression, this perspective comprises neither a privileged nor a complete standpoint” as said in Heywood’s work.
“Disidentification works like the remaking of identification that Fuss Advocates. Counteridentification, the attempt at dissolving or abolishing entrenched cultural formations, corresponds to de Lauretis’s substitution of desire for identification.”
I believe that Munzo wants readers to understand that disidentification can mean pulling away from your roots and culture that are a part of you and influence who you are. Sometimes you drift away from your culture because you do not want to be associated with some aspects of your culture. I think that when it came to cultural day at school I would tend to pull away or deny the fact that I am Black because may other people in my school come form other countries. I am American and do not come from another place, my parents and grandparents and great grandparents are American. I would try not to participate or pull away because I felt like what I had was not enough. Only in the last year of high school that I started to see that what I had was enough and began to embrace my culture. It could be because I was learning more about myself and my family.
“I am the very well-educated daughter of a woman who, by the standards in this country, would be considered largely illiterate “.
I chose to highlight this particular part of the text because it spoke to me. I myself am the daughter of a well educated woman. My grandmother was married at 17 and did not go to college yet smart. She had 5 daughters and put them through school and made sure that they would go to college because they were so smart. My mother is very smart. She is book and street smart and well educated through school and through her mother. She could have easily became a doctor, but the people of this country at the time weren’t so welcoming and she faced hardships because of the color of her skin. My mother did not fit the stereotypes of this country like how the woman was considered illiterate even though being well educated. I chose it because they tend to look at skin before abilities.
This was also uploaded to the hypothesis.is class group.
I hope everyone is safe and well. I have been inside since the 12 and only been out once a week for groceries and have taken precautions. I am healthy and adjusting to the classes being online. The changes have thrown me off but I am getting back to normal. My mom has been sick and its not the virus but I have been ask to do more things around the house and balancing that with schoolwork. Being at home has not been all bad because I am saving money on the Subway and on food, that’s great!
