Women’s Lives: Chapter 77, “Consumption (1991): North American Perspectives” H. Patricia Hynes

This is was a great last chapter for me to end on with this book and this class in general. It was the first chapter in general that truly connected almost every issue with gender, power, the environment, and American society, and how this complex web of values, standards, ways of living, beliefs, institutions, and notions of gendering and power effect the enviroment on a local level in North America, and a macro-level, internationally. For such a short article, Hynes covers a lot of ground, with evidence of how the “American Dream”, starting with the nuclear family in the 1950s on a material level has made no one person in society (overall) truly any happier. One of the most thought-provoking statements Hynes makes in the article is “Describing the pitfalls of consumerism and the manufacture of discontent that keep middle-class people locked into a work-and-spend cycle, she calls for overcoming consumerism, revaluing leisure, and re-thinking the necessity of full-time jobs”(562). This quote truly spoke to me in that I can connect it to my social location as a full time student, from a working, middle class family. This statement exemplifies much of the core issues when it comes to changing our consumerism addiction in American culture and society in general. How can we support the economy in this time of crisis but also cut back on the massive amount of unnecessary material items to help reduce the average environmental impact footprint? The fact that the middle class is stuck in this consumerism-prism keeps the out reach to those that have little resource needs in impoverished communities a reality. I thought it commendable that Hynes was able to put this in perspective and connect it to how so much of the time the ignorance that surrounds poverty-stricken neighborhoods of color have been so boxed-in in current society and media that it leads to no progression in the movement to overall consume less as a society, and to instead place importance on social interactions and small communities helping each other.
Another statement that spoke to me as reader was “ ‘Twelve-step’ programs to break the consumer habit offer good techniques borrowed from self-fulfillment and self-control support-group settings, but they are no substitute for social responses to persistent poverty, to misogyny that sells women as sex to be consumed, to child labor and sweatshops, to the consumption engine of militarism and military spending that siphons the life force out of societies, and to all oppressions of ‘the other”(564). This quote in itself represented so much of the core issues that society turns a blind-eye to when it comes to the roots problem(s) of how we as a community of earth will be able to protect it and respect it enough so that future generations can still have a place to live. I thought it interesting of Hynes to bring in the factors of selling sex, the consumerism of the woman’s body, and how that gendering of female have contributed to the systems of militarism- contributing meaning creating a hierarchy system in society where masculinity is much more “prided on” then femininity, and the concept of masculinity has contributed to so much of the consumerism culture. Masculinity has for the most part been boxed into the norm of “bigger is better”; “the more the better”, and these mentalities have slowly seeped into the cultural definition of American society as this massive consumer. We even market and advertise to “go green” which in so many cases go against what “going green” truly means, because it is becoming a trendy advertisement, as a mass concept, not as individual decisions to simply consume less and create to building a better society by contributing to smaller communities, and starting at the local level. The way we as a North American culture place value on gender and power, and the systems that has created in society is slowly but surely destroying the earth, and the idea of inner happiness as a culture, I believe, and I truly the new political movement in the US will be able to change that for the generations of tomorrow.

image from: http://risingtide.org.uk/files/rt/Cartoon%20-%20Consumerism%20for%20Beginers.jpg

Dream Worlds Part II, by Sut Jhally

This movie truly changed my perspective on the media, books, TV, newspapers, advertising, etc. forever, as dramatic as that sounds, but it truly shed light on what it means to be gendered as a woman in society. It made me ask question, who controls this gendering? How do woman and men let this power of gendering control values in society? More importantly who controls this gendering, and how do we as citizens of the massive culture of America, let it have so much control?

Some key terms/ideas/phrases emphasized in this presentation:
Male, sexual fantasy world- female sexual stories told by men. Story telling: male fantasies, what makes a fantasy? Female sexual desire “devouring” men, men having “easy freedom” Woman being desperate for men, must find “substitutions” Waiting for me to save the day, a bleak world for woman without men. Who’s dream is this really? Men’s Dreamworld?
Two main arguments I found in this presentation:
It is a mans’ Dreamworld, therefore they, they being woman, act, dress, and show their “real desires” in wanting to rip their clothes off all the time.
Female artists are still in a very men-dominated Dreamworld, but he pressure to fit into the men-Dreamworld is too great to over power in our society. An example that really spoke to me was Madonna’s music videos.

How do these concepts presented intersect with gender, power, sexuality, and race?
Woman are even stuck in the Dreamworld in their own world, still in a man dominated society, men still have the power. It is perfectly legitimate to watch, explore, analyze woman, woman are now just body parts to be watched and used. None of these concepts presented makes these woman human, and these values that are portrayed essentially rip woman of intellectual and spiritual needs as basic inhabitants of this planet.

When it comes to this presentation and how it involves me directly at my social stand point, being a woman on a college campus, these ideas of needing and wanting to be desired as a physical object is extremely prevalent in the culture and world a woman lives in at a public university.
Knowing that people have been raped, and the amount of guilt it has caused them (the victim) because they felt it was their fault because they were dressing inappropriately, or sent the wrong message, or did not say “no”. It really blew my mind how acceptable our rape culture is in the US media, we really have taken the time to acknowledge that we do live in a rape culture, but the fact that we accept that in our every day society is so dangerous.

Image from: http://musicremedy.com/webfiles/artists/PussycatDolls/PussycatDolls-10-big.jpg

Gender Matters: "Performing the Border", film by Ursula Biemann

Blogg Posting: "How and why Gender matters and how does that intersect with power?" was the first question that came to me during and after watching this film. The questions asked are great, and made me step outside my own global stand point and try and put myself in these womans' shoes, so to speak.

Is Gender a Form of 'citizenship'?
Yes, in this culture of living on the border, there is a certain reversal when it comes to the life at the border, catering to citizens of the woman, yet woman during the day are defined as labor citizens, because of how they have been gendered in the society they live on and in.

How does national borders function to sustain gender, a system of constructed, unequal social relations?
There is no real educational system or real community support for the young and easily influenced females of the border culture- no outlet to explore other options, other roles in society. The roles are just instilled in the gendered female concept of the border. Because these woman do not have an education, there is no knowledge of where else to go, or challenge their place that society has put them into, so as a result they are frozen in that cultured and suppressing role as a laborer and a sex object in society- and they know no better.

How do national borders function to sustain race, a system of constructed, unequal social relations?
Border culture: turning the race of the citizens into disposable workers, exchanging bodies, in a robotic society. Serial killers emerge from these border cultures, in order to separate themselves from such a robotic and constructed place in society. They take advantage of the class and social place of the gendered women.

How do nations maintain their economic "growth" at national borders though gender and race, two systems of institutionalized power relations?
The border maintaining this "economic growth" by becoming a robotic and programmed society in the national borders. The woman are gendered and controlled by this power of gender by working in these already placed factories, because they are prime candidates for this form of work: the border is an impoverished place, with little growth to come from the people, and this factory offers hope for income and stability, much of what these woman do not have. Education is not of high priority in this culture, and by being a female, and gendered and controlled by this gendering, it seems to be a box that these woman are socially frozen, because of the fact that the border is a place of isolation, communication and voice recognition is obsolete in this culture.

Image from: http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/ARTH200/Women/kahlo/border_Mexico_US.jpg

April 26th 2009 Reading Response: Principles of Environment Justice (1991) and Native Hawaiian Historical and Culture Perspectives on Environmental...

These two articles, together and separately, brought shocking realities to the surface of how culturally, socially, and environmentally suppressed and torn apart the Hawaiian land has become as a result of forced US policies. Having the first article explain The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, and the extensive narrative by Trask concerning how the act has been instilled with the Hawaiian islands, or rather the reasoning behind such extreme proposals for the respect of the Mother Land for the natives, brought to light the issues of US policy, and the intersecting of two different foundations of society; Apple Pie America, and the Mother Earth society of the Hawaiian people. These proposals that were stated in the Principles of Environment Justice were at some points dramatic and almost unreal to me…yet when reading the connecting article by Mililani Trask it became clear that these statements and proposals were not in the least dramatic at all, but extremely necessary for the natives of Hawaii. The more I read, the more appalled I became, and speaking from a tourist perspective, I realized my own contribution to the disrespect of the Hawaiian culture and physical land. I remember my trip to Hawaii, the summer of my sophomore year in high school. I was touring with my church Bell Choir on the Big Island, and everyone was very warm and welcoming. Yet this article brought to mind a now disturbing thought. When Trask mentions how tourists in Hawaii want the natives to leave the beaches, because they are “in the way”, I thought how rude! But when reflecting on my own trip there, I remember contributing to such ignorant conversations, contributing to the waste on the land, and not seeing the true native Hawaiian culture for what it truly is, and not grasping how much we have taken from them as a peoples. I also compared much of the statements that are declared in this environmental and cultural protection act to how we as citizens that live in the states treat our land- and we do none of the sort. So much of global America is surrounded by production of material items, material items that we truly have no idea of where they came from, we do not look into the production, the processing, and the waste our society and culture create because so much of the time we are protected by ignorance. Not to randomly go off on a tangent, but I feel as though so much of the readings in Woman’s Lives reflects how much we as an American culture rely solely on ignorance to keep us safe and innocent of so much of the destruction we create. The fact that Hawaiian natives were basically stolen of their land, and the culture is not respected by there “fellow” Americans is something that the current generation needs to recognize, because with recognition comes change, and change is necessary for the respect of this land.

Image from: http://hawaiiwego.com/11-hawaiian-oceanfront-vacations.jpg

April 24th 2009 Reading Response: Chapter 12, WL. Women and the Environment

“Rose Moon”, Sandra Steingraber

This article was one that was almost disturbing to read, yet a reality that so much of the world has ignored. The idea of toxicities in the enviroment, and how these chemicals physically affects the people living in this enviroment, but more importantly to Steingraber, how we as a society handle the awareness and reality of how sick these toxins are making the people living in the enviroment, and how this affects the future children of the generations to come. Steingraber not only brings up how toxins are brought to the public attention, but more importantly how vital and aware these toxins are shared with society, in which the government ultimately controls, until people can use their voices to fight the constant term used: “ In ignorance, abstain” (550). What are we ignorant about? What does it mean to be ignorant when it comes to the health of one’s own baby? How do we as a society handle ignorance? Do we ask more questions, and find why the answer of “ignorance” is so easy to use? Or do we simply follow “ignorance is bliss”, and look no further into the problem, because that would make the problem a reality. This is the main message I received from Steingraber’s article, behind the intense and disturbing stories about the toxicities in the earth, particularly lead, and the lead in lead paint, and the extreme effects it has had on generations and generations of children and families, and still happens today, the government has so many times turned a blind eye. Steingraber brings up these tough realities, realities we as society are not willing to face, because then it makes it true. It makes it a real problem that we as a society have control over, we have the ultimate power to not use lead, to fund companies to extract the toxicities that are imbedded in the soils and walls of these towns and areas so devastatingly affected by these poisons. Yet the easy way out is ignorance, because then in the mind set of so many there is no reality to such a huge issue. We as a society utilize science to the fullest in so many ways, yet the information we release to the public, and the way the information is released is what we need to question as a community that could be affected by toxins, and unborn children could be affected by these toxins, because that is what will give the people the power to find ways to bring the realities to the surface, and more importantly, fix these problems, not feed into more ignorance.

Chapter 11: WL. “The Search for Peace and Justice (1998)”

This section of Woman’s Lives was a new perspective on the many “catch-twenty-two’s” the United States Army offers to those that join it. Despite its many and incredible benefits it gives to those that only have a high school diploma, with little or no money, no future, it is one of the most sexists and as Jean Grossholtz states, “-the biggest welfare state in the world…”(521). Yet she goes on to say that “We [her fellow comrades] complained and raged against the Army’s peculiar ways of trying to break our spirit but all of secretly gloried in our new wealth and were shamed into lying about our pasts, making up stories that were nowhere near true”(521). This has to be one of the most ironic infrastructures within the cultural norms of the United States Army. On one hand, it gives one so much pride and respect within so much of the United States’ communities, a free education, and something to participate in that is bigger then one’s self. All these incredible benefits come with a huge price, much larger then the rewards given: censoring. The Army is one of the most gendered organizations, and with this gendering comes levels of power, and within this power comes the censoring of many men and women and pushes many into an identity crisis of who they truly are versus who they want to be. Grossholtz seems to be a perfect example of that in being from a small town, with no money, and an outsider because of her sexual orientation as a lesbian. The Army offered her an amazing education and a place of growth as a beneficial person to society, yet it silenced her beyond belief in that it told her that who she was as a gay women, as a women, was not right or acceptable, and needed to be silenced in ordered to be accepted in this world. The gendering that occurs within the hierarchical system of the Army is threatened by the gay and lesbian communities because it challenges the masculinity of the male dominance within the Army culture, and women that join are still socially seen as lower in the power structure. So why was Grossholtz marching for lesbians to be active the Army, when it was such a censored and dark place at so many points in her life? She states that “Because if they acknowledge the existence of queers in their ranks, in their leadership, and among those who make the decisions that vote them budgets, then they can no longer adhere to that male ideology of exclusion and machoism”(524). Who is “they”? Who is “them”? How do “they” have power? Who gives “them” that power? It seems as though the Army culture still feeds into many of the ignorant and prejudice views so many Americans have in current society, so what needs to change first? Gendering? Or rank of power?

References

"The Barbie and G.I. Joe Complex: The Projected Image of Gender?" Ignite The Mind. 11 Jan. 2009. 1 Apr. 2009 .

Glanton, Dahleen. "Barbie turns 50, but dolls forever young in eyes of U.S." Www.chicagotribune.com 29 Feb. 2009. Chicago Tribune. 1 Apr. 2009 .

Yelland, Nicola. Gender in Early Childhood. London: Routledge, 1998. Http://books.google.com/books?id=BYv1JsKjG54C&printsec=copyright&dq=gendering+in+the+media. Google Book Search. 1 Apr. 2009.