The United States Military was designed to protect our country and to keep the citizens of America safe. But what about when actual soldiers are in danger from their fellow comrades? This is the case for female American soldiers. Time magazine did an article, “Sexual Assaults on Female Soldiers: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by Nancy Gibbs that details some of the facts and figures of sexual harassment in the military. This article is very eye opening and really makes me question what’s going on in the military. Female Soldiers are being sexually abused at an alarming rate, these numbers need to be made more public to force the United States government to take action and lower the numbers
Nancy Gibbs begins her article, Sexual Assaults on Female Soldiers: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, by talking about how female soldiers overseas are told not to go get a drink a water after 7 pm to avoid the risk of being raped or how a female soldier went out for a cigarette and was assaulted but afraid to report it because she didn’t want to be demoted for not bringing her weapon with her. Gibbs explains that lately the news has covered only the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” story but has neglected the news on women assault. “Maybe that’s because too many commanders still don’t ask, and too many victims still won’t tell, about the levels of violence endured by women in uniform (Gibbs 1).” Nancy Gibbs explains how 3,000 women were sexually assaulted in 2008, up 25% in Iraq and Afghanistan, and looking at all the female veterans one third say they were victims of rape or assault which is twice the rate in civilian population (1). Gibbs points out that the major problem is not these high (even though they are big problem) but the fact that 80 percent to 90 percent of sexual assaults go unreported. These women feel they need to stay silence because they believe that nothing will be done, that they will be ostracized, or will be subject to ridicule and gossip; women don’t want to be labeled as troublemakers. They don’t want to make it seem like that their problem is more important than the mission and they don’t want to ruin the unit’s bond. “And then some just do the math: only 8% of cases that are investigated end in prosecution, compared with 40% for civilians arrested for sex crimes. Astonishingly, about 80% of those convicted are honorably discharged nonetheless (1).” Mental- health professionals are not readily available to women. Gibbs says that some experts try to offer theories for the causes of these high numbers of assault like how the military culture is intrinsically violent and hyper masculine, that the military is slow to identify potential risks among raw young recruits, that too many commanders wound rather look the other way than acknowledge a breakdown in their units, or that it has simply not been made a high enough priority (2). Nancy Gibbs feels that the government is trying to do something about this problem, women can now seek medical treatment with out having to report it to their chain of command and that more field hospitals have trained nurses to treat victims and have more rape kits available.
This article really struck me because it sounds so insane for some reason, how can the men in the military be doing this to fellow soldiers. They are fighting for our country, normal citizens hold them to such high standards, I don’t think anyone can imagine our soldiers doing this to one another. A female soldier can’t go get a drink of water after seven that sounds like she is in the ghetto. Is the military like a ghetto, if it is then something needs to be done. The numbers Nancy Gibbs are quite outrageous to me, ONE THIRD of female vets have been sexually assaulted or raped, and that’s a bit crazy. These men and women are fighting for the safety of the people in America, yet these women aren’t safe from the male soldiers. If these women are willing to risk their lives for the betterment of American people then they shouldn’t have to deal with any other stress. To add to that most of the women who have been harassed don’t report what has happened to them because they’re afraid what will happen or don’t think anything will happen is ridiculous. These women need a safe outlet from this abuse. The theories experts give for the reason of this abuse I think are pretty accurate. The military is this hyper-masculine over violent atmosphere where men get all hyped up. It is still no excuse for what some of them do. There is no way around this, the military is violent because they are trying to kill the enemy but they need to realize this violence needs to be aimed at the enemy not fellow soldiers. Hopefully the government can do something to lower the numbers of female soldiers being sexually harassed.
Many authors have taken an interest in the topic of sexual assault on military bases. Steven Lee Myers is a writer for the New York Times and wrote about women in the military also. His two articles, “A Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I.’s” and “Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In,” explain sexual harassment in the Military. He also sees it as a big problem that the government needs to address, but he doesn’t make it out as a big of problem as Nancy Gibbs, he feels that the numbers are going down and the government is making some attempts to lower the numbers. Myers and Gibbs have very similar facts and figures and ideas about why women don’t report assault. This demonstrates that these figures aren’t a secret and that many people know this. The people that know this need to exploit this information so that more of the public knows, if more of the public knows I’m sure that they would speak out and the government would be forced to do something. Right now this information is under the media’s spotlight, but if TV did shine some light on it, maybe the government would feel more pressure to change some things.
Female Soldiers are being sexually abused at an alarming rate, these numbers need to be made more public to force the United States government to take action and lower the numbers Women are being harassed and have no where to go and no one to really turn to, this leads them to keep it internalized which can lead to even more serious problems later on. Authors like Nancy Gibbs and Steven Lee Myers need to band together to expose these facts on a larger scale, which may cause the Government to act. Hopefully, these numbers will decline with time and women will only have to worry about attacks from their enemy instead of both enemy and fellow soldier.
I feel like it was yesterday that I picked up Listen Up and read the very first reading assignment of this class -- Your Life as a Girl by Curtis Sittenfeld. I can still vividly feel how did I feel then that I felt like suddenly opened my eyes to my life of the past 17 years “as a girl”. In that article, Sittenfeld does not discuss any feminism theory but depicts some fragments of a girl’s life. These fragments suddenly challenged my view of the world. And it was then that I started questioning myself; why I was very energetic and “boyish” when I was a kid that I liked competing with boys and I felt free to roll on the ground (I really did) but since nobody-knows-when that I started pretending to be weaker than boys, which in other words is considering the appearances and sensibilities of boys, and pretending to be neat to show girls’ character?
But then I felt quite frustrated because not everyone else around my routine life is feminist, actually none of them is. So I tried to discuss what I had read and how I felt with every friend, it turned out, as “usual” and “expected”, that none of them actually agreed with me. A boy thought that feminism is a complete non-sense which is developed on an imagination and he asked me not to imagine that women are always live under oppression. Another boy said that he did agree that the balance between men and women is not completely fair, but he thought that because women are biologically naturally weaker than men, and he tried to persuade me by recounting the history of human that women were biologically determined to be weaker than men since the origin of human beings. There was some boy else that thought marriage and children are the most important things in any woman’s life. And the most frustrating speech to me was from a upper-class girl who actually took Intro to Women’s Studies in her freshman year but she thought that feminism is an Utopia that can never be achieved just as communism, and after learning Women’s Studies she just wanted to be a housewife. I did not know how to properly persuade them then because I myself still had no idea about feminism and I even sometimes questioned it myself; I just felt that women are still living under oppression but I had no idea about what exact forms are the oppression in and I wondered if the oppression took place only in particular situations or regions since it seemed that women in the societies which I had lived in live as equals of men. So I decided to stay quiet but keep my position until I can strongly defend feminism.
Today, after reading Enloe’s articles I finally know that the very reason of the oppression imposed on women and of the forces that firm the oppression is the incuriosity or, in other words, laziness of most people. Most people are incurious about the things happen around them and they rarely question things that they have been so used to, such as why men fight in the war while women working at home. Because being curious requires putting effort in thinking and searching what is going and these processes are basically viewed as energy-consuming. Therefore, most people do not bother to use their abilities of being curious. It turns out that, now I finally know, the boy who thinks Women’s Studies actually had no single knowledge about Women’s Studies at all when he was charging feminists as fanciful and completely denying feminism saves his energy from searching the basic foundation of feminism. Also, the boy who does agree with the inequality nature of sex and who tried to justify this inequality by using biological history does not truly understand the biological differences between the two sex and believes that what is thought to be “natural” is “natural” without questioning the term of “nature” itself. Just so is the boy who values marriage and children upon everything to women but he has never bothered to be curious about where does his value come from. As for the upper-class girl, it is her laziness too that makes her want to be a housewife because she has learned how “hard” it can be to be curious as these feminists do and she tends to set back and live under unawareness that she knows would definitely be easier.
Also, we can actually apply Enloe’s idea about the importance of being curious in every aspect of our lives. And being curious can keep us being enthusiastic about everything we are doing and everything in our lives. And we should give up thinking what we cannot do. Because thinking “we can’t be investigating everything” actually makes us to think “we would be better not to investigate anything”.
I am so glad that I have taken this course before getting 18 so that I still have time to effectively train my awareness and curiosity.
What is natural? In the short sections from The Curious Feminist, author Cynthia Enloe asks this very question. What is normal, natural, or necessary to occur? What is "traditional" and "historical?" Enloe challenges each of us to question the roles we play in society and how these roles are shaped by the very definitions of masculinity and femininity in our cultures today. By being lazy, we remain complacent and accept the norms imposed on us by the priviledged. However, if we begin to question through curiosity who shapes these roles and what implications they may have on our lives and others' around the world, we may be able to begin towards the difficult process of dismantling the oppressive patriarchal structures engrained around our world today.
These chapters seem to be extremely relevant for our class discussion to come full circle as we near the end of the semester. After reading countless works by feminists, each with a different view of the world and a different message to deliver, it seems unlikely that any of my classmates still view themselves and the world as the same as they did before entering the Women's Studies Center in August. Gaining an awareness of our distinct roles and how they have developed out of patriarchy, we must now all have a curiosity to investigate societal "norms," "traditional" roles, and "historical" structures. As a result, we may at some point be able to deconstruct those oppressive forces keeping women in a complacent position at the bottom.
Cynthia Enloe begins her book, “The Curious Feminist” by exploring people’s curiosity, moreover, people’s lack of curiosity and how it pertains to patriarchy.She brings up some really interesting ideas about how certain people’s use of words like, “Natural”, “Always”, and “Tradition” keeps people from being curious.They hear these words and feel they don’t need to investigate certain things that are said.Enloe then goes on to talk about Patriarchy and how it has constructed basically are whole country and how it is not challenged enough.I think this is really good point made by Enloe, a lot of people take for granted stuff that is said and don’t challenge it because it’s a “tradition” even though it may be wrong. In the following chapter Enloe goes on to talk about being "surprised" by things said by fellow people. In simpler terms I think this just means that people need to admit they don't know somethings. This is a good point I know a lot of people, including myself, who just go along with things people say even if they don't know what they are saying. I thought this was a great way to end the class because it's kind of a beginning to an end. These chapters raise a lot of the same questions that we've been exploring in class like what role patriarchy has in our society and how it effects everyone.
Cynthia Enloe's two short chapters are a perfect way to conclude our course. Enloe cleverly questions our lack of curiousity in terms of feminist and societal issues. Much of our seemingly apathetic attitude is due to laziness. It takes energy and thought to be inquisitive. This is reflected in our overuse and misuse of words, such as: normal, tradition and always. Enloe believes that these words are "energy-saving" in the sense that no explanation is really required (p.1). People in general take these words at face value and do not think to question the origins, meanings and effects of these traditions. It is much easier for us to remain in the dark and not know the truth about many issues. Because if we know the truth than we might feel a moral obligation to act- which of course requires energy. In our busy lives energy and time are valuable commodities that people hate to give away. She goes on to discuss the fact that our uncuriousity is comfortable and that it benefits certain factions. This is similar to a class discussion about military rape in Iraq. None of us really want to know what is going on because the soldiers over there are doing a job that most of us probably do not want to do. As long as they are fighting a war on our behalves, we can stay at school and go on to our careers.
Our uncuriousity helps to keep patriarchy in place. Patriarchy is a very adaptable and enduring system in which women are marginalized and masculinity is favored. Thus, it is essential that we question familiar terms and current events to see if it has any relation to patriarchy. Along these lines it is also important to admit when we do not know certain things. Instead of accepting an outcome because we figure it must be true and logical, we should inquire as to how that outcome came about. By asking questions we begin a discussion and train of thought.
All of us are guilty of these transgressions. More often than not it is much easier to nod your head in class or during a conversation and accept things as concrete facts. As a society we need to begin questioning how and why things are happening. More importantly, we need to identify the consequences and effects that such events have on our society as a whole and specific groups.
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Do you remember Elizabeth Rourke? The internist in How childbirth went industrial, by Atul Gawande, who had Cesarean section to deliver her baby in the thirty-ninth hour of labor. Despite her great efforts she put in her pregnancy, including bearing her child for one more week after her due date, and in her lengthy labor: she had endured the painful contractions for thirty-eight hours first and finally gave up and turned to C-section, Rourke did not think highly of herself but felt guilty and made herself miserable for a week. Because she used epidural, which she tried to avoid, during the labor, gave birth to her child under a C-section, which she also wanted to avoid, and failed to breast-feed her child after the labor. (1) Actually, women are made to feel guilty on the motherhood issues according to various reasons. We are first made to feel guilty if we do not want to bear children. Then the G-word comes again and again if we did not read to our children during the supposedly best antenatal training time, if we failed to pick the best schools for them, or if we failed to feed them with the best food suggested by the pediatricians. But the G-word effects mostly on the topic of breastfeeding or no. (2)
At present, a team of Australian researchers turn their eyes on the issue of the G-word and want to find out whether this word helps or hurts women’s participation in breastfeeding since these researchers have already noticed that those women who do not feed their children with their own boosts often undergo a lengthy period feeling guilty. Nowadays, women are made to feel guilty because, with the years of “Brest Is Best” campaign, many women are acknowledged of the benefits that both babies and moms can gain from breast feeding;breast-fed babies aren't as likely to fall prey to obesity, ear infections or diabetes; breast-feeding moms benefit from a decreased risk of breast and ovarian cancer (4). And women are advised to breastfeed their children for at least 12 months. However, the breastfeeding rates is far lower than the rates which are recommended by American Academy of Pediatrics or by the World Health Organization that less than half of the women keep breastfeeding their children at 6 months. "Governments and breastfeeding advocates across the globe have tended to focus on a campaign of fear and guilt to push women to breastfeed” says lead researcher Joy Parkinson, of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Miriam Labbok, director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, doubts if the guilty worked because the rates of breastfeeding did not increase in the past several years. And the most important question is: are women the right ones that should be charged to bear the G-word? Mothers “are feeling guilty not because we make them feel guilty but because they made the decision to breastfeed then can't get the support they need”, says Labbok.
While the U.S government pushes women to breastfeed their children, it does not take necessary actions to support women to do it. The Uniter States is one of the only 6 countries that does not command paid maternity leave (The others are Australia, new Zealand, Lesotho, Swaziland, Papua New Guinea) (5). Because the time that working mothers need to pay for breastfeeding would definitely affect their careers and because they do not have paid maternity leave, mothers have no choice but to choose bottle-feed their children which make themselves feel guilty, otherwise they must endure failure on their careers and decrease of wages. But mothers are surely not the one to blame for not breastfeeding their children. It is the U.S government that tells these mothers that breastfeeding is better to the health of their children but the U.S government does not necessarily provide them with the support to do so. The situation for single mothers is even harder. They have no husbands to support them during times when they had to leave their jobs, they have a lot of problems in hunting a new job after giving birth, and they do not have people to share their stress in caring their children. Thus, choosing to breastfeed is too much for these single mothers to afford.
Women incline to bottle-feed their children also because they can hardly gain enough help and encouragement from their husbands on breastfeeding. A QUT study of nearly 1,400 U.S. and Australian women has found that breastfeeding help and encouragement from friends and family, especially dad, is more important than advice or support from health professionals. In the QUT study, 88% of women got strong support from their partners while just 31% received help from a professional. (2) However, as the U.S does not mandate paid maternity leave for women, the U.S does not command paid leave for fathers. But breastfeeding is not just a motherhood issue as the QUT study has proved and providing paid leave for fathers can not only release mothers’ stress on breastfeeding but also avoid keeping “men in a role subsidiary to that of women in relation to the exercise of their parental duties” (3). Actually, recently, Europe's highest court has ruled that Spanish dads are entitled to “breast-feeding leave.” Because, said the European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg, extending the breastfeeding benefits only to women is “unjustified discrimination on grounds of sex” to men (3). So, nowadays, both Spanish moms and dads can leave work for an hour or cut their workday 30 minutes short for the first nine months of a baby's life (3). This ruling also provides Spanish employees with more precious time to spend with their children. In fact, even though the ruling is approved in the name of “breastfeeding leave”, the Europe’s highest court has commanded it to be considered as “time purely devoted to the child” (3).
Breastfeeding is just one, may be one of the not so tough ones, of the tough problems that make moms and dads stressed in raising children. In fact, choosing to have children usually also means choosing to lose a huge amount of possible wages. Working mothers earn to much less than working childless women; by 1991, thirty-year-old American childless women were making 90 percent of men’s wages, while comparable mothers were making only 70 percent of men’s wages. And mothers who switch to part-time jobs in order to have more time to care their children often earn less than other employees even though their workloads are the same. Because many employers suspect these mothers who work part-time jobs have “recreational” attitude towards work. The mammy tax that American women need to pay can be as huge as a million dollars; an economist has calculated that a couple who earn a combined $815,000 per year will lose $1.35 million if they have a child. (5)
While the breastfeeding rate in the U.S is decreasing, that rate is increasing in France, which is one of the two countries that have the lowest mammy tax in the world. French government spends more that twice the percentage of its GDP on social welfare. French women can enjoy a year-long paid maternity leave, so it is easier for them to breastfeed their children. Every French mother enjoys free health care and receives a cash allowance for each of her children. Single mothers do not need to face these problems they may face in the U.S. They can receive a package of benefits, including housing subsidies. Moreover, life can be much easier for these single mothers because the government can even pay for hiring a licensed nanny, so the G-word does not bother them if they want to work outside home. And the universal medical care, the free public nursery school, and the free preschool systems, make their lives much easier than that of American mothers. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that the wage difference in France between working mothers and childless workers is only 8 to 10 percent, the child poverty rate in France is much lower than that in the U.S which is 17 percent, and the breastfeeding rate in France in increasing.(5)
“The definition of mother in this country is guilt,” says Labbok (2). But it is the welfare system in this country that should be blamed for failing in providing mothers in this country a good environment to raise their children in better ways. And U.S mommies, please do not let the G-word bother you!
Resources:
1. Atul Gawande, How childbirth went industrial, The New Yorker, 10/09/2006.
Male or Female, pick one, because there is no middle option.In today’s society we see a major emphasis on what gender or sex someone is; we see it more than people think: what bathroom you go to, what clothes you wear, and what sports team do you play for.The problem is that biologically some people are not male or female but a combination of the two.We now call that intersex, however intersex is seen as problem that needs fixing.Time magazine printed an article called, “Between the Sexes” by Christine Gorman and Wendy Cole that dives into intersexuality to try to explore its role in society.Intersexuality is a secret social problem that seeks to be fixed by medicine, when it just needs to be accepted by modern day society.
“Between the Sexes” by Gorman and Cole begins with a woman named Debbie Hartman who gives birth to a healthy baby.The problem is the doctors are unable to tell if the baby is female or male.The baby has both male and female DNA and both male and female body parts; the baby is a true hermaphrodite.“… ‘Hermaphrodite’ is not one of the options available on a birth certificate, so the Hartman’s’ doctors struggled to figure out which sex was more appropriate for the child (Gorman and Cole 1).”The doctors finally decide the baby is boy and the Hartmans are allowed to take their baby home, however at eleven weeks the baby developed a hernia that required surgery, and the doctors found a rudimentary ovarian and Fallopian tube tissue.The told the Hartmans that in fact their baby was a girl and that she was at risk of developing cancer if the ovary and fallopian tube stayed in.The family decided to go along with the doctors and rename their kid Kelli and buy new clothes for her.Kelli went on to have three more surgeries to construct female-looking genitalia.Her mother revealed all the surgeries she went through when she was eight years old and at the age of ten Kelli is still having problem with gender in her life, but is still getting on in life.The article then talks about how intersexuality is lot more common than people think.There are estimates that around 0.2% to 2% of live births are intersexual.Gorman and Cole explain how that traditionally doctors treat babies with a surgically refashioned genital to match one sex so that the baby has a conventional sense of gender and so that extra tissue doesn’t turn cancerous (like Kelli).However they go on to say that adult intersexuals are coming out and describing the pain that came with all the surgeries they had to go through and all the secrecy and shame they experienced.The AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) is trying to change its policy of endorsing surgery for intersexuals because of what they have came out and said about it.Dr. Bruce Wilson, an endocrinologist at DeVos hospital in Michigan recommends that we start assigning a sex later in life, maybe around puberty so that doctors won’t assign a child to the wrong sex.The article then talks about how that even though gender changes have occurred in the last decades, people today are still fixed on the idea that there are only two separate sexes.They also talk about how it is more difficult to make the decision to what sex to assign a baby because simple genetics isn’t always clear.They describe a women name Sherri who is technically XY, but has all female characteristics; she has AIS (androgen-insensitivity syndrome).She was told that she was unable to have kids because of twisted ovaries, and at the age of 35 she became curious with all her medical records and did some poking around.She found out what she had, and was just upset that no one ever explained her condition to her.Julanne Tutty had a similar story, she didn’t find out that she was intersexual till 35 and that’s only because she did some poking around, she was most upset about all the secrecy and not about the actual condition. The article explains how these two women would of felt a lot less embarrassed if there wasn’t any secrecy involved in their condition.
This article is very informative.It really shows people the hardships that go with having an intersex kid or being an actual intersex person.But the problem here is that these hardships are unnecessary because these people aren’t a danger to society and they deserve to be accepted even though they are different.It’s just like the issue of race; it’s these physical differences that make certain people uncomfortable.That is unfair to intersex people, just because some people are uncomfortable they have to suffer, these people need to just realize that everyone in the world comes in all different shapes, sizes, and colors.In a perfect world medicine should only be used when the person’s life is in danger, and if they are not then these people should be accepted by normal society.
What everyone needs to do is read, “Shifting the Paradigm of Intersex treatment” by Alice Dreger, written for the Intersex Society of North America.It basically explains intersex in two models either the concealment or Patient Centered model.The concealment model is the way society hides intersex people through fear and medicine, offering a quick fix to the “problem” of intersex people.And the patient centered model offers truths based on what’s based for the patient. An example from the article is:
“What is the ideal future of intersex (Dreger2)?” And the concealment center model would answer, “Elimination via improved scientific and medical technologies (2).” And the patient centered model would answer, “Social acceptance of human diversity and an end to the idea that difference equals disease (2).”The article just lets people know what society wants you to think and also what the real answer to intersex questions is.The key to it is people just accepting intersex people so that a big fuss doesn’t have to be made about them.
Intersexuality is a secret social problem that seeks to be fixed by medicine, when it just needs to be accepted by modern day society.The article shows the difference problems that arrive in society because of society’s inability to accept intersex people.When intersex is seen as a problem parents feel they need to correct through medicine and then physical and psychological problem arise from that medical intervention.American society needs to stop all this judgment of different people and just accept everyone for who they are.
In the CNN article “Despite new female faces in Congress, numbers in decline,” author Dana Bash reports the disappointing decline in the number of women in Congress after this November’s election. Earlier this month, voters came out in droves, proving their skepticism of the Democratic leadership in Congress by electing Republicans, many of whom also beat out long-time incumbent representatives with a traditionally strong competitive edge. While the media highlighted this year’s contest as a year for women, the turnout proved to be otherwise. This year marks the first in three decades that the number of women in Congress has not increased. In fact, only 17% of representatives in Congress are women, a staggering number when we consider that women make up over half of our nation’s population (Bash). Congress is supposed to be a body that represents the multifaceted population and interests of that population under a democracy. However, with such little representation of women in Congress, a major group of people in our country is being underrepresented and as a result their interests are being overlooked and often ignored. While I do not think there should be quotas in place to ensure a certain number of females fill specific seats in Congress, I do believe that the government ought to enact legislation that better benefits female Senators and House Representatives. The laws that govern our legislative body ought to provide women with better access and flexibility, with their roles as mothers and wives kept in mind.
Bash reports that while the number of women in Congress did not increase this year, there was a record number of Republican House Representatives elected, in some cases beating out strong political bulls (Bash). For instance, Bash explains, GOP candidate Vicky Hartzler from Missouri toppled incumbent House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, a 34-year House veteran (Bash). While Hartzler and other elected Republican women do not credit their victories on gender, they do agree that their perspectives as females and mothers were appealing to constituents. Further, in a predominately male-dominated party, Hartzler and other elected Republican representatives explain that they will give their party a unique outlook.
Despite the gains for Republican women, there was still no increase in the number of female representatives overall in Congress (Bash). This trend seems to fit with the fact that there has been relatively no growth of females representatives since 1992, the so-called “year of the woman.” In fact, of the 535 members of Congress, only 73 of the 435 members of the House of Representatives are women and only 17 of the 100 members of the Senate are women (Bash). Lisa Murkowski’s Senate race in Alaska, which has yet to be decided, could also have an impact for the representation of women in the legislative branch. If Murkowski is not reelected, the number of women in the Senate will drop for the first time since 1979 (Bash). It seems odd that such a small number of women are represented in the body that should reflect the makeup of America.
Further, while the media has made it appear that women are making strides in politics, the case is clearly not a reality. With Hilary Clinton as a Presidential candidate and political powerhouse, along with Sara Palin as the first female Vice-Presidential nominee and Nancy Pelosi as the first female House Speaker, it appears that women are taking the stage as strong politicians with political vigor and determination that would scare any male seeking election. However, despite the strides these pioneers have made, Bash reports, Republican women had a relatively small success rate in this year’s election: 28% (Bash). Democratic female candidates, though a little more successful, only secured 46% of the seats for which they ran (Bash). And while Democrats have one-up on female Republicans in their success rates, fewer Democratic females competed in the election this year than in the recent past. Regardless of party affiliation, the results are clear, as evidence of the fact that the United States ranks a high 90th in the world when it comes to the number of women in national legislatures.
In addition, despite any gains women made this year in Republican representation, their novice status has altered the role of women in leadership positions in Congress. Lawless with the Women and Politics Institute at American University says, “The problem with Republicans is that not only do they have very few women, most of them are relatively new entrants into the chamber” (Bash). The only leadership position that remains seems to be Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington. She is expected to keep her position as vice chair of the House GOP Conference, the fifth-ranking position if you count the speaker at the top, Bash explains (Bash). She decided not to take a higher-ranking position, because as a pregnant mother of two, she feels it is the right decision “professionally and personally” (Bash) In addition, with the Republican overhaul in Congress, many Democratic female representatives are losing their prominent leadership positions. For instance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will hand over her position, but will likely hold on to her role as top House Democrat. Further, Rep. Louise Slaughter at the House Rules Committee, Rep. Nydia Velazquez at the Small Business Committee and Rep. Zoe Lofgren at the House Ethics Committee are expected to lose their leadership positions (Bash). The only woman expected to rise in the ranks, according to Bash, is Ros-Lehtinen, who is likely to become chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (Bash). With such a diminished role of women in the legislature and such an influx of novice representatives, it seems unlikely that women will wield as much power as they had in the past, which as we know, was very little.
I believe that while the Republican Party made strides in electing women this fall, the overall lack of women and their diminished role in Congress is indicative of a country that still falls short when it comes to representing all interests in government. In order to fix this unfortunate reality, I believe the government ought to enact policies that give women better access and flexibility to compete and work successfully in the legislature. I think this can best be accomplished by providing women with work hours that allow for them to juggle the difficult tasks of being oftentimes mothers and professionals. Furthermore, there ought to be policies that allow pregnant politicians to hold high ranking positions while going through the normal birth process. This would allow women like Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington to move up the political ladder while maintaining a healthy personal life. Also, I believe there should be better policies to encourage women to run for positions in politics. This may mean campaign finance reform or other means to allow easier access for professional women from diverse backgrounds to seek candidacy. Finally, I believe that by increasing awareness through the media that women make up such a small percentage of our legislators in Congress, it may be possible to inspire more females to join their political allies in a race to Washington.
Bash, Dana. "Despite new female faces in Congress, numbers in decline." CNN.com, 10 November 2010, .
It is a common misconception that a human being is born either a male or a female. Many people don’t realize that there are actually more than two sexes in the biological spectrum. In fact, geneticists believe that there are at least five sexes, with a possibility of more. Yet, our society, for the most part, is inclined to believe that when it comes to sex everything is black and white, male and female; with exception for the rare anomalies, who are usually tormented and shunned from mainstream society. In a society that is slowly moving away from black and white conventions, Katy Steinmetz's article,
sheds light on the progress that we have made to be more accepting of the LGTBQ community, as well as the hurdles that we must still face to fully embrace them into our society.
Before discussing Steinmetz’s article, I feel that it is important to clarify the current anatomical and physical categories that currently exist. As most people know, male and female constitutes the ‘correct’ chromosomes that match with their respective reproductive organs. Accordingly, the genetic make up for a male is XY and for a female it is XX. This in itself raises numerous quandaries as to why our society exists around a patriarchal society, however that is not the focus of this paper. The individuals who are born with a combination of organs, chromosomes, or genitalia are labeled intersexuals. They are in essence between sexes. Intersexuals also constitute those born with extremely small penises or enlarged clitoris’. Also included in this group are hermaphrodites, who possess one ovary and one testis, female pseudo- hermaphrodites, who possess ovaries and a portion of male genitalia, but no testes and finally male pseudo- hermaphrodites, who possess testes and a portion of female genitalia, but no ovaries. The huge dilemma with people who are born intersexual is that our society really has no place for them. As soon as they are born, doctors rush into emergency surgery to assign the new born a sex. Many times this surgery is unnecessarily and rashly performed on an enlarged clitoris or a small penis. However, the child usually does not feel as if they are a male or a female, because genetically they are not. In relation to the article, a transgender individual is one whose gender identity does not match their assigned sex.
Steinmetz’s piece discusses the discrepancies faced by transgender people in our society. Prior to June 9th, 2010 any and all transgender people in the United States were required to undergo sexual reassignment surgery in order to change the sex listed on their passport. This was a government issued mandate. In essence, if Mike was born a man, but now identifies as a woman in all aspects of his/her life, the government still required that he/she undergo surgery in order for his/her passport to read Female. This requirement stems from the notion that a person’s genitals define their gender, which we now know is far from true. This restriction disqualifies many people who cannot afford such procedures. Walter Bockting, a clinical psychologist for the University if Minnesota estimates that a male-to-female genital reconstruction costs between $12,000 and $25,000. A female-to-male procedure costs between $4,000 and $8,000. Now for the kicker, to construct a penis, which is rarely done, costs between $20,000 and $75,000 (1). Although that is a large price range, the point is clear, undergoing surgery is extremely costly.
Cost is not the only issue; many transgender people do not believe surgery is necessary for them to “assume the gender role they feel is right for them” (1). Bockting explains, “There are more and more transgender and transsexual people who live full-time in that role and travel as such and do not have the surgery. Surgery should be medically necessary for health and well being… not for proper documentation” (1). Bockting makes an extremely valid and important argument. It seems that America is moving in the direction of surgery to fix all of our problems. The rates of cesarean births are on the rise, as well as enhancement surgeries. Even more pressing though is the need that doctors feel to operate on children who are born intersexual. The government and medical institution as a whole are trying to enforce unnecessary and risky surgeries on people. The main reason for this is to reinforce our commitment to a two-sex society.
Despite this commitment, it appears that there are a few bright spots on the horizon. On June 9th, 2010 President Obama and The State Department eliminated the surgical requirement. Transgender individuals can now legally alter their passport with a note from their physician “stating that they have undergone clinical treatment for a ‘gender transition’.” (1) This new measure will definitely reduce the amount of transgender travelers who report being harassed upon the realization of their true identity. It will also spare many of these travelers the embarrassment of being subjected to invasive questioning and stares of disbelief. Proponents of the new measure defend the position on the basis that there is essentially no security risk. As long as they are abiding by the laws and regulations, there should really be no problem.
A current concern for these individuals will be the new controversial screening process that is being enforced by the Transportation Security Administration. Under these new guidelines, airport security and personnel are authorized to perform extremely intrusive and thorough pat downs. If this method is not performed, passengers can also be subject to enhanced full-body imaging machines. These machines provide images of passenger’s anatomy, allowing security personnel to see underneath the exterior layer of clothing. This could potentially cause a lot of problems for transgender passengers. TSA employees might look at a passport and see female, while the machine is showing a penis. Due to the current high level security threat, TSA members might be inclined to question the passenger to find out their true identity. TSA member’s disbelief in a transgender passenger’s identity stems from the larger issue at hand, which is the general misunderstanding of sexuality and gender in our society.
This misunderstanding and general lack of discussion helps to fuel those who are opposed to President Obama’s new measures. One of the main opponents is Paul Scott, a Michigan state representative. Scott and his cohorts rely mainly on ideological arguments, instead of practical and rational reasoning. Many of his arguments are blatantly rooted in prejudice and traditional values. In his upcoming election he will run on the platform that makes it “a priority to ensure transgender individuals will not be allowed to change the sex on their driver’s license in any circumstance” (1). Scott believes that this issue has to do with social values and in some sense it does. People like Mr. Scott do not exhibit the type of social values that foster an open and understanding community. In an interview with the Michigan Messanger, Scott stated that his proposed idea “would keep men ‘from dressing as a woman and going into female bathrooms’.” (1) His comments show the prevailing lack of understanding that plagues our society. Being transgender entails much more than dressing in the opposite sexes clothing. Furthermore, Scott is making light of a very serious transition that many transgender individuals face. It is a long and sometimes traumatic process for individuals to feel comfortable enough to express their true identity. In fact, some people face assault, harassment or death when revealing their true identity to their community. Thus, Scotts remarks are not only a stereotypical generalization, but also harmful and degrading.
Unfortunately, Mr. Scott’s crass remarks mirror how many American’s feel. While I think his statements are ignorant and misinformed, many people would agree with him. Ninety five percent of people are lucky to have their gender identity match their sex, but the other five percent are outcast for no fault of their own. What people fail to realize is that gender is a social construct, which restricts our clothing, styles, mannerisms and lifestyle. Gender is what we have come to make it, which we can see as both positive and negative. It is negative in the sense that we have made it such a restricting and sometimes detrimental concept. However, we can be positive and look to the future, because if we constructed gender than hopefully somewhere down the line we can re-construct it to be more inclusive. In closing, it is becoming ever more clear that our society lives in the gray zone, so maybe, just maybe it is time to stop governing in black and white.
(1) Katy Steinmetz. “New Passport Rules Ease Switch for Transgenders.” Times Magazine. 3 December, 2010.
I was quite persuaded by Lila Abu-Lughod when reading Do Muslim Women Really need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others. Abu-Lughod argues that burqa should be viewed as an ““religiously” appropriate” (Lila Abu-Lughod) clothing. She also states that some people even regard burqa as kind of liberation to Muslim women because it enables women to walk outside home without risking being disreputable. Therefore, it is not necessary for Muslim women to immediately throw off their burqa while risking their religious rules.
Her arguments seemed quite reasonable to me at first. Indeed, people from outside Muslim world should not view veiling as a way of repression on women simply because women in major society do not wear veiling. However, veiling such as burqa should not be discussed simply about sign of repression, it should be considered more about health effects as well as social effects.
Burqa causes various diseases. Because burqa, especially Afghanistan style, covers almost the entire body of women and only leaves a small region about the eyes which still covered by net or grille, women’s field of vision is largely restricted and their vision is threatened. And lack of sunshine because of wearing burqa also threatens the wearers’ lives. As many medical experts have pointed out, women who wear burqa are more vulnerable to osteoporosis due to a lack of sunshine which causes a lack of Vitamin D and their newborn babies are more likely to get more seizures for the same reason (1). Burqas can also cause hearing loss, skin problems, headaches, cardiac disorder, asthma, and also can contribute to mental health problems (2).
In addition, burqa largely restricts women’s spheres. Because burqa is so heavy and women need to support the whole weight of burqas simply by their heads, moving with burqas is actually painful. And how can women really socialize outside their homes if they could not be recognized by their faces with difficulties in talking and hearing with others.
Indeed, it is inappropriate to “save” these women under burqas before knowing their actual will and their opinions. However, how can we ask these women to be satisfy with the burqa which nominally has made them more liberal while we ourselves never stop campaign for more rights for ourselves outside the Muslim world?
In each of the texts assigned, the authors focus on women’s issues globally and how U.S. military occupation in other nations, which purports to help those women in states of submission, often imposes its own patriarchal ideologies in place of current oppressive systems. In Cynthia Enloe’s chapter “Updating the Gendered Empire,” the author opens with a discussion of a comparison between contemporary U.S. and previous empires, such as those military powerhouses like ancient Rome, China, Persia, and Great Britain, among many others. With the slew of military invasions including those in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 following the earlier invasions previously discussed in Yugoslavia and Liberia, is the US today considered an empire? Further, Enloe considers the role of women in these empires and says in order to uncover women’s roles, which are crucial to the maintenance of powerful empires, we must observe empire-building structures within parlors, brothels, tea plantations, factories and other “private” places (Enloe 270).
Enloe explains an exercise she completed with several groups of people, including Canadian women of the Innu community living near NATO air force bases and Japanese groups in Okinawa and Tokyo. The exercise involved the people imagining themselves to be a particular woman playing a role in either “sustaining, questioning, or resisting” U.S. military occupation and explicating that experience as that woman in a first-person narrative. From the exercise, it was clear that while there were a variety of women with different societal roles and functions and different personalities and attitudes towards the U.S. military bases, the message was the same for all: international alliances depend on women to maintain their roles as passive agents in an international power structure dominated by masculine supremacy (276).
These unequal roles in international alliances become even more evident when Enloe investigates the status of women in Afghanistan under the U.S. occupation today. She talks about the deputy minister, who, though she wielded much responsibility as a woman in the Afghan post-Taliban government, still put herself and her family in danger due to her role in government as a woman. A woman not used to smiling, the deputy minister gained the “luxury” to smile while in Tokyo, talking to Japanese specialists about those topics that interested her like women’s and girls’ health, education, politics and the economy (278). This example prompts Enloe to look into the gendering of the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan. She explains that the occupation poses problems with security, since the U.S. several times rejected extending peacekeeping activities outside of the city of Kabul, thus endangering women to move outside the city walls to pursue teaching posts. Further, masculinized authority roles pose problems with danger and combat, as peacekeeping was left to UN troops, while combat was left to U.S. soldiers. And, to make this war justifiable to Americans, the threat women faced on a daily basis in Afghanistan made people sympathetic of the dangers they undeservedly faced. However, Enloe points out that this view that U.S. occupation will help elevate the status of women is naïve; in fact, many so-called allies of the U.S. military are often known to be sexist “warlords” (281). These warlords, that comprise the Northern Alliance and on whom the U.S. greatly depends for ground combat, are a masculinized group of soldiers comprised of all males in opposition to modernization (281). Further, these imperialist strategies of securing unequal masculinized alliances has only “hobbled, not facilitated, the genuine liberation of most of Afghanistan’s women and girls,” as these allies held the same views as those in the Taliban, namely that women and girls ought to be subdued and controlled (283).
Further, Enloe explains the result of such masculinized occupation as impacting the subsequent drafting of a constitution in the post-Taliban Afghanistan. While women had a relatively significant presence in the constitutional convention (seven out of thirty-five appointed members), their wishes to implement provisions in the constitution that ensured their full liberation as females in a sexist society were dashed when the final constitution pledged “that Afghanistan’s future law-making will be ‘informed by’ the principles of Islam, which when interpreted by conservatives, treat such gendered equality as anathema” (289).
The same masculinization is present in the “back-door” dealings, including the formation of the post invasion Iraqi Governing Council. Of the three hundred people selected to represent this group, only five were women, Enloe points out (293). This had serious repercussions for the representation of women in the nation, especially in the formation of a constitution. Women also can’t express their discontent with this base status and their condemnation of violence against women because the masculinized threat intimidates them daily. For instance, when the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq spoke out against violence towards women, the lack of female demonstrators prompted one Iraqi to ask, “’Where are all the women?’” (299). And when the final group was selected to draft a constitution, all twenty-five members were men, demonstrating both Iraq and the United States’ acceptance that the governing ideologies of the reordered nation ought to reflect gendered roles.
Enloe stresses that countries should not seek unequal international alliances that reflect solely masculine alliances and expect women to accept masculine military occupation, but instead should pursue a cross-national alliance of equals (303). This, Enloe explains, will solidify solidarity among people cross nationally as well as prompt each party to question the actions and motives of their own nation and military and its impact on women. Cross-national feminist interactions are creating a newer awareness of the unfair dealings in the world and how it impacts a woman’s role as the oppressed. Gendered structures, and in particular masculinization, according to Enloe, are crucial for empire-building and military expansion and viewing the role of women in society is a view into how this is accomplished. Without a view into these topics with gender in mind, Enloe states, there is no opportunity for us to change the structures that limit human well being and flourishing.
In “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” author Lila Abu-Lughod also examines international justice and wonders whether the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan, for instance, can truly help liberate women. She argues that in order for liberation of Muslim women to occur, we ought to appreciate the differences among women in the world, keeping in mind the various conditions under which women live, and consider that our own responsibilities to reach global justice often shapes this liberation process, often for the worse. Abu-Lughod says that following the September 11th attacks, she, as a Muslim intellectual, was posed with many questions about women in Islam, an obsession based on the belief that knowing something about the culture of the region and treatment of women would somehow explain why the attacks occurred or why the Afghan governments had been overtaken by corrupt forces (Abu-Lughod 784).
Abu-Lughod explains that this obsession with the position of women in Islam and Afghanistan ignores the complex issues of global politics and as a result creates an artificial divide that looks something like “us versus Muslims” (784). Further, U.S. speeches announcing the liberation of women as a result of military occupation within the country reflect contemporary colonialism that in the past sought to “free” women from their male oppressors, “white men saving brown women from brown men” (784). But if American military occupation is freeing women, why are Afghan women still donning the oppressive symbol, commonly thought of as central to the “Taliban-and-the-terrorists” form of submission, the burqa. Abu-Lughod points to the ethnic invention of the burqa, which sought to signify a woman’s respectability and modesty and to indicate her moral responsibility to the home and family. Since this is the case, it is no wonder that such a common dress code, to which women give little thought, would not all of a sudden be thrown out the door when the U.S. began occupying Afghanistan (785). Veiling for Muslim women, she describes, is a custom just as is our unspoken dress codes for weddings, funerals, and everyday life. Further, the obsession with the veil, Abu-Lughod points out, should be given up to consider the varying conditions and issues facing women in the Muslim world today (786).
In addition, Abu-Lughod argues, we must examine what in fact we are supporting when we praise U.S. occupation in Afghanistan and consider the core parts to human justice, which may not include liberation from a piece of clothing, but perhaps instead the right to water, food and property that allows all women and men to live well. We must take into consideration cultural difference when we consider larger, more complicated issues and we must change our attitudes to the U.S.’s role in “liberation” (787). While she does not argue for traditional cultural relativism, she does argue that different social, political and historical circumstances shape the way in which people grow and come to understand their place in the world. As a result, we must respect different cultures and how these people will choose, for themselves, what constitutes true liberation (788). Further, she argues, it is problematic to even see the Afghan women as people in need of salvation (788). This attitude implies Western superiority, which arrogantly purports to save Afghan women from the oppressive culture in which they live. To avoid this problem, Abu-Lughod argues, we ought to “use a more egalitarian language of alliances, coalitions, and solidarity, instead of salvation” (789).
Charlotte Bunch in “Whose Security?” agrees that the U.S. military occupation in Afghanistan is a projection of supremacy in the face of the evil Middle East and argues that women and feminists in American today have little voice in shaping international policy, which was, during the early stages of occupation, dominated by the masculine and corporate-driven administration of George W. Bush. She argues that our current foreign policy in the U.S. does not open up opportunities to build solidarity among women cross-nationally. In particular, the U.S. response to 9/11 has taken the country into war, rather than other directions that could have created greater security and global consciousness of multilateralism (Bunch 2). Further, the US military response to the 9/11 attacks, according to Bunch, has created more problems for women globally, curtailing human rights “in the name of ‘national security’” (2). Further, it has functioned to condemn Islam as an evil institution, rather than fundamentalist groups worldwide, which threaten the lives of countless women globally (3).
In addition, Bunch argues that the U.S. involvement in the Middle East has rejected the observance of human rights in the name of war on terrorism. While Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights suggested, quite intelligently, that rather than the U.S. engage in a war on terrorism, the events of 9/11 ought to be tried as international crimes, the U.S. and the Bush administration in particular sought to hinder her appointment to a second term (4). Moreover, this opposition shows the target of not only one who has in mind international human rights, but also of one who stands to represent women’s interests throughout the world. Bunch wonders why feminists have not had a great impact on global relations and argues that we ought to shape our own government from a woman’s perspective if we want to effectively improve the lives of people in other nations. Therefore, feminist activism in our nation, Bunch suggests, must keep in mind women’s positions in our country and worldwide in order to change the structures than keep women in a state of submission.
Cynthia Enloe, "Updating the Gendered Empire."
Lila Abu-Lughod, "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others."
Charlotte Bunch, "Whose Security?"
