Is it time for a New Feminist Movement?

After we got the opportunity to watch “Missrepresentation” in our final class yesterday, I left wondering if the images of women in the media have worked to counteract all of the progress made by women in the past decades since the women’s liberation movement. In many ways the movie forces you to confront and reexamine the images of women portrayed in modern pop culture and makes you realize (whether consciously or subconsciously) that these images somehow infiltrate our minds and cause many of us to have a skewed perspective of femininity. As a result, it causes increased pressure for women to perform a caricature of femininity that is impossible to live up to. For those of you who are familiar with the concept of “Gender Performativity”- a term created by post-structuralist feminist philosopher Judith Butler.

The concept reiterates the idea that gender is socially constructed and therefore Butler characterizes gender as the effect of reiterated acting. In turn, she argues that this “acting” produces the effect of a static or normal gender while obscuring the contradiction and instability of any single person's gender act. The effect reproduces an idea of 'true gender'- an account of gender that sustained by the tacit to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as “cultural fictions”. Given the images of femininity that are introduced and reproduced in pop-culture, it seems now more than ever we are trying to live up to playing a “role” that is unfit (even for the best actress).

I wonder if the work that has been done in the past to improve the lives of women in our society has been truly sufficient? Over the quarter we have placed women’s issues, and gender theoretical paradigms mainly within the context of the developing world (of course the class was about gender and development). However, I am a firm believer that no society has yet to reach its full potential( that is why I am not all too fond of the term “developed”), therefore I believe that many of the gender related issues that pervade our society need to be addressed on a wide scale. Whether or not this calls for a new wave of the feminist movement in our society, or heightening gender awareness through avenues such as the media, one cannot deny that being in a ‘developed’ country has resulted in a complacency to address gender related issues on a wider scale.

Nevertheless, because we live in such a pop-culture, media induced society, if we fail to adequately address the portrayals of women in the mainstream media, we will be failing to address one of the major gender related issues within our society. How do we go about changing the status quo?-that specifically I cannot answer. However, as we discussed in class, social transformation although complicated to achieve, begins by women increasing their voice. If we fail to confront the images we see in the media about women as well as other gender related issues within our society on a wider scale, we are undoing the progress that has been made and inevitably with inaction, we are doing a disservice to ourselves and future  generations.

How an OU Alum is making a difference

Hello fellow Classmates!!!

I am very proud to share the following article with you. As an undergraduate student at Ohio University, I became a member of a social sorority, Sigma Lambda Gamma. I chose this sorority from others not only because of it's small size, but because it constantly dedicated its time and efforts to volunteering and fundraising directed towards women empowerment, and not so much the partying side that greek life is so frequently associated with. One of my sorority sisters, who really became a mentor to me, completed both her bachelor's and master's degrees at OU with the goal to somehow work in women's health care, specifically with empowering younger women. Looking back to her graduation, she was having a hard time finding jobs and really didn't want to return home to Cleveland where she was afraid she wouldn't find a job in which she would make any real difference. After months of searching, she did. The below article explains the programs that she currently facilitates in Cleveland, one to empower healthy lifestyles for girls between the ages of 11 and 15, and one which helps support women between the ages of 18 and 24 who are leaving the foster care system and often "forgotten" thus leaving their options limited. My sister also dedicates her time to free clinics in Cleveland, to which she believes does not receive enough national attention and support.

Her involvement with the the Independent Living Skills facility is what surprised me the most, because the facility is one of the few places in the United States to offer permanent supportive housing to at-risk young adults as they work towards self sufficiency. Before speaking with Selina, I had no idea that the amount of former foster children in Cleveland who are homeless, living in poverty, or who are incarcerated is extremely high, and this program works to alleviate these potential problems. This brought to my attention, that although the United States might be better in some regards when it comes to providing support, health care and social services to "vulnerable" groups such as youth, single mothers, and the elderly, there still remains a significant amount of young adults who do not fall in to any of these categories and thus do not receive state help. IT seems to me that targeting this 18-24 group of youth, who need help establishing themselves would be a development task that would potentially help decrease the chance that these youth fall in to the prison system, in to poverty, in to homelessness, in to drugs, or become pregnant with little options thus continuing the cycle.
The today program that she currently works with is an initiative that I believe should be implemented in school districts in all cities as it serves as an educational health tool for young women, and in this specific program, mostly women who are poor and with full time working parents who are not at home to help guide these decisions. As much money is spent into dealing with these problems after they become issues, initiatives like these work to prevent such development problems and should become a main recipient for state funding.

I am not sure how to embed the link to the article about the programs in to the blog, but here it is!

http://cbcmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=351&Itemid=82

Not So Equal: The Domination of Women in Afganistan

I rarely pay attention to what is on the television, unless it is some of the wall infomercial. I was flipping through channel's and came upon a documentary about sexual violence toward women and how it was an act of domination in acted upon them by men. This really got me fired up and disturbed in the short time I watched. Following this I decided to google "rape of women", to my surprise I found numerous news stories and videos detailing the rape of women in developing countries, africa, and through out the middle east. Many of the women in these stories were seen as solicitors of the rape and were even condemned by their families. This quarter has really opened my eyes to many of the inequalities women face around the world.

One particular story of interest can be found at: http://middleeast.about.com/od/afghanistan/a/me0904150.htm

This story discusses how women in Afghanistan took to the streets to protest a new law that "turns wives into their husbands indentured servants, and conjugal rape and act protected by law". I am left speechless. I can not believe that any law would state that a women has to allow her husband to forcefully have sex with her! By law the wife is required to have sex with here husband every fourth day, unless she is sick. Another law states that a wife is not permitted to leave the home unless she has permission from her husband. I can not believe such treatment of women in permitted in a world so concerned with the human treatment of individuals.

Response to Zharkyn's Post: "To be or not to be a feminist?"

Thanks for raising this issue. I agree that there is a lot of negativity attached to being "a feminist" these days, not just in the developing countries but also in the developed world. Another emerging trend has been that feminists have become the butt of satirical jokes and mockery and their work or views are not taken seriously.

But my question is what does it mean to be "a feminist"? Feminist theory, feminism, and feminist are such broad umbrella categories that is difficult (and unfair!) to differentiate and draw conclusions without a thorough understanding of the nuances of each category. Is being feminist equal to fighting for women's rights, participation, and equality (the spirit in which feminist discourse originally started)? Or having anti-male sentiments? Or being a lesbian? Or rejecting traditional male-female roles? Or all of the above?

The problem is that these days people are very quick to apply (and accept) the "feminist" label without an understanding of what it is and what it signifies. I definitely do not like to be labelled as a feminist because I probably do not deserve it, I do not like the way the term is used these days, and I have to provide clarifications to people after they label me as a "feminist": "well, I am not a feminist in the way you're imagining it...". This is because I do not hold the views that many people think feminists hold these days. I have no anti-male sentiments, I believe in "live and let live": if someone is happy in their traditional male-female roles, let them be!, and yet I believe in giving women opportunities, income, skills, freedoms, choices, and increasing their participation and representation.

Am I a feminist? I really don't know.

Whitson GAD Framework

Scales 

A.      Individual 

B.      Household 

C.      Community 

D.      State 

E.       International

Looking at:

1.  Division of labor (A & B)
2.  Access/control and distribution of resources (A, B, C)
3.  Capabilities & vulnerabilities (A, B, C, D)
4.  Intersectionality, individuals as agents (A, B, C)
5.  Institutions, markets, including values, beliefs, norms, attitudes (A-E)
6.  Power structures (A-E)

How we measure

Outcomes

Envision effects of interventions

	Yes	No
Equality
Empowerment
Efficiency

Empowerment can mean:

1. Participation
2. Consciousness raising
3. Others?

Who Emancipate Me?

I think most of the time and discussion we had in class were about poor, rural and illiterate women. How's about middle-class, urban and highly educated women? Don't they have any problems? Do they live a better and happier life than those from the rural areas? Feminists fight for the emancipation of women, who emancipate themselves? Aren't we trying to change the world while failing to change our own destiny?

In my country, highly educated women are considered a threat to the harmony and socially defined power of men and women in the family. Women are now given more and more opportunities to be in an equal footing with men. The Gender Equity Law was approved in 2006 and a lot of progresses have been made in the field of gender and development since then. However, many people argue that the progresses are changing the social structure in such an unexpected way. For example, women who used to be taught to obey now can make her own decisions in every aspect of life. She can decide to get married or not. She can decide to become single mother. She can get out of the marriage she is not happy with. She can even sue her husband who treats her badly.

Highly educated women often feel hard to find partners of the same or higher status (educational, economical...). Many of my female friends are becoming more picky and demanding in selecting their partners. According to my culture, it is unacceptable for male partners to be in lower position than their counterparts. As a result, many women decide to be single after her 20s if they fail to find the "right" guy. When they decide to get married at her late 20s or early 30s, they find it hard to have baby naturally.

At the same time, old-aged (or aging) unmarried women suffer from social pressure, family pressure and peer pressure. When all your peers are married, why should you be a deviant? These women will cope with the dilemma of choices: remain single and continue suffer from judgement; OR quickly choose someone not for the sake of love but for being socially accepted. I see many women are struggling with this dilemma and many of them end up in the second option. Women can be very good at building their career but they often give up emancipating themselves from social and cultural norms.

So do you think these are all progresses? Should feminists be proud of the rights for women have been achieved? If underdevelopment is certainly problematic; whether overdevelopment is necessarily good? And is development equal to happiness?

To be or not to be a feminist?

One of my friends just recenly got her degree in Women’s/Gender Studies in Europe; she came back home (Kyrgyzstan) and told her boyfriend and her parents that she majored in Sociology… But, we, her friends knew Truth, and therefore her “top confidential” degree immediately became the most interesting topic to discuss for her friends including me. In her defence, my “Gender MA” friend says that she doesn’t want to be called “feminist” and that’s why she can’t reveal her major to others. Addtionally, my other friends supported her idea and recommended that she should keep everything dark to escape derision or mockery from her collegues.

I learnt that few of my friends would openly admit that they favor feminism. Because, feminism is unusual, indecent, and simply unacceptable, to put it mildly. People associate feminism with something radical, unpleasant and unacceptable in our society. They avoid the word “feminist” the same way as the word “terrorist” and pronounce it with no less disgust than “prostitute.” Or the feminist means is an unattractive lady with problems in her personal life. Such woman will try to overcome her complexes at the expense of hatred for men, trying to show uselessness of men in any situation. And how could it be otherwise? It's a shame! It is not good! Meanwhile, the same “shy” women don’t not shun the benefits - yes, yes, yes! - of that “horrible and disgusting” feminism.

I think the women challenging feminism, don’t appreciate what they have, namely:

- the right to vote. The right to education. The right to a diverse and worthy (and guaranteed!) paid employment. Legalization of divorce. Paid maternity leave and child benefits. Contraceptives. Centers for mother and child. The right to go into politics. The right to hold public office and positions in colleges and universities. The right to appear in public without an escort (male guardian). And even - yes, do not laugh! - the right to short hairstyles, pantsuits and hair color. Now, all these gains may seem somewhat natural, taken for granted. But, then, to gain recognition for women's right to such “excesses”, it took feminists less than... one hundred years.

So, is it easy for feminists to live in the world? They are not understood by their own friends, not to mention their friends/boyfriends and relatives. I am just wondering if anyone of you ever told your parents and relatives that you are feminist? How was their reaction?

Berbagi suami (Love for Share)

Hi everyone,

Our short talk in class about religion that is considered as the source of gender inequalities made me think that it would be good to share you a link about a polygamy movie in Indonesian setting. This movie was produced in 2006 and it received two awards: Best Foreign Language Film from the Golden Orchid Awards and the movie of the year from Guardian e-awards. The writer and director of this movie Nia Dinata was considered brave in touching one of sensitive issues in Indonesia, the biggest Muslim country in the world. This movie is originally entitled Berbagi Suami. Berbagi means share, and suami means husband. In its free translation it is Love for Share. In my opinion, this translation into “Love for sharing” not “Husband's Sharing” is related to the topic of representations that we have discussed in the class. In commercial movies, it is almost always women are represented as object rather than subject. This movie, represents women as the main subject of the narrations. They do not accept polygamy at first, but then they have their own reasons why they accepted polygamy and decided to share their love to everyone including to the new family after their husband's marriage.

Polygamy (read: polyginy) is controversial in Indonesia since some Muslim groups consider polygamy is legal in Islam. This misdirected belief of the legality of polygamy, brought few numbers of Indonesian men into justification that their practicing polygamy is true and is in religious frame. The other Muslim groups who are contra to this polygamy's legality base their rationality on a belief that Muslims who consider polygamy is legal in this current time have not had a coherence understanding on Islamic teachings so that Muslims do not arbitrarily use several part of verses and neglect the others. (this debates were also portrayed in one of the movie scene).

The movie however tells not only about the realities of Muslims' polygamy critiques, it also criticize the practice of polygamy in Christian community in Indonesia. Ming (acts as an Indonesian Chinese waiter in famous Chinese duck roast restaurant in Jakarta) is in affair with the chef and owner of the restaurant. Because the chef is a Catholic believer and it is not allowed to divorce his wife, he took Ming as his second-secret wife, without his first wife approval of course.

This is a good social critiques on one of gender problems in society, and if you are interested to watch, it is available online, here is the link for synopsis of the movie: :).