Cynthia Enloe's piece explains how women are silenced particularly in cases of sexual abuse or harassment. Her chapter spoke nicely to our discussions about labor. She described an organization called CAW that worked to connect women from different countries in and around Asia. Though in this instance they worked to increase organization surrounding issues of sexual abuse, it could have positive implications for wage labor and other working conditions as well We discussed how the companies often pit their potential subcontractors against one another to maintain control over a current factory. CAW could increases communication between those subcontractors so this doesn't happen.
Enloe's argument also relates to my last newsflash where I discussed a Libyan women who had been raped. Her rape became a rallying point for other rebels. Though for her this constitutes support, Enloe brought up some important problems with this use of a rape as a symbol of a political movement. Here, her rape is protested because it coincides with the agenda of the rebels to do so. If she had been raped by a fellow rebel and not members of the oppressive regime, her countrymen might have responded differently.
Gloria Steinem's article is interesting. I enjoyed her addressing masculinity. I know this is a Women's Studies class so I get why we study women, but I enjoy thinking about masculine gender construction as well. It was interesting to note that white, upperclass males commit most of "senseless" violent crimes. Her argument, however, ignored a key aspect of this issue. The fact that we refer to these criminals simply as non-gendered "young teens" shows our lexicon's use of the neutral to signify white men and white men to signify the neutral. Pictures of a human typically are of a male, or a male and a female but rarely of just a female. This goes back to our discussion of body and how the male body is normal while the female is aberrant. I do not think that male aggression is society's blind spot. As Steinem notes, testosterone has always been linked with males and violence. The problem is that we structure masculinity to encourage and support this violent, dominating image. I am not trying to say that Halo makes murderers, but it does encourage a violent masculinity. That being said, as Steinem also hints at. There are other serious issues going on in the cases she mentioned. The Son of Sam thought his dog was telling him to murder people. I think its safe to say he did not had a normal, functioning cognitive system at that point, issues of masculinity aside.
In her article “Supremacy Crimes”, Gloria Steinem explains how society has ignored the most obvious and prevalent reason for violent crimes, serial killings, and planned attacks in our society, supremacy. She explains that the individuals who are committing crimes such as the Columbine shooting or the shootings in Georgia are white, middle class, heterosexual individuals. Because they are part of the majority, the crimes that they commit are not looked at under a microscope as supremacy crimes. Nonetheless, she explains, all of these are crimes committed by individuals who are hooked on the drug of superiority. Furthermore, this superiority is pushed by our male dominated culture that presents male dominance as a right. While I am not completely disagreeing with Steinem’s point about white/male/heterosexual supremacy in our society, I am going to disagree that this is the dominant reason for all of these mass murders. Steinem is disregarding the fact that a large percentage of school murders are committed by kids who are justifiably insane. Suicide is something that no one can understand who hasn’t committed it because a person who commits suicide is depressed or medically insane. There is no reasoning with them because they truly believe that they will be better off dead than alive. This is a similar mindset as those who commit mass murders (that often end in suicide anyway). These murderers might believe that they are superior to those who they are killing, however, there is much more wrong with them than just that. While Steinem’s theory is reasonable, she is ignoring factors that are much more pressing than the ones she addresses.
ReplyDeleteCynthia Enloe in “Whom Do You Take Seriously?” talks about a lot of important issues. One that I found particularly interesting was her piece about how a rape can rally a political movement if set in the right context. This was interesting to me because it reminded me of the rape cases that we studied earlier in the semester during the feminist movement. The rape cases represented more than the individuals who were sitting in the courtroom. They represented an entire movement and the structure of society in general. Individual cases of sexual assault can often start a whole movement if set in the right context, which is exactly what Enloe refers to in her article.
I agree with Jason's point that Steinmen is completely disregarding and ignoring many other very important factors. I agree that this is not the dominant reason for these mass murders. While it might be a factor, I cannot buy into Steinmen's argument that it is primary cause. Without evidence to support these claims, I also find Steinmen to be very unconvincing. If she had given evidence to prove that it was the primary reason I might believe her a little bit more, but for now I am very skeptical. It is also surprising to me that Steinmen does not touch on another point that Jason makes, the mental status of many of the murderers and serial killers. The fact that they are usually justifiably insane should play a larger role in her argument than it does.
ReplyDelete4/14/11
ReplyDeleteLead Post:
Whom Do You Take Seriously:
In the excerpt “Whom Do You Take Seriously,” the act of silencing in today’s public realm is discussed. The author states that silencing robs the public of ideas and shapes the way society is run. This is a common occurrence in the political arena. Moreover, political parties and movements generally stifle people’s voices in various ways. One way is by dichotomizing “private” and “public” spheres. In the public, violence against women is often privatized or trivialized.
In the Asia Pacific in the late 1990s, female factory workers that were victims of sexual harassment were caught in a double bind. These women could voice their concerns or they could stay silenced. However, by choosing the first option women could lose their respectability or future marriageability because society would deem them as “tainted” or “impure.” The problem at hand was that the “politics of feminist respectability was woven into the industrial products” (77). Factory owners played on the notion of respectability to create a feminized workforce by persuading parents and nobles that women would not dishonor their families by working in a factory.
Supremacy Crimes:
In this article, the author states that white middle class heterosexuals are predominantly involved in teen shootings and bombings. She differentiates between two types of individuals. She says that there are those who kill to improve their own conditions and then there are those who kill because they are addicted to supremacy; white middle class heterosexuals are the latter. Supremacy is described as “… a drug pushed by a male-dominant culture that presents dominance as a natural right.” Now, while these males are not the only ones to commit mass murder, the author explains that in comparison, men and women of color do not participate as frequently. Furthermore, she expresses that the media overlooks and does not discuss factors like gender, race, socio-economic status and sexual orientation that play into these crimes. Crimes committed by white middle class heterosexuals are seen as a teen issue. However, what if these acts were committed by hundred of women? Would the media focus all of its attention and discussion on their gender instead? In her conclusion the author states that in order to reduce the number of violent American supremacy crimes male superiority must be publicized.