Reproductive Health and White Privilege

Inequality among women is deeply rooted by Western ideals of appearance. Body size and skin color, among other physical features, have been a cause for oppression within the feminist movement, which has clearly been a hindrance. The media continues to do more harm than good when it comes to promoting equality among women, especially sources directed towards adolescents. “When it comes to body image, teen magazines send a convoluted message,” says Anastasia Higginbotham in “Teen Mags: How to get a Guy, Drop 20 Pounds, and Lose Your Self-Esteem” (88). “Girls are encouraged to love their bodies, no matter what they look like, by magazines with fashion spreads featuring only stick-thin, flawless- faced white models in expensive outfits. Granted, there is that one light-skinned black girl in every fashion layout. But she’s just as thin as the white girl standing next to her, and that white girl is always there- like a chaperone.” With such outright discrimination presented in influential media outlets, it is no wonder that there has been little to no change in the racial tension experienced among women. Race is the chief cause for inequality when it comes to reproductive rights, one of the primary components of feminism. In order for there to be any change, the extreme cases of discrimination must be noticed by the public. Racial discrimination with regard to reproductive health and rights must be disclosed and revealed to the public through novel and independent media outlets to combat the imperialistic ideals upheld by the mainstream media. It is not correct to allow people to think that if you look a certain way (potentially “beautiful” according to western standards), you are subject to more rights.

The first step to combat racism in the realm of reproductive health is to develop a strong argument, which means to conduct research and have concrete facts. Shocking realities have been uncovered by feminist authors, and the public needs to be informed of them. If mainstream media outlet will not support this, other methods of conveying the information must be explored.

Transnational women have always been at a disadvantage when it comes to reproductive health care in the United States. What is most shocking is the fact that there is “little information available about the reproductive needs of women of color” to begin with (363). In “Reproductive Laws, Women of Color and Low-Income Women,” Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson says that “in general, the demographic data about non-Caucasian women are clustered together under the heading “nonwhite: as if here were only two racial groups, white and non-white.” Because of the “dichotomization,” there is very limited understanding about experiences of specific racial groups. Genetic differences among the various racial groups will call for different complications and reactions to specific treatments. Since the data is unfortunately pooled together, “It is difficult to define and address particular problems and to make recommendations for their solutions.” The United States have been home to people of several different races for a substantial amount of time. It is not politically correct to completely disregard the racial diversity among the female population, along with their genetic differences and stick them all into a “non-white” category.

Sterilization abuse, something that is fairly common for multiracial women, must be publicized as well. While it does not immediately seem as such, forcibly sterilizing a woman is a form of “ethnic cleansing.” In “Reproductive Rights,” Angela Davis says that “compulsory sterilization has been used as a means of eliminating the ‘unfit’ sectors of the population” (110). Sterilization abuse has primarily affected “Puerto Rican, Black, Chicana and Native American women” (112). They have a right to live in the United States, and they are by no means “unfit” members of the population. This important issue must be given more attention by the media, so that politicians take notice and legal policies are finally established against sterilization abuse.

-Lavanya Gupta

I Know What's Best For Me (or so I think)

In the article, “And So I Chose” by Allison Crews brings up the issue of oppression and choice within the feminist movement. Crews says that after she decided to keep her baby as an unwed teen, as opposed to obtaining an abortion, she “tried to find solace in parts of the feminist, pro-choice community,” but instead she felt she “encountered a response similar to the one pregnant girls considering abortion receive from the anti-abortion camp: I was questioned and I was made fun of. I was told that girl like me were almost completely responsible for ‘the backsliding of the feminist movement.”

This brings to mind the article, “You’re a Hardcore Feminist, I Swear,” where the author recalls an email response to one of her quotes. It read, “I’ll call myself a feminist when … “Feminists”…concede that my decision to groom and dress myself as a twenty-first-century professional woman is every bit as valid a choice as their decision…” Within the movement there is a constant strain between the pull of what feminism itself stands for, and the idea that feminism supports the right to choose. How can feminism take a firm stance on any issue without isolating one group? How can we look beyond what we see as the “right choice,” to accept other women's choices, no matter our opinions, to remain free of judgment and oppressive actions, and respect the right to choose, no matter the choice?

This idea of non-oppression is at the core of the feminist movement. Believing that a choice a woman makes for herself is wrong seems very contrary to this idea. Crews writes that, “Our bodies are our own, our futures to mold. No one should be allowed to interfere with them.” Feminism that supports only one choice is no better than the oppression that feminism attributes to the patriarchy when they try to limit women's choices. Being a feminist means supporting women and trusting them and their knowledge of themselves to make the best decision on their own.

Allowing women to make choices that best fit their lives seems like the simple solution to the “oppressive” opinions described by Crews. The problem, though, is that there has been a long history of the patriarchy influencing or forcing the decisions women make. And while women should be respected enough by both feminism and society to be allowed to decide whether, for example, they would like to have an abortion or to keep and raise the child, it is foolish to ignore the social pressure put on women by society that affects their decision. This pressure can lead women to make decisions that negatively affect them because they feel they either have no choice or believe that their decisions are necessary for them to be happy, despite potentially negative side effects. The fact that eating disorders are so prevalent in our society is evidence of this pressure. Intelligent women, aware of their choices, are pressured into starving themselves, in order to fit the image the patriarchy has established as “beautiful.”

Everyday women are bombarded by images of popular culture, of women who have “decided” to work within the rules of the patriarchy, to fit the mold, despite the negative effects. Britney Spears, who from a young age, has played into the role designed for her by men, though largely successful, has experienced enormous physical and emotional turmoil. The pressure to be someone fits the criteria of what is beautiful, what is sexy enough but not too sexy, what is smart enough but not threatening, what is innocent enough but not prude, is crushing, especially for someone judged constantly by the harsh media. The increasing desire to fit the criteria the patriarchy has established is seen in many young girls’ desire to “be like Britney,” who exemplifies the perfect recipe of what is just right.
Feminism walks a fine line between respecting the opinions of women and their ability to decide for themselves, and the obligation to inform women of the pressure that affects their decisions and can lead to such negative effects.

I felt that this past week’s readings, which largely centered on the artificial ideal or beauty that we have within our society, were particularly applicable to the CAP project that we selected.  Growing up during the period of time when pop stars like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson were just coming on the scene we saw their image, and the images of those trying to imitate them, literally everywhere.  For a long time you could not buy a magazine without one of these three, or others like them, being either on the cover or plastered on many of the pages throughout

 the book.  They all matched the description of the ‘ideal girl’  which Higginbotham coins in her essay “Teen Mags: How to Get a Guy, Drop 20 Pounds, and Lose Your Self- Esteem,” “white, usually blonde and invariably skinny” (Higginbotham). 

Growing up seeing these images all the time, I never once thought about what they were teaching me.  I mean of course we all hear the warning that these types of roll models are teaching young girls to be too sexy, or rather to be too sexual.  In fact my mother always encouraged me to follow Jessica Simpson’s example

 because she seemed to be the most ‘wholesome’ of the teen stars of the day; if we only knew then what we know now.  However, I never thought about the powerful dichotomy that Higginbotham points out near the end of her essay that young girls, some as young as 12 and 13 years old, are supposed to both attract all men but not to the point that ‘inappropriate’ men are drawn to them such as married men, teachers, or rapists. 

Of course we have all at some point experienced the double standard that women are supposed to be both virginal and experienced, but this phenomenon that Higginbotham points out takes this even one step further first by shifting the age group focus to a younger demographic and placing the real life implications of toeing the virginal/experienced 

line on the shoulders of these girls.  This is all too painfully apparent in the magazine article that Higginbotham relates concerning the girl who was

 tricked by her boyfriend and may have been gang raped.  When the girl was brave enough to anonymously come forward with her story, she was publicly chastised for her “scandalous” behavior.

We could talk all day about how the system is currently broken, but this will never bring about any change other than maybe changing flawed views we may have previously had on the issue.  So how do we affect real change?  One solution presented in other readings over the past weeks is that we need to create a new form of media in which other views can be aired.  However as Higginbotham’s article noted the formerly feminist magazine Sassy had been pretty much destroyed when the magazine was bought by a different company and had to succumb to a sex selling advertising empire to finance the publication.  In a world where the media is totally dependant on advertising for existence and advertising is obsessed with sex, because frankly sex sells, it seems like a far shot to think that the two could ever exist without each other.

So if putting out a new form of media is a tried and failed method, what other options do we have?  Another suggested method to bring about change has been the grassroots approach.  It seems in this situation a grassroots approach may be the way to go.  I think at a certain point every girl gets upset with what she is being shown in teen magazines and if there is an alternative presented to her she will jump at it so long as it is available.  Before coming to college I had heard of feminism, but never knew what the movement really was or what it could do for me, other than give me the right to vote and really, really long time ago.  I think if there were more general education presented to young girls in school and other youth groups they would look upon what is being presented to them in the media with a more critical eye.

~Katerina Silcox

Either/Or (Or Else)

Reading the articles for this week, I noticed something that was present in every article despite each one being about a distinct set of circumstances. In all the articles stripping women of their reproductive rights also served to keep them subjugated in society. Women have been robbed of their confidence, sense of self-worth and basic human rights such as the right to feel safe along with make choices about their reproductive rights. While women lack the ability to exercise their basic reproductive rights they will continue to be second-class citizens.

In “And So I Chose” Allison Crews describes her experience as a teenage mother. As a young, teenage girl Crews was denied the right by those around her to make choices regarding her child. “A couple was approved to adopt [her] child before [she] was even allowed to utter a word of permission” (Crews, 147) because she was a teenage girl incapable of an unselfish decision. This derision, purposeful or subconscious, nourished the “self-doubt and fear” (Crews, 147) she already felt. Crews’ situation mirrors that of other young women, who are denied their right to “reproductive freedom” (Crews, 148) simply because of their age. Her experience shows the self-doubt fostered by consistently negative expectations. After all, are teenage girls or women likely to assert their rights, reproductive or otherwise, when trapped in self-doubt and confusion? Crews overcame her uncertainty and felt stronger for her decision, but many women still have their confidence stolen by naysayers who refuse to grant them their rights.

Crews also describes her experience on the picketing with her mother and other pro-life activists as a child. She recounts the instance of watching a girl several years older than her enter and exit the abortion clinic. “She had a right to feel protected, a right to feel safe...to make a choice for her future without feeling harassed and intimidated. And those rights were ignored because she was young, she was female, and she was pregnant.” (Crews, 145). This girl’s basic right to feel safe and make a choice for her life were ignored because she made a choice about her reproductive life that others didn’t agree with. Women who can get an abortion face harassment and abuse for doing so. By exercising their rights they become a moral leper.

In “Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners and the Power Within” Inga Muscio describes her mission to exercise her reproductive rights using the method she saw fit. Muscio sought a clinical abortion when she became pregnant because she didn’t want the baby and as she put it, “What other goddamn choice did I have?”(Muscio, 113). Even when she was fully able to exercise her reproductive right to terminate a pregnancy Muscio was she bereft of any alternative ways to do so. She was allowed to make one choice and told that was all she could do. The clinical abortion fits within the doctrine of western medicine which goes by one rule: “Healing Has Nothing To Do With You; It’s Something Onlu Your Doctor Can Control” (Muscio, 115). This idea keeps the power other hands; which in the medical profession are still predominantly male.

Muscio found her empowerment again when she decided to choose alternate methods when she found herself needing to end another pregnancy. After successfully having an abortion in the method she so chose: “I felt like I imagine any oppressed individual feels when they see that they have power, and nobody—not even men and their machines, nobody—can take that away” (Muscio, 117). This is the kind of power that women need to realize they have. You don’t have to take just the one choice that the patriarchy gives you to have an abortion, you can decide how. In the choosing is power.


The marked singularity of the most widely known, the professed only way by western medicine, clinical method of abortion is comparable to the hair’s-breadth range of beauty proffered by the media. Women are provided with a very limited range of choices from a patriarchal society. This limited path of action serves to maintain the status of women of second-class citizens. If you don’t want a clinical abortion your options seem to be to carry to term or submit to the method; either way the either/or choice decreases the woman’s self-worth because she submitted to a choice she did not want. In beauty the media evaporates beauty into a single definition; white, young, tall and thin. If you don’t fit the standard the message seems to be try or be considered ugly.

The dichotomies of these two areas keep women oppressed in society. With one either/or choice it’s likely that many women will have to compromise their values to pick one option. This serves to lower women’s self-worth and feelings of empowerment, keeping them in place. The empowerment that women need to regain lies in the choice to reject these proffered dichotomies. There is more than one was to exercise a reproductive right. There is more than one way to be beautiful. By making themselves aware of the diversity of reproductive choice, of the diversity of beauty and rejecting the one way mantra of the patriarchy women can regain their power. Find the third choice, the fourth, the fifth and so on. This is the only way that women will ever upgrade from second class.

~Kristen McBride

Inersection

Throughout the course of this week’s readings, I withdrew the “intersection” among races and genders. I saw the similarity between how men are usually unconscious of their oppressiveness over women and how whites are negligent of their privilege. Privilege is defined as power and strength but a lack of moral strength: McIntosh mentions in “White Privilege and Male Privilege” that “privilege simply confers dominance, gives permission to control, because of one’s race or sex.” Privileged people should appreciate their beneficial rights, instead of abusing them and help underprivileged
In the male-dominant society, women often face dilemmas especially in sexual activities. The community censures only women when they involve in sexual activities with men; Frye mentions “Both heterosexual activity and nonactivity are likely to be taken as proof that you wanted to be raped, and hence, of course, weren’t really raped at all. You can’t win. You are caught in a bind, caught between systematically related pressures”. She emphasizes how women, the “oppressed,” have controlled “sexual” rights. Women were forced to control their basic rights while men did not have their sexual rights. She compares women’s lives to birds living in a “cage surrounded by a network, of systematically related barriers”.
I must address Frye’s metaphorical use of “door-opening” to explain how people misunderstand the “oppressive system” between two genders impressed me: some people think that women are stubborn and filled with anger and complaints while men always do the tough work. Frye compares the commonly mistaken idea that men are also oppressed by the stresses of having to be masculine with the phenomenon of the pressure to open the door for women who are not “incapacitated”. I could not agree more with Frye’s description of the oppressed woman’s experience. I felt like all my irritation at being ignored as a woman till now all melted down after reading the article. I love how she connects these behaviors to those of servants toward masters: she writes, “The message of the false helpfulness of male gallantry is female dependence, the invisibility or insignificance of women, and contempt for women”. I think “false helpfulness of male gallantry” is the perfect way of explaining men’s unnecessary gestures to help women.
Fortunately, Lorde suggests that women can still have social power even in a patriarchal world, and the only way to survive in the society where people are intolerable of differences is to “make the differences strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” I agree that people need to acknowledge the differences instead of disregarding them. The more they ignore the differences of skin color or class, the wider the gap among the people will grow.
It is quite easy to draw similarities between unacknowledged male privilege and white privilege because “whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege”. I think men are oblivious to their privilege because they already are in the superior position and therefore insensible to how women would feel inferior to them. Men think that they are predominant and deserve the privilege they possess because they have done the most important tasks during civilization. Even if there were men who supported the improvement of women’s status, they tended to insist that “male domination is natural and follows inevitably from evolutionary pressures” and oppress women as a result.

Don't Tell Me What To Do

I’m sure if you’re a woman—and even if you aren’t—you’ve thought about what you would do given the arrival of an unexpected pregnancy. I know I have. Thankfully I’ve never had to deal with that particular situation on a personal level but I know several women who have. These women have suffered immeasurably and often without support and are still working toward living full lives despite their imbalanced quality.

“Young mothers need to be supported in their choices, whatever they may be,” (Crews, LU, pg.143). This sentence pretty much sums up how I feel about the abortion issue. But so many people today--a striking number of them women--do not see this issue in the appropriate shades of grey and face it only on simplistic terms. A pregnant teenager should not raise her child; she should abort it. Or, on the other hand, a pregnant teenager should never abort her child, but rather give it up for adoption. These are the sides we are forced to choose between when talking about abortion and parenting, and frankly it’s a lose/lose situation.

Women today are not given the freedom of choice they deserve for reproductive rights. I think the saddest aspect of it all is the massive guilt so many women feel after deciding to have an abortion, despite their reasoning. The emotional trauma of discovering an unwanted pregnancy and the decision making process that accompanies it is severely unrated. In Inga Muscio’s Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners, and the Power Within, Muscio talks about how healing is left up to the doctors, that our society is trained to believe that the only way to get better is through another person, usually a man. She says: “Western medicine, that smelly dog who farts across the house and we just don’t have the heart to put out of its misery, is based on a law opposite the one the rest of the universe goes by, namely, Healing Has Nothing To Do With You; It’s Something Only Your Doctor Can Control,” (pg.115, LU). And in our culture it’s true. We are programmed to look outside for help when we really should be looking in. Because frankly, who can tell you what’s best for you other than yourself?

One thing I’ve noticed this semester is how everything we read about can be linked back to some form of patriarchal oppression. Maybe I just feel this way because of all the reading I’ve been doing, but it’s difficult to ignore nonetheless. One example would be from last week’s readings about constructions of the perfect body. We learned in Higginbotham’s Teen Mags that the ideal woman should weigh less than 120 pounds and essentially have no room for her internal organs to function. “Girls are encouraged to love their bodies, no matter what they look like, by magazines with fashion spreads featuring only stick-thin, flawless-faced white models in expensive outfits,” (pg.88, LU). That right there is a form of oppression. If we’re not oppressed by the media telling us how we should look and what we should think, we’re oppressed by society telling us that we can’t be pregnant before we’re 20 or 25, and that if we ARE pregnant we can’t have abortions. It feels like there is no way to overcome this. Which is exactly why it’s more important than ever before to keep fighting for what we believe in.

I have a friend who is 5 months pregnant and a junior at this school that is judged every single day because she is pregnant and unmarried. When I see her I feel strong because she chose to keep her child. And I don’t feel empowered by the fact that she’s keeping the baby, but rather by the fact that she was strong enough to choose and tell the world to back off. It’s for people like her that I have come to support feminism.

~Paige

Reproductive Rights Denied

This weeks’ readings opened my eyes to the abuse women face regarding their own reproductive rights. Many women are aware of the battle with the government and conservative Christian groups to keep their right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. What we often are not aware of are the other ways in which women are denied basic reproductive rights.


In Reproductive Laws, Women of Color, and Low-Income Women, Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson discusses the impact of race as to the availability of abortions. She informs the readers of the reality that racism plays. Although many white women have dealt with obstacles in order to obtain abortions, the larger degree of difficulty faced by women of color and poor women exemplifies Peggy McIntosh’s argument of white privilege. Because these demographics of women are often unable to pay for first-trimester abortions or are unaware of the funds available to them, they must then jump the hurdles that is obtaining a post-first-trimester abortion. Nsiah-Jefferson reiterates how important it is for white feminists (especially pro-choicers) to know that any law that infringes upon reproductive rights hurts a vast group of women, even if it is not a group they belong to. Nsiah-Jefferson writes, “Poor women and women of color often live under circumstances that make it difficult for them to obtain early abortions… Thus, it is important to understand the laws restricting late abortions will continue to have a particular impact on poor women and women of color… The enactment and implementation of the Hyde Amendment terminating federal Medicaid funding for abortions has caused many poor women to delay having abortions while they raise the necessary funds” (364). Another issue Nsiah-Jefferson brings to our attention is the fact that Medicaid does not always fund abortions and, if they do, many welfare workers do not inform recipients of this right (364). The question we are forced to ask is: Why would a government entity that attempts to give poor citizens the opportunity to receive (minimal) health care and focus on becoming “more productive” to our society deny a woman the ability to terminate the vicious cycle of growing up in poverty and not being able to escape? Simply put, the fewer children a woman dependent on welfare has, the less money the government pays to support them.



Another issue I was, until recently, unaware of was the rampant abuse of sterilization of American people. Angela Davis delves into this controversial topic in her essay Reproductive Rights. She describes the blatant propaganda used to terminate almost an entire population of a dying race when she writes, “In one of the HEW pamphlets aimed at Indian people, there is a sketch of a family with ten children and one horse and another sketch of a family with one child and ten horses. The drawings are supposed to imply that more children mean more poverty and fewer children mean wealth. As if the ten horses owned by the one-child family had been magically conjured up by birth control and sterilization surgery” (111-112). Although there is something to be said for using such methods as birth control and sterilization to control family size and be successful, to attempt to terminate the reproduction of a certain race is nothing more than genocide. This oppression of minority races is also applied as the opposite extreme to the “ideal” race, causing discourse when activist attempt to remedy its abuse. Davis explains, “Within organizations representing the interests of middle-class white women, there has been a certain reluctance to support the demands of the campaign against sterilization abuse, for these women are often denied their individual rights to be sterilized when they desire to take this step” (112-113). The contradictive manner in which sterilization abuse is applied to both white and ethnic women is a “master’s tool” used to keep different groups from uniting a fixing the problem.



The most eye-opening essay this week was Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners, and the Power Within by Inga Musico. She writes about her own experience with clinical abortions and how, to her, it is patriarchal. She writes “I didn’t do good, I fucked up. So I had the same choice as before, that glowing, outstanding choice we ladies fight tooth and nail for: the choice to get my insides ruthlessly sucked by some inhuman shit pile, invented not by my foremothers, but by someone who would never, ever in a million years have that tube jammed up his dickhole and turned on full blast, slurping everything in its path” (114). Although she is grateful for choices women do have today, she feels that the impersonal nature of clinical abortions and the trauma of the experience is cause for dissent. She feels that homeopathic alternatives are much more empowering and less painful. Instead of lying on a stiff, white bed waiting for some man to suck out your insides, she advocates using your friends and family as support and truly making a choice. This argument is reminiscent of the one Ricki Lake makes in her documentary The Business of Being Born. Although giving birth and having an abortion seem to make up a black and white dichotomy of choice, they both are procedures that have been taken away from or never fully given to women. A man and his medicine are more reliable than trusting our own bodies and the other women around us. Musico laments the placid attitude many women have, not only about their bodies, when she writes “We stare into the TV set instead of speaking of our own dreams, wait for a vacation instead of appreciating each day, watch the clock rather than listen to our hearts” (115). She summarizes how even something seemingly as feminist as an abortion can act as a “master’s tool” to divide and conquer, to separate and oppress us, when she writes, “The squabble between pro-lifers and pro-choicers serves only to keep our eyes off the target: patriarchal society” (117).


To further this discussion of giving birth also being a choice that is denied to women, we read And So I Chose by Allison Crews. She writes, “After much prayer and divination, many tears and several horrible poems, I made a choice to bear a child” (145). She explains the hardships she encountered as a pregnant teenager that chose to give birth and keep her baby. After living in a pro-life environment, she tried to find support from a different source and was bitterly disappointed. “I was told that girls like me were almost completely responsible for the ‘backsliding of the feminist movement… While many of these women professed to be ‘pro-choice,’ I quickly learned that for them the only choice that is acceptable is the choice they consider ‘right’” (146). The fact that she was young allowed the people around her to feel validated in making choices for her. “It seemed as if everyone I encountered felt that they had a right to force their opinion on me regarding the best choice for my child’s future—and this choice was almost exclusively to give him up for adoption. I was told that I did not deserve my child, that there was no way I could ever be an adequate mother, by both the anti- and pro-abortion communities” (146). Not only was she oppressed in the decision of whether to keep her child, but she was unable to explore her options for birthing. She describes the elitism of her doctor when she writes, “I needed to be monitored, strapped to a bed, cleaned from the inside, shaven smooth and knocked out cold. I was a little girl, and delivering babies is a man’s job” (147). Despite the opposition she faced, Crews chose to keep her child. She makes the point that “being pro-woman, being pro-choice, means being supportive of any reproductive choice a woman makes for herself” (148).



This battle that so many women face in gaining control of their own reproductive rights is part of a patriarchal agenda to control women’s sexual freedom. The right of a woman to have a safe abortion is also her right to be sexually active without the constant worry. It’s the right to have sexual responsibility closer to that of a man. But is not just our often denied right of choice that oppresses women sexually. It is also the right to have children if and when we want to that is dictated by men. Although women are hypersexualized in media and pop culture, they are still idealized as pure and virginal. Our worth is often dependent upon our beauty and our “virtue.” We are all fighting for the ability to choose not to be held to this stigma, to no longer be held in comparison to super-sexy women who wait for marriage.

By Katie Frye.

How the West (Was) Won: An exploration of control and manipulation of reproductive rights

“Very simply, women of color and poor women have fewer choices than other women. …there are two overarching concerns. One is the desire to make reproductive services, including new technologies, broadly accessible. The other is the need to safeguard against abuse” (Nsiah-Jefferson 363-364). The cultural imperialism of Western societies is evidenced in many ways, from images of women presented in the media to fast food chains to reproductive rights. Traditionally, white women and women with more economic means have framed the debate about reproductive rights, making the argument a very narrow one and not addressing issues that are relevant to the majority of women (nonwhite, non-middle class).

First of all, Western medicine has monopolized the way medicine is practiced internationally. In “Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners and the Power Within,” Inga Muscio writes, “Western medicine…is based on a law opposite the one the rest of the universe goes by, namely, Healing Has Nothing To Do With You; It’s Something Only Your Doctor Can Control” (115). For Muscio’s third unwanted pregnancy she opts for a natural means of abortion through massages, abortifacients, and emotional support. Abortifacients and contraceptives have been used by women for hundreds or thousands of years, and yet modern Western medicine has convinced us that the only means of “unblocking the menses” is through modern Western medicine. The abortion debate has typically centered around two options: pro-choice and anti-choice. Yet, could there be other options? Muscio writes, “Concentrating on the power within our own circle of women was once a major focus of the women’s health movement. I think we would benefit from once again creating informal health collectives where we discuss things like our bodies and our selves” (117). In “And So I Chose” by Allision Crews, she writes, “I labored for five hours and birthed naturally, with little intervention from the doctors who had doubted me” (148). Furthermore, modern-day abortions and health care (with its institutionalized racism) can be expensive, difficult to obtain, and biased, more so for poor women and women of color. As Nsiah-Jefferson writes in “Reproductive Laws, Women of Color, and Low-Income Women,” “Poor women and women of color often live under circumstances that make it difficult for them to obtain early abortions. …A particularly important factor for women of color and poor women is the cost of many prenatal screening procedures” (364-364). The barriers put in place by patriarchal Western medicine where only your (probably male) doctor can decide for you are not ideal and make Muscio’s model of a women’s health collective perhaps more fair and equal. If women followed this model of massages, herbal teas, and natural births, the government would not have as much of a say and it would afford more women access to reproductive rights. Today, the options for poor women and women of color are either Western medicine, if you can afford it, or nothing. If we followed this health collective idea, the lines drawn at white and middle class would begin to vanish as poor women, women of color, Third World women, etc. would gain more control over their bodies.

Secondly, reproductive rights debates coming from the West have centered on what white, middle-class women want, overtaking the needs of poor women and women of color here in the US and abroad. However, there are many other issues out there that more significantly limit women of color and poor women’s access to reproductive health care and/or limit their ability to birth as a result of eugenics. In Angela Davis’s article, “Reproductive Rights,” she writes, “women of color are urged, at every turn, to become permanently infertile, while white women enjoying prosperous economic conditions are urged, by the same forces, to reproduce themselves” (113). The debate streaming out of the United States and dominating most discussion of reproductive rights, namely the ability to choose not to have children, is framed by white, middle-class women. While access to birth control and abortion is a serious issue for women of color and poor women as well, there is another issue that has remained covered up and overshadowed—sterilization. This is often forced or coerced or women of color are convinced to do it by doctors who skew information or flat out lie. For example, “by the 1970s, over 35 percent of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age had been surgically sterilized” (Davis 112).

Just like colonialism of the past, cultural imperialism slants the whole world’s view to a narrow one held by the West ("Who Defines Women's Rights? A Third World Woman's Response"). Colonialism has shown us how women can be used in the struggle for power. In the article “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” Lila Abu-Lughod writes about being “suspicious when neat cultural icons are plastered over messier historical and political narratives” (486) because the need to “liberate” Third World women gives an excuse for colonial powers to control a country. We must look beyond the “neat cultural icons” of pro-choice or pro-life, Western medicine or none at all, and see the “messier historical and political narratives” that lie beneath.


Although this has recently been overturned by Obama, it could come back in the future and is an example of US foreign policy actively engaging in cultural imperialism.

-Erica

Hip Hop Caucus, Face Forward, and Change Through Popular Culture

Hip Hop culture has permeated all aspects of American pop culture and is a dominant trend in not just music, but movies, TV shows, other media, and fashion. If we recognize the strength and prevalence of popular Hip Hop culture across all social and economic classes, ethnic groups and gender, it can be used, as it has been in the past, as a means to initiate and inspire change. Face Forward is attempting to use its Star Power, and influence in the hip-hop community to make a difference. The “Respect My Vote” campaign is another organization that is making change through star power, popular culture, and hip-hop and could be expanded to do even more good in the community.

Elsa Davis noted the power that the words of Queen Latifah had on her life, as she notes that Latifah's “music and public image were intimately, almost inextricably, connected to [her] awakening personal and political identity,” (Davis, 128). Other artists and celebrities including T.I., who is a spokesperson for “Respect My Vote” , are personalities with whom young people can, “identify in a practical way,” (Davis, 129). Although T.I.'s lyrics may not always have an activist bent, the message and influence outside of his video persona can still be valuable.
Some may see our political system as broken and as a vestige of our nation's white patriarchal origins. We have yet to truly become a “democracy of the many rather than a republic ruled by a virtuous few,” (Robinson, 22) and those who are outside the “mythical norm” (Lorde, 116) still enjoy “limited freedom,” (Robinson, 22). While our system is flawed I believe that the political system is still a vehicle for change, and is more than just a “master's tool”. Unfortunately, more often than not, those involved in the political process, those who vote, and those who are elected, only represent the dominant power structures and “established power...has, in this country, always been antithetical to the interests of Black people,” (Cole, 26) and other groups who do not consist of white, protestant, middle class males. “Respect My Vote” is urging urban youth of America that has felt disenfranchised in the past, to have their voices heard and let them know that “what they think matters,” (Cole, 25).

“Respect My Vote” is using popular music and celebrity to encourage young people to register to vote. While this is a wonderful project, there needs to be more follow through. It is difficult for young people and working class people to find information about candidates, determine where their local polling places are, and obtain transportation to their polling places. In addition, this project could be taken a step further. Young people could be taught about the U.S. Political system, become acquainted with local government representatives, and given information about local issues, and grassroots organizations.

While this might be overly ambitious, helping people register to vote, providing candidate information, and providing transportation for people to reach the polling places could allow many people who may not have voted in the past due to age or attitude, to cast their ballot this year, maybe for the first time. A project could even start out small by picking a population of local high school seniors to educate and transport. Even if transportation is impossible we could map out routes on local bus schedules and distribute them. Local community groups, TV, and especially radio stations, are excited about this year's historic election and may be interested in donating vans or buses to shuttle people to polling places.

I have worked as a local election official for the past couple of years. During each election it has been evident that those who voted did not represent the local population. Lines of white men over the age of forty filled the elementary school gym. I only saw an occasional woman, a few people in their twenties, a random few high school/college students drug in by their parents, and I could count the non-white voters on my two hands. It made me frustrated and angry.

The young people who may potentially become involved in a program like this, and vote this year, may become involved by running as an elected official many years from now. Today our government may not represent the diverse communities in this country, but with education, inspiration, and hope, change is possible. Service focused members of government can focus on “changing system-based and dominant/subordinate social and economic relations and improving living conditions for Blacks and thereby, other communities,” (Jennings, 35). Once individuals are granted access to the power structures, for example government institutions, they can “make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish,” (Lorde, 23) and where “our personal visions lay the groundwork for political action,” (Lorde, 23).

Links to Watch!

https://mailstore.wm.edu/wm/mail/fetch.htmlurlid=3328b247e42c35ef460f927e00169a796&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dw-pa7RERTG0%26feature%3Drelated

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=UFvdSBqrMKEhttps://mailstore.wm.edu/wm/mail/fetch.html?urlid=3328b247e42c35ef460f927e00169a796&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com2Fwatch%3Fv%3Db2o0vUf1TCs%26feature%3Drelated

http://www.hiphopcaucus.org/

Maintaining Norms and Glamorizing Racist/Sexist Imagery: The Pop Music Video

To Watch the Disturbia Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zdhHLvT7k
Music Videos today are a launching pad for misogyny and objectification of women. It is important for consumers of popular culture images to think critically about what they are absorbing. Every aspect of a music video is chosen for a reason. Nothing is random. Women in music videos are presented in a way that maintains traditional gender roles, racial stereotypes, and beauty standards. Rihanna’s Disturbia video is an excellent example of covert racism and misogyny in popular culture.

Rihanna's new and incredibly popular music video depicts scenes from a 19th century mental institution. While the thrust of the video maintains themes of 'insanity' (and marginalizes individuals who suffer from mental illness), the imagery used smacks of slave bondage, sexualized violence, and the idea of difference as deviance.

Throughout the video, the black female protagonist is restrained in multiple ways. First, she has shackles around her ankles or neck, and then she is pinned, vulnerable, in a room with her arms restrained and her body completely exposed. hooks writes, “The prideful, arrogant, and independent spirit of the African people had to be broken so that they would conform to the white colonizer’s notion of proper slave demeanor.” (hooks, 20) These video images could be interpreted as sexualized imitations of slave bondage.

While this video is attempting to be sexy and edgy, and maintain Rihanna's reputation as a “good girl gone bad,” Disturbia makes light of the “sadistic misogynist acts of cruelty and brutality that were far beyond seduction,” (hooks, 28) that occurred during the centuries of slavery. “Since woman was designed as the originator of sexual sin, black women were naturally seen as the embodiment of female evil and sexual lust. They were labeled jezebels and sexual temptresses and accused of leading white men away from spiritual purity into sin,” (hooks, 33). During one memorable scene Rihanna writhes on a white male mannequin, fulfilling the role of “the evil sexual temptress, the bringer of sin into the world. Sexual lust originated with her and men were merely the victims of her wanton power,” (hooks, 29). However, while conjuring this image there is a failure to recognize the reality of the experience of the black woman during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries when she was subject to acts of “institutionalized terrorism,” (hooks, 27) more specifically rape. As Lorde writes, “rape is not aggressive sexuality, but sexualized aggression,” (Lorde, 120). The viewer is allowed to imagine this “sexualized aggression,” in the video. The main character is restrained, in one scene veiled and faceless, made to be different, a hypersexualized and an available 'other', who can easily be consumed with no fear of moral or social repercussions. While no rape occurs in the video, the viewer can surely imagine it.

In addition to the images of bondage and sexualized violence, there are constructions of difference that include the different being deviant. This video does not demonstrate, “human difference, but...human deviance,” (Lorde, 116). The characters in the video include effeminate men, a transgender female, a restrained black female, and a group of exotic 'other' back up dancers that perform in pulsating, orgy-like movement. All of the non-white characters or characters who do not perform their gender in traditional ways, are different and deviant, and presented as insane, reinforcing traditional gender performance, white patriarchal hegemony, and constructions of difference.

Can't Even Afford a Tweed Jacket

What do you think of when you hear the word “professor”? An old man with glasses and a tweed jacket? That image is typically what the mainstream media would have us believe. The typical professor is someone like Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World: smart, kind, tough, and old (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAOTiQ86BgM ). Or maybe the image of the typical professor is more generic and not a specific character. However, the same characteristics still apply. The professor is always an older gentleman with a jacket, tie, and glasses (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaADQTeZRCY ). Even Gina Barreca comments in her personal history Babes in Boyland that the tweed jacket seemed to be a standard issue among the mostly male professors of the classes she attended at Dartmouth. As images of professors have become gendered, so has the compensation through the universities and colleges that are increasingly falling under corporation-type management.

A shocking quote that is used in the book How the University Works by Marc Bousquet in chapter three “The Faculty Organize, But Management Enjoys Solidarity” is from New York University’s Dean Ann Marcus: “We need people we can abuse, exploit, and then turn loose” (95). As universities are consumed by the drive to make a profit, the faculty and staff are financially neglected: “It is obvious today that managerial values interpellate the faculty…” (Bousquet 93). Unfortunately, as can be seen from Dean Marcus’s candid statement, these “managerial values” have been internalized and remain unquestioned by those that benefit: “…tenured faculty, even unionized tenured faculty, accept the managerial accounts of “necessity” in the exploitation of part-time faculty, graduate students, and the outsourcing of staff” (Bousquet 93). It seems as though the university is beginning to be transformed into a university industrial complex, where the drive to retain money trumps the concerns of individual faculty and staff.

In regards to gender, women faculty are the most disadvantaged concerning monetary compensation from their places of employment: “…women faculty teach for as little as a few hundred dollars per course, frequently earning less than $16,000 for teaching eight courses a year, without benefits. Even in the full-time nontenurable positions, women with doctorates, averaging as much as ten years of post-baccalaureate study, commonly earn under $30,000, often without benefits” (Bousquet 91). The exploitation of female professors and faculty are defended by the adoption of a corporate mindset when running a university. Numerous tenured professors or well-paid faculty with sufficient benefits is not cost-effective. It is clear what a university’s priorities are when sports coaches are receiving several times what faculty are. Unfortunately this reality is even more severe for female faculty: “The economic and social violence experienced by…the majority of women faculty working in undervalued disciplines and in nontenurable positions, is experienced…and is sustained by a network of beliefs and institutions “outside” the relationship between administration and employee” (Bousquet 91).The university has changed significantly from the days of kindly old male professors in tweed jackets. The good news is: women have been accepted as instructors in institutions of higher education for year. The bad news: their labor is being exploited.

To Be The Queen...

In our Black Studies class, one week’s reading assignment was “The Bluest Eye”, by Toni Morrison. I have read this book twice before in classes at William and Mary, making this the third time I’ve read it in college, and I read it once in high school, having read the book a total of 4 times now. The one thing I enjoy is that each time I’ve read it, I’ve learned something new.I like this reading assignment this week because it ties in with my Community Action Project in my Black Studies class. Our CAP project addresses beauty in society and takes a look at and a stand for alternative forms of beauty coming from women of color instead of just the standard form that excludes many women. “The Bluest Eye” addresses this issue of standardized beauty. The book revolves around the lives of several young black girls living in an ignored black community with surrounding white areas. The story documents the challenge of the girls Frieda, Claudia, and particularly Pecola, to accept that they don’t meet their society’s standard of beauty of blue-eyed, blonde haired girls and the struggle they face inwardly to prove to themselves that they, too, are beautiful and ask why they were born black.

One point of the story that deals with beauty is Claudia’s hatred of Shirley Temple and Raggedy Ann dolls. Throughout the story, Shirley Temple, who was a standard of young girl beauty, is brought up multiple times in a negative way from Claudia. “I couldn’t join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley…What I felt at that time was unsullied hatred. But before that I had felt a stranger, more frightening than hatred for all the Shirley Temples in the world.” (Morrison, page 19) In this quote, Claudia speaks of “all the Shirley Temples”, or in other words, her generalization of white beauty and how she hates it because it’s the only beauty standard that exists for girls and she will never meet it. Another quote comes from Claudia speaking about white Raggedy Ann dolls. “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs-all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink skinned doll is what every girl child treasured.” (Morrison, page 20) These quotes show that their world had a standard of beauty for girls that didn’t include girls of color. This idea can be damaging to girls, just as the story shows Pecola going mad at the end of the story wishing for blue eyes to be beautiful.

This idea of beauty is still a standard in our society, even among girls still. A recent movie that shows this standard is Little Miss Sunshine. In the movie, a young girl enters a pageant but her and her family realizes she could never win because she doesn’t meet the standard of beauty. What makes it more interesting is that she does meet the former blue eyes and blond hair standard for girls, but is still considered ‘ugly’ because she does not have the body or poise. This shows that a standard of beauty still exists in our society.