Fabricas de EE. UU. y los Tragedias del Ciudad Juarez

This week’s reading was about the importance of feminists being involved in global issues and keeping in mind a transnational perspective. Cynthia Enloe writes that “the need to create links and coalitions across national and cultural boundaries is paramount” ( 496). Enloe contends that in order for feminism to be effective it needs to pay attention to international politics, because politics are how the patriarchy “creates gendered divisions of labor” (496). In a world that is increasingly globalized, feminism needs to globalize its efforts and programs.
Enloe writes that many women are wary of becoming involved in international campaigns. I chose my article for this week because the author writes about her realization of how important awareness of other parts of the world is. Llerena notes that her viewpoint was narrowed because of ignorance about “what we are still fighting for in other parts of the world” and that there is still so much left to do. She talks about her realization, upon hearing stories from women across the globe, that her singular approach to feminism was ineffective. Llerena realized the need to draw on a complex array of experiences when discussing feminism, which is a extension of human rights. She realized that the human condition is so complex, that her singular viewpoint is not enough. The views and approaches of women the world over are needed. Without an international approach, the scope will be to narrow to solve the problems shared by all of us.
Along with an awareness of other countries’ policies and actions, modern feminists need to be aware of their home country’s transnational effect. In the documentary Senorita Extraviada: Missing Young Women Lourdes Portillo examines the situation in Juarez, Mexico where hundreds of femicides have occurred, and continue to occur, in recent years. Portillo scrutinizes how the rise of maquiladoras, U.S-Mexico border factories, may have contributed to the number of murders. U.S. companies flooded Mexico with border factories for cheap labor after the passage of NAFTA causing workers to flood to cities, which in turn caused such a rapid economic growth the cities were unequipped to handle it. Neighborhoods without utilities or public services sprung up. Women in such cut-off neighborhoods would be easy prey for the murderers. American companies in pursuit of a greater profit margin may have contributed to an economic boom that the city couldn’t handle. The center could not hold.
Awareness of how the U.S. affects other countries is at the center of our CAP project. We are trying to examine how the American media’s ‘policies’ on beauty affect women the world over, not just within our borders. Awareness needs to be raised of how our media is consumed all over the world, changing or eclipsing native cultural standards of beauty just like people need to be made aware of how American owned factories affect the women of Mexico.

Juarez and Beyond

“In this worldview, women are forever being acted upon; rarely are they seen to be actors” (Enloe 497). Señorita Extraviada by Portillo is a documentary about the Juarez femicides that examines the mysteries surrounding the deaths of hundreds of women and the reactions of the community. Portillo’s film techniques give a voice to the community members, especially the women, and allow others to see them as “actors” rather than merely “acted upon.”

First and foremost, the interviews in Señorita Extraviada are very personal and tell the majority of the story. Throughout the film there is some narration, but the interviews are what really provide the narrative. For example, many questions are raised in the film (Who is responsible for the murders? Why haven’t they been solved?) but no answers are given by the narrator; in fact, the narrator often raises more questions. The viewer relies on the interviewees for answers and facts, and, as the narrator states, begins to trust no one except the families of the victims. The effect is that the victims are given as much of a voice as possible although they are no longer with us. Many of the people interviewed are women, and the film gives them a voice as well. Enloe warns, “It can be seen like one more attempt by privileged outsiders—women and men—to dilute their political efforts” (497). However, Portillo’s film lets the community speak on camera and actually magnifies their political efforts by circulating this information worldwide.

The non-diegetic sound in the film—the narrator and the music—also play an important part in shaping the viewer’s experience. The narrator helps transition from story to story and provides brief background information. In this way, the women of Juarez are “allowed to define the problem” (Enloe 497). The somber and haunting music is usually played when the story slows down and the viewer is able to reflect on the vast amount of information just presented. It also gives the film a serious and heavy tone, demonstrating that the subject matter is not to be taken lightly.

Much of the documentary discusses the maquiladoras in which many women of Juarez work. This is what Enloe talks about when she writes, “Corporate executives and development technocrats need some women to depend on cash wages; they need some women to see a factory or plantation job as a means of delaying marriage or fulfilling daughterly obligations” (497-498). Furthermore, women often go missing during the bus transportation to and from the maquiladoras. This exhibits another aspect of Enloe’s article. “If fathers, brothers, husbands didn’t gain some privilege, however small in global terms, from women’s acquiescence to those confining notions of femininity, it might be much harder for the foreign executives and their local elite allies to recruit the cheap labor they desire” (Enloe 498). These murders are a means of control as are the maquiladora operations. If women live in fear, they will be more likely to acquiesce to men, giving the men more privilege. However, it appears from the interviews that even some women are involved in these murders just as “some women’s class aspirations and their racist fears lured them into the role of controlling other women for the sake of imperial rule” (Enloe 497).



The Juarez femicides started as a local issue, but, due to the efforts of community organizers, have become more internationally known, although still not widespread enough in proportion to the seriousness of the situation. This touches on Enloe’s article and our Community Action Project about globalization and international women. “If women are asked to join an international campaign… but are not allowed to define the problem, it looks to many locally engaged women like abstract do-gooding with minimal connection to the battles for a decent life in their households and in their communities” (Enloe 497). When horrifying things like the Juarez femicides are happening locally to women, it would be detrimental to the global feminist movement to step in and tell these women what issues are important. We must work with women all over the world to bring these local problems to the forefront, like Portillo has done with this film, because these are the issues that are ultimately important internationally.



-Erica

Boys Just Wanna Have Fun

This week’s readings focused primarily on the constructs of masculinity by the media and advertising and how such constructs influence men in the real world. We as an audience are used to the idea of the macho lone ranger, driven by honor and chivalry, if a bit oppressive to women. Only a few decades ago there were television shows on the air such as Andy Griffith and, more recently, Walker Texas Ranger. This idea of masculinity is long gone, however, and it continues to govern our lives simply because we allow it to.

In Dead Man Walking: Masculinity’s Troubling Persistence, Brendan O’Sullivan explains how being a man is no longer what it once was. He explains how it’s something that can be achieved by just about anyone when he writes, “There’s a growing recognition that anyone can perform traditionally male traits: the if-it-looks-smells-walks-talks-like test doesn’t work for men anymore. We’ve got butch women, drag kings, gender queers, and trannies hijacking masculinity, and conversely, men who are far from hitting the target. It seems that we aren’t satisfied with what’s ‘natural,’ and we’re stretching the concept to suit our needs” (102). It’s true, gender identities other than the two “mainstream” are popping up much more often than they used to. But, even though we don’t see the same “masculine man” on the television like we used to, we still reinforce the idea of masculinity. O’Sullivan explains, “Clinging to relevancy, masculinity has been reduced to caricaturing itself. He’s a Lady, another recent ‘reality’ catastrophe, was devoted entirely to a fake drag queen competition among a dozen men. Not surprisingly, there was no subversive intent behind the show; it was an analysis-free exercise in reinforcing traditional masculinity by using it as a frame of reference” (102). He goes on to explain that, although being a drag queen is not within the normal realm of “masculine,” audience members of such ludicrous programming find humor in these situations because it’s not supposed to happen. “Most of us… are laughing because men aren’t supposed to shave their legs, not because we’re foolish for believing they shouldn’t” (102). Although we realize that we don’t need some misconstrued idea of “Man the Protector,” we still find comfort in categorizing the human race: boy versus girl, masculine versus feminine. O’Sullivan recognizes this when he writes, “Some hope to give masculinity its proper eulogy: a complete reorganization of society where the man/woman distinction no longer wields its power. Others recognize masculinity’s end but fear the hijinks that would ensue if manliness lost its significance as a societal organizer” (103). We continue to allow the ideas of masculinity to control what is acceptable for either gender by continuing to go through the motions, even if we don’t mean it. “With a wink and a nudge, men can perform their masculine duties, making it clear they are aware it’s all an act. Irony allows us to admit, or at least refer to, masculinity’s passing and yet sustain the deceased concept…” (103). And even if you call somebody out on such oppressive behavior, it doesn’t matter. It’s as if joking about how sexist someone is makes it ok and even commonplace. Telling them they are being offensive makes you the one who is acting socially unacceptable. This is similar to what Marilyn Frye writes in her essay Oppression. The humor of masculinity is a wire in a bird cage. It is only good fun, how can it be hurtful to women if we’re only joking about being macho? O’Sullivan explains this mentality when he describes this metaphor, “If everyone is already joking about the emperor’s ‘skimpy’ new clothes, the boy who observes that he’s wearing nothing no longer matters” (104).

So, if the concept of masculinity is only a shadow of its former glory, being resurrected by irony and jest, how has its presence lasted so long in our psyche? In When Men Put on Appearances: Advertising and the Social Construction of Masculinity, Diane Barthel writes, “We use consumer goods to define and reinforce definitions of what is masculine and what is feminine” (138). Masculinity is made a martyr because it (and its “antithesis”: femininity) is what separates men from women. Men are threatened by women invading what used to be rightfully theirs. Women too are able to be the bread winners for the family and succeed in the workplace. Barthel writes, “It is the very threat of women invading such centers of power that makes the social construction, and perpetual re-construction, of masculinity so important” (140). Advertising has not, however, let the original idea of masculinity go unscathed. “Advertising has encouraged a ‘feminization’ of culture, as it puts all potential consumers in the classic role of the female: manipulable, submissive, seeing themselves as objects” (148). The media has leant masculinity the idea of keeping the same macho enjoyments—sex, alcohol, driving real fast—but it no longer shoulders the same responsibilities it once did. Barthel explains, “The old masculine definition of the serious, uptight male stoically shouldering family responsibilities was challenged by a new philosophy. The Playboy philosophy said that boys just want to have fun, and should have fun” (147-148).

Men are affected by media portrayal of masculinity as well as women. They are taught from an early age that they must be attracted to women. They shouldn’t be interested in things such as feelings or family. As Michael Kimmel argues in Men in Women’s Studies: Premises, Perils, and Promise, being a feminist does not mean you have to be a woman and, likewise, feminist issues can include men. In this way masculinity is used as a “master’s tool” to oppress men with differing gender expressions and cause them to conform.

~Katie Frye

In The Bluest Eye, there are many images that represent the idea of beauty and make most of the female characters feel ugly. “All the world agreed that blue eyed, yellow haired, pink skinned doll was what every girl treasured” (Morrison 20). Both the doll and the Shirley Temple cup, which Pecola adores, are early signs of white superiority in the novel. In our society, the media imposes beauty standards that are almost impossible for anyone, particularly black girls. The ideal image in America is not something that hard work can achieve. Blue eyes are rare on African-Americans and dark skin is innate and cannot be changed. These facts make it that much harder on young black girls who see the image of white beauty as unfeasible. “The media is constantly flooded with images of popular female celebrities like Beyonce, Halle Berry, Naomie Campbell, and Tyra Banks, who are not a real representation of an ordinary black woman, because they do not have distinct African features” (Article). In The Bluest Eye, Maureen is a light skinned black girl who “Enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled encouragingly. Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys didn’t stone her” (Morrison 62). The prettiest black girls today and in the novel, are the lighter ones, emphasizing the idealization of white beauty. Even the black adult in the novel, particularly Pauline, are ashamed of their race. In the scene where Pecola drops the pie, her mother pays no attention to the fact that she was burned and instead “With the back of her hand knocked her on the floor” (Morrison 109). When the little white girl cries over the incident she not only comforts her but denies that Pecola is her daughter. Pauline has faced a life of racism and is in a tough situation because she is black. In turn, she takes this out of those around her, deforming the life of Pecola and teaching her that beauty and love go hand and hand. Our project is trying to diversify the idea of beauty and stop the discrimination of women who do not fit this model. The lives of the characters in The Bluest Eye were harmed and even destroyed by the patriarchal capitalist society that gives whites privileges over blacks and fosters racism. At one point in the story, Pecola wants beauty to “Rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes” (175). She got her blue eyes when she went crazy from the insanity of the world around her. We all need to rise up out of the pit of discrimination and see the beauty in every person, regardless of race, class, or sex.

-Kristin Fimian

The Bluest Eye

When I sat down yesterday to read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye I didn’t know what to expect. I knew I’d probably like the book because I think Morrison is amazing and I read Beloved in my junior year of high school and fell in love with it. Despite all this, Morrison never fails to surprise me. She talks about growing up with such sheer force and pugnacity that it was all I could do to not stop reading and put down the book. But enough of that. The Bluest Eye examines several issues that affect women today, such as racism, body image, gender roles, and sexism, to list a few. Morrison’s command of language and ability to switch from voice to voice make this novel a particularly powerful read.

Morrison examines the concept of white privilege in The Bluest Eye by using the white baby doll as a metaphor. She shows us Claudia’s contempt for the doll in order to highlight the abundant racism that was embedded into society at that time. Morrison gives us insight into Claudia’s attitude toward the doll by giving us Claudia’s voice. She says, “I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured,” (pg.20).

We see this kind backwards racism many times throughout The Bluest Eye. I say “backwards” because Claudia’s parents gave her the white baby doll and saw it as the ideal toy for her, the most beautiful present a girl could get, when the doll in fact looks nothing like Claudia. Her family is outraged when she dismembers it, crying out “ ‘You-don’t-know-how-to-take-care-of-nothing. I-never-had-a-baby-doll-in-my-whole-life-and-used-to-cry-my-eyes-out-for-them,’ ” (pg.21) furthering the proof that they are not aware that they are perpetuating a type of self-hatred.

Morrison uses a few other examples to emphasize this standard of white beauty and power. Toward the end of the novel, Claudia and Frieda take a trip to Mrs. Breedlove’s workplace to talk to Pecola. Before they leave, Pecola knocks Mrs. Breedlove’s berry cobbler to the floor, which frightens the little white girl she watches over. Pecola and her friends are told to leave, and we are left watching the scene between Mrs. Breedlove and the little girl. Mrs. Breedlove shows her distaste for her family and her race in this scene when the little girl asks her who the three other girls were. “ ‘Who were they, Polly?’ ” she asks. “ ‘Don’t worry none, baby.’ ‘You gonna make another pie?’ ‘’Course I will.’ ‘Who were they, Polly?’ ‘Hush. Don’t worry none,’ ” (pg. 109). It is in this scene that we see the shame Mrs. Breedlove feels--presumably for being black—for her place in the white man’s society.

This idea of self-hatred is played up with Pecola and her desire for blue eyes. At the end of the novel she visits Soaphead Church to see if he can give her what she wants. Morrison shows us his internal response, which furthers the notion that having blue eyes and light skin is what it means to be beautiful: “Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty,” (pg.174), he goes on, describing her as “A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes,” (pg. 174).

Morrison communicates the power of racism and it’s affects so clearly in The Bluest Eye that it’s hard not to be moved by it. Her storytelling abilities make this work tragic and powerful and empowering all in one go. It saddens me to think that “white beauty” is the only kind of beauty that our society tries to measure up to when there are so many beautiful people in the world. This book has opened my eyes up to white privilege in more ways than I ever expected because I saw first-hand how far it has spread and how much it affects our culture.

_Paige Losen_

Blue Eyes

This week we read “The Bluest Eye” by Tony Morrison. In the novel Morrison makes present the white standard of beauty that we have discussed in class. Throughout the novel Morrison shows the preference for white beauty within the black community and its psychological effect on the children of that community. She uses Pecola’s desire for blue eyes and Claudia’s destruction of white baby dolls to illustrate two opposite reactions to the idealization of white beauty in their area. Morrison illustrates the reactions of two girl within this community that has accepted its racial inferiority; one crushed and one toughened under its weight.

With Pecola, Morrison shows the destructive effect that the sense of being inferior to the beauty of white girls has on Pecola. She “fold[ed] into herself, like a pleated wing” (73) when she, Claudia, and Frieda were called ugly by a white girl it seemed they had befriended. Unlike Claudia, who rejected the misery of feeling inferior, Pecola is drowns in it and it “lap[s] up into her eyes” (73). Pecola identifies herself with ugliness. Having the perfect, beautiful blue eyes of a white girl would allow her to reclaim some infinitesimal fraction of beauty. Pecola asks for beauty, “to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes” (175) but in the end “the horror of her yearning is only succeeded only by the evil of fulfillment” (204).

Claudia reacts to the ‘superiority’ of white beauty with an analytical approach that manifests itself in the investigative dismemberment of white baby dolls. Everyone around her accepts that these white dolls should be treasured and worshipped without hesitation and she wants “to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me” (20). Claudia’s analysis of why she is the only one to dislike white baby dolls brings up the discussion of why everyone; older women, older and younger girls all do. She can only note with detachment that adults react to the doll’s dismemberment with the strength of emotion as if a family member had been lost instead. Claudia notes the disturbing transference of her impulse to take apart the dolls to little white girls, to find “what made people look at them and say, ‘Awwwww,’ but not for me?” (22). Claudia’s analytical curiosity moved to a detached violence to hatred, then to a falsified love to hide both of the former.

Little girls in “The Bluest Eye” are presented with no option that they themselves could be beautiful in face perfect white beauty; the inferiority that results negatively affects their psychology in varying ways. This shows the need for our CAP project; to diversify the readily available image of beauty and present depictions from various races.


~Kristen M.

The Bluest Eye and the Seemingly Timeless Western Ideal of Beauty

Inequality among women is deeply rooted by very rooted ideals of beauty. Skin color is an integral aspect of beauty around the world, and is a big source of tension between people of different ethnicities and among people of the same background or race. As fairness is often associated with beauty and success, skin color continues to be a major source of oppression; both men and women participate as oppressors in this case. As feminism does not have the ability to reach its potential unless all women work together, the discord caused by the stigma of darker skin is a true hindrance and a Master’s Tool, which Lorde discusses. “Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom...advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism, “she says (111). Lorde identifies our differences as our strengths; embracing feminists of different backgrounds and in turn all skin tones will only help the feminist cause. (112). Once women are able to comprehend this, they will find their efforts to “dismantle the master’s house” to be more effective. All this is very relevant to our CAP, which pinpoints skin color as one of the main facets that mould the Western ideal of beauty. In turn, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize- winning novel, addresses racism and its effect on women who practice it and are subject to it. Morrison’s book is successful in pinpointing how skin color has continued to cause oppression and discord in society through time, and how women as a whole are weakened in the process.

As expected, the media has always played a major role in peoples’ perception of beauty, and Morrison recognizes this in The Bluest Eye. Pauline, Pecola’s mother, who is enchanted by movies, “learned all there was to love and all there was to hate” from them, specifically what was beautiful and what wasn’t (122). “She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it to some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one that she absorbed in full from the silver screen” (122). Based on her assessment, she considered Jean Harlow, a white actress, to be particularly beautiful. Pauline strived to look like her, but probably was conscious of the fact that it would never be entirely possible because of the color of her skin. However, the book does not explicitly state that she was eventually discouraged by her skin. Pauline claims that “I ‘member one time I went to see Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. I fixed up my hair like I’d seen hers in a magazine…It looked just like her. Well, almost just like. Anyway, I sat in the show with my hair done up that way and had a good time…I took a big bite of candy, and it pulled a tooth right of my head. Here I was trying to look like Jean Harlow, and a front tooth gone. Everything went then. Look like I just didn’t care no more after that” (123). It was the broken tooth that ultimately made her give up in her efforts to look more like Jean Harlow, but it was only because it was one more thing that made her look less like Harlow. Because the difference in skin color created such a rift in her efforts, Pauline was completely discouraged when her once healthy set of teeth became were tarnished, which is a relatively minor obstacle in comparison.

There has always been inequality between people of the same race who vary in skin tone. Even today, this can be readily observed in the media and society. In “Teen Mags: How to get a Guy, Drop 20 Pounds, and Lose Your Self-Esteem,” Higginbotham suggests that inequality within a race is very noticeable when the “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” (88). Basically, the lighter-skinned black model was chosen over darker models because her tone made her “whiter,” and that made her more respectable. A similar situation is described in The Bluest Eye when a wealthy, light-skinned black girl named Maureen arrives at Claudia and Frieda’s school. “The disrupter of seasons was a new girl in school named Maureen Peal…she enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled encouragingly. Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls, white boys didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck their teeth when she was assigned to be their work partners; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sing in the girls’ toilet,” narrates Claudia (62). Maureen’s lighter skin was the reason why she commanded more respect from her teachers and piers. Her skin tone automatically made her less flawed, and that caused Claudia and Frieda to pick out some of her other defects. “Frieda and I were bemused, irritated, and fascinated by her. We looked hard for flaws to restore our equilibrium…we discovered that she had a dog tooth… and when we found out that she had been born with six fingers on each hand and that there was a little bump where each extra one had been removed, we smiled” (63). The fact that being lighter skinned is grossly advantageous emphasizes one of society’s major flaws that not only hold the feminist movement back, but all other types of advancement.


- Lavanya