For many years, there has been a constant disagreement on whether abortion should be illegal or not. The solidification of abortion as a crime in the political agenda has affected women in various ways. This ideology has created fear and uncertainty in women’s choices. Today, abortion is a big issue concerning women because for years it had been said that abortion should not be legal. Many people feel aborting an unwanted child, or killing an unwanted child should be against the law Women’s ability to access safe and legal abortions is restricted in law or in practice in most countries in the world. In fact, even where abortion is permitted by law, women often have severely limited access to safe abortion services because of a lack of proper regulation, health services, or political will. In third world countries, it’s not safe and mostly it’s illegal for women to get abortions. 

Women’s organizations across the world have fought for the right to access safe and legal abortion for decades, and increasingly international human rights law supports their claims. In fact, international human rights legal instruments and authoritative interpretations of those instruments compel the conclusion that women have a right to decide independently in all matters related to reproduction, including the issue of abortion.

According to the Youtube video “The Abortion Divide (full documentary) | FRONTLINE” It’s not easy for all of those women to have abortions but they do it because they know that they are not ready to have children or have financial problems and believes that even if they do not get abortions they won’t be able to give their children a good life. One of the women even said that she’s getting abortions because “She had unprotected sex just one time with someone that she had been seeing and she thought, and it was just a one-time thing.” Personally, I believe that she has the right to make her own decision and not just her I believe that all women should have the right to make their own decision because after all it’s their body and they are the ones who will give birth. It’s definitely not easy for them to get abortions. It’s an emotional thing. Giving up on their unborn babies is not easy but they do it because it’s the best decision for them and for the unborn babies. 

Although abortion does need regulation, policies should be made towards helping and providing correct resources for women rather than trying to criminalize them. There are many reasons why women may be deciding to abort that she often does not feel comfortable talking about and that is they a friendly and trustful environment should be provided for women to be aborted. 

My classmate “Sanae” posted a snapshot that says “My body My choice Get over it” I completely agree with it. As a man, we do not have the right to decide what a woman should do with her body or what she should not do. My classmate “Enrique” posted a snapshot where it says “No to jail for abortions” I completely agree with it. Again women should never go to jail for getting aborted. We have to respect their privacy and need to understand that it’s their choice. 

This week’s reading was very interesting and I have enjoyed them a lot. I felt that both of the readings were very powerful. The article “The Power of Identity” and “Too Latina To Be Black, Too Black To Be Latina” by Aleichia Williams shows the difficulty of being accepted in different places throughout the USA. She lived in New York City where people from all over the world live in. New York City is the place for everyone doesn’t matter you’re Black, White, Latina, or Brown. Growing up In New York City was not a problem for her but when she moved to North Carolina. For her North Carolina was a lot different. Alicia Williams explains her experience where she is being forced to choose her identities because they clash. Her skin was dark so society already marked her as Black but her nationality was Hispanic and society doesn’t know because they first need to know her in order to find out where she’s from. Even though they were forcing her to choose a side between Black and Hispanic, she refuse and she accept herself as in and that’s what I loved about her. I believe as human beings we all have the right to chase who we are and we should know do what society wants us to do. It was very powerful to me how she refused everyone and accepted herself as is. 

Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks, and/or expressions that make a person or group. One can regard the awareness and the categorizing of identity as positive or as destructive. A psychological identity relates to self-image, self-esteem, and individuality. In the article “The Power of Identity Politics” by Alicia Garza she shares her experiences. She wrote about this defensiveness from white people when spoken to about “race issues” and said how they fall under the impression that “naming it somehow perpetuates the dynamic of underrepresentation”. Alicia was at a bar when she overhears a conversation between a white man and a white woman. They are discussing an actor when the white man says the actors’ race (Egyptian) and continues saying that its great actors are getting more representation. To which the white woman responds saying, “He’s a great actor, which is why he should be in more movies not because he’s a person of color.” I think it’s unacceptable and we should just focus on being human beings because that’s what we are in the end. I hate it when people keep talking about Black and White. We have to leave this racism behind us to do better in life because this is not taking us anywhere rather put us behind. Both of the readings were very powerful and I have people read them and understand that it’s okay to be different and to be Black or White. It’s okay to be Latina or Black, or Spanish. We all are created equally by God. Therefore society needs to stop making people choose between color and or things that he/she should do.

Paris is Burning, a documentary by Jennie Livingston focuses on the lives of New York City drag queens by providing insight into their unique culture by the use of an untraditional aspect of a documentary. She breaks the fourth wall. Livingston interacts with her subjects to draw out more specific information by asking personal questions regarding aspirations and particular events, and to grasp an emotional response from her audience by publicizing the subjects’ perspectives in an effort to make her work more meaningful. By including the interviews with the members in the documentary, Livingston allows her audience to view this phenomenon from a different perspective, the perspective of the people directly involved in the struggle to be accepted as whom they see themselves as. In the series of short, casual interviews throughout the documentary, Livingston breaks the fourth wall by questioning her subjects in regard to their most private personal values and aspirations. Livingston intentionally involves herself in this engagement to increase the comfort and relations between the audience and the interviewees. In present-day society, cultural assumptions often dictate that sexuality and gender are mutually dependent categories and that one posits the other. Societal norms imply that gender is divided into men and women, and that appropriate sexual behavior is thus determined through innate biology. This notion suggests right and wrong ways of being male and female, and postulates that their interaction stems in heterosexual attraction. The play Cloud 9 and documentary Paris is Burning call into question of the notion of codependence of gender and sexuality by demonstrating a lack of coherence between identity, sexual expression, and innate biology. In this way, the works demonstrate that sexuality does not pigeonhole associated gender based on tropes of hypermasculinity or effeminacy, but instead allows both to exist on a spectrum. Furthermore, in these creative pieces, the personas identified utilize gender performance and unique expressions of their perceived identities to demonstrate that gender exists on a spectrum and is independent of both assigned sex at birth and sexuality. The implications of this extend to the ideology conceptions of what constitutes gender and its relation to inherent sexuality, suggesting that societally.

The Combahee River Collective was a Black Feminist Lesbian organization that was active between 1974 and 1980. This intersectional group was created because there was a sense that both the feminist movement or civil rights movement didn’t reflect the particular needs of Black women and lesbians. The collective joined together to develop the Combahee River Collective Statement, which was a key document in developing contemporary Black Feminism. 

My classmate Patience Ocran posted a snapshot of Michelle Obama who I look up to a lot. I believe that she’s one of the feminists which is what the reading was about for this week. I thought it was well connected with the reading. My classmate Sandra Mohammed posted a snapshot that says The Myth of Race and I thought it was the right snapshot to post as it makes sense with this week’s reading.

This week’s reading and the short Youtube video were very interesting as all of the reading provided a lot of information about “Feminine”. In “ The Feminine Mystique” Friedan, begins her study of the lives of presumably white, middle-class women in suburban postwar America through her exploration of the problem that has no name. “The Feminine Mystique” explains that in post-World War II United States life, women were encouraged to be wives, mothers, and housewives and only wives, mothers, and housewives. This, Friedan says, was a failed social experiment. Relegating women to the “perfect” housewife or happy homemaker prevented much success and happiness, among the women and, consequently, their families. Friedan writes that housewives were asking themselves, “Is that all?” the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. It discusses the lives of several housewives from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being married with children. It feels extremely sad to know how all of those women were feeling during those difficult times. The phrase “feminine mystique” was created by Friedan to describe the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. It was said that women, who were actually feminine, should not have wanted to work, get an education, or have political opinions. Friedan wanted to prove that women were unsatisfied and could not voice their feelings.

In the article “ The Politics of housework” by Pat Mainardi, Marinardi brings up the issue that most men see housework as a woman’s job, in order to help liberate women housework must be seen as a group effort not simply as ‘women’s work’. She uses her own husband as an example and she transcripts the true meaning behind his statements against cleaning. In her postscript, she implements ways women can liberate themselves by changing the way chores are seen and done in the household. To me, It makes no rational sense that women should do more work than men at home, and take responsibility for the house. This system does latently perpetuate inequalities. I believe that women should have the right to their own choices. 

 In the last reading “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” Anne Koedt, The article how there’s a misunderstanding of women’s sexuality and their desire. The goal of this response is to address both the myth of the vaginal orgasm create awareness and education for women and men about female sexual pleasure and counter previous thoughts about female orgasm. Koedt reflects in her writing, It was Freud’s feelings about women’s secondary and inferior relationship to men that formed the basis for his theories on female sexuality. Once having laid down the law about the nature of our sexuality, Freud not so strangely discovered a tremendous problem of frigidity in women. His recommended cure for a woman who was frigid was psychiatric care. She was suffering from failure to mentally adjust to her ‘natural’ role as a woman

My classmate Sadira Mohammed posted a snapshot that was really powerful to me because it says “I don’t need rights-I to have a Kitchen”. This is exactly how women’s felt in the 1950s and early 1960s as I have learned from “The Feminine Mystique”. My classmate Isabella’s snapshot was pretty much the same. Women were the only ones who would work in the house and take care of everything where men wouldn’t help at all in the house. 

This week I read an Article and two short documentaries which were heartbreaking to watch. In the Youtube video “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” I learned that on Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Firefighters arrived at the scene, but their ladders weren’t tall enough to reach the upper floors of the 10-story building. Trapped inside because the owners had locked the fire escape exit doors, workers jumped to their deaths. In half an hour, the fire was over, and 146 of the 500 workers mostly young women were dead. The shirtwaist makers, as young as age 15, worked seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break. During the busy season, the work was nearly non-stop. They were paid about $6 per week. In some cases, they were required to use their own needles, thread, irons, and occasionally their own sewing machines. The factories also were unsanitary, or as a young striker explained, “unsanitary that’s the word that is generally used, but there ought to be a worse one used.” At the Triangle factory, women had to leave the building to use the bathroom, so management began locking the steel exit doors to prevent the “interruption of work” and only the foreman had the key. 

In the Youtube video, “Triangle Returns”, Charles Kernaghan discusses the “Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” which was the deadliest industrial disaster of New York City, and the horror of the 2010 Ha-Meem factory fire in Bangladesh occurring almost 100 years after the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. In Bangladesh, workers work 12 to 14 hours a day and 7 days a week, and 1 day off a month. They live a life that we can’t even imagine. Bangladesh is the 3rd largest export to the governments to the United States. The workers would get $0.28 an hour. When workers protested, demanding just 35 cents an hour as opposed to the 28 cents per hour wage they were being paid because it was just too less, they were denied this by Walmart and other mega-corporations. The workers were beaten by the police in Bangladesh and 80% of them were young women. It feels so sad and heartbroken even nowadays those hard-working women earn $0.28 an hour. 

In the article, “Virginia Just Became the 38th State to Pass the Equal Rights Amendment. I learned that on January 15, Virginia became the latest state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed amendment to the Constitution that guarantees equal rights for women. The Constitution provides that amendments take effect when three-quarters of the states ratify them, putting the current threshold at 38 states. 

My classmate Keven Kimble’s snapshot was very powerful to me. The snapshot was about the Rana Plaza factory which is in Bangladesh the country I came from. The factory collapsed killed 1100 innocent hard-working people. I remember I was watching TV with my whole family and we all were shocked for weeks. There was no protection for all of those hard-working people. I loved Glory Kaul wilson’s snapshot. The snapshot says “ No self-respecting woman should wish or work, for the success of a party that ignores her sex”. I completely agree with it. We need the factory to respect women’s rights and protect their privacy and safety.