Heylee Soto

We as activists can feel powerless, frustrated, depressed, and sick with anxiety. For those of us activists who have learned about the full scope of the present-day scenarios and the coming difficulties, we know we are powerless to stop the forces at hand. Activism enhances a sense of control over your life and combats helplessness and hopelessness. To improve our sense of mattering in the community, and support others in their quest, especially during pandemics, we must join a cause.

Heylee Soto

Since the start of the 20th Century, gender roles have been redefined interchangeably depending on the societal dictates at the time. In other words, masculinity and feminism have been among the most contested issues over time. Public institutions, non-governmental organizations, social activists, and others on the social front; they slowly built powerful momentums on gender equality issues. The continuous differentiation between genders based on physical and mental capabilities only fanned a culture of discrimination. Therefore, the power and identity politics strived at striking a balance between the two genders of the human species. In fact, there was a time when gender roles were so distinct that it was indisputable on what a man should do and shouldn’t do; however, the evolving society dictated otherwise.  In “Too Latina to be Black and Too Black to be Latina,” Aleichia Williams discusses how geography has played a huge role in the shaping of her identity as an Afrolatina. She states, “I feel like it is more of a ‘Southern’ phenomenon that our blackness is more prominent than our Latinidad. It’s not that we don’t want to be Latinas; it’s just that people always remind us that we are black first (Williams).” This shows how geography is able to teach us about ourselves and how we see ourselves. The way people react to you or what they say about you can have a huge impact on how you see yourself. Often times, when people from other countries see someone who is half white and half black, they will assume that person is fully white because those were the people that would have been in power over them for so long. However, people from the U.S. are more likely to assume a half-black person is fully black because of the race relations history of this country with regards to slavery and segregation. When Aleichia Williams was five, her family moved to Puerto Rico. This experience shaped her understanding of who she is—both in terms of her physical body and her cultural identity.

Heylee Soto

One way that geography taught Williams about her body and identity is that it made her aware of the differences between how people were treated based on their race. In the Dominican Republic, she didn’t notice much racism because everyone was dark-skinned and accepted her. When her family moved to New Jersey, however, it was very different: “I developed my racial identity in New Jersey” (Williams). This is where she began to realize that people treated others differently based on their skin color. For example, at school, some people told her that they would treat her differently if they knew what race she really was (because they assumed she wasn’t black), while others judged her because they thought she was trying to act white. She became confused and frustrated because she felt like no one could see past the color. In “To Latina to be Black and Too Black to be Latina,” Aleichia Williams discusses how geography has played a huge role in the shaping of her identity as an Afro-Latina. She states, “I feel like it is more of a ‘Southern’ phenomenon that our blackness is more prominent than our Latinidad. It’s not that we don’t want to be Latinas; it’s just that people always remind us that we are black first (Williams).” This shows how geography is able to teach us about ourselves and how we see ourselves. The way people react to you or what they say about you can have a huge impact on how you see yourself. Oftentimes, when people from other countries see someone who is half white and half black, they will assume that person is fully white because those were the people that would have been in power over them for so long. However, people from the U.S. are more likely to assume a half-black person is fully black because of the race relations history of this country with regards to slavery and segregation. When Alicia Williams was five, her family moved to Puerto Rico. This experience shaped her understanding of who she is—both in terms of her physical body and her cultural identity.

Combahee River Collective was a group of black feminist lesbian organizations active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. They developed the Combahee River Collective Statement. They were an instrument in highlighting that the civil rights movement and the white feminist movement did not address their issues as black lesbians. They wanted to address the issues of the black lesbians since they felt that no other movement addressed them. The issues they promoted included Abortion, Rights Rape, and health care, Sterilization abuse. The Combahee River Collective investigates the relationship between racism, heterosexism, capitalism, and racism in their article “Combahee River Collective Statement.” Combahee River Collective, a group of black feminists, worked to firmly and clearly clarify their viewpoint on feminism politics, thus separating themselves from their male counterparts and white women. The activists focus on four important areas in the statement: the origins of modern Black feminism, the realm of politics, a brief history, and the group’s challenges and practices. The Combahee River Collective Statement challenges the definitions of feminism and antiracism presented by radical feminism and by Black liberation movements and openly critiques their approaches to achieving their goals.   Through this challenge, the Combahee River Collective condemned the suppression of Black women by bringing the matter to the forefront and making it unavoidable.

reading reflection 8

The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi focuses on gender roles and how housework relates to them. Though women do not complain about the power of husbands, each complaint about her own husband, or the husbands of her friends. It is the same in all other cases of servitude; at least in the commencement of the emancipatory movement. The serfs did not at first complain of the power of the lords, but only of their tyranny. Liberated women-very is different from Women’s Liberation! The first signals all kinds of goodies, to warm the hearts (not to mention other parts) of the most radical men. The other signals-HOUSEWORK. The first brings sex without marriage, sex before marriage, cozy housekeeping arrangements (“I’m living with this chick”), and the self-content of knowing that you’re not the kind of man who wants a doormat instead of a woman. That will come later. After all, who wants that old commodity anymore, the Standard American Housewife, all husband, home, and kids? The New Commodity; the Liberated Woman, has sex a lot and has a Career, preferably something that can be fitted in with the household chores-like dancing, pottery, or painting. On the other hand, is Women’s Liberation and housework. What? Do you say this is all trivial? Wonderful! That’s what I thought. It seemed perfectly reasonable. We both had careers, both had to work a couple of days a week to earn enough to live on, so why shouldn’t we share the housework? So I suggested it to my mate and he agreed-most men are too hip to turn you down flat. You’re right, he said. It’s only fair. Then an interesting thing happened. I can only explain it by stating that we women have been brainwashed more than even we can imagine, Probably too many years of seeing television women in ecstasy over their shiny waxed floors or breaking down over their dirty shirt collars. Men have no such conditioning. They recognize the essential fact of housework right from the very beginning. Which is that it stinks.