Author: Claudia

Claudia Domfeh-osafo, Final project

Being a ghanain woman in my family comes with a lot of expectations for me to follow.This memoir is about me being expected to dress , look and act a certain way. I am oppressed in many ways but yet I  benefit from my family’s expectations for me. My family apart from my mother also have expectations from me, to the point that I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. Not following expectations from my family leads to consequences. I’ve seen first hand how my family reacted to a family member that did not follow expectations, that has made me fearful of breaking rules. It is really important for me to follow these rules because I want to feel accepted by family and not feel as if I’m the odd one out.

I remember being around the age of 13 and my mother and I having a conversation on how I should carry myself as a young lady. My expectations of being a woman is to dress respectfully, meaning not showing too much skin, not dressing provocatively.  These expectations are expected by my family but since i’ve been hearing about this for my whole life it started to be an expectation for myself to follow.I asked my mother why I have these expectations. She began to say that it was because of the home we come from. My mother was raised the same way and she told me that if someone was supposed to see me like that, they would think that i didn’t come from a home and i don’t respect myself. My expectations are more than just clothes, it’s more of a representation of my family and me. I am not allowed to have tattoos or smoke, or drink and party till like 12:00 Am, not saying i want to, but in my family if you have or do either or they will view you as a thug or someone who is not educated.  In my family to be viewed as a thug or uneducated, it means you don’t have respect for yourself , you’re always doing something you’re not supposed to do which is something my family can’t stand. It’s unacceptable in my family because  image is everything to them, they don’t want outsiders to think that they have family members who don’t care about themselves. Same for piercings and long colorful nails. I can have a piercing but it has to be one and appropriate size, not huge hoop earrings. As for nails, it definitely can not be long and colorful.  According to my Grandmother “If you have long nails in my family that means you can’t cook or clean and if you can’t cook or clean you’re not a woman”. To elaborate on the quote not a woman, a woman is supposed to clean and cook in the house, so if you don’t do that you’re worthless in your own home, according to my family. Having colorful nails is not acceptable, as a woman you should on have neutral colors, nothing that stands out, that is unlady like. As for my hair, I am allowed to have any hair style I want but nothing crazy, such as colorful hair or a mohawk, things of that sort are not allowed in my family. If I was supposed to show that to my elder family members back home they would look at  me in disgust. I’ve never experienced this personally but I’ve seen how my family reacted to colorful hair styles and they were judging people when looking at them on the television. As a ghanain women I am required to do certain things. I am supposed to dress respectfully, meaning cover up everything. I am supposed to wear either heels or flats, skirts or dresses and pants are ok and shorts but not too short. I am expected to go to school and finish college and have a successful career. When I choose a partner he also has to be going to school and finishing college and also look presentable. If my partner does not have all the qualities that my family wants, it will look really bad on me.

I remember going to Ghana a year ago and meeting my family. When I arrived at my grand uncle’s home, I remember covering my ears because I was scared that he was going to see that I have two piercings in my ear. When I was around the whole family they were asking questions about my life and what I am doing. I made sure to tell them that I was in college to become a psychologist. At first they didn’t look happy, so i made sure to tell them the details on how i was going to get my M.D and become a licensed psychiatrist that prescribed medicine to the patient. My family began to say “oh so you’re going to college to become a doctor”  out of all i said they just heard about doctors, they didn’t care about the field i was working on, they just expected me to become a doctor with a successful career. So I just told them yes. Everybody was happy and telling me that they are proud of me and I’m becoming the woman they expect me to be. There was this one incident where i was not conscious of what i was wearing. My grandmother saw it and said I looked like a mad man because I had ripped jeans on. Another time I had a maxi dress and she told me to take it off and put something else on because the back was showing too much. I Began to feel really bad about how I was dressing and began to be more conscious than I was before on my appearance.

I never knew what the major consequences would happen if one of the females did not follow the expectations until I saw first hand what my family did to my aunt. My aunt was 16 years old when she had my little cousin. That has to be one of the worst things to do in the family because to the outside world she seems like a fast woman trying to do grown up things, which will make the family look bad. Not only did she have a baby at 16 she also did not finish school and as of right now she kind of goes to men to men and her daughter that is 18 right now  does the same online. My family knows that they are that way and have shunned her and her daughter. Shuning in my family is ignoring you anytime you come around and judging you all the time. After seeing the way my family treats my aunt and cousin made me more scared into breaking expectations. I want to feel accepted, my family not shunned. It will break my heart if that was the case with me.

Even though i do not break my expectations and follow everything my family expects from me,  I can’t help but to ask, if i was suppose to wear sneakers and not go to college and possibly worked in fast food restaurant with long colorful nails and purple hair, have tattoos and a nose piercing does that mean i’m not a women. I understand not drinking and not smoking and some other things but to exclude your family member because they made a mistake is not fair , not only that it makes it scary to be around my family because i’m constantly second guessing myself. A lot of expectations have benefited me like cooking and cleaning because now I am independent and don’t need anybody to do things for me. Also when it comes to my appearance and being limited on what I’m supposed to wear or look , I can say that helps me because when anybody sees me they always say i look presentable.  Being a woman is more than appearance or choice of career, it’s about a mindset of being independent and just being respectful to others and yourself.

Claudia Domfeh-osafo, DB13

The discussion we had on relationships last Tuesday was very informative to me and interesting. I always felt that relationships with boy friend or girlfriends or samisen couples only had toxic and jealousy in their relationships. when I was informed about friendships being toxic, I was kind of shocked because the examples that they gave on how friendships could be toxic is something that I have experienced before. my experience was with jealousy but I never notice until the examples that were given. having a toxic relationship with a friend can ruin a friendship or even you as a person. I remember always second guessing my self because a friend of mine always had to put their two cents about everything I was doing or got and it really affected me as person. Now I know that it was jealousy and I needed to remove myself from that relationship.

claudia Domfeh-osafo, Draft

Claudia Domfeh-osafo

Women gender studies

Being a ghanain woman in my family comes with a lot of expectations for me to follow. [GREAT opening; it tells us something about who you are and what this memoir is going to be about.] I am oppressed in many ways but yet I  benefit from them [What is “them” here?] . My family apart from my mother also have expectations from me, to the point that I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. Not following expectations from my family leads to consequences. I’ve seen first hand how my family reacted to a family member that did not follow expectations, that has made me fearful of breaking rules. [–> Here you are sharing the stakes, why this is important to you.]

I remember being around the age of 13 and my mother and I having a conversation on how I should carry myself as a young lady. My expectations— [are these your expectations of yourself or what others expect from you?] of being a woman is to dress respectfully, meaning not showing too much skin, not dressing provocatively. I asked my mother why I have these expectations. She began to say that it was because of the home we come from. My mother was raised the same way and she told me that if someone was supposed to see me like that, they would think that i didn’t come from a home and i don’t respect myself. My expectations are more than just clothes, it’s more of a representation of my family and meI. I am not allowed to have tattoos or smoke, or drink and party till like 12:00 Am, not saying i want to, but in my family if you have or do either or they will view you as a thug or someone who is not educated (see note 1 below). Same for piercings and long colorful nails. I can have a piercing but it has to be one and appropriate size, not huge hoop earrings. As for nails, it definitely can not be long and colorful. If you have long nails in my family that means you can’t cook or clean because you’re not able to with those nails, which means you’re not a woman. To elaborate on the quote not a woman (see note 2 below), a woman is supposed to clean and cook in the house, so if you don’t do that you’re worthless in your own home, according to my family. Having colorful nails is not acceptable, as a woman you should on have neutral colors, nothing that stands out, that is unlady like. As for my hair, I am allowed to have any hair style I want but nothing crazy, such as colorful hair or a mohawk, things of that sort are not allowed in my family. If I was supposed to show that to my elder family members back home they would look at  me in disgust. (see note 3 below)

I have discussed the things i shouldn’t do as a women, as a ghanain women I am required to do certain things. I was taught to clean and cook because when I get married and have children it will be required to do that. I am supposed to dress respectfully, meaning cover up everything. I am supposed to wear either heels or flats, skirts or dresses and pants are ok and shorts but not too short. My nails have to be short and neutral colored. As for my hair it can be styled any way, if i want to dye my hair it has to be black, since my hair is a light brown, no other color is allowed. I am expected to go to school and finish college and have a successful career. When I choose a partner he also has to be going to school and finishing college and also look presentable. If my partner does not have all the qualities that my family wants, it will look really bad on me. (see note 4 below)

I remember going to Ghana a year ago and meeting my family. When I arrived at my grand uncle’s home, I remember covering my ears because I was scared that he was going to see that I have two piercings in my ear. When I was around the whole family they were asking questions about my life and what I am doing. I made sure to tell them that I was in college to become a psychologist. At first they didn’t look happy, so i made sure to tell them the details on how i was going to get my M.D and become a licensed psychiatrist that prescribed medicine to the patient. My family began to say “oh so you’re going to college to become a doctor”  out of all i said they just heard about doctors, they didn’t care about the field i was working on, they just expected me to become a doctor with a successful career. So I just told them yes. Everybody was happy and telling me that they are proud of me and I’m becoming the woman they expect me to be. There was this one incident where i was not conscious of what i was wearing. My grandmother saw it and said I looked like a mad man because I had ripped jeans on. Another time I had a maxi dress and she told me to take it off and put something else on because the back was showing too much. I Began to feel really bad about how I was dressing and began to be more conscious than I was before on my appearance.

I never knew what the major consequences would happen if one of the females did not follow the expectations until I saw first hand what my family did to my aunt. My aunt was 16 years old when she had my little cousin. That has to be one of the worst things to do in the family because to the outside world she seems like a fast woman trying to do grown up things, which will make the family look bad. Not only did she have a baby at 16 she also did not finish school and as of right now she kind of goes to men to men and her daughter that is 18 right now  does the same online. My family knows that they are that way and have shunned her and her daughter. (see note 5 below)After seeing the way my family treats my aunt and cousin made me more scared into breaking expectations. I want to feel accepted, my family not shunned. It will break my heart if that was the case with me.

Even though i do not break my expectations and follow everything my family expects from me,  I can’t help but to ask, if i was suppose to wear sneakers and not go to college and possibly worked in fast food restaurant with long colorful nails and purple hair, have tattoos and a nose piercing does that mean i’m not a women. I understand not drinking and not smoking and some other things but to exclude your family member because they made a mistake is not fair , not only that it makes it scary to be around my family because i’m constantly second guessing myself. A lot of expectations have benefited me like cooking and cleaning because now I am independent and don’t need anybody to do things for me. (see note 6 below)Being a woman is more than appearance or choice of career, it’s about a mindset being independent and just being respectful to others and yourself.

  •  My goal for this essay was to show people what my expectations are as a woman and if someone could possibly relate to me. Seeing how it makes you feel and how we as women go about it because we try to be accepted than be rejected by others. 
  • In my opinion I think I did well on explaining specifics on what my expectations are and how I’m fearful of not following them.
  • I think I need to improve on elaborating more. I think some points that I have made were quite vague but in general I feel like I explained everything very well. 

Claudia Domfeh-osaf0,DB10

Based on the film(s) you watched, what do the victim-survivors say about their experience and how are their stories received– by their family/friends/colleagues, the legal system, the media?

Based on the film I watched, the ted talk. A women was discussing an experience another African American female had faced when trying to get a job. A lot of African American females became victimized based on their gender and race. Multiple jobs were discriminating African American females.

A women named Emma degraffenried decided to take a complaint to court about how she was being mistreated, discriminated by a job because she was a black women. She felt that the job that she was applying for did allow her to work because of her race and gender. when explaining her feelings to judge, he disrespectfully dismissed her case. He stated that the job does not discriminate because they let black people and females work there. what the judge stated is true but what he didn’t explain was the genders. Yes black people worked but it was black men, yes females worked but it was white females. The gender and race were separated. instead of Emma degraffenried being a white women, she is a black women wanting to work, so they didn’t want her working with them. That is discrimination.

Claudia Domfeh-osafo,DB9

When reading “Beyond same-sex ,marriage: A new strategic vision for all our families band relationships” there was a phrase called the “nuclear family” and feminist and queer challenged that quote on how families are suppose to be and look. They wanted to let people to know that they struggle to have the same rights as regular families. The government finds conjugal relationships legitimate instead of same sex marriages, as if they are dismissing them.

the government finds same sex households to be non traditional, meaning that they don’t follow the norms. same sex households are being limited by being called a not normal family. in my opinion I don’t think it matters what house hold your in , same sex , non same sex , whatever you like and you have family , I think you should be seen as a family and have equal rights and treatment.

They are really juts trying to let people recognize them, and not dismissed there feelings on what they call a family. trying to change the status quo, having the opposite sex as parents and a certain amount of kids does not make you a family, having a place to call home and being around people who you love and love you makes a family , it doesn’t matter who is in your family or circle. that’s the point that feminist and queer were trying to make.

Claudia Domfeh-osafo,DB8

reading the article and founding out a lot of information based on the gender wage gap between females and male is informative but disturbing to me.

Based on the article males get payed way more than females, such as HR managers, males make more money than females. males in that field make 2,019 dollars compared to females, they make 1,538 dollars. At first I never understood why men made more money than females even when participating in the same field.

The article also states that the reasoning for females making less money than men is mainly because of discrimination. Most females will become a mother at a point in time, so their job may feel that they are a liability. When a female has a child they usually take off work for a couple of months, so I guess their job feels that they shouldn’t get payed as much as men because the men does not take off at work when having a child, which means they are being more proactive and adding more benefits to their job.

In my opinion I don’t feel that men should get payed more than females, especially if they are doing the exact same thing . Its not like they have different positions at their job, if it was that, then I would understand.

From my own knowledge, I know that some work environments pay females more than man. When it comes to the mechanic work force , females get payed more as of today. Even though we are still struggling to get the gender wage gap to an equal pay , I feel the we are slowly getting there. but not just yet.

Claudia Domfeh-osafo,DB7

When reading the article ” Transgender people and bathroom access” I found out a lot of information and also making connections based off of the information I gathered from the article.

I found out that many transgender women that uses the bathroom based on what gender they prefer to be gets assaulted by people in the bathroom because of what they choose to be. I know that a lot of people don’t accept transgenders but to physically assault them because they feel like using the bathroom they feel to use is truly wrong. Another thing that I have read in the article was that they wanted transgenders to use their own private bathrooms because some people feel that are a threat and feel uncomfortable around them in bathroom.

A connection that I have with this article is when I had sociology and we were discussing transgenders having equal opportunities. A student in my class was saying that how they shouldn’t share a bathroom with us because she feels uncomfortable, and I said I don’t think that’s fair because at the end of the day they are human and they have feelings, they should share the same opportunities as us ,in my opinion.

Claudia Domfeh-osafo, DB6

I don’t have a specific meme or song that helps inspire or motivate me , but there is this quote that my mother tells me all the time when I’m feeling overwhelmed with life In general or even school. it has helped me become resilient to most situations and I feel that this quote can help my class mates or even my professor.

“If you can’t fix or change it , don’t dwell on it “

That saying that my mother says goes a little more deeper. If you are going through something and its fixable , go ahead and keep trying and make it a better situation than it is . But if you are going through something and it can’t be changed , don’t stress your self out or become overwhelmed , keep moving forward.

Claudia Domfeh-osafo, DB5

When reading the article and watching the film, theme is more of equality , oppression and safety. The article summarizes the fact that colored females go through a lot of negative aspects in life and not only that they are not granted the same opportunities. when watching the film I can say it sends the same message but its more about females coming together and protecting themselves and also fighting for their equal rights.

In the article the “Black feminism and the combahee river collective” it gave examples on what colored women faced in society it was more than not being able to vote, it was about how they were being treated. For example,”we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression”. This quote lets me know that they face a lot limitations just because they are women. The film also showed things like that, but it showed women protecting themselves( learning to fight) , it seems like black women were being targeted a lot. they came up with a way to protect themselves by learning how to fight and protesting about it and calling their movement “Women’s War”.

my thought about this writing and film is that its interesting and informative. in my mind I believed that females only faced limitations on voting and equal rights. now learning that females were harmed ,beaten, raped ,etc is shocking to me because that never crossed my mind.

I feel that some of these issues resonant today because when it comes to female being harassed and sexual assaulted , that still happens. There are allegations on a lot of men pertaining to them harassing females. when you watch the news sometimes you do hear about men beating other women but I can say when it comes to equal rights that has changed for the better today. Females in careers that they have pay the same as men or even more, such as engineering. females tend to have a bigger paycheck than men.

Claudia Domfeh-osafo, DB4

My reflections on this weeks reading is that I’ve notice most readings had something to do with women having the same opportunities as men. To go into more depth with my statement , in most articles it discussed how women were oppressed (limited) and they wanted to change that, such as the right to vote , which led to the women’s suffrage movement.

Themes that I see across different text this week are mostly about change and equality. the reason why I say this because when reading the text about abolition slavery and the other text about the women’s movement , both text send the same message , changing the way society treats certain communities (women and African Americans) and treat them better and give them the same opportunities that they would give a white man.

The prime issue that concerns feminist in the late 1960’s to 1970’s was mostly equal rights , but the first subject of equal rights that they pushed was the right to vote.

When reading “Is it a crime to vote” There were different concerns on the men side pertaining to women voting, which was that fact that it was alas that only men can vote because they felt that they had better judgment than women. but what made it worse for women was when a women decided to vote and got her self into legal trouble. the men felt that a women voting is a crime . Ive notices that the men and women’s mindset were totally different at the time. Men felt that a women voting would not be beneficial but women felt that they should have the same opportunities as men because they can bring a lot to the table just like men.