“a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” The authors definition is a fitting one that coincides with what i have read about the movement of feminism. Bell Hooks eloquently sums up some of the mistreatments and hurdles females have faced along the years, fighting basically for there dignity. While this definition is one I agree with, understood and may rally behind. The part that does not sit well with me is the oppression part, I feel as thou to really experience female oppression one would have to travel outside of the west. However this is not the Olympics of oppression. I was familiar with the movement of feminism just not in detail. Feminism then was deemed more towards giving females a foundation of equality to stand on, ending institutionalized sexism . The feminism of now seems to pick and choose there targets , also removing the spotlight from black woman who were there at the inception in place of the white woman victims. The equality around the board that was preached within Feminism is for everybody has been destroyed. Instead its been rebuilt into this a finger pointing man ruining machine that has everyone walking on eggshells. Maybe its karma ? who knows but it is slowly getting more and more out of control. The sex and gender 101 was interesting but nothing groundbreaking as I have seen this same reoccurring theme played tirelessly over the last couple of years. The reading attempts to broaden the spectrum of what biological sex by coming up with new labels for peoples personal likes and who or what they identify with. Labels I feel I should not have to memorize or care to remember. Lets say you are a “Cis” gender person , does that automatically make you a good person because that’s all i really care about . I also do not understand why it is so hard to understand that men and woman are different biologically, mentally, sexually . The author states that that they refuse to subscribe to the idea that a persons sex is unchangeable. As much as you don’t subscribe to it does not make it less true that biologically men cannot give birth, men cannot get there period , woman cannot produce sperm it cant happen and no amount of unsubscribing or science and detour that from being any less of a truth. If we start subscribing to the idea that identity falls along multiple spectrums rather then dichotomous boxes, where does it end?. I appreciate the reading for what it is and I am sure this is not the last author to push this convoluted ideology.
14 thoughts on “Antione Malave Discussion 2”
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Antione, I’m gong to have to agree with all that you are saying. The oppression part did not sit well with me either. Oppression, slaves were oppressed. While most groups faced bias or discrimination. I believe it comes no where near the level of oppression. The thought of labels doesn’t sit with me either. I believe that you know who you are and not everyone should know what you identify yourself with. You can be any gender and be a terrible person. We shouldn’t treat anyone any different. Being kind and careful should be at the forefront of it all.
THank you jessica
Hello
I found it interesting that you feel we haven’t been oppressed as badly as other places and while you may be right. It think it makes sense to note that we cannot help anyone while our own house is not in order. I say in order to make change we need to change what goes on in this country. Statistics on murdered women and how often it is a male in their lives is astounding and also mentioning unequal pay. Feminism in my opinion is supporting the freedom of women everywhere and i liked the term oppression olympics thank you for sharing your views.
Excellent point Gee.
Anytime i welcome any and all discussion its what makes for a great conversation and even possibly some new friends.
Hi Antione, I agree with you about how horrible the oppression that existed within the patriarchy was in its time. In itself, the feminism movement was a great stage to be able to have women’s rights in motion. As well as, I totally agree on how the original idea was about how to have equality and that now they only focus on being able to target the man, distorting this term. I also feel, just as you explained about sex and gender 101, in a certain way they focus on how those beliefs about genders were held at that time and how they can be different from each other. I feel that as long as everything is respected and accepted, it is the way in which today can continue to grow.
You can’t respect and accept people of all genders if you don’t acknowledge their existence.
Sorry professor! I would like to ask why you can’t accept and respect the different genres if you don’t know them? It’s just that I feel, that no matter how much you don’t know about a genre, you would accept it and respect it because it’s not something that don’t bothers your life, it’s their life, for that you shouldn’t criticize someone for how they feel. At the same time, I know there are a lot of genres and ways of seeing them, and I personally accept and respect them, but it’s not because I know each and every one of them, it’s more because it’s something it shouldn’t affect me since it is their life, and I am not one to criticize them.
Hi Food – First, I don’t think “genre” is the right word, but I can’t tell you what the right word is. Maybe “identity categories”? Good question, and let me clarify. I am not saying you have to know all of the possible identity categories in the world. I am saying if you DENY that a category is legitimate, then you are not accepting or respecting a person. For example, if someone says “I am nonbinary” and your reply “That’s not real, are you a man or a woman?” you are not accepting or respecting them. If you argue that an identity category doesn’t exist, then you aren’t respecting the person or acknowledging who they are. I’m not talking about if you don’t know about an identity category, but someone tells you they identify with it. We can’t know everything. And, in that case, you could ask them what they mean.
Oh! I understand now professor!, thank you very much for your explanation, I was very confused about it and how we can demonstrate support to everyone with their identity categories in a correct way.
Hi Antione,
I feel I have to disagree with your points on oppression and gender.
I agree, this shouldn’t be the “olympics” of oppression, measuring injustices against one another is unproductive and frequently a tool used by oppressors to justify the continuation of their cruel or unjust control. To reuse the previous example of slavery, when slaves were freed, white America has continued develop new systems of oppression; the 13th amendment abolished slavery but led to mass incarceration; the Jim Crow era; to our current battles with voter suppression. To say that black America is no longer oppressed because they are no longer enslaved, or because people in other parts of the world, would be false and would enable their continued oppression.
I don’t know if you listened to the Supreme Court Arguments on Mississippi abortion, but I found them chilling. The law bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy with limited exceptions for medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormality. Justice Coney Barrett argued that the suitable alternative for a woman seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy was to carry it to term to be given up for adoption. to not take into account the massive health risks a woman faces in childbirth and carrying a child to term, not to mention the the emotional trauma of carrying the pregnancy through to childbirth (especially in cases of incest or rape), or to take into account the the potential economic effects of a pregnancy. To force a woman to carry a pregnancy through to childbirth and take away her bodily autonomy, if that’s not oppression, then I don’t know what is.
When it comes to gender, perhaps you have had no cause in life to question you own gender, but I would argue that your gender is part of your identity. Just as this is true fr you this is true for many people fall outside of the norms of gender within the spectrum. To say that you don’t care is to deny that person of a huge part of their identity and lived experience. The same would be true if I were for instance to say to black woman that I don’t care about her race or gender, they are of no consequence to me. I have immediately diminished who they are and the context of their life.
It is also not helpful to reduce gender to biological sex. The scientific truth is that we do not just have biological males and females, there are many people who are intersex. To say a man can’t be a woman because he can’t give birth? There are plenty of biological women who for various reasons are reproductively challenged and incapable of becoming pregnant. Does this make them a man? I think if anything your point highlights why it is important that we reevaluate the ways in which we define gender, because the essential fact is there are very few universal truths when it comes to gender, and that is what I believe “Sex & Gender 101” was trying to illustrate.
Thank you for this thoughtful response, Neil.
I have heard what they have done in Mississippi was i surprised ? no I wasn’t. Is it disgusting that men are making laws about what woman should do with there bodies ? absolutely. Maybe I don’t care was the wrong way to put it , perhaps a better way of saying it would be when you try and make me care i definitely wont. You agree with me in certain parts and i think you would more if look at it from my perspective for a moment. To say that you don’t care about a black woman’s race or gender is perfectly fine its your right to care or not to care it would be cool if you did but whether you do or don’t is your business. I can disagree with someone’s lifestyle and not have it mean i want you and your kind erased from the earth i can still sit down and have tea with you . Since you said we dont just have a biological man and a biological woman What is a biological man? What is a biological woman? we all came out of a biological woman so thats one thing we have in common dont we but i would like you to define those terms you used for me please.
In the next few weeks, we will be reading about what oppression actually is. We will also read Audre Lorde’s “There Is No Hierarchy of Oppression.” I hope these readings will help you rethink the statement “to really experience female oppression one would have to travel outside of the west”. Oppression takes many forms and they are all important to understand. Furthermore, most of the time when people suggest things are worse in other places, that often comes from a lack of cultural understanding of these other places and is based on sensationalized things they see in western media. Lastly, feminism is global – so we ARE talking about nonwestern societies as well.
I appreciate your thinking through these issues and hope the readings will help you have a deeper understanding. It’s true that these labels might not be important to you, but they are very important to others. And if you only care about people being “good people” then you would have to acknowledge that. And not having words to define yourself is part of oppression. I certainly don’t want you to memorize labels because language is always changing. But you have to understand these theories in this class as stated in the learning outcomes, whether you adopt them as your own or not.
There are men who have periods. There are women who do not and/or who cannot give birth. There is far more variation within biology and it’s not getting rid of “science” but it is looking at all of the information we sweep under the rug. Science is an interpretation. In this class, we will use the model of the spectrum and not the binary. I hope that you can be open to seeing things through this lens. You can take the lens off and crush it when the semester is over if you wish.