Extra Credit 2

During the week before the OU/Texas, I worked with the Women's Outreach Center to pass out fliers and information about Sexual Assault Awareness Week. At a booth outside the radio station in the Union, we handed out condoms with "Got Consent?" written on them and bracelets reading "Designated Thinker." The idea was a play on "designated driver" and it was just to remind people to be careful in a fun and creative way.

We also handed out pamphlets with more serious information about sexual assault and places students could go if they did suffer assault. That was about it. We gave away quite a few bracelets in the two days I was there. I think people were too embarrassed to take the condoms, although one student came up and grabbed a large handful. Not that I'm judging.

Blog 12

One organization that I am involved in on campus is the GLBTF (Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgendered, and Friends). Mostly this is because I have quite a few friends in the group, but I support all the work they're trying to do on campus for people of alternate sexualities.

On their website, ou.edu/glbtf, they give the following description:

"GLBTF is a student organization at the University of Oklahoma that caters to the GLBT students on campus and in the community. We are a social organization that strives to meet the needs of our students in various ways, including educational speakers, entertainment, social outings, and support."

One of the current objectives of the GLBTF is a petition to get more co-ed housing on campus. The reason for this is that people who may identify with a gender other than their birth gender are being forced to live according to their sex. Or a person who may just be uncomfortable living with their same gender has to do so unless they can somehow get housing off campus. This isn't an option for freshmen and so the GLBTF is writing Daily articles and getting signatures for a Housing bill.

They also do a lot of activities to educate people on campus and in the Norman community about gay people and gay rights. Just before Thanksgiving, for example, they (along with the student film organization) hosted a showing of "The Bubble," a movie about two gay men living in Israel. The GLBTF goes beyond gender on campus and works to educate everyone about human rights all over the world. It's wonderful.

One of the things I like most about this group is they aren't at all bitter or aggressive. They get things done by being persistent, patient, and friendly. Next semester I plan to go to as many meetings/events with them as possible to help them further their causes. I'm heterosexual, but they're working every day to get equal rights for all students on campus and I fully support that.

Paper 2

Paper 2—Kabul Beauty School

The documentary film Kabul Beauty School details the struggle of a group of American and Afghani women to start a beauty school in post 9/11 Afghanistan. Although the film deals with the many challenges of women in Afghanistan to gain equality with men, one of the most striking elements of the film is the similarity of the challenge the Afghani students face to balance their work life and the need to care for their family and children. Like women in America, women in Afghanistan are expected to take care of most domestic tasks, even when they are the primary source of their family’s income.

In her essay “The Opt-Out Revolution,” Lisa Belkin describes the conflict American women in high-paying corporate jobs experience between the responsibilities they feel toward their job and their perceived responsibilities toward their family. For example, she says, “while a national correspondent in Houston I learned you can’t hop on a plane every morning to explore the wilds of Texas while leaving a nursing baby back home” (Belkin 6). Belkin struggles to satisfy her love of her job with her need to fulfill the definition of a “good mother” and her career suffers because of it—she leaves a high-paying job to become a freelance news writer working from home.

The life of the women in Kabul was a much more tragic and extreme example of this same scenario. One of the women in the school, Nazira, brings some of her American teachers to her home to see what her life is like when she is not at school. Like Belkin, although her job brings in much more money than her husband, she is still expected to care for her entire family, cooking, cleaning, and caring for her in-laws. She must work extremely long hours to accomplish all of this and her career as a beautician suffers because of it. Her husband, like Belkin’s, is not expected to play any role in the domestic duties of the household.

This is not to say that American women are anywhere close to being in the same situation as the women in Afghanistan. We are not. We experience on a daily basis more freedom than women like Nazira even believe is possible. And yet, it’s interesting that Deborah Rodriguez, the author of the book on which the film is based, presents herself as better informed about the “right way” women should live, when American women are still dealing with the same problems as their Afghani sisters. Rodriguez says in an interview, “I always feel pressured to fix everything because I am American” (“Author Interview”).

Although Rodriguez may have originally intended Kabul Beauty School to draw attention to the horrible circumstances of women in Afghanistan and their struggles to overcome them, she also serves, whether consciously or unconsciously, to echo a serious problem facing women in the United States—the very women who were supposed to show Afghanistan a better way of life. Kabul Beauty School shows us that women everywhere need to work together to redefine the expectations of gender if we are all ever to truly be liberated. The issues facing the women in Afghanistan are global are global ones and show us that we need to work more for global solutions.

Blog 11

For my NGO, I chose a group called RHIYA in Bangladesh, which stands for EU/UNFPA Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia. This group basically works to bring sex education and gender sensitivity education to people age 10-24 in countries where traditional values may prevent this important information from being given to young people.

This group’s work is a gender issue because older members of many Bangladesh communities tend to view young people who are knowledgeable about sexual issues as immoral, especially if those young people are women. In Bangladesh, women are at a greater risk of reproductive and sexual health problems and are generally less likely to receive education about these issues. This group will help put an end to that.

Since the group’s founding in Bangladesh, contraceptive use has increased from 60-78% and young people’s knowledge of STDs has increased from 1.5-20.6%. It’s important that RHIYA has the funding and support to bring education to women in these areas would otherwise be at a higher risk for unwanted pregnancy, STDs, and HIV/AIDS.

This group is relatively unknown in the United States, so reviews are few and far between, but in countries where RHIYA operates, like Bangladesh, the response has been mostly positive. Their website is http://www.asia-initiative.org/bangladesh.php?area=2&page=1&option=1

Blog 10

I think men put on the “tough guise” because they think it gives them power and respect, especially with women. In movies, books, and television, women are portrayed as always falling for the strong, independent man (like Clint Eastwood), instead of a man who freely expresses vulnerability and emotion.

Men of color in particular, like the video said, use this guise because they feel like they have no other way to gain respect in our culture. They don’t have access to education, high-paying jobs, and political influence like white men do and so they resort to the tough guy image.

I think, honestly, that this image makes things worse for men of color. The tough guy persona carries with it a stereotype of danger and unpredictability (you never know if Clint Eastwood or, say, the Godfather, is going to kill you or save you). I think this makes it even more difficult for “tough” men of color to get jobs from white employers. It’s not fair and it’s not right, but white employers might assume that the “tough” colored man will be less reliable than another employer. They might assume he will start fights and just generally be less effective in the work force. They’ll probably never look past his front of dangerous behavior to who he is as a person.

And yet, as harmful as the media’s portrayal of colored men is to them, it hasn’t stopped. I would even suggest that it’s used by white culture as a way to separate and control men of color or to justify giving them unequal treatment. And men feed this discrimination by playing up to the image of the “tough guy” as the best form of masculinity, instead of presenting themselves to the world as the sensitive, emotionally well-rounded people they really are.

Blog 9

From what I could find on the internet, the responses to Belkin’s essay are varied, but fall into three main categories—those that agree with her, those that don’t believe her, and those that actively disagree with her.

Many people agree with her, that it’s fine for women to opt out of the workforce (or partly out of the workforce) in order to create more satisfying lives with their families.

But not everyone believes that this is even happening. Columbia Journalism Review argues that women’s participation in the workforce has steadily increased over the years and that this shows that women are even more influential than they have ever been. http://www.cjr.org/essay/the_optout_myth.php

Mother’s Movement Online agrees that the trend exists, but argues that this trend is a negative one, not a positive change for women. They argue that women who become housewives lose their financial security and run the risk of their supporting marriage not working and leaving them out on the street. http://www.mothersmovement.org/essays/KAGranju0401.htm

But I don’t see sacrificing some money and power in order to be with your family as a bad thing. My mother gave up a job as a career counselor for a powerful business in order to go back to college and get her teacher’s certification and become a high school teacher. I’ve asked her why before, and she told me she realized that my sister and I were growing up without her and she hated it. She and my father both teach high school and were both very present all throughout my childhood.

I don’t think my mother regrets leaving her higher paying job. I don’t think I’ll even have one. I want to be a writer and, if I ever have children, I’ll want to spend a lot of time with them, even if my career suffers a little because of it.

As far as childcare for my children, I think my parents will move closer to wherever I end up so that they can be closer to my kids. That’s what my grandparents did when my sister and I were born, and they took care of me after school and on days when my parents couldn’t be there. That would be my ideal situation, hopefully with my partner taking time off with me.

Blog 8

When I started planning my life on minimum wage for myself and three other people, I realized that it’s practically impossible. An apartment for four people (with utilities) would be at least four hundred dollars and child care another couple of hundred alone. That’s at least half of my minimum wage budget.

The only food I could afford was things like ramen, soup, and macaroni and cheese. I could barely afford any meat or dairy at all and had a hard time fitting in fruits and vegetables. I would hate to have to raise children on such a diet. They would be malnourished and miserable eating the food I could afford. At the very least, they would be constantly protein deficient, which is very dangerous for growing kids.

I don’t think it’s possible to live on such meager funds. Maybe I could do it by myself (I’m a college kid, after all), but children need much more than noodles and diapers. They need clothes, vacations, toys, etc. Children need pets and to not have to worry about getting kicked out of their home.

Not to mention how completely helpless I would be if anyone in my family needed medical care. I remember a few weeks ago, I was having problems with my insurance company and I ended up paying for some of my pills on my own. Thirty days of medication cost me nearly two hundred dollars. There is no way I could afford medical care or insurance on my minimum budget. I don’t know what I would do except take out a loan, but who is going to loan money to someone who can’t pay it back?

I thought I would be able to complete my budget because I’m fairly frugal and a college student from a lower middle-class family, but there just wasn’t enough money in a month for it to work. I don’t know how people live on minimum wage. I couldn’t do it.