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Reflection #6

Ignoring a female’s pain start early life for women, young girl’s pain gets downplayed from the moment they start their period. Young girls’ cramps are often seen as overreactions to what they are truly are experiencing, instead they are given ibuprofen and told to get used to the pain, that it is normal to have that pain. I have seen first hand how the pain of cramps would be dismissed. From the first day my sister began having her period, she would get sharp death like pain more severe than the common cramps a girl could get. For three years doctors, parents, and family members were very dismissive her pain, they told her pain as an overreaction to what should have been mild cramps. As if they were living in her body and could determine that her lying on the floor crying from pain was an over dramatic situation she was creating. It was not until my sister changed doctors and the doctors recommended an ultrasound that it was discovered that she had an ovarian cyst similar to Rachel’s cyst. The pain my sister was feeling and suffered through took three years to be validated. It was the  changing in doctors that saved my sister’s health, now her cyst is regularly monitored. Looking for another doctor, who would listen to her pain, may have saved my sister from having the similar outcome as Rachel’s sadly had.

Rachel spent 14 and ½ hours in the ER having nurses and doctors downplaying her pain, a pain that could have ended fatal. Rachel had an ovarian torsion that could have caused her to lose her ovarian or worst her life, for more than half of a day she was in an ER not being attended for what she truly need life saving care for. You go the hospital thinking that you would be safe because those professionals know how to determine what is wrong with you, however, being a woman your pain is placed under a lens. It is shocking that there are no attending OB-GYNs or/and there is a time limit for ultrasounds as if women can control if they have an emergency that needs to be attend by OB-GYN. A doctor giving kidney medicine without their knowledge, never looking at what the CT scan came back with, left me shocked and fearful. Fearful of whether I would be heard if I ever was in pain, will I be heard or silenced all because of my gender.

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Reflection #5

The prison system in the United States has two main objectives, imprison minorities and people of color and profit from those they keep captive. The prison system does not seek to help those who need rehabilitation instead it seeks to punish those in need of assistance. America's prison system is based on profits, profits from human beings that may have been target or did not have the resources to escape crime. Inmates can work within the prisons, however, they do not get paid the same amount as person that was not in prison would have gotten paid.

This year, in August, Californian inmates were paid $1 a day to help fight the forest fires that were occurring in California. Inmates were risking their lives to help fight the forest fires in California, yet they were still looked at as less than, getting paid less than 1/11 of the minimum wage for risking their lives. Theses inmates volunteered to help fight fires, but were given barely anything to risk their lives to help the individuals, communities and animals within those communities. Inmates are used as cheap labor for private corporations and government services, such as making license plates. Once a person enters the prison system they become dehumanized, their rights are taken away to less than human rights. Inmates are used as cheap labor, lose the right to vote and are given a perspective of being a danger to society from the moment they enter prison to after they get out of prison.

Communities that could benefit from the introduction of new resources to help better the community instead are targeted because the individuals within that community are low income, minority individuals. If the American prison system were to focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment, inmates would learn skills to find jobs when they get end their sentence. By creating resources in communities and providing resources within prisons individuals who would be targeted and placed in an endless cycle of being targeted, will have the ability to escape the prison system that targets them so harshly.

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Reflection 4

While reading the article, The “Seductive Allure” of Neuroscience, a statement made by Leonard Sax resonated with me. Leonard Sax stated that the reasoning for which girls and boys performed differently in science and math is due to the educational system. Sax was basing his reasoning of the development of the female and male brain. Sax stated that the aspect of the brain responsible for the language and fine motor skills develop at six years old for females and four years old for males. I agree with one point made by Sax, the issue lies partially in the educational system, when students learn about the STEM field most of the famous successful STEM influencers and researchers that are presented are males. Not educating children equally about scientific advancements and research done by all genders limits students ability to see themselves in certain field of interest.

Teaching STEM to middle schooler, I know first hand that most student can not name a female STEM researchers and influencer, but can name several male STEM researchers and influencers. Students signing up for the coding program are usually male students, not many female students wanted to sign up. I personally believe that examples give to students matters, if you do not see someone who “looks like you” in an area of study you likely may never be encouraged or inspired to go into that field. Young children must have equal opportunities at seeing individuals of their gender, race, culture and ethnic when they learn about STEM so that each child has the ability to make the decision on whether it is a field of interest for them. It is within middle school that most girls move away from science and math and it is not because of their abilities it because of the way in which society has created a guided paths for what a person should be interested in based on their gender. If you are exposed to something more and have the resources to develop a specific skill more than it would make sense that those individuals would perform better on tasks testing those skills.

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Reflection #3

Before reading the Crenshaw article, I had never heard of intersectionality, I never really analyzed the aspects that intertwine within intersectionality. For many years, I first saw avocation through one general lens, I thought that through advocating people would be advocating or creating resources to benefit everyone within that group. While reading the article, the situation that occurred with the women’s shelter and the non-english speaking women shocked me. I still do not understand how an organization that wants to help women find a place to go to when they are being abused, would limits who they allow in. These limitation only influence and set back one group of people, within this case it was a non-english speaking women. Even with the woman’s son volunteering to translate the rules of the women’s shelter to his mother, the shelter still denied access to the women, this part in particular shocked me the most. If the issue was the understanding the rules of the shelter having a translator should have fixed that problem, however, in this woman’s case it made no difference.

The shelter example demonstrates how intersectionality is such a large part of many individuals’ lives, in this example, non-english speaking women. Women struggle with finding resources that will help them leave abusive environments, however, when the resources are created large groups of women are often left out. Advocating and creating resources to help women and then limiting which women receive those resources is like building a home and only putting glass on the windows’ of one side of the house, eventually, the house, as whole, will be suffer damages due to lack of protection on the other side of the house. When addressing women’s rights, it must be made sure that women of every race, gender, social class, age, sexual orientation and disability are being protected in the same form with the same resources available for all.

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Reflection #2 - “I Don’t Belong Here” Reflection

The form in which women and men are individually  addressed creates this reinforces who belongs where. In the article, the tutor of an undergraduate student during the 70’s would post two types of questions; one being addressed to “clever” men and “domestic question for dumb girls”.  The words by in which women and men are addressed can influence the extent to which either gender feels they belong.

After reading this article, the idea of not belonging stuck with me, as I arrived to work my boss informed us that we would be getting a new type of dress code for work. As the meeting progress I realized female staff members were the only ones that were being addressed on the rules of what to wear to work; no tight clothes, no jeans, no distracting shirts, no short shorts, no short dress/skirt and no tank tops because they are distracting. I waited for the time that males staff members would be given their rules, but the time never came. It almost never does. It is hard to work in an environment where the female body is being regulated and guided while the male body is allowed to be free. A work environment where the boss, another female, reinforces the idea that women are distracting for males. I can never feel that I belong if my body is told it does not belong because it is too “distracting”. Working at a school there is a need for professionals, we are in fact role models for the students we teach, I understand the rule. However, I do not understand why males would be left out of the picture when it comes to dress code regulations.

I, like many of others, went to an uniform high school, meaning I had to wear the same clothes every single day, 5 days a week. My school had a strict uniform dress code, men had to wear grey with a white polo shirt and girls could wear grey pants or skirt with a white polo. However, if it was almost always that females students would be the only ones getting trouble for dress code violation. Girls would be examined to determine whether their pants were too tight or the skirt was too short. My principal, an adult male,  was looking at all the female students skirts to check for correct height and pants for tightness. Imagine being a high school student and for four years one of your biggest concerns was whether your skirt would get you in trouble. How could you feel like you belong if your skirt is stopping you from getting a solid education?

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Reflection #1: Gender Education

The idea of raising children in a gender neutral household conceptually is a good idea, however, the methodology in which Sandra Bem and Daryl Bem used to create a gender neutral household had its limitations. The extent to which the Bem’s explained gender does not correlate to my personal perspective on gender. Gender is not defined solely or with the most importance being genitala. The Bem’s as parents created a definition, formulated by their own perspective, as to what gender is for their children.  Parent’s often build the foundation of gender roles and gender stereotypes with peers being the reforcers of the developed gender roles.

Personally, in my household, gender roles were never engraved in the minds of either gender, women and men are encouraged to develop, explore and aspire to be what we wanted regardless of our gender. Instead, as children were giving tools and encouraged to stand up for ourselves when someone tried to limit our own aspiration due to their predetermined views on gender.  A key part of development is addressing that gender stereotypes do exist, however, it is essential that parent’s address that gender stereotypes are not factual representations.

Giving children the confidence to distinguish between what society has laid out as their expected identity and their own identity formulated by themselves is key. Giving children the power to distinguish and identify on their own identity and expectation for themselves also gives the individual child the power to educate and encourage other children, and later on adults, that gender roles and gender stereotypes a limiting factors of today’s society that do not have to be key influencers in their individual aspiration and identity.