Gender and Disability

GWS 300 // Kendall Russell

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Unit 5: Able-mindedness, Madness, Neurodiversity, and Trauma

Keyword: Mental Disability/Illness

Often, mental disability is not grouped in under the spectrum of disability. People often shy away from this sort of inclusion due to fear of being grouping into the disabled community which has had many negative stereotypes and media representations. “Although I use mental disability as my own term of choice, I continue to use others as needed, and my overall argument is for deployment of language in a way that operates as inclusively as possible, inviting coalition while also attending to the specific texture of individual experiences,” (Price 298). While people have the right to choose how they wish to be labeled, it’s important to understand that mental illness is a disability. To put this in a real world perspective, in the classroom it’s generally accepted for a student to miss class due to a flare up of their physical disability. But if a student missed class due to an anxiety disorder or other mental illness, teachers and professors might not take that as seriously as someone with a physical disability. This goes back to having “proof” of your disability. Many professors/institutions require something like a doctor’s note in order for the absence to be excused and the student allowed to make up the work. If mental illness was generally accepted as a disability, then more students would be successful in that they don’t fear missing classes or that if they do miss classes they can make up the work and not get behind. 

Price, Margaret. “Defining Mental Disability.” In The Disability Studies Reader.

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Unit 4: Disability, Access, and the Built Environment

Keyword: Access

Most non-disabled people don’t typically have to think twice about taking the bus or going into a building for the first time or being able to get the things they need to eat/drink at a restaurant. But for many disabled people this is the first thing on their mind. It is a privilege to not have to spend time thinking about these things that might seem trivial to a lot of people. Access is important because every person deserves the same right to public transportation, to access to classroom buildings, grocery stores, libraries, gas stations, bathrooms, etc. While access has gotten better than in the past there is still a long way to go. “Disabled people in urban areas have stories of being left waiting for paratransit, of the appointments they miss and the opportunities they lose out on. Stories of accessible busses passing them by or stopping too far from the sidewalk to enter” (McMahon). I took the bus almost every day to campus. Sometimes there would be two busses that stop at the same stop within five minutes of each other leaving those who missed it to wait for 15-20 minutes for the next one. As we talked about in class, a lot of disabled people need more time to get to certain places and if the bus if their only means of transportation this could cause people to miss appointments or other important functions they need to get to on time. Another important place in terms of access are bathrooms. “Everyone should be able to find a bathroom that conforms to the needs of their body” (Chess et al. 220) Of course every bathroom usually has the “handicap” stall but depending on how modern it is or if it’s even available, a lot of times this restroom isn’t accessible for all people who might need it. 

Christian McMahon, “What Transportation Access Really Means for Disabled People.”

Simone Chess, Alison Kafer, Jessi Quizar, and Mattie Udora Richardson, “Calling all Restroom Revolutionaries!”

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Unit 3: Reflection

This has definitely been the craziest few weeks of my life. From finding out we would be online for the rest of my senior semester and graduation being postponed (literally right after I ordered graduation announcements with the old graduation date on them!!!) to having to file for unemployment at age 21. I am nervous about paying my bills and not going crazy stuck in my house for who knows how long. I am incredibly sad that my final semester of college was stolen away and there’s nothing I can do about it. I am trying to stay positive, clean my house, spend time with my cat, and be there for my friends and family. 

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Unit 2: Crip Theory Lite

Keyword: Future

In this unit, we talked a lot about the future and specifically what the future means for disabled people. When thinking about the future, it is often imagined as a great place, a place of equality and justice. But more realistically, the future can seem scary to many disabled folks. Some people conceptualize the future as a dark place and are right in their conceptualization because of the society we currently live in. As Allison Kafer said in Intro: Imagined Futures, “How one understands disability in the present determines how one imagines disability in the future; one’s assumptions about the experience of disability creates one’s conceptions of a better future” (2). Kafer also mentions that if we continue to imagine a “perfect” future (read: a future without disability) then we are completely erasing the histories and realities of disabled people today (3). 

It’s important to think about the future in disability studies for many reasons. Technology is always advancing and we never know when the next breakthrough could happen to aid people with chronic pain or help folks with mobility difficulties (if they choose to receive such help).  It is important to acknowledge that too often disabled people are not thought of in discussions of the future and it is only a better future if disabled people are no longer present in that future. As Kafer points out in Chapter 3 of Feminist, Queer, Crip, “The use of reproductive technology by certain people—such as disabled people, queers, single parents, people of color—is patrolled and restricted, with ‘nontraditional’ users brought under strict surveillance. This surveillance is cast then, not as a political decision, or a potentially discriminatory one, but as an obviously necessary step toward a better life” (82).

Kafer brings up the case of Deaf lesbians purposefully raising a Deaf son in Chapter 3. These women were heavily criticized for their decision but it was not just because they were Deaf that made people look down on them, it had to do with their other identities (sexuality) that caused people to see them as unfit. People of all different races, sexualities, class, ability, and age can be great parents but once you step out of that normative view of what a family should look like people begin to criticize. The future is important here because if the perfect future is one without disability then that limits our mindsets on who can be good parents and who cannot.  

Kafer, Allison.“Intro: Imagined Futures.” In Feminist, Queer, Crip.

Kafer, Allison. “Chapter 3: Debating Feminist Futures: Slippery Slopes, Cultural Anxiety, and the Case of the Deaf Lesbians.” In Feminist, Queer, Crip.

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Unit 1: Rethinking and Theorizing Disability

Keyword: Cure

When thinking of disability, people often think that everyone is searching for a cure. AKA something that will make a disabled person “normal” again. While some medical advances have helped an abundance of disabled people, many are not in search of a cure because they think of their disability as a part of who they are and changing that, or “curing” that, would change them as a person. Eli Clare talks about how he rebels against cure and thinks of disability as a social justice issue in The Ideology of Cure. He also talks about how cure has different meanings to different people and he brings up his friend who battled with cancer and stated, “I have no idea what cure means to her.” This is where it can get tricky. For some people, like Jen in the documentary Unrest, a cure would greatly alter their life in a positive way by improving mobility yet for others, it would be better just to make our current world more accessible. Clare also talks about how instead of funding primarily for a cure, to put money into our current systems by building more ramps, ensuring braille is everywhere, and teaching educators more ways to teach students to accompany different learning styles. This term is important because the general population thinks that a cure is the best end result for a disabled person. When in reality, there needs to be a better balance of searching for a cure and accommodating disabled people’s current needs. Finding a cure could take lifetimes, so it is important to make sure that disabled people’s needs are addressed in their lifetime.

Eli Clare, “The Ideology of Cure.” In Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure.

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Unit 8: The Suspicious Body

Keyword: Going Stealth

In the article “Artful Concealment and Strategic Visibility” by Toby Beauchamp, he talks about the concept of transgender folks “going stealth.” This is when a trans man or woman fully “passes” as their preferred gender. The article talks about how often it is virtually impossible for trans people to completely go stealth because of how documents always keep some kind of record. Different states and even cities have different policies when it comes to changing your gender on legal documents, making it incredibly hard for people to go stealth. This is also a sticky concept because then it falls back into the binary category of genders, only having male and female. This forces trans folk not only to fall into a category of male or female but also to act/dress/present themselves as the “right way” of being either gender. We talked a lot about TSA and their treatment of transgendered people in airports. What surprised me was about the buttons they press for male or female based on how you present yourself. This is problematic for a number of reasons, of course, many times people might not present themselves as the gender they are, causing a disturbance in the system. This term is very important because this puts trans and gender-nonconforming people at a major disadvantage in terms of mobility and puts a target on them in a way. It automatically makes trans folk seem suspicious merely for how they chose to present themselves. Going fully stealth is thought of as being the ideal life for trans people when in reality not all trans people want surgery or other life alterations to make themselves pass. But if they don’t, they are still seen as suspicious because they don’t conform to the standards of society. 

Toby Beauchamp. 2009. “Artful Concealment and Strategic Visibility: Transgender Bodies and U.S. State Surveillance after 9/11.” Surveillance and Society. 6 (4): 356-366.

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Unit 7: The Disposable Body

Keyword: Chronic Homelessness

In this unit, we discussed how certain bodies are deemed as disposable and unworthy of our care and support. One of these groups being the homeless population. As Craig Willse defines in “Neo-liberal Biopolitics and the Invention of Chronic Homelessness,” someone who is chronically homeless is “an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or more or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years” (156). Thinking about homelessness is very important because with less and less affordable housing and a minimum wage that is not a living wage there are more and more people living on the streets, in cars, or in shelters. Living homeless can cause an abundance of other problems in one’s life, physical and mental health issues, legal issues, it can make it harder to get (or keep) a job without a permanent address. One reason homeless people are so looked down upon is that most are seen as lazy, addicts, and other stereotypes like welfare queens or white trash. This stigma against homeless people is a big reason as to why homelessness is not being addressed as strongly as it should. People like to think of homelessness as a problem only in big cities yet in every state, besides one, there are over 1000 homeless people living. Many people don’t know how to treat homeless people, which sounds odd but as we’ve discovered in this unit homeless people are disposable and are therefore not treated as real people. Through creating more affordable housing, a living wage, and ending the stigma around homeless people, the homeless population will decline significantly, giving people more jobs and contributing to the economy. 

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Unit 6: The (Im)mobile Body

Keyword: Mobility Privilege/ Freedom 

In this unit, we talked about who has the ability to move freely throughout spaces. Race, gender, ability, and class all come into play. Mobility privilege is the idea that only certain people can freely and safely move across borders or even around in their own town. People who have the money and time to buy passports have mobility freedom. People who do not fear being stopped by police walking around their town have mobility freedom People who are able to travel across borders and visit “exotic” places like Boracay have mobility freedom. Highlighting how the native people of Boracay do not have this same freedom even in their home country. Native people of almost any country are often pushed aside to make room for the growing tourism industry, catering to the needs of rich, white people and ignoring the struggles of the indigenous population. Thinking about this topic is important because many people who have mobility freedom don’t realize or recognize that there are people who cannot move freely. Being a white woman, I do have a sense of mobility freedom, yet at the same time, it’s limited because of my financial status and due to fear of harassment/attack when I’m out alone. An example of people who have very limited mobility freedom is immigrants. When and if immigrants make it to America, they only have certain places where their body is treated with dignity and that they are safe. Black people are pulled over and stopped by police far more than white people and similarly with all people of color. If more people realize not only what mobility privilege is but how it is used against certain bodies then it might help to lessen the gap of who gets to move freely versus who doesn’t. 

Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani. 2019. “Contentious Crossings: Struggles and Alliances for Freedom of Movement across the Mediterranean Sea.” South Atlantic Quarterly 118 (3): 644-653.

Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez. 2015. “Tourism Mobilities, Indigenous Claims, and the Securitization of the Beach.” In Mobile Desires.

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Unit 5: The Precarious Body

Keyword: hyper-precarity

In this unit, we discussed the hyper-precarity of many migrant workers. Hyper-precarity, as Hannah Lewis defines it, is “those who experience precariousness, and thus conjures lifeworlds that are inflected with uncertainty and instability” (2). The hyper-precarious body has nowhere else to turn and is often forced to seek out work in unfavorable conditions or attempt to migrate through seemingly impossible circumstances. 

When thinking about hyper-precarity, migrant workers fit this description. When migrant workers come to America, if they are able to get across the border, many are forced to work in conditions that no one else could imagine. Many undocumented immigrants don’t feel safe enough / are not able to get a job with workable conditions without the proper paperwork. So instead they work in places like orchards and farmlands in California where they have to carry around 70+ pounds of fruit/produce on them in the over 100-degree heat all day. And they often can not escape this system because they need money to survive and nowhere else would hire them.

The idea of hyper-precarity is important because people often overlook or just don’t care about migrant worker conditions. They are focused on the mainstream worker's rights. Many migrant workers are seriously injured or even die at unsafe worksites and just because they are immigrants or didn’t come here the “correct” way doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect and proper working conditions. But with the idea of hyper-precarity in mind, it is hard to protest these conditions without endangering the workers’ jobs or lives. 

Hannah Lewis, et al. 2014. “Hyper-precarious Lives: Migrants, Work, and Forced Labor in the Global North.” Progress in Human Geography. 1-21.

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Unit 4: The Laboring Body

Keyword: Emotional Labor

In this unit, we discussed labor of all kinds. The one that stood out to me the most was emotional labor. From working in food for 4 years, I’ve experienced emotional labor every day but I never had a name for this type of labor. Madison Van Oort defines emotional labor as how employees have to deal with customers throughout the day and have to always have a positive/happy attitude no matter their personal situations or the attitude of the customer. This type of work is often assumed by employers and therefore goes unpaid. 

A good example of emotional labor is in retail, food service, or any kind of customer service when employees are dealing with a customer who wants to return an item or something was wrong with their food, etc. and they ask to speak to the manager. More often than not, what the employee is saying to the customer is the same thing the manager will say. Here we see how little trust customers have in employees, demeaning their intelligence and ability to do their job well. No matter how the employee is actually feeling, they still have to put up a front and comply with the customer's needs. 

I think this is a very important term because many customers don’t understand this type of labor unless they work or have worked a service job like this. If more people knew about / understood what emotional labor was, I think it would put much less pressure and stress on employees trying to do their job. Service workers already have it rough because they are in a position of virtually no power as the mantra “the customers always right” repeats in their head. By more customers being more respectful of workers this would (ideally) foster a better working environment for customer service workers. 

Madison Van Oort. 2018. “The Emotional Labor of Surveillance: Digital Control in Fast Fashion Retail.” Critical Sociology 00 (0): 1-13.

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Unit 3: The Colonized Body

Keyword: Assimilation

In this unit, we discussed what colonization does to people and communities and how we learn about this in our education system. A repeated topic I saw throughout this unit was the idea of assimilation into American (white) society and how this is what Americans want to do with all people of color in America. This is most apparent in the documentary Unspoken: America’s Native American Boarding Schools. The idea talked about in this documentary is assimilation versus ethnic cleansing. To the white Americans running the boarding schools, it was more on the end of assimilation, they believed that they were transforming Native Americans into “civilized” humans and teach them the white way of doing things, ignoring their culture altogether. On the other hand, ethnic cleansing, which was the real goal of the boarding schools, is how they attempted to erase all aspects of Native American life and culture. We have seen a history of forced assimilation in this country from the very beginning, yet it’s hardly discussed in schools. 

This is also clear, though less apparent, in the articles we read about the TMT construction in Hawaii. The government believed that Mauna Kea was the best place for this telescope yet they failed to look at how sacred this mountain is in Hawaiian culture. They just assumed that it would be good to build there because of the location, having to regard for Hawaiian culture. Today, we see the effects of assimilation everywhere. One example I can think of is skin lightening. Many people, mainly women, buy products made to lighten or whiten their skin. Most common with Indian women, they feel that they have to use these lightening products to fit in with the “norm” meaning white. 

I think it’s important to study and understand this term because like in the example with the boarding schools, we have to know the distinction between assimilation and ethnic cleansing. We have to be able to point out when assimilation is happening and if it is dangerous to a person or group, know how to combat it. 

"Enduring Hawaiian Sovereignty: Protecting the Sacred at Mauna Kea, Introduction," by J. Kehaulani Kauanui 

"In Ceremony and Struggle: The Lāhui at Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu," by Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar Links to an external site.

Unspoken: America’s Native American Boarding Schools,” PBS 

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Unit 2: The Transnational Body

Keyword: Celebrity Humanitarianism 

This unit we talked a lot about the idea of celebrity humanitarianism and whether or not it is actually beneficial to the target of aid. Celebrity humanitarism is when celebrities or influential people use their power and money to support a cause, usually in a developing country. The main example Katharyne Mitchell gave in “Celebrity Humanitarianism, Transnational Emotion, and the Rise of Neoliberal Citizenship” was Bono from U2 and his work with the ONE Campaign. There are countless other celebrities who also use their fame towards a cause, like Miley Cyrus and the Happy Hippie Campaign. In this campaign, Miley and her supporters advocate for homeless youth, LGBTQ rights, and other vulnerable populations according to her website. WIthin celebrity humanitarianism, social media plays a huge role. Any fan of a celebrity wants to feel close and connected with that celebrity and one way to do this is through social media. Through the use of social media, celebrities can promote their campaign and encourage fans to send support through monetary donations or through spreading the word about this campaign. Mitchell also talks about how emotion comes into play with celebrity humanitarianism. When fans see something that a celebrity they follow cares about, they begin to feel sympathetic towards the target of aid. This, in turn, gives the celebrity’s cause more momentum. I chose to talk about celebrity humanitarianism for this unit because I feel like it has become such a big practice in today’s world. More and more celebrities are beginning to start their own organizations and campaigns targeted towards people in either developing countries or those in our own country in need. It’s can be easy to trust a celebrity that you like because you feel like you “know” them or want to know them better. So, many people may blindly support a cause that a celebrity supports just for the fact that they’ll have a sense of closeness to this celebrity. This can, of course, be troublesome because you never actually know where your money might be going or if it is even helping the population targeted.  

Katharyne Mitchell. 2016. "Celebrity Humanitarianism, Transnational Emotion, and the Rise of Neoliberal Citizenship." Global Networks 16 (3): 288-306.

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Unit 1: Foundations

Keyword: Intersectionality

I chose intersectionality as my keyword because I thought it tied together a lot of the different topics we discussed this unit. Intersectionality is one of the most important concepts when we think about transnational feminism. We have to think intersectionally when we look at people from all over the world as well as within our own communities. Intersectionality is the idea of looking at someone not as just what you might see or assume them to be, but know that everyone has multiple identities and when these identities intersect, they are forced to live life much differently than people who have different identities than them. As Audre Lorde says in Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, “Some problems we [black women] share as women, some we do not.” Black women and white women face a very different set of standards in their everyday life. While it’s true there are some problems that all women face, life as a woman of color is inherently different than that of a white woman. When we think of transnational feminism, we have to think intersectionally as well. Ranjoo S. Herr says in Transnational, Third World, and Global Feminism, “These feminisms are predicated on the premise that women’s oppression diverges globally due to not only gender, but also race, class, ethnicity, religion, and nation. Therefore, third world women suffer from multiple forms of oppression qualitatively different from the gender oppression experienced by middle-class white women in the West.” There are endless identities that people can have and as these identities begin to build up, so does the oppression one could face. Looking at people in countries outside the US forces us to think about intersectionality because they live with identities that might not be as present in America. Chandra Mohanty talks about an idea of intersectionality when she brings up how you can’t paint a universalizing picture of women in the global south, though many continue to do so. Here is where we would need to look intersectionally. In A Black Feminist Statement, they speak specifically to intersectionality, “we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions. We do not have racial, sexual, heterosexual, or class privilege to rely upon, nor do we have even the minimal access to resources and power that groups who possess any one of these types of privilege have.” As black women, along with some who face other barriers due to their identities of sexuality or class or ability, they face a vastly different set of oppressions. 

Sources:

Combahee River Collective. “A Black Feminist Statement.”

Chandra Mohanty. 2003. “Under Western Eyes Revisited.” In Feminism Without Borders.  

Ranjoo S. Herr. 2013. “Transnational, Third World, and Global Feminism.”

Audre Lorde. 1984. “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.” In Sister Outsider.

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Theorizing Labor

In this unit, we looked at two articles that each described two different ideas on labor and analyzes labor through a feminist theoretical point of view. The first article, From Reproductive Work to Regenerative Labor by Melinda Cooper and Catherine Waldby, they discuss moving from reproductive labor to regenerative labor. They looked at the different intersections of labor and analyzed how certain bodies are used to regenerate others. We discussed in class the question of why are Waldby and Cooper looking at labor? We talked about what we thought of as labor to be typically, coming up with answers like physical/manual labor, childbirth, and an occupation. Personally, I had never thought of labor in the way described in the article. We talked about how it is important to bring light to the economic role of women. We also discussed the idea of invisible labor leading into the idea of using stem cells as a form of labor. We wrapped up our discussion of this article by thinking about how it helps to expand feminist theory. Most importantly, it rethinks the idea of what labor is for women, one that most people do not think about, and it adds an additional layer od intersectionality. 

The second article we discussed was Chapter Two: Just Having Fun Being One of the Girls”: Jazz Jennings, Trans Girl Citizenship, and Clean & Clear’s ‘See the Real Me.’ by Rachel Reinke. In this chapter, Reinke analyzes Clean & Clear’s campaign “See the Real Me,” and their video with Jazz Jennings, a trans woman. We found quite a few issues with this video and how it represented trans folk as a whole. While Jennings experience as a trans woman is still valid, she still sets a transnormative standard for all other trans folk that would be watching. By having Jennings in their video, it sets a binary of genders and makes it seem like there is a right or wrong way to be trans. This is a prime version of commodity activism, especially because the product was never shown in the video. Clean & Clear wants its audience to see them as a diverse and inclusive company yet they chose the most trans/heteronormative person they could find. Jennings is a woman who has had a lot of privilege in her life and as a cis-passing woman, she does not represent the struggle of the majority of trans folk. Reinke points out how Jennings states in the video, “I’m a girl trapped in a boy’s body” and how this is harmful to other members of the trans community. This ties back in with labor because we see the company Clean & Clear working to make their company seem progressive in order to get more sales and we also see Jennings profiting off of participating in this ad both at the expense of other trans folk.  

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Bodies and Materiality

This unit, we discussed the body in a literal and abstract form. We began with looking at trans bodies in a piece titled (De)Subjugated Knowledges by Susan Stryker and then with The Shape of Angels’ Teeth: Toward a Blacktransfeminist Thought Through a Mattering of Black(Trans)Lives by Marquis Bey. Beginning with the Stryker piece, she discusses how often times, trans folk are kept out of or their voices are quieted at events that are supposed to be supporting the LGBT community. Upon giving examples from her own experience, Stryker continues on to discuss what transgender studies actually is, “the field of transgender studies is concerned with anything that disrupts, denaturalizes, rearticulates, and makes visible the normative linkages we generally assume to exist between the biological specificity of the sexually differentiated human body” (Stryker 3). Essentially, transgender studies analyzes what is different from the “norm.” Stryker talks about a critical aspect of trans studies, the idea that race, class, and location further complicate trans folk’s identities, going back to the idea of intersectionality. In the next piece by Bey, he specifically discusses what black trans feminism is. Bey discusses the difference between feminism, black feminism, and black trans feminism, which each have their own train of thought. Bey begins to define what black trans feminist thought (BTFT) is by stating, “BTFT can be understood as an embodied and enacted social and ideological posture that necessarily disrupts cis normativity because, indeed, ‘The normative is violent’” (Bey 40). This definition is similar to the one that Stryker provided in the sense that they both include the idea of trying to understand the disruptions of heteronormativity and challenging the “norm.” Bey also discusses the incorporation of BTFT within the Black Lives Matter movement and how often, black women and black trans women especially are overlooked and trumped by black men. 

The second half of the unit we looked at disability studies through pieces like Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and The Bodymind Problem and the Possibilities of Pain by Margaret Price. Beginning with the piece by Garland-Thomson, she discusses why it is necessary to look at disability studies in feminist theory. She points out how it is important to change what we view as “normal” and to ultimately lessen the oppression of disabled folk by uplifting their voices. She also goes into the idea of how disability is socially constructed, the idea that something is wrong with you and you need to be fixed. When rather, we should look at it as, if everywhere had the appropriate access for all people, there would be less exclusion and therefore less othering of disabled folk. Garland-Thomson also assaults the idea that you need to be medicated in order to be “normal” again, while medication is necessary for many people, the idea that disabled folk have to be medicated in order to survive is ridiculous. The next piece, Price talks a lot about the idea of pain and how everyone experiences pain differently. In her piece, she exemplifies the political-relational model of looking at disability, one where we need to take into consideration both the body and society together. In this piece as well, Price discusses how the word crip has been reclaimed by many disabled folks and how this allows them to have the power in their court. Another important aspect of Price’s piece is the idea of the bodymind. The concept of the bodymind when thinking about disability studies is the idea that the body and mind are together as one, not separate as they are often thought to be, essentially, you cannot have one without the other. This affects treatment, medication, and analysis of disability. One more interesting concept that Price brings up is the idea that disabled bodies are not valuable unless they are striving to be “normal” or able-bodied, whether that’s through medication, physical or emotional therapy, anything, as long as they are “trying to become normal.” Of course, there are countless problems with this idea and it also leads back to the Bey piece about disrupting the norm. Overall, reading and learning about disability studies was very beneficial to me and it really opened my eyes to a whole other way of thinking. 

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Transnational Feminist Theory

In this unit, we talked about transnational feminist theory and the impact it has on women of color, girls, and women in third world countries. This unit was very insightful in trying to analyze how women are affected around the world because we too often tend to only focus on women in the United States. The first piece we read was “Under Western Eyes Revisited” by Chandra Mohanty. In this piece, Mohanty goes back an analyzes the first piece she wrote on transnational feminism in 1986. This time though, she has a more modern lens, one from 2001. In her writing, she criticizes western (white) feminism and explains how this is not beneficial to women across the globe. Some major themes she discusses are those of globalization and capitalization. Mohanty talks about how globalization affects everyone, therefore, making it a feminist issue. If we are not looking at the whole world through an intersectional lens, we tend to only see through western (white) eyes and this is not fair to the rest of the world. It’s important that we understand the struggles of others in order to uplift them. Mohanty also brings up an important point about the feminist solidarity model, which is how the social and global exist simultaneously and the focus on individual and personal experiences rather than grouping people into categories. The next piece we analyzed was (Post)Feminist Development Fables: The Girl Effect and the Production of Sexual Subjects by Heather Switzer. In this piece, Switzer discusses three videos by the Nike Foundation called “The Girl Effect.” These videos are supposed to uplift girls in third world countries, those living in poverty and allow them a platform to speak. But when we look at these videos through a transnational lens, we see that most of these girls do not need to be saved. As Switzer puts it, it seems like we are trying to save these girls from “unspecified peril.” These videos put an enormous amount of pressure on girls in third world countries to go out and get an education and start a family as if that is the only thing a girl is good for. This creates the hypersexualization of young girls and how they are seen as sexual objects by the age of 12 or 13. Switzer also brings up the idea of the “durable girl” and the “disposable girl.” The durable girl is the ideal girl: one that goes and gets an education, mets a man on her own time and starts a family, becoming the ultimate housewife. The disposable girl is one that can be just that, disposed of, this is a girl who doesn’t go through life at her own pace, adulthood is forced upon her at an early age. These two ideas create a very sexualized and heteronormative idea of how girls should grow up and live their lives. The final piece we read for this unit was “Chapter Three: Cross-Cultural Connections, Border Crossings, and Death by Culture” by Uma Narayan. In this piece, Narayan talks about dowry murders in India and domestic violence in the United States. One of her main points in this chapter is that there are a lot of misconceptions about what happens in other cultures outside the US. Many people believe the horrible things they hear about other cultures in order to remain patriotic for their own country. Similar to Switzer, Narayan points out that many women in the US believe they need to help “save” other women, Indian women specifically in this chapter when that is not always the case. Narayan also points out how writing about these issues can raise problems as well because it puts you, the author, at such a great distance from your subjects and this, can lead to misconceptions and misjudgments. Overall, I think this unit was very helpful to get me to better understand how women and people across the world experience vastly different struggles than women in the US and that this is important to acknowledge in order to promote equality. It is important to help where you can or are needed, but unlike a lot of people in the US, there is no need for a “white savior” to swoop in and save the day. 

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Theorizing the Border

In this unit, we discussed the border and how it interplays within the daily lives of people inside and outside of the border. We discussed three authors, Anzaldua, Hall, and Naber in this unit. Beginning with Anzaldua, we talked about the borders placed around Latinx people. What I found interesting in this piece was the idea of how borders could be physical or metaphorical. There is the physical border between the United States and Mexico but there is also a cultural border between Americans and Chicana men and women in the US. Anzaldua even stated, “As a mestiza, my homeland cast me out, yet all countries are mine because I am every woman’s sister or potential lover.” This goes back to the idea of intersectionality that is later brought up in the Naber reading. Also with the Anzaldua reading, she made the point to use the word “mestiza” which was stereotypically a slur towards Chicanas. She purposefully uses this word in order to reclaim it and turn it into something else, something positive. As a side note, I loved how she included the Spanish words/phrases in this piece because she forced the reader to do the work whereas Latinx people in America are forced to do the work every day because everything here is in English. The next reading we discussed was about Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders by Hall. This reading was so important because not many people recognize and understand the struggles of Hawaiians. The main ideas I got from this reading was how Hawaiians and Hawaii, in general, is often erased from the minds of most people, their voices are not heard. Through the literal mapping of Hawaii, having Hawaii in a little box next to Alaska is not an accurate representation of where Hawaii is located and gives Americans the idea that Hawaii is not that far away when it is actually thousands of miles away. Also, in school systems, we learn little to nothing about Hawaii and Hawaiian history. We know when it became a state (maybe) and other than that the only thing we associate with Hawaii is Pearl Harbor and this greatly skews our perception of Hawaii. The last reading we discussed was about Islam, Muslims, and stereotypes of terrorists. Naber delves into multiple powerful anecdotes about names/naming in Islamic cultures and how they are perceived in the US. The one that stood out to me the most was about the family who decided to change their son's name from Osama to Sam for fear of violence against their son. The idea of violence or potential violence is a fear that most Muslims (or even people who “look” like Muslims) face every day in the US especially after 9/11. Increased hate crimes and a general fear for merely being a certain religion and looking a certain way. This unit opened my eyes to a lot of discrimination and oppression that I was not aware of prior to. I think I am going to delve more deeply into the discrimination of Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and how I can help elevate their voice and let their struggles be heard so that hopefully something can be done to lessen these injustices.