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Bowery as Haven and Spectacle

Chauncey’s “Bowery as Haven and Spectacle” discuses red light districts in New York City at the turn of the century. A red light district is based on the sex industry, strippers and prostitution. While prostitution is illegal in New York these clubs had to hide that part of the business in the back hidden away.

            At the turn of the century located on the lower east side this red light district became more involved in homosexual encounters. Balls started where men would dress in drag and perform. While the working class, as Chauncey wrote, was more open to the “fairy” side of the red light district the middle class was infuriated by it. They believed it was destroying the sanctity of their families. They called those men involved perverts and immoral.

            Some people even used the red light district to lead a double life. One student explained how he went to school all week and one night he would go to the lower east side without anyone knowing and attend the clubs and the night life of the red light district.

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Katz and Han

In Katz “Homosexual and Heterosexual: Questioning Terms” the terms that seem so modern to today’s generations were actually once both looked at as very inappropriate terms. Both the terms homosexual and heterosexual were seen as vulgar. They were coined by a writer, not a doctor. The term heterosexual originally was used to describe a sexual perversion toward the opposite sex, it was not a term used every day as it is in today’s society.     

            Han’s “They Don’t Want to Cruise Your Type: Gay men of color and the racial politics of exclusion” is about a different topic. It is about how being gay is connected to whiteness. Society portrays gayness and being white and wealthy. This type of thinking has caused some racism in the gay community. If a non white man tries to walk into a gay bar they are more likely to be questioned. Society is under the impression that if white men are gay, non white men must not be gay. This has led to more serious racism and caused some gay establishments to not allow people of a certain ethnicity enter.  

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Is Paris Burning

            In Hook’s “Is Paris Burning” the idea of black men dressing in drag in the 80s was huge controversy. The men dressing in drag felt as if it gave them more power but others felt differently. Black women especially saw this as disempowering to black females and also gave society more of a reason to ridicule them.

            Hook noticed that in the film Paris is Burning the black men dressed in drag were not trying to depict a black woman. They were actually trying to depict white womanhood. They all dress and act as a white woman and most, as seen in the movie, had pictures of white women hung on their walls. Hook at first believed this movie would support the idea of the end to white supremacy and Eurocentrism but after seeing the film Hook had a different view of the film. Hook believed the film was a portrayal of how these black men worship whiteness and that not only whiteness was supported but the rich ruling class capitalist white society was being worship.

            Hook goes on to discuss the film maker Livingston. Hook believes that Livingston turned this documentary into a spectacle for entertainment rather than to inform society of what white supremacy is doing to black and gay culture. Hook feels Livingston went in with no background on the subject and no intention and informing society but rather to make the film about the entertainment that these men perform during their drag balls.

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Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History

            Douglas C. Bayton’s “Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History” is about how the excuse of disabilities has been used against women and minority groups to keep them out of power. These groups are kept unequal by the use of supposed disabilities, mostly made up ones. Women are kept unequal by men saying they are irrational, over emotional, and physically weak. These normally would not be considered disabilities but are when it keeps women out of power. Racial inequality is reinforced by the idea of disabilities like mental illness or blindness found in particular races and ethnicities.

            When things are in their normal condition, meaning they haven’t changed is when they do well, when things are changed is when they suffer. The example in the article was slavery, it was said that American blacks flourished in their original condition of slavery but once they were freed they suffered and died of things like disease. Disabilities in general are based off what society believes in normal. Most people would think of a disability like someone who can’t walk and needs a wheel chair or someone who is blind or deaf or someone with a mental illness. However people have found a way to make anything, like for women being over emotional, a disability because it is not considered normal to them.

            I had never noticed that this country has taken the idea of disabilities and used them to keep others more unequal in society. They have taken the idea od disabilities as someone who cannot function daily as most others can and turned it into almost anything that is not considered normal to them. They turn things into disabilities because those with disabilities are excluded from certain power in this country.      

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Abstinence

In Wilkin's "Abstinence" from Wannabes Goths, and Christians: The Boundaries of Sex, Style, and Status the topic of different types of people that refrain or partake in sexual activity is discussed. I found this article harder to read than most of the others because I feel like it was mostly about ideas that I already knew about, but still an educational read. The article states the most of the people who are abstinent are white Christians, which wasn't surprising to me as it probably wasn't to some others as well.

While I believe that sex should be treated as a privilege with age and responsibility I do feel like there is no set time or age that someone is ready or not ready. Everyone is different and I believe in everyone having their own choice in when they are ready. If a fifteen year old believes they are truly ready for a sexual experience who am I to say they are not. Everyone matures at their own pace.

Sex is a decision that a person needs to make on their own, unfortunately our society pushes younger generations towards sex every day. Sex is promoted on tv, in books, in movies, in magazines, and much more. Society figuratively shoves sex down people’s throats so no wonder kids are having sex at younger ages. Also peers have a huge influence as well, when someone hears about all their friends starting to have sex they feel pressured to do the same. Sex is also seen differently for men and for women. If a man has sex with several different women he is considered cool to the other men, if a woman has sex with several different men she is seen as a slut. Sex for men is almost seen as a competition while sex for women should always be about emotions, if a girl has sex just for fun she is seen in a very negative way.

I have strong respect for those who have chosen to be abstinent. They are going against society and against their peers and face being possibly made fun of for their choice. It is someone’s own choice to decide when they are ready and if they feel like waiting till marriage is right for them who is to tell them they are wrong. The same goes for those who want to have premarital sex; it is no one else’s responsibility to tell them that they are not ready.

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Household Labor and the Routine Production of Gender

            Coltrane’s “Household Labor and the Routine Production of Gender” is about what happens when men, more specifically fathers, take on the more motherly role in parenting. Being a woman often goes hand and hand with being a mother. Motherly care of children is seen as part of being a woman. The father is seen by society as being the protector and breadwinner of the family.

            Coltrane interviewed twenty families, all of which are duel income family homes. In three quarters of the families the mothers reported doing much of the early infant care and most of the fathers reported not being involved in routine child care until the children were school aged. However most families said that housework was divided between the parents. Some couples said that most of their out of work time was spent with their children, both mother and father. Most of the fathers said that their performance in child care made them more committed to parenting and housework. It was reported that most fathers increased their housework as they performed child care.

            For parents that equally share child care is was stated that when the child has a problem they will go to either parent for help. The equal share child care homes had parents that felt that men could be just as nurturing as mothers. Both mothers and fathers said that fathers receive more credit for their family involvement even if he was doing the same amount of work as the mother, I believe simply because it is out of the societal norm for a father to be as included in child care as the mother.

            However most of the fathers worked in places employed by mostly men and the fathers were asked why they were doing “women’s work”. Their coworkers were also often upset at the amount of times the father has to decline invitations to hang out with the guys to go home and care for the children. These people see child care strictly as being for women and this to me is because of the way society has made child care out to be. On TV and in movies and books the child care is mainly done by females and when it is done by men it is made into a big deal because it is out of the ordinary.

            Coltrane concludes by writing that in equally shared child care homes it was more likely for the fathers to develop maternal instincts. I believe that these instincts are in mothers and fathers but because society has made fathers out to only be the protector and bread winner for the family and to not do child care fathers are less likely to participate as they do not want to be seen doing a “women’s job” or be seen as womanly.

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Domesticating Masculinity and Masculinizing Domesticity in Contemporary U.S Fatherhood Politics

Gavana’s “Domesticating Masculinity and Masculinizing Domesticity in Contemporary U.S Fatherhood Politics” is about the movement of fathers and their responsibilities in the family and to their children. They created the FRM the fatherhood responsibility movement. With women becoming the head of the household and holding the more powerful job their families are becoming more feminist based.

            The FRM’s goal is to reestablish the need for a father in the family and the need for masculinity in a feminized home. Pro marriage organizations greatly support the need for gender differences in parenting. The FRM believes that parenting has become too feminized and too related to motherhood, they promote responsible fathers who balance parenthood with masculinity.

            In the past the role of being a father was solely being the breadwinner of the family. It was seen as unmanly to be with their children. The phrase “Mr. mom” demonstrates that a man that stays home with the children is seen as feminine. The FRM wants to get away from these gender roles society has created for motherhood and fatherhood.

            Men’s sexuality must be balanced to maintain a household. Men must put their sexual energy into things such as work, sports, and sex so they have a balanced lifestyle. The heterosexual monogamous relationship is ideal. A homosexual relationship is completely against the FRM’s beliefs because it causes a man to be unbalanced and uncivilized by a women, marriage, and heterosexuality.

            Sports are another way a father can show his masculinity. By playing with other men when he wins it shows his power and masculinity, he is proven to be more masculine than the other men. Religion also shows a father’s masculinity in biblical terms. A father is supposed to be the protector and leader of the family.

            While the FRM seems to be trying to create a better home environment it in some ways is making the situation worse. By wanting men to show their masculinity and heterosexuality they are womanizing. The FRM also ignores the parenting problems for the nonheteronormative families that deal with issues of division of parental labor. I personally believe that a masculine role in a home is important. Children need to be exposed to both feminine and masculine parts of society before they are thrown into it. While the FRM has problems with the way they want men to show their masculinity I believe they have the right idea of a family needing a father with a masculine role in the home. Fathers should be more interested in their children’s lives and shouldn’t be seen as feminine when they do.    

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Dude You're a Fag: adolescent masculinity and the fag discourse

Pascoe’s “Dude, you’re a fag: adolescent masculinity and the fag discourse” is about the idea of the term fag being used in relation to masculinity. A guy can be called a fag merely for showing a more feminine side, not actually because they are homosexual. If a boy shows weakness in trying to complete a task society deems as masculine they are for that moment considered a fag. That term however does not stick with that person forever, just for that moment.

            Pascoe found the term fag as an insult to not just being homophobic but also gender phobic. Her field work at Riverside high school concluded that in their town, for a guy, being called a fag was the worst insult, it degraded them to nothing. While the boys use this term regularly the females do not use this term with each other. Being called a lesbian is not an insulting term. Also the boys see nothing wrong in being a lesbian, they felt that was okay. The boys in this high school felt that being a fag is the worst thing to be.

            Pascoe also found in this high school that while fag is one of the harshest insults, the term gay was used in a lesser insulting way. Girls and boys used the term gay and to describe inanimate objects and sometimes each other. When they use gay it meant stupid, where as fag was meant to be much harsher.

            Pascoe learned from these students that being called a fag has nothing to do with being homosexual at all. It is just used as a way to insult other guys. They called others fags for doing things that are not masculine but not necessarily feminine either, for example being stupid, dancing, being too emotion, and so on. Pascoe also learned that they don’t see homosexual people as fags; someone can be gay and masculine. A fag is someone who is un-masculine, not necessarily gay.    

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Welcome to the Men's Club

Bird’s “Welcome to the Men’s Club: Homosexuality and the Maintenance of Hegemonic Masculinity” is about his study on the idea that society idolizes the things that support a hegemonic masculine world and anything that goes against it, for example homosexuality, is suppressed by society.

            One way in which men can create this hegemonic masculine world is by oppressing women. They do this by objectifying them, making them feel like objects and not people. Women have no control over this and is makes them feel inferior.

            Men were interviewed and asked what type of topics they found appropriate for conversation. The most common were sports, women, business, politics, and drinking. Topics that were found undesirable were gossip and feelings. Gossip and feelings go against what society has deemed as masculine therefore men stay away from these topics as to not be seen as feminine. When men are in groups together it is almost an unwritten rule for them to not talk about their feelings, anyone who does is excluded.

            Over all I feel like this idea of hegemonic masculinity is one that has been going on for years and years. Men will always been competitive over women and sports and over who can be a tougher man. Society has made gender for men mean that they have to be masculine all the time; they can’t show weakness or emotions because that would make them feminine and therefore less of a man.

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This Bridge Called My Back

            Moraga and Anzaldua’s “Prefaces” begins with a story of a woman making a journey to Boston. She speaks about how there is not only a racial movement for the black people but also a feminist movement for the women. She witnesses two attacks on black people on her train ride there, one by a police officer. The women telling the story herself is also black. She said she felt more white until she was surrounded by all white women; she said she never felt darker.

            She was taking this journey to fight against the oppression of women of color. She feared women were beginning to turn their backs on each other. In the end she realized that we all just needed faith to get us through and help us to achieve our goals.

            In the “Introduction” the problem the women telling the story about became much clearer. The white women’s racial prejudice is creating a division among the feminist. There is no way to achieve feminist goals if the women are divided. The women in the story went on to write their own book about third world feminist, about their culture, their divide from other women, and their feminist political theory. The book is intended for women of all colors.

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The Problem That Has No Name

Friedan’s “The Problem That Has No Name” is about how women used to believe their whole life was just about getting married, having children, and having the picture perfect family. Their dreams were not of success for themselves but rather for their husbands so their family could live in the suburbs. They had to be the definition of feminine. They wanted to be model skinny and have blonde hair. The idea of doing anything like a well paid engineering job was out of the question because it was not feminine enough. While their husbands would talk about politics the women spoke about their children, any life outside the home was not mentioned. Girls began getting married earlier and earlier. Some engaged by sixteen or seventeen even. They started have more children also, instead of having two they were having five or six. They also stopped going to school.

            However this picture perfect lifestyle did not last. Friedan realized that many women were beginning to all have the same problem. The problem with no name, they were all beginning to feel empty. They would sleep a lot or cry for no reason. They were realizing that there is more to life than just being a housewife and they were feeling stuck. This problem took over headlines but was dismissed at every turn. There were no real solutions given to the women for this problem. Women were told to just accept this lifestyle.

            Women started to go to therapy and it was found that married women were more likely to be unhappy then unmarried women. The problem also does not seem to be about women’s rights, femininity, or education. Women from all different educational backgrounds all had this same feeling. The problem seems to be that they are just considered a wife and mother, nothing more.

            The problem, as Friedan writes, seems to be related to sex. The women wait home all day for their husbands but their husbands cannot seem to fulfill the desire of women. They are building up their sexual hunger so much their husbands cannot satisfy them. Another cause of the problem could also be related to boredom. The women need to get out of the house more and experience more than just the walls of her own home. The women feel trapped like there is nothing more to life than just being a wife and mother.

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Woman as Other

In de Beauvoir’s “Introduction: Women as other” de Beauvoir notes that most women do not want to be seen as women but rather as a person. They do not want to be defined by their femininity; they want the same respect from men that they give to other men. De Beauvoir brings up Aristotle’s belief that women have a natural defect. Therefore it is believed that humanity is made up of men and women are just a relative of men; man is the subject, woman is other.

            Women did not become other because of being a minority because they make up half of the population. They also did not become other due to a single event in history for example slavery of the African Americans. It is pointed out that women have always been considered the other, nothing caused it, it was natural. Therefore de Beauvoir states this is why status of women seems more permanent and harder to change. Women have only gained what the men are willing to give them.

            Women have not been able to equalize themselves. For one reason being that they cannot unit as the African Americans or the Jews did because women all come from different cultures and economic backgrounds they have rarely anything in common. Also women have always been dependant on men. Men hold most of the political and government jobs also.

            It is believed that men have always been in power because of their religious beliefs. They believed a higher power made them men so they could rule. Men would pray and thank god for making them men and not women. Men ruled over the household and in the work force. When women started to go to work some were ordered to return to the home. Men suppressed women’s liberation because they saw it as a threat.

            Today’s society has men more accepting of women’s equality. In the home once married the men view the women as equal in the home. But in the workforce the men still know they dominate higher end jobs and accept the women’s inequality.    

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Egg and Sperm Stereotypes

Martin’s “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles” begins by pointing out how even in science there are stereotypes that make women out to be less significant than men. Martin goes on to explain how textbooks seem to marvel at the fact them men can produce millions of sperm each day while a women only releases one egg a month. The whole process of menstruation is described in textbooks as a failure of fertilizing the egg. Women are born with the amount of eggs they will have their whole life, they never produce anymore after birth and only about 400 to 500 of the million of eggs one starts with are released. One scientist said this was a waste as if a woman can control the amount of eggs she produces. However men produce millions of sperm a day and that is not seen as wasteful.

            The language we use for biological reproduction also plays a part in the stereotype. The egg has terms attached to it like “is transported”, “is swept”, or “drifts” and does not journey like the sperm. The sperm has more positive terms attached to it like “deliver”, “activate the developmental program of the egg” and have high “velocity” of travel. The egg is also referred to as passive and needs to be activated by a sperm. The sperm are always described as being strong having to travel a long journey to the egg.

            New research has actually shown that sperm do not swim as strongly as once thought. They can’t penetrate the egg straight on and need to move side to side. The egg actually traps the sperm preventing it from escaping. New research also shows that the egg actually selects which sperm it wants and prepares it for fusion and protects the future offspring from harm. Wassarmen, who made these discoveries, still used terms that favored the sperm even after the results of his experiments.

            Even after these findings the egg seems to still have negative terms associated with it. Terms like “aggressive”, “captures the sperm”, and the egg is also compared to a sticky spider web. The egg seems to not be able to escape these negative terms even though research has shown that egg and sperm interact on mutual terms. Martin concludes by pointing out that our use of these terms for sperm and egg are projecting a negative outlook of female reproduction on society.

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Kessler and Fausto-Sterling on Gender

Kessler’s “The Medical Construction of Gender” begins with Kessler explaining how there is more than just biological ways in determining the sex of babies born without clear male or female genitals. Physicians believe in only two genders male or female and when faced with an intersexed baby they must choose a gender. This increases society’s belief that there can only be two genders, male and female, and there is nothing in between.

Specialist believe that a child can switch gender up to eighteen months of age and as long as the parents do not doubt the gender of the child and the child gets proper hormones at puberty the child will grow up to be that gender regardless of chromosomes. The specialists also believe it to be better to change an infant with a micropenis into a female to avoid problems into adulthood. The biggest problem they seem to have is the time needed to make a proper diagnoses on an intersexed baby is too long, they need to find a way to figure out a course of action faster.

In these situations the parents need to be told that gender is not biological and if your child had to switch genders a birth you must raise them as the new gender. There can be no confusion for the child. Parents are often told not to announce the gender of the baby until a decision is made about the gender by doctors. Society has a huge impact on gender so society must believe the child is the new gender.

Fausto-Sterling’s “The Five Sexes: Why male and female are not enough” also discusses people that fall in between being male and female. Fausto-Sterling writes that there should really be five categories of sex. John Money has stated that intersexed children count for about four percent of births. Fausto-Sterling also mentions that for those who have been raised knowing they were instersexual there have been no record of suicide or psychotic in any of them.

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Patriarchy

Johnson’s “Patriarchy, the System: An it, not a he, a them, or an us” discusses the idea of society being a system. Johnson goes on to explain that a system is made up of individuals that all have the possibilities to change how it is run. Johnson compares society to a corporation, what happens to an individual within the corporation does not hurt or change the corporation and what happens to the corporation doesn’t mean it happens to the individuals that work there. Johnson means that we cannot understand a society solely on the individuals who make it up. Johnson is mainly speaking about a patriarchy, a male dominated and women oppressed society.

            Johnson goes on to explain that in order to understand a patriarchy one must understand its parts like culture, film, and literature. In this society masculinity being considered human and womanly things being considered “other”. This culture is all about control and without this control there would be chaos. This society believes in only two genders and only heterosexual relationships. There are very strict rules that go along with this type of society that most people would be appalled to hear for example that if a woman even smiles at a man she gives up her right to say no and has no say in her own body anymore. Over all women are sexual objects in this type of society.

            As I was reading this I forgot that I was reading about my own type of society. That there are men that treat women to this extreme, that homosexual couples are not accepted, that we choose everyday to live in this type of lifestyle. Johnson goes on to explain that the problem isn’t society or the individual but the relationship between the two. I was reminded that men and women are involved in this society, we cannot just blame the men.

            Richardson’s “Gender stereotyping in the English language” also shows how our society enforces this patriarchal system. Richardson’s essay is about our language and how it is male dominated. Women fall under the term men when the word is used in a sentence or profession. Richardson brings up how studies have shown most people picture men when reading the term “men” when it is meant to describe both men and women. Our language considers women to be part of men and not their own type of people. Even our language oppresses women not just our people.

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Lexicon of Debates

Kolmar and Bartkowski’s “Lexicon of Debates” is about feminist theories throughout history. In European and North American mind set in history women have been looked at as property. Even Freud has said women are inferior to men because they lack a penis. It is also said that because women are material objects their bodies are to be looked at.

            The second wave feminist were mostly about women having the right to control their own bodies. Adrienne Rich said that women should use mother as a “resource” and should take back control over having children. Then the feminist epistemologists believe that there is a women’s way of thinking which I agree with. I believe that women and men see things in very different ways and think of different consequences for similar situations. It is mentioned to be women’s privilege. These second wave feminist then created their own knowledge from other women’s experiences.

            There were also the psychological theories that all women’s development patterns are the same and can explain all women. It is hard to believe that trained professionals at one time believed all women developed that same.

            Other feminist have found that almost every society has labor divided by gender and this causes women’s work to be less valued. In our society we see these labor roles changing but they are seen as abnormal and society may accept them but it is not seen as normal behavior.

            Kolmar and Bartkowski conclude by drawing attention to the term “third world women” which categorizes women of all different nations, cultures, and races together. All these different types of women cannot be described under one category. All types of life styles form people into who they are. All these women have very different lifestyles, beliefs, and privileges in life and cannot be considered the same as someone from a completely different lifestyle.

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Privileged Groups in America

Wildman and Davis’ “Language and Silence: Making Systems of privilege Visible” talks about whites and heterosexuals being privileged in society. I agree that heterosexuals are more privileged then gays and lesbians but I do not agree that whites are still privileged over African Americans. We have an African American president today, I believe blacks can do anything whites can do and President Barak Obama has proven this. Wildman and Davis went on to say that all whites are racist and should accept that so society can begin to change this racism. I strongly disagree with that statement. While there are still those out there with the mindset that African Americans are inferior, no one can say that every white person is racist that is simply just not true.

            However as I went on to read McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” I began to understand what Wildman and Davis was trying to explain. I found it much easier to understand McIntosh’s piece, it gives a list of examples of white privileges I had never really noticed in my everyday life. While I still disagree that all whites are racist, I can agree that whites are part of a privileged category. McIntosh says that whites may get privileges but it does not mean that they approve of the disadvantages of African Americans which I agree with.

After reading both of those pieces I continued on to read Deutsch’s “The Male Privileged Checklist” which takes the list of examples created by McIntosh for whites and turns it into a list showing the privileges of males. One thing Deutsch mentions that both other authors did not bring much attention too was the fact that while life may have some privileges for certain groups that does not mean they have no problems or heartaches in their lives.