The hardship of labor on a global scale

It is crazy to believe how hard people of other regions and ethnic backgrounds have it when it comes to finding jobs and work that we Americans take for granted. Kirshners piece showed her struggles in life when it came to working and being able to provide her labor for money. When I think about my life in comparison to hers it amazes me how fortunate I am to be a US born citizen who is also a white male. I have always had well-paying jobs and internships in which I could go out and spend my money on attractive things such as a nice car or even a flat screen tv. Most of my jobs were offered to me directly after and interview and I never had to worry about being fired because I knew I could easily find another job somewhere else. However, not all are as fortunate as me.

Kirshner really touched my heart when she spoke of her struggles and stated, “poor, illegal, surrounded by gangs, with a boyfriend who writes to her from prison. Unable to cross into Mexico even to touch her mother’s hands, even for a funeral” (I Live Here). This was unreal to me and I could not imagine feeling this way. It really makes you wonder how these people are able to stay positive and make it in this crazy world that we take advantage of. The hardships in this piece really gave me insight as to why some people never leave the ghettos and projects in major cities. They do not have the ability to readily find jobs like I do. I used to say it was their own faults that they are "low-lifes" and "bums", but I am sure there is more to it than what meets the eye and Kirshner shows this.

We all really need to take a step back and appreciate what we have going for ourselves. I know many of those who read this blog go to Miami or another great school. I am also sure that not many of you have gotten where you are by coming from a tough life like the one Kirshner speaks of. We all need to be thankful that we were lucky to be born into a great land and a great life compared to others in this world. Many of us have been handed more than some less fortunate people will ever have the opportunity to have and we will take it for granted. How sad is that? How said is it that we don't appreciate the things that some might die for to have? I only hope that one day this world becomes so globalized that all playing fields are leveled out and everyone has a fair chance at success.

Final Project: Cultural Killers

The biggest issue I have with discrimination and stereotyping is how effective our culture is with swaying a particular view on a person. You see this all the time when you see black people, Asians, and Mexicans. We all know the stereotypes, Mexicans just cut laws, Asians are really smart and know karate, and black people rob and can’t be trusted. You also see it with jobs and social standings. CEO’s are white males, janitors are foreigners, Marines are the toughest guys around, and every cop has a handle-bar mustache on his upper lip. But why do we do this? How in the world did we come to these universal stereotypes of different races, sexes, and standings? We expect men to have 6-pack abs, and be these tough jock-type “American” boys as they are growing up and we expect women to be pretty and proper and weigh about 115 pounds, without an ounce of fat on their bodies. But what happens when they are not that? As society we look down on people more and more the further they get away from our societal “norms”. We constantly embrace similarities and turn down any differences. We humiliate them with words and actions, and we go out of our ways to put them down. And this is all because they are not like us.

What happens when these out casts fight back? What happens when they are fed up with being pushed aside? Day in and day out we see news feeds about school shootings, suicides, and eating disorders, and we all say it to ourselves; why would anyone do such a thing? Why would someone kill themselves or other “innocent” people? Why do people starve themselves or throw up after every meal? The answer is obvious. They are fed up with society making them feel down on the way they look or act. They are angry with the way they are, not because they don’t like it, but because society and our culture forces them to believe they are freaks, geeks, and all sorts of negative things.

I read a GQ article that spoke of 3 ex-marines who have become suicidal due to these kinds of pressures. The article talked about how the marine corp. tries to break the men during training and build them up to be better men. However, these men have suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and feel as if they have failed as marines. They believe they failed because “when you earn the title Marine, the expectations of toughness are inherited” (Dobie, 174). These men suffered a disease and felt as if it was their own fault for failing because they were not tough enough. This caused the 3 marines to attempt suicide on multiple occasions.

How sad is this world? How pathetic are we that we need to bash others to feel good about ourselves? My project is about the struggles we face, especially that women face due to societal impacts. The presentation is a music video showing suffering, primarily to women. However, the second half of the presentation shows how we have come a long way and how there is help out there for all types of people. The music plays along to the purpose of the presentation, Adam Lambert – Mad World, is the first song to help touch on how messed up this world can be, and Matisyahu – One Day, is the second song to help emphasize that one day all this hate may be diminished and we may go on living peaceful lives.

Define.. Good...

It is amazing to think how we subconsciously link looks and body types up with certain adjectives. When I picture a good American, we picture a skinny, handsome, white male. But why does this figure have to be fit, handsome and white? Why do we stereotype adjectives around people’s traits? It is absurd to think about, but this is such a true action in our everyday lives and we do not spare a moment to think about why we do that. Obviously, a good American does not have to have all these traits. There are good American people that are women, fat, black, gay, and ugly. The qualities in my head have just been meshed together because society has molded these figures into our heads and we are stuck believing that by first impression, a fat person is a lazy, good-for-nothing, bad American, worker. While if we see a fit person, we believe initially that they are hard-working, energetic, driven, leaders and role-models.
LeBesco said it perfectly in her piece when she stated “When biology is mistaken for destiny, inequalities prosper” (LeBesco, 55). This is a huge point in her piece because it helped give insight as to how we judge a book by the cover. When did this all happen though? Looking back to the medieval times, if you were of royal decent, you were most likely fat to show you have money to feed yourself graciously. Those who were skinny were usually peasants and were slender not by choice but by reason. This made me realize that destiny is out of the question, and that your destiny could not be determined by your body type or physical features because the outlook on these traits often changes. Our culture has shown us what to stereotype when we see different traits. However, these traits are often biological and only surgery or anorexia will fix these issues. Which is what links this piece to the Black and Brown Bodies Under the Knife article. This article explained how more and more people of ethnic decent were getting plastic surgery done on their body.
Hunter explained in this article how her mother used make-up to mask her big black lips, and how Mexicans were often self-conscious of their wide noses. She spoke of a 12 year-old in Mexico City that already wanted surgery so she can have a skinny “good” nose. Hunter then goes on to state that “over one fourth of all cosmetic surgery patients in Mexico are teenagers… Narrower noses are often told that they are lucky they have such a ‘good nose’” (Hunter, 54). But why is this? There are beautiful women in this world that have wide noses or large lips. Why must you have a skinny nose or thinner lips in order for them to be ‘good’?
These articles made me angry when I learned about the high statistic of teenage surgery, as well as disappointed that I, myself, stereotype physical features on people to link them to adjectives that are in no way related to the size or shape of a person.

The differences in our genes

I found Sarah Baartman’s story quite appalling on many levels. I do not understand how people could take a woman and parade her around like a show dog. The fact that they escorted her out and barked out orders to her like she were an animal is unreal. She was in a freak show because of her body’s curvature and she was gawked at for it. This reminded me of a previous story we read in which it spoke of freak in shows and how we gawk and stare constantly. It was obvious that she saw them staring too, due to her unfortunate death due to prostitution and alcoholism. What did she think of us staring? What would she say if Sarah Baartman was given a chance to voice her opinion? People instead studied her and doctors concluded “that she was evidence of the superiority of the white race” (Mcgreal, 2). How were doctors able to be so naïve back then? It is amazing to believe that we once thought such a false accusation to be true and what is even more amazing is our willingness to parade our own kind around when there is something that is slightly abnormal to us.
Today, people would reach out and grab whoever the ticket seller is and beat them. They would grab the freak-show employee that holds her captive and place her behind bars. People today would take Sarah out of such a hostile environment and punish those who harm her. So when did this view shift so drastically? Was it before, during, or after the time period when they stopped slavery, or civil rights, or maybe was it not until a doctor realized this mistake in the studies that claimed white genes to be superior to all other colors? We look at Ian Lopez’s piece and realize that there is an opposing view to Baartman’s case. We realize that people have taken a very deep look into the subject at hand and found that there really is no difference between races, but the differences start to come more evident when you search within races. They found that “greater generic variation exists within the populations typically labeled black and white that between these populations” (Lopez, 52). Lopez would simply laugh at these doctors who examine Baartman and call them fools for their conclusions. Lopez believes that you cannot distinctively say that color establishes different genes between races because simply color of the skin does not provide a means to divide people. There really is no concrete, black and white, divide. There are all types and shapes and sizes that come into play and trying to divide on color would only cause this to become that much more hard.

Why we are here in the first place

Throughout this class, I have had many questions on the topic of sex and gender. I ask myself what the difference is between sex and gender, what is the correct term for this group and that. I even ask myself why these seemingly obvious answers are so hard to implement in this society. How is it that when examining the issues that play out in today’s world, we can find solutions but reject them primarily on the fact that our society would not allow such a change to occur? The most confusing part of this world is that brilliant ideas are often left alone because people want to ultimately feel accepted and looked up to. No one seems to willingly volunteer to be the first to go against the grain. However, it is those who go against the grain that are granted respect among the people of this Earth. The question is, why more people don’t start doing what they believe to be right and go against the grain. Look at Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Rosa Parks. They were pioneers of their active movements in their own way. They had a vision and a dream and they let no one or nothing stop them from it. Why don’t all the queer men and women march and why doesn’t the world listen? Have we no respect for our fellow men and women? It is people like the ones mentioned, and Dorothy Allison that make things happen. It are these people that go from dreamers to do-ers. One of the best lines in Allison’s memoir was “two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear that coat the world has made for me” (Allison, 71). This showed that no matter what people tried to make of her or change in her, she was not going to lay down and be what they wanted her to be.
Another question that I have in my mind from this class has to do with a scientific standpoint of the subject. Where does this decision of transgender-ness and sexual preference come from? Are we born being gay or lesbian, and it just takes some time to figure it all out? Or is this something that society brings us into, where men and women who have a different lifestyle may be more prone to being gay or lesbian? I know that the common view is that it is something you are born with, since there is no way to refute that if you are straight and you are able to turn gay, why aren’t gay people coming back to being straight. This question about the “root” of sexual preference seems hazy to me because it almost breaks into a dispute between religion and science. I am a firm believer of pre-destination, but I would not entirely say that predestination can be determined by a characteristic in your genes. I believe that we are already meant to walk a certain path, but we do not know this path because it is outside our mental capacity. Dorothy Allison again had a memorable quote when she spoke of her mother. She said, “She (her mother) was an actress in the theatre of true life” (Allison, 26). So are we all just actors in this world? Clothed and taught how to act by society and those around us, that is until we decide to stop acting and discover your genuine character. Think about it.

When and Why did this world turn so black and white?

It’s amazing how much society shapes us into these figures. I know that I do it all the time. I will watch a movie where Clint Eastwood, Russell Crowe, or Brad Pitt walks around in their own ways. All of them showing off their toughness in various ways and I sit there and wonder what makes them different from me. Why can’t I be like them? I change my personality just a little bit more after watch the next blockbuster movie about a “man”, who gets the ladies, has the friends, and beats the bad guys so that I may be like them one day soon. But instead of asking myself what I can do to be like these men in the movies, I should be focusing on what makes me the man that I am and be happy with my looks and my personality. It seems that it is all too often that we stereotype and write people off when they don’t fit in with the way society perceives the right way to be a man or women. Who created these standards to begin with? When did women start wearing skirts that reveal more than my underwear does? When did mean start spending more time at the gym than they did looking in text books? Is this all thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brad Pitt, or is there more to it? “These are really caricatures. These images have been drilled into us through popular culture and education over the years” (Feinberg,3). This author hit the nail on the head, but over what years? When are we most vulnerable to accept these “norms”, and cave into the idea that women are to be 85 pounds and have long slender legs and men are to be these jacked stocky guys with a 24-pack (abs, not alcohol)?
Looking back into my childhood I never really noticed at any point watching a Disney movie wear the prince or main male character showed off his boulder shoulders and biceps that are larger than his head. I never noticed that they were incredibly “manly”, so at what point does it snap into a boys mind that men are big, strong, assertive creatures? Also, I think the biggest question is why do we care to judge when a man or woman does not fit the typical definition of what they are? Why must we show no mercy to those who view life a little more different than we do? We say that same-sex marriage is a terrible thing because it’s against religion, but why do we care? By allowing these men and women to get married, it doesn’t condemn us to eternal damnation. It does not affect us in any way at all. But we still do not allow it. “Bigotry exacts its toll in flesh and blood. And left unchecked and unchallenged, prejudices create a poisonous climate for us all” (Feinberg,3). Feinberg was never more educational than when she wrote this. Looking back at her reading, you cannot even begin to believe what had happened at that hospital. Why does this doctor care? What difference does it make to treat someone like this? People like this are the reason why everyone is picketing and fighting eachother.

The Abuse of women in our culture today

This subject is one that I wish was never an issue. It is the kind of issue that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my whole upper body shiver as if a cold draft was to blow down my neck. It is the point in the war movies or action tragedies, where you sit there with your fists clenched and wish that you could jump through the flat screen in front of you and hit the man back or worse. The thought of rape and physical abuse against women is a subject that is a "take no prisoners" problem. By this I mean, regardless of the reason or excuse for the action, these men should be taken out back and slowly beaten to death by the women that have been harmed, in order to get a taste of their own medicine.

While reading Dorthy Allison's piece, I found myself in a love-hate battle with the memoir. I never thought that women in America faced violence and abuse at such a young age as she did with her father, which made me extremely angry. A life that becomes shattered at such an early age and left for only that unfortunate soul to pick up the peices and try to mend her life back together. I was unhappy that this story spoke primarily on the hardships of lower, blue-collar, women because growing up in a blue-collar family is an inherit trait that I am proud I have. This story certainly put a strong stereotype for the blue-collar man and I am sure that many women who have read this would assume any man of this class to abuse their wives.

However, all the readings we did for this assingment had a common bond of how inflicting fear through violence on women, certainly gave men the power to use and abuse females of all races, and in some instances even the males. In "War Crimes", men, women, and children were raped and battered by rebels in order to inflict fear and establish dominance in the villages. Citizens were afraid to go out in the fields to work because the rebels would ambush them and have their way. The numbers of people that would go to the local hospital for sexual assault and violence made my temper flair. These authors also showed differences in the views of life after rape. Women in the jungle would go to hospitals to be treated, while Dorothy Allison spoke of her mother be in an actress. She said "She was an actress in the theater of true life, so good that no one suspected what was hidden behind the artfully applied makeup and carefully pinned hair" (Allison, 26). Was this because society in America was too like the one of the jungle, where women were somewhat afraid to admit to being raped because society would act like they were ruined women? It is said that "the stigma of rape leads some men to abandon their wives" (Clarkson, 1). Do women keep this bottled up in fear of what society will think of them? Or is that the way they assume it is to be, since you rarely ever hear word of a friend or family member being raped. Do they keep their mouths shut because everyone else is afraid to open theirs as well?