Once upon a time, as soon as humans were around, the patriarchy was what ruled the land; unfortunately, traces of that society still linger and affect everyone today. Faster than ever, feminism is on a roll to seeking gender equality between men and women. From the already achieved voting rights to the aspired equal pay, women are uniting in a movement comparable to the Civil Rights Movement.
Emily Prager, through the use of argumentative rhetorical questions, questions the integrity of the iconic Barbie Doll in its use of promoting a man-dominated world. Remarking on a man's design of an unrealistic depiction of an ideal woman, she draws a contrast between her obvious sexual features and the lack of such on Ken. While Barbie has "something indescribably masculine about her-dare I say it, phallic," Ken is missing something: his Jesus given pink elephant.
She suggests that there's a prejudice against women in that they can be viewed as sexual objects but men cannot. This can be seen everywhere. Female models that surround male artists on music videos and frequent sexual assault are just a few examples.
Going back to the topic of the features of an "ideal woman," she says that it wasn't surprising that the designer of Barbie was a man. I believe that she says this because if it were in the eyes of a woman, the characteristics would have humility and realism. However, since it was designed by a man, the features were only created in the mind of a primitive man. This creates a window into today's world in that men are stereo typically shallowness in that they only appreciate women for their looks.
Prager takes the specific example of Barbie in order to let people realize the realities of the patriarchal world they live in because no one should have to live unequally due to the way they were born.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Is Race Biological or Conceptual?
As Ms.Valentino assigned us the prompt "Is race a socially constructed concept?", little did she know that it would spark out class debates about the topic. *cough cough Elise* The main argument was over whether race was social or biological.
It is globally recognized that race itself, as a strictly scientific and anatomical concept, is irrefutably biological. "Most anthropologists recognize that there are four major classifications in the world, which include caucasian, mongoloid or asian, negroid or black and australoid. The race classification was created by Carleston S. Coon in 1962. The four major races can then be further subdivided into 30 subgroups." Like gender, race is not something that you can just change or simply not identify to. For the example of gender, no matter what gender you "feel" you identify with, you cannot argue that you were born a certain way and can never change that fact. Race is something that you are categorized into no matter what nationality or country you live in. You fall under one of the main race groups or a mix of several. Another example is how we differentiate animals that come from a common ancestor as separate species after evolution has taken them to different paths. Although humans aren't as extreme, it's comparable. There was a rebuttal for the fact that there is no gene or physical characteristics such as skin pigmentation that can determine what you are. That is false. In an article published by TIME , "A longstanding orthodoxy among social scientists holds that human races are a social construct and have no biological basis" is simply wrong due to the "decoding of the human genome." Because of this, "a growing wealth of data has made clear that" this conception is "simply incorrect" and that there is "indeed a biological basis for race." Due to the fact that you can look into the genome and find particular proteins that correlate to different races, one cannot argue that race is subjective.
And this makes sense right? Tens of Thousands of years ago after the great migrations from Africa such as the Indo-European migrations, the Bantu migrations, the Polynesian migrations, and even the ones that brought people to the Americas from Alaska, you'd expect evolution over thousands of years from their surroundings that would result in physical diversification such as skin pigmentation and average height. You cannot tell me that these two people are the same physically and genetically and that they cannot be distinguished from these characteristics let alone if a genome test was done on them.
I am not denying, however, that the racism and discrimination that happens in society is socially constructed. As you'd expect if you were separated for tens of thousands of years, the people that you were with would likely create its own culture and customs. These, I believe, are the roots of the reason that racial groups are viewed as different than others. The social stigmas and stereotypes that come with each race are a direct result of their culture and behavior are the reasons why different ethnic and racial groups distance themselves from others. The rapid globalization of our planet and intermixing of cultures would have the expected effects of fear, racism, and discrimination. This aspect of the argument, I believe, is indeed socially constructed. There is a choice, whether or not we oppress or segregate people based off of their race, but it is not a choice whether or not we are a certain race.
In conclusion, race is not socially constructed, but racism is. I think the main problem with this debate is over the meaning of the term socially constructed. Whether it means that it was first identified by humans (which would actually make everything socially constructed) such as the difference between a tree and a potato or that the concept itself was manufactured by humans such as the difference between normal people and gangsters shapes our opinions. Is color socially constructed if we categorized them? Is math socially constructed because we labeled the different kinds and its laws? There was nothing to predate human language to be able to classify these things. If you say that something is socially conceptual, such as how race is since we had to give names to these races, because humans had to give a name to them, then everything is socially conceptual. There was nothing before these terms and language such that humans could telepathically send chemical messages to one another. I've concluded that the root of these debates is either the difference in the interpretation of the term socially constructed, or the inaccuracy of the question itself. If your opinion still falls opposite to mine, I'll leave you with a question. What's not socially constructed?
It is globally recognized that race itself, as a strictly scientific and anatomical concept, is irrefutably biological. "Most anthropologists recognize that there are four major classifications in the world, which include caucasian, mongoloid or asian, negroid or black and australoid. The race classification was created by Carleston S. Coon in 1962. The four major races can then be further subdivided into 30 subgroups." Like gender, race is not something that you can just change or simply not identify to. For the example of gender, no matter what gender you "feel" you identify with, you cannot argue that you were born a certain way and can never change that fact. Race is something that you are categorized into no matter what nationality or country you live in. You fall under one of the main race groups or a mix of several. Another example is how we differentiate animals that come from a common ancestor as separate species after evolution has taken them to different paths. Although humans aren't as extreme, it's comparable. There was a rebuttal for the fact that there is no gene or physical characteristics such as skin pigmentation that can determine what you are. That is false. In an article published by TIME , "A longstanding orthodoxy among social scientists holds that human races are a social construct and have no biological basis" is simply wrong due to the "decoding of the human genome." Because of this, "a growing wealth of data has made clear that" this conception is "simply incorrect" and that there is "indeed a biological basis for race." Due to the fact that you can look into the genome and find particular proteins that correlate to different races, one cannot argue that race is subjective.
And this makes sense right? Tens of Thousands of years ago after the great migrations from Africa such as the Indo-European migrations, the Bantu migrations, the Polynesian migrations, and even the ones that brought people to the Americas from Alaska, you'd expect evolution over thousands of years from their surroundings that would result in physical diversification such as skin pigmentation and average height. You cannot tell me that these two people are the same physically and genetically and that they cannot be distinguished from these characteristics let alone if a genome test was done on them.
I am not denying, however, that the racism and discrimination that happens in society is socially constructed. As you'd expect if you were separated for tens of thousands of years, the people that you were with would likely create its own culture and customs. These, I believe, are the roots of the reason that racial groups are viewed as different than others. The social stigmas and stereotypes that come with each race are a direct result of their culture and behavior are the reasons why different ethnic and racial groups distance themselves from others. The rapid globalization of our planet and intermixing of cultures would have the expected effects of fear, racism, and discrimination. This aspect of the argument, I believe, is indeed socially constructed. There is a choice, whether or not we oppress or segregate people based off of their race, but it is not a choice whether or not we are a certain race.
In conclusion, race is not socially constructed, but racism is. I think the main problem with this debate is over the meaning of the term socially constructed. Whether it means that it was first identified by humans (which would actually make everything socially constructed) such as the difference between a tree and a potato or that the concept itself was manufactured by humans such as the difference between normal people and gangsters shapes our opinions. Is color socially constructed if we categorized them? Is math socially constructed because we labeled the different kinds and its laws? There was nothing to predate human language to be able to classify these things. If you say that something is socially conceptual, such as how race is since we had to give names to these races, because humans had to give a name to them, then everything is socially conceptual. There was nothing before these terms and language such that humans could telepathically send chemical messages to one another. I've concluded that the root of these debates is either the difference in the interpretation of the term socially constructed, or the inaccuracy of the question itself. If your opinion still falls opposite to mine, I'll leave you with a question. What's not socially constructed?
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Human Nature Explained Through Maus
In order for Maus to portray the gruesome realities the Holocaust, he not only employs the illustrations but also the content in order to quake the hearts of the readers. One key ingredient in his recipe for complete awe is to show the effects and transformations the Holocaust has on its victims such as grief, guilt, and survival.
It is no surprise that when humans are brought to their absolute survival limits, their characters will drastically change to their primitive instinct - to survive. This is evident throughout Maus and is hinted at early in the prologue when Art's father tells him “Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week…Then you could see what it is, friends! …” He says this due to the fact that familial and friendship bonds were constantly being tested and broken throughout Maus. One recurring moment is when fellow Jews would join the side of the Germans in tormenting and exterminating their own kind in exchange for the chance to make it through the war. There is no reason to blame them, however, because wouldn't we all do the same in the end? If you were to choose your and your family's lives over some strangers you haven't even met, isn't the choice obvious? This hardwired selfishness as mentioned in This is Water is ever prevalent. This is a trait that even becomes embedded into Vladek during and long after the war. His inherent instinct to be stingy can be seen when he only offers snow to the dying train riders in exchange for goods and when he exchanges partially eaten food at the grocery store. This is to represent that these qualities can infect even the best of people, even the protagonists. This eventually leads to another trait of human nature that is seen - grief and guilt. Grief and guilt are very common side effects of trauma such as the Holocaust or the suicide of Art's mother. In both cases, it has left people in tatters over the past. Art's constant struggle with the guilt of not being able to experience the Holocaust with his parents nags at him and his even the cause of his obsession with the Holocaust in the first place. Along with that, the grief and guilt he feels as represented in "Hell on Planet Earth" shows his blaming of self due to his mother's suicide. Art Spiegelman is trying to demonstrate these traits to a large audience to let them have a better understanding of the feelings that surround the atrocities of the Holocaust.
It is no surprise that when humans are brought to their absolute survival limits, their characters will drastically change to their primitive instinct - to survive. This is evident throughout Maus and is hinted at early in the prologue when Art's father tells him “Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week…Then you could see what it is, friends! …” He says this due to the fact that familial and friendship bonds were constantly being tested and broken throughout Maus. One recurring moment is when fellow Jews would join the side of the Germans in tormenting and exterminating their own kind in exchange for the chance to make it through the war. There is no reason to blame them, however, because wouldn't we all do the same in the end? If you were to choose your and your family's lives over some strangers you haven't even met, isn't the choice obvious? This hardwired selfishness as mentioned in This is Water is ever prevalent. This is a trait that even becomes embedded into Vladek during and long after the war. His inherent instinct to be stingy can be seen when he only offers snow to the dying train riders in exchange for goods and when he exchanges partially eaten food at the grocery store. This is to represent that these qualities can infect even the best of people, even the protagonists. This eventually leads to another trait of human nature that is seen - grief and guilt. Grief and guilt are very common side effects of trauma such as the Holocaust or the suicide of Art's mother. In both cases, it has left people in tatters over the past. Art's constant struggle with the guilt of not being able to experience the Holocaust with his parents nags at him and his even the cause of his obsession with the Holocaust in the first place. Along with that, the grief and guilt he feels as represented in "Hell on Planet Earth" shows his blaming of self due to his mother's suicide. Art Spiegelman is trying to demonstrate these traits to a large audience to let them have a better understanding of the feelings that surround the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Was Foot Binding Oppression?
Sparked by the second chapter "White Tigers" from "The Woman Warrior," a foot binding controversy arose between William and the rest of the class about the patriarchal oppression of foot binding in China. Having a great-grandma who was actually foot-bound, previous curiosity on this topic, and sticking to the theme of expanding upon small topics in class, I'm writing this today.
From the line "Even now China wraps double binds around my feet," Kingston suggests that even though times have progressed in terms of feminism, she still feels the patriarchal effects of society relative to the ages of foot binding in China. I'm going to have to agree with the majority of the class and say that even though William's point of foot binding being a sign of prosperity through the signification of economical stability from the male, it comes with many other reasons of being.
From the line "Even now China wraps double binds around my feet," Kingston suggests that even though times have progressed in terms of feminism, she still feels the patriarchal effects of society relative to the ages of foot binding in China. I'm going to have to agree with the majority of the class and say that even though William's point of foot binding being a sign of prosperity through the signification of economical stability from the male, it comes with many other reasons of being.
Sign of Prosperity
Going back to where we left off in the previous paragraph, the status of well-being was initially stimulated by the desire of males to somewhat "show off" to others, it's still without a doubt a forced action by mothers and families upon their daughters. The ability to show other people that you could feed "useless mouths" was a sign that you had more money and food than needed.
Sex
One of the most overlooked reasons of foot binding was the desire of men for women who were foot bound. Although that cultural reasons was the main cause of foot binding, it was explicitly sexual. This comes down to the reason that mutilated feet resulted in tighter thigh and pelvic muscles which men I assume desired more than anything. It was because of this patriarchal standard that mothers would force the practice onto their children despite the pain given the chance that their daughters could be taken away by a wealthy man. Unfortunately, this lasted for centuries and was even continued after its ban in 1911 because of the innate desires of men. Just because it was banned, it didn't mean that the desirable effects of foot binding went away. This is solid proof that it wasn't a cultural but societal problem.
In conclusion, foot binding is purely a result of patriarchal oppression because of the values that men put onto the practice. There was in no way a choice for the person who was being foot bound. I couldn't imagine someone saying "Yes, please break the bones in my feet and bandage them together so that they're permanently disfigured and crippled for life." So although William made the correct point that it was a positive sign, it was invalid in its attempt to validate the moral and ethical values of the practice. Due to the fact that I don't want everyone to be completely grossed out, I won't post a picture on the blog. You're Welcome.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Prison
In Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, he quotes that "I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up," implying that the prison was nothing more than a cage in which the prisoners were treated as animals.
Nationwide, there's an unnoticed crime happening within our criminal justice system. Although it seems justified, prisoners have to go through things such as inhumane hours, food, housing, environment, and culture. These conditions do no more than waste billions of tax dollars for nothing more than just putting people on a large-scale timeout.
I believe that there should be a newfound purpose for prisons - to redirect people. If prisons simply hold people in cells, it's just a waste of a life. However, if prisons simply tried to rehabilitate and reeducate, instead of leaving the prison as bitter versions of their earlier selves, would have new skill sets to make it on their own. In America, which follows the harsh prison layout, has a 43% chance of prisoners returning to prison within 5 years of being released. However, in places such as Norway which has the most humane form of prisons, has a returning rate of only 30% - which is a rather significant difference even though it doesn't seem like it. The difference? Norway treats them like people. With things such as education, real-life training, job training, respect, and freedom, prisoners are more likely to be re-immersed into society. I think it's time for the American prison system to evolve at the same pace as the innovations of the rest of the world.
Nationwide, there's an unnoticed crime happening within our criminal justice system. Although it seems justified, prisoners have to go through things such as inhumane hours, food, housing, environment, and culture. These conditions do no more than waste billions of tax dollars for nothing more than just putting people on a large-scale timeout.
I believe that there should be a newfound purpose for prisons - to redirect people. If prisons simply hold people in cells, it's just a waste of a life. However, if prisons simply tried to rehabilitate and reeducate, instead of leaving the prison as bitter versions of their earlier selves, would have new skill sets to make it on their own. In America, which follows the harsh prison layout, has a 43% chance of prisoners returning to prison within 5 years of being released. However, in places such as Norway which has the most humane form of prisons, has a returning rate of only 30% - which is a rather significant difference even though it doesn't seem like it. The difference? Norway treats them like people. With things such as education, real-life training, job training, respect, and freedom, prisoners are more likely to be re-immersed into society. I think it's time for the American prison system to evolve at the same pace as the innovations of the rest of the world.
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