The Experience of Racism

I must be honest, I had very little insightfulness on the "Experience of Racism"  I truly wish I has an anecdote or tale to portray how racism has affected my personal life.  At first I would say that "No, it hasn't"  As I explained in an earlier blog, I grew up in a practically all white neighborhood.  There was one black boy who went to my elementary school.  He lived in the richest part of the neighborhood and had a pool.  He certainly did not fit the stereotype I had seen of other black or other races.  But that is exactly how my experience of racism fits in with my life.  The stereotypes.  I am so quick to stereotype, to laugh at the jokes my friends make, to assume the color of the persons skin by how they act.  I have been manipulated this way because of the way our society has depicted people of other races.  Races other then my own.  

The section on racism and female sexuality stuck out to me the most.  Not only is the depiction of female sexuality sickening to me but the depiction of racialized sexuality is even more shocking.  Black women are shown in the media as animalistic and primal, almost like a zoo animal, there for a man's gaze.  The fact that women can be dominated within gender and race is a problem that needs a light shown on it.  A big spotlight.  Racism, sexism and class all play a role in the way I have perceived other races too.  I live by Pac Highway, a popular spot to find prostitutes.  They majority of the prostitutes are women of color.  This is a vicious cycle because racism has created these women to have a lower income, they resort to prostitution or dancing and therefore are dubbed sexual and allowed to be preyed on.  Any women that has to unfairly face this treatment should not be discriminated against but instead helped and those classifying should realize that they may be the ones who are causing this cycle.

The More You Subtract, the More You Add

This article has everything to do with gender.  First, the fact that the advertisements that are being marketed to young girls are very gendered; this is how a girl is suppose to look and act like, this is how a male is suppose to look and act like.  Then these stereotypes are created and intensified to sell any and all products to young girls by feeding on their insecurities.  Advertisements are reflecting and reinforcing our culture that tells girls that they need to be “feminine” which includes being nice, getting attention from boys, and valuing romantic relationships with boys above all else.  Since our culture has put certain traits and features that girls should obtain marketing is using that to feed into this desirable market which are new consumers with disposable incomes and developing brand loyalty. Beauty and thinness is represented as the most valuable commodity a women could posses.  We glorify the model, actresses and singers who have it and advertise that their body and looks is completely obtainable with the right products.  These images are not only affecting women but men as well who are seeing these women and therefore judging real women in their lives.  Young girls are particularly vulnerable to the messages being feed to them because of the peer pressure they are beginning to face.  Not only are girls becoming self-conscious of their looks, young boys are being shamed for being too weak or too sensitive. Likewise, young girls are shamed if they are too loud, boisterous or too big.  Ads take shame and spin it to tell girls exactly how society wants them to act, be seen but not heard, be innocent but sexual, be accomplished yet childlike.  Not only are advertisements to blame, but the women that surround young girls are showing that it is normal to be obsessed with their weight.  Advertisements are “cutting girls down to size” with the waif and fragile like appearance while men are made to seem dominant and powerful in appearance.  As we as a society allow advertisements to continue to feed on the insecurities of young girls we are allowing them to cause dangerous and traumatic problems within girls.

Patriarchy, the System

White, middle to upper class, males have surrounded me my whole life.  My family is ran by them, my neighbor is full of them, my government is dominated by them, and they have mostly been the authority figures in my life.  This model not only reflects my life but many lives in our society and it is not only white males but males of all colors that follow this system.  When Johnson explains that we are all living in a system larger than ourselves, I believe it.  I also do not exactly know how to step out of this system.  I find myself sucked into the social system of men making the decisions and being in charge of protecting the women.  I am sometimes in a bind between wanting to be extremely independent and also wanting to be taken care of.  

I must embarrassingly admit that often my roommate and I will lie in bed at night and talk about how we want to fall in love.  We want a man to find us, whisk us off our feet, tell me how amazing I am and ultimately provide me all the happiness and joy I would ever need in the world.  Its quite the fairy tale but I can dream right?  and why do I sometimes so strongly desire this?  Is it because our society has embedded into my brain the ideals and wants a women should look for in a man?  This hope for Prince Charming is only one of the issues that our system has created for women and men.  As a society we promote behaviors of male dominance, and breed a misogynic culture.  We make social systems happen and we participate in these very social systems.

I wish that Johnson would have touched on the issue of women following this patriarchal society.  It is a small amount of women who stand up against the system of hatred, dominance, and disrespect aimed at them.  Instead, it is shrugged off, filed as something that has and always will be that way.  This male dominance is everywhere.  Women in media and ads are depicted as weak and submissive.  Girls growing up are manipulated to act weaker and speak softer then their male counterparts.  To fix this problem we must not only have men take into account how they are acting and what stereotypes they are following but women must as well.  They must know that they are being forced into a system that can only be stopped if the majority of the people say  that it is not okay.

The Social Construction of Gender

"Talking about gender for most people is the equivalent of fish talking about water" (pg 24) Really?  Before entering into Women Studies, gender, or defining gender was not a subject I discussed.  Atleast, I did not discuss how it affected issues from race, class, religion and society.  The fact that we are "doing gender" does make complete sense to me.  The way I act, dress, present myself, what I say and how I say it all has to do with the gender I have was assigned.  Judith Lorber explains that gender roles change, but I question how much they really have changed.  Even if fathers are taking care of children and girls and boys are wearing unisex clothes there is still a stereotype of how girls and boys, men and women, males and females are suppose to act.  Even with the blurring that is happening in society we still need to organize what everyone is.  Transgender is a blurring the lines between male and female and yet we still have to label them as transgender. 

The amount of organization in our world is all I have ever known and I wonder what our world would look or be like if we had a lack of organization.  What if the majority of the world was not classifiable?  I would hope that we would have more acceptance of each other because we would all not be able to label and categorize everyone.  Would their still be a ranking?  Would men still be better, faster, stronger?  I can only imagine there would be more equality for all people.  But we still continue to repeat the patterns we have seen for centuries, we act the way we are suppose to because that is how it was 20 years, 50 years, 100 years ago.  It is only when we change the course of repeated patterns, for example, women's suffrage, that we actually make a distinguishable change in our society.  We still have a long way to go.

My Social Location... I think.

Who am I and where am I from? Also, where am I going? These questions are simple in grammar yet could possibly some of the most difficult questions to answer. On the micro level I am a white eighteen year old female.  I am heterosexual, Christian and wealthy.  All these traits are obvious from my appearance.  My clothes say it, my actions say it and the people who I associate with say it.  Accordingly, my meso level is perfectly in sync with my micro level.  My home is Normandy Park, Washington a small city south of Seattle.  It is made up of very wealthy, white, christian citizens. That is my home, my comfort level and people whom I love.  My home now is also Washington State University.  Obviously, WSU has more diversity then my own home town but I still find myself being drawn to a place I am comfortable in, a sorority.  Chi Omega is filled with a hundred girls who share my socioeconomic status as well as beliefs and age.  For now I am a little confused on my macro level.  As an eighteen year old girl I feel like my voice has very little impact or power.  

As I look over my social location it seems very dominant.  As someone who is representing white wealthy teenage females I want to represent a positive image of us.  I want to be able to impact and change the world.  I want to break the stereotype of girls.  I want to be completely authentic.  Now I just have to figure out who I am to be authentic.

Defining Gender and Power

As a group we (Sierra, Stephanie, Dustin, Candace and I) came up with some ways we would define Gender and Power.

Gender:

• "more of how you see yourself"
  
• "how you portray yourself"
  
• "how you fit into societies roles"
  
• "society makes certain rules you consciously or subconsciously follow"
  
• "sex is biological"
  
• "reflecting or rebelling against society"
  
• "a label you buy into in society"
  

-femininity and masculinity  

Power: 

• "judgement"
  
• "strength" 
  
• "constantly judging each other and worried about being judged"
  
• "being outspoken no matter if you are right or wrong"
  
• "power of masculinity and femininity"
  
• "changing the way others think"
  
• "being confident"
  
• "holding yourself in a strong way"
  
• "doing things for yourself vs doing it for others"
  
• "only can have power if you have followers"
  

These are just some of the thoughts that came to us when we were discussing our definitions.  From my perspective Gender is a role that society has made rules for such as what males and females wear, act, present themselves, occupations and more. Since society has set these rules, people are suppose to follow the "gender" or their sex.  But there are still many questions that come up such as being gay, straight, bisexual or transgendered.  These positions in society do not seem to have rules and so the gender position is blurred. 

Power is being in control and to have control their comes strength, judgement, confidence and outspokenness. Again this definition also comes with questions like What is strength?  How do we define it?  

We The People

I had to memorize the Preamble to our Constitution in 7th grade.  My class also learned all the about the Declaration of Independence and colonization.  Of course in seventh grade I had no idea what messages were being presented within the text of two of our historically significant documents but now as an 18 year old college student I will begin to decipher words that I still have memorized but never knew the meanings of.  

When I first looked over the Declaration of Independence this semester I noticed a few things.

• Men is capitalized 
  
• "all men are created equal"
  
• When you scan the document all you see is "He"
  
• Words like War, Alliance, Commerance all remind me of men.  Why is this?  Is this because the very men that wrote this and founded our country established these ideas for me?
  
• Another question I had "Is there gender unity when they say "we" and and speak of the people of the colonies?  
  

As we discussed the reading in class more ideas formed for me.  I now believe that there was no gender unity when the word "we" is discussed.  We was meant for the colonies.  Not involved in that we were slaves, indigenous, poor, children, women, elders, impaired and some men.  Immediately I think "Great, my founding fathers did not want me to be apart of this nation."  At least without equal rights.  I am saddened by the situation that was set in place for me by men so long ago.  And if I am affected as a white women who is wealthy then I can barely imagine what it must be like for the poor or blacks or indigenous.  

The way that our nation was established (by white males in power) has been prevalent in most of my life and what I have seen.  First of all I have been raised around money and those who have the most money or wealth are the most respected or well known in my community.  My community is ran by white males.  They are the head of the households.  They bring home the money while most mothers in my neighbor stay home with their children.  My family may be an exception as both my parents work but I use to see my dad as the one with the final say, he held the power. It just what I knew.  Masculinity is also apparent in all the boys playing sports and I only know one gay male from my community.  My elementary school had about 5 black kids enrolled.  I think that since my community was mostly white that it fueled racism.  I do not think it was uncommon to hear racist comments or remarks come out of friends mouths when seeing a black person in our neighborhood.  

I wonder if this is what our founding fathers imagined for the future of the nation when they wrote those incredibly biased and slanted words.  All people were not created equal when the Declaration of Independence was written and it is obvious 300 years later.