Time for a Rest

Hello readers! I'm finally on spring break! I will be posting more when I return from spring break! Hope you'll enjoy the sun's warmth and the brighter days ahead!

I'm planning on adopting a blind puppy. It is a chihuahua and yorkie mixed breed. The puppy developed cataracts and it's far too expensive to pay for the surgery--$2,000 per eye. My sister is absolutely saddened by this as I refrain from such emotions. I don't want to turn my puppy into a demon dog by giving it affection 100%.  I learned that from Ceasar Millan. I love watching his Dog Whisperer shows!  It's amazing! And it's free on YouTube!

Education Matters

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I can relate to many Mexican Americans both as a minority group and as a foreigner to this country. Even if I was born in the US, I feel like a foreigner in many ways. My family doesn't understand USA's complex social system (i.e. politics, legislation, education, and etcetera). My parents do not know how to read. They don't know how to speak English. The racialized hierarchy in the US and being in poverty contribute to how difficult it has been for my family to adjust to the US. The environment at home is like....(how can I describe this...?)...a struggle for everything. I feel we are still new to this country. After living here for over 30 years, we still do not know this USA world. Many times I wonder how it would be like to be born and raised in a white upper-middle class family. I just think so many things would be easier.

Motherhood

I am impressed of the Chicana mothers in 21st Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency edited by Andrea O'Reilly.

In the essay Chicana Mothering in the Twenty-first Century: Challenging Stereotypes and Transmitting Culture written by Jessica M. Vasquez, the Chicana mothers are active in demanding equality for their children's education. Chicana mothers were counteracting the "racializing messages of public discourse and institutions" (35).

These mothers academically pushed their children in a critical way. They advocated and fought for their children's rights to be in advance courses offered in schools when it was rather discriminatory to minority groups.

I would be super embarrassed if my parents did this. My dad would be shouting at a teacher, "She NO FAULT! My dau-to NO FAULT!" Guess why? Exactly.

You wouldn't really understand why, and that's why it's so embarrassing. He doesn't speak English very well. The fragments of his sentences do not match up into a comprehensive phrase. I remember the last time I told my family how my Advanced Placement World History teacher was just making us watch Bollywood videos every class hour. I wanted to learn more than watch Indian movies all day. Then my father came to school and created a big hullabaloo.

I was trying to tell my dad it wasn't a big deal and that we should just go home. He was shouting at a security guard, demanding to meet with my teacher. It was 5pm and school was already over. My teacher had already left (thank goodness). And then, the worst part was when my Hmong friend walked by and asked my dad what was wrong. My dad started getting him involved in the whole mess of things! It was so embarrassing. My friend was listening to my dad speak in Hmong about how my teacher was awful and wasn't educating the students correctly. While my dad was talking to my friend, guess what happened!?

The principal of the school walked towards us. Oh my. The principal asked what was wrong and my dad began shouting, "My dau-to. Her teacher NO GOOD!" My Hmong friend then took over and explained the situation to the principal. I was too embarrassed to even speak. I was trying to get out of the whole situation from the beginning my dad stepped foot in the school. After talking to the principal in the middle of the school's entrance, we finally went home. The teacher wasn't able to teach advanced courses anymore. I remained in her mediocre class until the end of the semester.

Similar to the Chicana mothers, both my mother and father care a lot about my education. I've always had a big academic push from my whole family. They all wanted me to become a medical doctor. They wanted me to rescue the whole family from poverty. I had straight A's in high school and was in the most advanced courses, including college courses in high school. They have used a lot of their time and energy to survive in this country and for me to have a good education. I respect those who value education's promises.

Intensions Behind the "Feminist" Postcard

Hey everyone! So, I emailed the artist who created the postcard. He responded to my email yesterday. I basically asked him what his intentions were for creating the postcard. It's a shame he didn't put much effort in researching feminism before throwing the images and words together to create the postcard. Please read below and then let me know your thoughts.

Hi Monzong,

Thanks for the email.

Gosh that postcard for the feminist society is a few years back now.

My intent?

- question the impact of the "feminist" movement
- question the "need" of the feminist movement
- question the "stage" in history of the feminist movement.

It was a very last minute constructed postcard, i didn't have the luxury of research ect ect

I know it could be misconstrued / mis interpreted (one of the beauties of "art") - but the main idea came from assessment of feminism. Ive 3 sisters that rule the family.

Many of my friends wives earn more money than the man, female prime ministers are common.

The third contentious image, was meant to refer to : "for every germaine greer / frida kahlo - feminist - there will always be a girl in LA in a porn film"  - ironically get paid MORE than men in the industry.

But not that literal. - also that feminism has also created an alternative to feminism itself, Thinking back to the 60's, feminist movements sprung up, and alternating ideas

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF A WOMAN - why the need to specify it?>

and so...feminism would funnel some women to being more conservative and "self respectful" - and the some the other direction - i.e overtly sexual, promiscuous - like the pre conceived "male cliche"

i could go on and on, but thats the gist....

THanks for the email, discussion is always healthy

David

Work-Family Feminist Theory

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Hey everyone! I didn't realize this was still a draft since last Friday! I'm posting it now!

I'm getting lost in Joan William's book, Reshaping the Work-Family Debate. I don't fully understand or have the prior knowledge of different types of feminisms. I can't seem to understand William's critiques and proposition of reconstructive feminism. I am simply absorbing everything I am reading from her book. I mostly agree with everything she is saying, but I feel I need to be more critical when reading just because that's what a scholarly student does! I haven't been able to accomplish this though. I feel lost.

Essentialism has many issues because it makes gender roles seem natural. And eventually, we are left with the thought: Why change the workplace if women don't want to be there? This is problematic as people may feel there is no need to improve the workplace. Women do not want to work since it is a masculine place. Essentialism overlooks the issues of masculinity in the workplace.

How else do we need to frame our questions in order to understand the work-family debate?

What is Reconstructive Feminism?

Williams proposes a new way of shaping the workforce: "The first calls for eliminating the ideal-worker norm in market work; the second calls for eliminating the ideal-worker norm in family entitlements. The third calls for changing the ways we talk about gender" (4).

And then what...?

Anti-feminism

BRACE YOURSELF: disturbing image below. 

Feminist Postcard Art Auction in the United Kingdom 

This postcard was made by David Rusbatch--an artist and painter from the United Kingdom.

I stumbled upon his artwork after reading this short anti-feminism blog post.

In this blog, Carlin Ross argues that Catherine A. MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin's contribution to the feminist movement had extreme views of anti-porn to the point where feminists were thought of to have become polarized into "anti-sex shrews like the woman in the middle image." Furthermore, Ross expressed deep frustration with how "the likes of" Dworkin and MacKinnon "killed the movement and left us all with a face full of cum".

Whoa...

...

What's going on here?

Is this really how we should interpret the sequence of images on Rusbatch's postcard?

If so, it makes me very upset and disappointed in the artist.

What I am most disappointed at is Ross' narrow and biased viewpoint. And I'm trying my best to hold back all my anger so that I may understand why Ross may feel this way.

After reading her bio, I believe this may be the reason why she may have found great disappointment in Dworkin and McKinnon:

"I grew up in a Christian Fundamentalist home (I know from feminism to the Moral Majority).  My father was a minister and I was taught at home.  There was no radio, television, and no sex before marriage.  My personal experience taught me that sexual repression is used to control and manipulate others."

Ross labeled Dworkin and MacKinnon anti-porn and anti-sex through her frustrations with the Christian Fundamentalist religion tendency to value abstinence before marriage. Dworkin and MacKinnon were not anti-sex or anti-pleasure. Dworkin acknowledged the sexual revolution during the 1960s in the USA. 

Peace and Love

About 20 minutes into this documentary called Pornography, Dworkin says:

"Initially, pornography was seen to be a vehicle of liberation simply because it violated laws. And the laws were associated with a repressive adult generation. And anything they tried to stop us from doing, 'we did!'. Pornography was part of that."

Dworkin was attacking the industry. She was critiquing the system. Pimps were making profit off of women's bodies. And by purchasing porn, consumers were contributing and continuing this violent cycle of abusing women in porn. Dworkin analyzed how they were all "responsible for the ways in which women are abused". Pimps exploited the sexual freedom that people have been fighting for and transformed it into a for-profit and "woman-hating industry". This does not mean that Dworkin was against people having sex. She was not against the natural human function of pleasure. She was going against the exploitation of sex.

Human Right

In Reshaping the Work-Family Debate, Joan Williams notes that MacKinnon theorized about the eroticizing of dominance. MacKinnon published Sexual Harassment of Working Women and then the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adopted guidelines that established sexual harassment as gender discrimination (Williams 111). Dworkin and MacKinnon viewed pornography as violence against women (Williams 112). This doesn't mean that Dworkin and MacKinnon were against sex. This is the misconception people may have because of the distorted messages of their activism. Dworkin and MacKinnon were antipornography. They were against the dehumanization of women. They were against the way pornography heavily portrayed women as sexual objects.

For one, you can't ever really say that we are in a post-feminism era just like how we cannot say we are in a post-racism era. Feminism and racism has only shifted in form. Feminism is still alive and well today. So what does Ross and Rusbatch mean by post-feminism? I hope his intentions were along the lines such as "without feminism women are in danger".

How have you interpreted the meaning of his art work?

Mama PhD

Mama PhD

I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog so far! I'm going to make this one a little short!

As a college student, I marvel at the professors raising young children amid the intense demands of academia. I often worry about keeping them for longer with my questions about course material when I know their family awaits them at home. I want to know more about how professors balance a life of publishing research, while caring for their children. So here I am, working on researching this vague topic about motherhood and professorhood for my senior seminar class. The main goal of the research is to explore the scholarly conversations on motherhood and professorhood.

I became interested in this topic when my professor showed me a book called Papa PhD. I automatically asked, "Hmph! What about mothers!?" He replied, "Ah, yes! Mama PhD came out first, and then fathers wanted to create their own version of the book." Heh heh. I thought that was silly. But hey, I actually find it very interesting! And now I'm researching all about it!

Ooooh, I remember the first time when I had to do research like this. It was painful!!! It was very difficult to transfer from an introductory women's studies course to the ultimate senior seminar intensive research course. What made it worse was that I felt I was not provided with enough tools and support to conduct research. The one hour tutorial of how to research was not enough to help me at all! And prior to this course, I had no idea how to do research nor navigate through scholarly databases!

But now, I am nearly an expert!!! After taking a quantitative research methods course and conducting research, I have become very familiar with the process and components of research. Right now I am using A Writer's Reference and I highly recommend it--especially if you're new to this research process!

Pretty soon we will be working on an annotated bibliography (which I found to be absolutely trembling the first time around). 

Here are some samples: 

• APA Annotated Bibliography
• MLA Annotated Bibliography

Knowledge is Precious

Precious Knowledge

I am loving Eren McGinnis' documentary film, Precious Knowledge. Watching the trailer has brought tears to my eyes as I reflect on the decades of being tested on white people's history (or History through the lens of white people). I wish my high school had an Ethnic Studies program.

The best my public high school could do in adding a challenge to its curriculum was the addition of  Advanced Placement courses. However, if you take a glimpse at the course topics you will see how not a single course sounds like it incorporates critical gender or race theory component.

I took the AP US History course during high school.
My final grade was a big fat  C+.

Shame on me? Whatever. I didn't want to memorize 1,000 dead white phony & over-glorified male politicians who worked hard to build this country. Who the hell does? I was tired of worshiping the white fathers of our past because of all the hidden truths of genocide (i.e. Manifest Destiny, slavery).

Genocide of Natives

My friends and I were too educated to be continually bullshitted by the racialized institution of our education system.

I remember how students in my class were more excited about discussing the history of illegal annexation of Mexican territory into what is now known as Texas. Our teacher allowed for us to discuss this for a minute or two, but then moved on to the required information we needed to learn in order to pass the AP US History exam. Oh my gosh the textbook was dry. And we were only learning what "white people" wanted us to know about US History. Martin Luther King Jr., and Harriet Tubman were the main black people we learned about. We never even talked about Malcolm X or the Black Panthers. This goes to show how flowery the US History textbooks were, and how colorblind the education system was trying to make us all.

Minority Mirror

I wish we read select chapters from Ronald Takaki's book, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America for AP US History.

Now that I think back to the education I received in high school, I believe many students would have really wished for an Ethnic Studies program. Even a Mexican American Studies program would have been absolutely beneficial and revolutionary!

Throughout high school, I questioned why I was required to read Tim O'Brien's book The Things They Carried instead of Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, The Americans, and The Secret Wars for Laos 1942-1992 written by Dr. Jane Hamilton-Merrit. The two books are about Vietnam war. But the second book would have had a greater connection to the many Hmong students who were in the classroom. More students would have been engaged if the second book was taught...perhaps?

And why were we not reading Kao Kaliah Yang's newly released book The LateHomecomer? I was a junior in high school in the year the book was released. I bet many students at my school would have finished the book within a week if it was required reading! It has great prose, and she's a great American writer of her generation! What's going on with the education system? Who are the ones making the reading requirements? Are they all white male legislators?

Great!

Why is it that The Great Gatsby is considered a "classic"? Who gets to categorize what makes a book a classic? And to what extent does this story resonate with everyone's experience?  This book was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a white man who had privilege to an education during the 1920s when women were denied any access to education. AND WHY were so many required readings for high school students male authors? Why can't we have more contemporary writers in our education curriculum? We can analyze the literary devices and writing techniques the authors have incorporated in their writings. It's not like we'll lose all of these literary skills if we were to simply choose books that perhaps resonate with contemporary experiences of students today. To top it off, we could even watch amazing documentary films like "Precious Knowledge" and gain lots of critical knowledge from it.

I had so many lingering questions that were left unanswered for years in high school. I felt there was no space to explore them as well. When I questioned my teachers, they simply shut it down and bickered to why I would ask such questions.

Hmm, I wonder if I go back to them now! Now that I have the knowledge of institutionalized racism and SEXISM of the education system, I wonder what will happen if I go back to ask these teachers these questions and challenge their cognition.

Anyways, I only have $2.35 in my bank account...and $8 dollars in my piggy bank... McGinnis is selling her DVD for $20.... I can't spend 100% of my money ($10.35) on one super duper amazing and revolutionary film....  I doubt she'll let me have an autographed DVD for $5.00. Hrmm... *sigh*.

Would you be so kind to lend me a dollar?

Forget it....I'll pay her in the pennies I have left...