Category: Posts

The Glass Ceiling Vs. Women in the Workplace

Presentation

The topic of my project is “The Glass Ceiling Vs. Women in the Workplace. Over the years as women have strived to be treated equally as men, they are still subjected to discrimination in the workplace. Though they continue to break barriers in traditionally dominated male roles the glass ceiling continues to hamper advancement and feed the narrative of women’s role being at home or in caring professions. Some examples are: women cannot perform the same as a man, women with children need special provisions, women are too emotional and thus cannot represent dominance in critical thinking roles. I chose these specific things for the presentation to share with you all and make others more aware of the issue and present my findings that yes, the glass ceiling does still exist in the 21st century.

WGS-PresentationDownload
Katherine C. Naff. “Through the Glass Ceiling: Prospects for the Advancement of Women in the Federal Civil Service.” Public administration review, vol. 54, no.6, American Society for Public Administration, 1994, pp. 507-14,
doi:10.2307/976669. 
Carter, N. M., & Silva, C. (2011). The Myth of the ideal worker: Does doing all the right things really get women ahead? Catalyst. 
Barreto, Manuela da Costa., et al. The Glass Ceiling in the 21st Century : Understanding Barriers to Gender Equality. 1st ed., American Psychological Association, 2009.

Presentation

The AIDS crisis during the 1980s hit its peak. People were frantic and in panic over the unknown autoimmune disease. AIDS took many victims and influenced the rise in homophobia against gay men and the LGBT community. They faced a lot of discrimination and scrutiny socially, politically, and economically. My research was dedicated to finding out how and why the LGBT community was affected the most especially negatively.

Post 12 Presentations

For my project I will be writing a Syllabus on a course that covers the topic of toxic masculinity in one of the South Asian peninsula countries- Bangladesh. There has always been a stereotypical view that toxic masculinity exists more heavily in Bangladesh. What I have observed from my research is that the culture and religion of Bangladeshi men are the cause of the toxic masculinity that is so heavily presented by the media in the South Asian peninsula. My research has shown that this toxic masculinity is also to blame for the large oppression of woman in these countries, especially when it comes to rape and domestic violence. My course will be challenging this research, by opening the eyes of students to the actual nature of global toxic masculinity, rather than what the news and media would like us to think. I will be sharing the key points of my opposition of the notion that toxic masculinity is more prevalent in this country as opposed to others. This is important in understanding that toxic masculinity is actually a global issue and to truly understand it and prevent it, we must first explore: why is it presented more publicly in Bangladeshi men? and what does the media gain through their efforts in driving us to believe that these men possess more toxic masculinity than others ?

Below is my project presentation of the reasons as to why we have these stereotypes and the reasons as to why I oppose this view.

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Presentations; Step 5 for the project

For many years, film makers around the world have made it their mission to create not only a great movie but, convey an impactful story. When directors have hidden meanings imbedded within every movie, they make with the intention of getting people to think and or realize something they hadn’t before. As they carefully shine light onto characters that offer valuable lessons for those who are watching. Considering, that writers move people with the words they choose to include within scripts to the severity of what they are going through. With that being said, I chose to utilize the art of film whose settings take place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that unpack the internal damage that gender roles have posed on women. I chose to create a collage of photos that would celebrate powerful women and the lengths took in order to achieve equality. That led me to the conclusion of my thesis statement of how gender roles have only proven to fuel a desire amongst women to break ties from all restrictions that prevent them from reaching a better future.

Post 12: Presentations

In my project, I set out to research gender and queerness in Steven Universe. I found that instead of introducing a gender binary, the show encourages characters to live fluidly. The crystal gems rebel against the diamonds who rule their home planet. They live on the earth freely, refusing to fulfill the roles they were meant to fulfill. Characters do not have to abide by any heteronormative structures. Steven does not fully belong to one group or another because he is half human and half gem. His experience could relate to someone who identifies as gender queer. The show is also able to display a world where people can exist without patriarchy or a gender binary. I choose to share the points in the slides to prove how the Steven Universe portrays a world that exist outside of heteronormativity.

Post 10: The Master’s Tools

In her essay, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, Audre Lorde protests the division and separation between feminists in an academic environment. This division of women and overlooking of other women (such as black, lesbian, poor, and third-world women) is being disguised as unity and inclusion.

Lorde challenges white feminists’ agenda of advocating for tolerance. She explains that playing by patriarchal rules of racism and trying to tolerate the difference between women, suggests that these differences are a form of weakness, instead of viewing them as a source of power. Lorde then states that playing by the rules of patriarchy while trying to make change occur, will mean making very little change and staying in the field of patriarchy.

I agree with Lorde’s message that women are “taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation”, playing by the rules dictated by racism, homophobia, and sexism. I also agree with Lorde’s call to come together because “Without community there is no liberation”.

Therefore, I do stand by Lorde’s statement of “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” In order to bring about actual change that fights the forces of patriarchy, we all must play by the rules of feminism. We need to be inclusive and see our differences as a fund of creativity and voices.

However, I disagree with Lorde is when she states that the fact we cannot bring about actual change under patriarchy “is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.” I believe this is threatening all of us – those who proudly call themselves feminists, those who do not yet believe in equality, the white, black, and other feminists of us – we all suffer from the burden and limitations of patriarchy and the difficulty to bring about change, regardless to our acceptance of patriarchy or not.

Furthermore, Lorde calls on white feminists to educate themselves and not rely on the patriarchal rule where “Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educated men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master’s concerns.” I stand by the call for self-education and agree that it is not the black feminist’s role to educate others, but to live by her ideology and fight for the racial and gender equality she deserves. Yet, I know that in order to include as many people as possible in your agenda, one must educate everyone around them. Change is not led by one person, one group, or one idea – it is the sum of joint efforts, minds, and forces that creates actual change. Therefore, we must continue and educate the people around us, demand their self-education, and not give room for ignorance.

Independent Project: BG

Independent-Project-PP-Finished-Womens-2021-BGDownload

My independent project was made to focus on abortion rights in 2021 when I say this I mean the limitations and the hardships women are going through in order to have an abortion. I chose this topic because I wanted to further the understanding and misconceptions about abortions and the legality of them across the world. Where can women get legal abortions?? how many places in the world women can’t get abortions?? My idea for this project was to create a drawing depicting abortion and how difficult it has gotten to have one. I have this idea of angry women and the uterus on paper but I believe it’s more than that I believe that these limitations have been put in place to watch women struggle when there is no need for it.

I wanted this to be a powerful drawing in the sense of me being able to depict 1000 words in one picture. I have this grand idea that I can fit so many words in one picture but it’s more than that it’s more than a picture it’s a statement that women should be able to have legal abortions everywhere and that no man or woman should be able to objectify that. I utilized web-based research compiled stories on media platforms and use databases from around the world to put a spotlight on the current realities of abortions and misconceptions around the world. Highlighting this topic was important for me because women should have safe access to abortions across the world. This fear has gone on for to long and should no longer effect women.

Research Summary

The use of contraception was once illegal and considered obscene. People could be charged for mailing or owning a pamphlet on the topic and could be charged for using birth control. There were laws against all birth control methods including condoms and diaphragms. Today, these laws seem silly, and their use are often encouraged, but back then, contraceptives were blamed for every lewd and immoral act. The Supreme Court made a ruling allowing only married women to use contraception in 1965 and it was not until 1972 that single women had the same privilege. In 2021, abortion should not be illegal, just as contraception should not be a political issue so too abortion should be decided by the pregnant woman alone or with her partner or medical practitioner.

Politicians have mainly been white men and they have been creating abortion laws for centuries. It is time that women get to say choose whether to keep a baby or abort it. The decision should not be politicized. It is important to decriminalize abortion because unwanted pregnancies can lead to dangerous illegal abortions, abortions continue whether it is legal or not so giving women the choice of a legal clinic with medical staff will help save lives. Another reason this issue is important is that having a child that you cannot afford places additional financial burdens on yourself, your family and the government. Finally, legalizing abortion gives women a choice over their family size or when to start a family. Things happen and a woman may become pregnant but does not feel ready to start a family, just as a man can decide whether he wants to raise a child or not, a woman should have that choice as well.

Research Summary

The main issues with regards to the question, why women are generally considered by society to be more compassionate and empathic than men are due to a mixture of neurologic and psychological factors as well as societal and social pressures and functions and the culture that exists at the time. The collection of articles and studies I have explored all point to the fact that this social phenomenon regarding women having a higher capacity for empathy than men do and most point to the fact that the environment that a young child is born into, both social and parental plays a huge role in impacting development for the rest of their lives. Thus the upbringing and early childhood treatment of boys and girls respectively play an enormous role in understanding why exactly women grow up to generally be more compassionate and understanding than men are. According to Michelle Brandt’s article, “Are Women More Comapsinate than men- What the Science Tells Us?” nurturing young children’s minds shapes their emotional maturity and state of mind for life. This fact means that when little boys are taught to be strong and parents neglect to check up on their feelings, they will internalize this behavior and be less inclined to share and even experience their emotions in comparison to girls. This is a huge factor that accounts for why generally women grow up to be more compassionate than men are. This is how environmental and social dynamics are pushed on all of us as children by society and our families and how these societal distinctions in the way boys and girls are treated and exp[ected to behave impact development and our capacity for compassion as adults. On the other hand, Elizabeth Simsdons’s article, “When Watching Others in Pain, Women’s Brains Show More Empathy,” illustrates the more psychological and scientific aspects that make women in society appear as and be pierced as being more compassionate than men. The study which the article provides portrays, important evidence for the fact that women are biologically more compassionate than men are. When put under brain scan bot MRI and CEIT the results point to the fact that women respond stronger when observing the pain and suffering of other people. Images of awful events such as car accidents or bullying and even sexual assault were shown to members of both sexes, randomly selected from a variety of ethnicities and age groups. In conclusion, while no test can be considered conclusive proof of women being more empathic than are men, the evidence strongly pointed in favor of that realization. For these reasons, if one is to comprehend the notion, why society perceives women as being by nature more empathic and compassionate to other peoples pain and suffering, it is vital to know and understand that the factors that shape this perception as being due to a critical combination of societal and social structures that have been in place for generations and a biological and physiological structure within all human beings.

 

Post 7: Black Feminism

In her Ted talk, The Urgency of Intersectionality, Kimberlé Crenshaw talks about how police violence against African American women often gets dismissed and obliviated when the topic of police violence and/or violence against women arise. This is surprising since it should be obvious that black women are being discriminated for both their gender and race. Yet, the reason they and their problems are invisible is because they do not fit one frame. Crenshaw explains that “when facts do not fit with the available frames, people have a difficult time incorporating new facts into their way of thinking about a problem.” The people who are discriminated because of their intersectionality (gender and race), fall through the cracks of recognition. Because of the inability to frame black women in one group that suffers from one problem, it is easier to dismiss, ignore, or simply be oblivious to their problems.

In her poem, Who Said It Was Simple, Audre Lorde also refers to the struggles of intersectionality. She mentions the “many roots to the tree of anger”. The anger of the discrimination on the basis of racism, of sexism, of homophobia and so on. This is the struggle of a queer black woman who does not fight against one sort of discrimination, but the many intersecting ones that limit and dictate her life. Without using the later term ‘intersectionality’, Lorde mention that she “see[s] causes in colour as well as sex”. She explains that the people around her, the white women fighting for equal rights or the black man fighting for civil rights, do not fully accept her in either of these groups. Lorde ends the poem asking herself “which me will survive all these liberations?” Like Crenshaw, Lorde cries for the lack of framing or naming that would help raise awareness to the problems her and people like her experience.

Crenshaw states that “when there’s no name for a problem you can’t see a problem, and when you can’t see a problem you pretty much can’t solve it”. The goals of these black feminists is to first make us see the problem and secondly to name it. Unlike “mainstream” feminism which aims to achieve gender equality through political and legal reform, black feminist aim to bring awareness to the intersecting discriminations against black women. They cannot focus only on gender inequality or solely on racial injustice, but must raise the voices of black women who experience the everyday struggles of both these obstacles.