Intersectionality: Walking in Another's Moccasins

Socially Constructed Differences

            If one is cisgendered, with gender identity matching the societal assigned gender, one is privileged to live in a world of normal expectations.  On the other hand, a transgendered person faces every day with challenges that change with each new situation.  Navigating the public forum is fraught with occasions that are uncomfortable, or even criminal, since gendered privilege dominates the environment. The bathroom use issues in N. Carolina come to mind. Living in a body easily recognized as either male or female does not oppose dominant ideology. Therefore, as Evin Taylor says, when one is cisgendered a person “generally needs to spend less energy to be understood by others (94)”. Culturally established hegemony drives politics and institutions.

1. Poverty: In the absence of a way to understand the structure of society based on classism, discontented people look for scapegoats. Women and the poor are especially vulnerable. Poverty has created a class of females who work more than one job and still cannot achieve the level of men who are paid more. (98) This is problematic in many organizations which may fire employees for merely sharing pay check information. Yeskel says, “…being poorer or richer than others leads to secrecy and silence (99)”.  She adds, “By definition it is impossible to have equality between classes while still having classes (99)”.

2. Disabled: Susan Wendel says, “…the biological and the social are interactive in creating disability (101)”. Standards of normality lead to social construct which excludes full participation in society. Expectations of performance give rise to the identity of being inadequate, and therefore disposable, if not one of the superior abled individuals.  Society’s failure to protect the vulnerable from wars, disease, and many other elements, creates the inequity of persons unable to physically measure up to a norm. Social factors that allow high risk working conditions, contaminated environments and poverty contribute to increasing numbers of disabled persons. Improved medical care results in partially abled survivors instead of deaths. Wendell includes the elderly, “since more people live long enough to become disabled (102)”. Disability is not merely a question of physical access but is also a construct of the mind.

3. Patricia Hill Collins, writing in “Toward a New Vision”, points out that the interlocking nature of race, class and gender is an essential element in analyzing the true nature of social relationships following the legacy of slavery in America. (p74) This intersectionality begins with understanding the overarching hegemony of white male privilege that affects women, both white and black, and the many poor who lack agency and a voice. Collins says, “Widespread, societally sanctioned ideologies used to justify relations of domination and subordination comprise the symbolic dimension of oppression (74)”. This means that dominant groups apply universal categories to those viewed in order to push them away and diminish their status. The dominant force in America is white and male. If you are a white woman, you are lesser in status to prevailing white male privileged patriarchy. If you are a black man, a black woman or poor, you rank even lower. The English language privileges the masculine form in discourse in spite of cultural changes which now see women in gender roles formerly held by men. This creates a need for gender neutral terms like “mailperson”.  Symbolic values make shortcuts that can ease everyday challenges but this perspective of stereotyping does not lend itself to analysis and objectivity. There must be equilibrium. For example: like a metaphoric seesaw, superior images of white womanhood must be balanced by lesser images of black women. (74) To correct this stereotyping, intersectionality increases awareness of privilege and prejudice and opens up multiple perspectives. Intersectionality enables an individual’s experience to connect and interact with another.  Walking in another’s moccasins has never been more applicable.

Empowering Beyond Feminism

Here are some comments from my Women Gender Studies for this semester:

Empowering Beyond Feminism

Admitting women to a patriarchal world of higher education opened the topic of women to study and research. Prevailing hegemony presumed that knowledge came from men, was about men, and women were merely a limb on the tree. A new focus on women validated uniqueness and awareness of gender issues. Writing in Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions, Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee note, “WGS is generally associated with feminism as a paradigm for understanding self and society (13)”. Feminism now expresses intersections of gender across diverse identities of race and class. 

Shaw and Lee say, “Patriarchy…shapes how women and men think about the world…and their relationships with one another (15)”. The first wave of feminism emerged to give women a voice in political matters affecting them.  Nineteenth century suffragettes stumped for equality and, by 1920, finally won the right to vote in America.  A second wave of feminism was directed at inequality in the workplace and family, with special emphasis on sexuality and reproductive freedom. However, injustices affecting women, and those who identified as women, were world-wide issues. The intersections of post-modernism, LGBT voices and multiracial awareness resulted in a third wave of feminist activism. Thanks to the Internet and economic globalization, women across the world are connected against institutional male inequality. (17)  Diverse perspectives and motivations contribute, even as they complicate, political progress.

1. Beverly Guy-Sheftall describes the strides that women’s studies have made in the forty years. Efforts to mainstream into male dominated curriculum have come a long way to balance gender in the academic establishment. Heightened awareness and sensitivity in a predominately male society produce advocacy for women of color and the poor.  Black women’s studies, incorporating intersectional analysis into topics of women and gender, contributed to the third wave. (31)

2. Bonnie Thornton Dill says, “We wanted feminist theory to incorporate the notion of difference… (32)”. If girls are stereotyped as not able to do math, they will be limited to lower status opportunities. If blacks are stereotyped as less intelligent than whites, then they will be steered to non-academic opportunities.  Intersectionality means that gender depends on elements of race, class, etc. which reinforces a classism of white privilege. (32)

3. Bell hooks defines feminism as “…a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression (37)”. America’s white/male/power balance shifted when white women gained agency. While they made gains in the workplace, they were still allied with the system which left women of color struggling. (39)  She thinks that sexism, not men, is the real problem. Although patriarchy is sexist, this does not make feminism anti-male or feminists man-haters.

4. C.V. Harquail writes, “When it comes down to distinguishing between women and feminists, we need to separate marketing and politics (43)”. The essay proposes a model of Facebook for women.  She says, “Feminist design of a product is a political action….intended to change power relationships and advance social change… (44)”. Faced with challenges stirred up by technology, the male (technology) can be subverted by designing women who are determined to reflect feminist priorities.

           

Inside Business noted that Microsoft has delayed its Windows 10 goal because the phone business collapsed. The connection is weird....seems like they wanted to hit the billion mark for customers. Well, after talking to Kapersky guys, I figured I did not have the time to adjust to a new system. Now it looks like the July 30 deadline may not apply to the free upgrade.

Hmmm. Stay tuned.

In other news, Quentin Keynes now has a face book site. I was trying to find my BlogSpot and lo, behold, using the Quentin article got me to his site. He passed a couple of years ago but his life was really interesting. I knew him back in the 60's and 70's....and we used one of his Jensen's on our honeymoon. Sigh.

Well, that's all for now.....

Senior citizens rock.

The Artfull Codger: Meanderings for a Country Mouse

The Artfull Codger: Meanderings for a Country Mouse

Meanderings for a Country Mouse

     We dodged a bullet this weekend and the storm was not as bad as it could have been. The best part is this upcoming week promises a stretch of light-as-a-feather weather. The air is crisp, cool, with a hot sun that reminds me of trying to make hay decades ago in the fickle weather of late May and early June.
   
     We spent many mornings waiting for the dew to dry enough to tedd what we cut the day before. Then it was a roll of the dice to see if it dried enough to rake. I loved those days...tedding, fluffing cut grass so it dried underneath... an excuse to get outdoors in the first part of the day.

     The tricky part was timing raking and baling. Raking picked up the hay so it could catch the breeze and rolled it in neat rows from one side of the meadow to the other. Nature could sabotage your efforts at this point. In the late 70's some farmers sprayed their bales with nitrogen to dampen spontaneous combustion. This was an added expense that also increased protein content, enhancing roughage for cows. However, it was thought that the additional nitrogen might be too much for equine digestion. So we made hay the old fashioned way, by waiting on the weather to assure the correct moisture for our bales. The problem was that the nutrient value would evaporate with plant juices. If too wet, there was a fear of fermentation and a very real threat that spontaneous combustion inside the bales could burn down the barn.

     Haymaking led to some rather bizarre anecdotes. There was a local phenomenon that spread rapidly back in those days without cell phones. One farmer would chew on his pipe and tell another that "S" was "making hay down by the river" and a spontaneous row of pickups would mosey down the river road....to watch "S" making hay. Black braids and lots of turquoise jewelry added to the exotica of the Arabian horse breeder getting a suntan...while covering bottom land with her gray ford tractor...topless.

     I remember using our road tractor and lowboy in the fields to pick up the hay bales. We mowed several acres under the power line right of way which was straight enough to get a big rig in. That seems like a lot of work but in the long run made a lot of sense, if you thought out of the box. We trudged after that trailer in the hot sun, tossing 40 pound bales up to the trailer. Then the guys stacking lifted them up to the desired height. Every trip was a mathematical challenge. Stacking meant they would and could topple. So it was theorized that alternating direction would lock the load. Then posts inserted in the sides of the rig gave additional purchase to tie down. In hindsight, it was fairly efficient, even if unorthodox.

     There was a fair amount of controversy about the right haymaker mix for field hands. Most concoctions included molasses or maple syrup for sugar, home-made vinegar or lemon juice to cut it, and lots of strong tea.  Sweat took salt and electrolytes out of the body so the contents of these jugs were serious business. There is a version hitting grocery stores now by Turkey Hill Ice Cream that harks back to these fortifying drinks for field workers.

    Unloading hay was the other half of a dusty and dirty job. We split people into those outside and those inside the barn. There was no way around the physical effort to get hay from field to the barn. The hay elevator transported bales up to the loft (no more than two bales on the lift at a time). Then someone hauled each one off at the top of the barn, tossed it laterally to the left or the right, where inside workers dragged each bale to its assigned place. There were more workers at the top of the piles inside, with dust building up in spite of the handkerchiefs over your face a-la-Jesse James, and part of their job was to see that the temperature did not soar into dangerous ranges. There were round vents with fans at each end of the hay loft. The heat building inside vented outside. For at least three days after the hay making, barn checks with a hand between bales, were essential. If anyone could feel heat between bales he would tear back to the house and we would all go out to monitor. Every year there were barn fires so we did not want to have an incident. Moving loads around kept mold down and guaranteed that the hay could be enjoyed down to the last sprig.

     The only way hay making seems to have improved is that now huge round bales are rolled up and covered for months. I guess this means that the heating from curing hay dissipates in the open air instead of building up in a barn loft.  But moving the buggers is a real problem. We used to try for two cuttings off the same field so those round bales would be a hassle. There is an ailment called "farmer's lung" which comes from inhaling the dust and mold spores in those hay making days. Later efforts to mechanize the production of fodder for equines might decrease the incidence of crippled breathing. Looking at the situation today, it does not seem that a great deal has changed. Horse enthusiasts import hay bales from out of state so our local fields now grow McMansions. Out of state sources seem to be still baling along with old methods. Perhaps these out of state farmers use paid labor instead of family members but the job seems basically the same. Privately, this country mouse thinks our hay was vastly superior to the dry stuff trailered in from Maine....

Seniors still count.

Summer Updates for Old Times

It has been a while since writing to everyone and I better get something down or my blog will vanish into the cloud. Face Book is seductive. Every time I sign on, it gives me the feeling that there are real persons out there. Blogging is like dropping an egg from the Empire State Building: you don't get to see the results. Having Nancy connect on FB with her bear photo has unleashed a storm of memories and things to talk about. Also, my summer class was cancelled because it did not have enough students signed up. This means that I have some mental energy bottled up so I may as well let it out.

By way of news, I have been elected Chairperson for the Advisory Council of the Mercer County Office on Aging. These folks used to intimidate me because they were so capable and smart. I hope that I have grown enough to be comfortable in their company.

This summer is half over and the days are getting shorter. I treasure each minute of daylight and cram little items that might prove the stuff of memories.  I wish that more of us could connect and share our experiences and hopes for future endeavors. After all, you are only as old as you feel.

Seniors Rock!

Remember and Restore

Today is 9/11. September the eleventh, in the year twenty-thirteen.... Somehow that does not seem consistent, but what does it matter anyway?

We think about the events of a day that will live in infamy, because it showed Americans just how vulnerable we are. The very weapons used by terrorists on that awful day were commonplace---airplanes filled with commuters, ordinary wives, mothers, sons, fathers, best friends, businessmen, who added mass to the terrorist's methods of destruction.

Since then, we have instituted elaborate screening methods and eves-dropping surveillance that has intruded into the very concept of freedom and privacy.  The question is: are we as a nation any safer for it?

Time.

The passing of time, the methods to record time, the very reasons for the concept of time have varied according to cultural demands of the society using it. Agrarian societies rise with the sun, eat at midday or when they are hungry, and sleep when it is dark. It was only with the advent of industry that people structured their lives by the common denominator of time.

 Now we struggle with the weight of those years which have passed.  Over a decade since the twin towers collapsed, and the cost of the war that followed is yet to be measured.

In the span of a morning, filled with sunshine and promise, almost 3,000 people died.  It is estimated that it will cost over a trillion dollars to treat the wounded warriors resulting from war efforts to even the score. Our responsibility is to remember and to restore.

 Now, we take time in this morning of 9/11 to murmur prayers and promise that we will never forget. It will take longer, with God's help,  to forgive.