Blog #5 Response

Ch 10 Question 1)           I watched this film in one of my classes years ago and it is absolutely chilling what some of these women went through to fight for a right that I take for granted and only exercise every four years. I especially remember the part when they decide to protest in front of the White House and people say that they can't "picket a wartime president". This is such an interesting statement to me because I think this sentiment remains in a variety of settings. Like don't criticize a system that is working for you in so many ways just because it is not working in one way. Criticism and feedback should always be allowed in order for voices to be heard and needs met.
           The second clip definitely refers to the beginning of the civil rights movement, which also began which voices being heard. This movie was interesting because it showed the wide range of attitudes of both white and black women during that time period. There were some women who strictly abided by the rules between white women and their black help and other women who did not care for the rules, such as eating separately and no hugging. And then there were the younger women, such as the main character, who regarded the help as family because they had raised them from the time they were babies and played a motherly role in their lives. To me this reflects the same thing today that there is a wide variety of opinions about the race issue and women's rights, but in inverse proportions.

          This made me think of a clip in the movie A League of Their Own. This has been one of my favorite movies since I was quite young, probably 9 years old. My parents strictly censored what I was allowed to watch, so it was exciting to be able to see a movie with famous actresses. And it is such an empowering movie for women in so many ways. One of my favorite aspects is that the movie did not put in any unnecessary romance or affairs between the characters and coach or other males. I think that today, unfortunately, this would have been "Hollywoodized" in this way and totally ruined. Anyway, the clip I am looking for is impossible to find anywhere so I will describe it. Near the end of the film in a brief moment there is a nod to the fact that yes this is a film about a time that was empowering to women but that it was for white women. In the scene the women are practicing and the baseball goes out of field. A black woman picks it up and instead of throwing it to one of the women closer to her throws it farther to another woman. She throws it so far and hard that the woman who catches it takes off her glove and shakes her hand. I remember the very first time I saw this scene and my dad explaining the significance of it. It is a powerful moment.

The Real World 1992

Ch 10 Question 2)          Evolution of perspective is definitely in our generation in many ways and levels. For example, in one of my classes last semester we talked about reality shows like Real World and Road Rules that purposely mixed up people from differently backgrounds and watched them live and grow together. Our discussion was about how it seemed that the early seasons of this show focused on picking people of different races and geographical backgrounds and later seasons tend to mix up the group based on different sexual orientations. I think this is because for a large part  (not all) of our generation, race is a non-issue. Now we can tackle prejudice against sexual orientation in the same manner and hopefully for the next generation (or sooner) that will become a non-issue and will move on to something else. To me this generational change is one of the major factors that comes into play in social movements like these, although there are always exceptions in both the older and younger generations.

Ch 11 Question 1)          This chapter riled me up a bit because it deviated so much from the initial messages about feminism being about women AND men. There was no mention of domestic violence against men in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. This is such an overlooked area because violence is something people do not want to talk about, let alone the victimization of men. Even in our media illustration today (no offense to the presenter, she did a great job) there was no mention of men being victims of sexual violence! And furthermore I did not like the wording in the bell hooks book about linking domestic violence to patriarchal thinking or male domination. Does "male domination" explain the same sex violence between two women that bell hooks mentions? This just makes me mad even writing this.
The following is a clip from the show What Would You Do? that has actors in real life situations to gauge what the public's reaction is. I actually do not like this show because I believe that people have intuition about when to intervene/call the police and that having actors affects people's intuition. BUT, with that said, this clip makes some very good points and made me think.

           Some of the underlying causes I can see are a variety of things. I know some men who absolutely hate the legal system because they feel it favors women: she'll get the children, she'll get awarded child support, the state can garnish wages for child support, etc. I know men who hate women, think they are all cheaters and will just live off of child support while he works himself to the bone the rest of his life, lives in poverty and occasionally sees his children. Yes, this happens in some cases. But I think it is a minority of cases.

Another underlying cause I could see is what men experience on the job. I can only speak from my experience, which was full-time work in a factory. I saw the amount of crap that the technicians and mechanics (which were 99% male) had to put up with on a daily basis. It is hard to define this "crap" because it occurred all the time and in so many ways. When I think about it, it boiled down to 1) having very little decision-making power in the workplace 2) being highly underappreciated 3) being treated like one of many and not necessarily a unique individual with unique contributions. We were all treated like this, but I think for the men in the technical positions it was an emasculating experience. I can see how someone in this day in and day out for their 20, 30, 40 years of work could take out their frustration at home on their partner, although I am of course not excusing that. Of course there are productive ways to act out frustration like going to the gym and punching a punching bag, not a person, joining a men's group with a strong foundation like in a church or AA. There need to be more resources like this where men can mentor each other and have a conversational outlet. Of course, I am saying this as a woman and this is what I see as a solution, however, it may be different from a man's perspective. And I just realized that I am talking about men as the abusers, the very thing that made me so mad in my previous paragraph. Accidental hypocrisy induced by a lifetime of patriarchal societal thinking.

Ch 11 Question 2)          I think domestic violence between spouses definitely affects the children in many ways. I had a previous boyfriend who told me horrifying stories of the domestic abuse between his mom and her succession of boyfriends throughout his entire childhood. It was sick how much it affected his life. He said he and his sister would get very little sleep because his mom and current boyfriend would scream and yell at each other all night, with violence toward his mom. Then he would be tired all day at school and not do well academically at all. He ended up dropping out of high school. I know that there are other factors that contribute to this, but it sickens me to think that this person's entire life was affected by this in this way. He had a right to an education and it was taken away by mostly listening to abuse in the home. He witnessed it and was involved on some occasions, but the worst of the effect simply came from hearing it while trying to sleep. This just boggles my mind that people can do this! And furthermore, his sister has only been in relationships with men who beat the crap out of her. The person that she considers "the one" for her beats her up regularly, has a baby with her, is in prison for three years, and she still visits him and wants him in her life! The whole family was scared of  him and when he would get out of prison. It is just so messed up that entire families are affected by domestic violence for generations. I am just so outraged even writing this!

At a very young age from the time I was born until I was about 3 years old, my mom had boyfriends/husband who were abusers (none were my father). This is really hard for me to talk/write about because it stopped after that and I don't want to put my mom in a negative light. I was so young that I, of course, don't have many memories of that time. The hard part is that the memories I do have are painful, bring tears to my eyes, a knot in my throat and a pit in my stomach. It is true that the younger the child, the more of an effect this has on shaping who they are. I did not learn any of the "lessons" in the above video clip, which I have also heard in other classes. The lessons are that children will learn abuse is normal and learn to be aggressive. But there is something else that children can learn: fear. Specifically fear of victimization. I definitely learned fear and have had a very fear-based mentality that I have struggled with for my entire life. It has only been recently that I have overcome a lot of this and that was only through years and years of intrapersonal work, counseling and especially spiritual work.
          So what steps do we take to stop these effects of domestic violence on children? I don't know where this starts. We can make it part of the legal system with consequences to engage in domestic violence in front of children. I just learned in my Human Sexuality class that this can legally be reported as child abuse in the state of NE and some other states. This is a start. I think another major factor is people speaking out about their experiences as children. We hear so much about children who grow up in abusive households who become abusers. But there are NUMEROUS individuals who grew up in households with domestic abuse who have NEVER been abusers. Many have never spoken about their experiences, wishing to bury the pain. But if people who have gone through these experiences can speak out about their pain, it can help children who are in these situations.