Iliana16's Blog

blog #16: Cyberspace

iliana16 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:24:39 +0000

After reading the Filipina.com section, I was intrigued to type in Filipina on Google and see what comes up. In the reading, they said that when you type in Filipina in a search engine, the sites that almost always come up are Filipina mail order brides and sex-related sites. I went on google hoping that this reading was outdated and that I wasn’t going to see these sex websites. I was wrong. The first thing I saw was 4 links to videos about barely dressed Filipino women dancing and being seductive. The rest of the links were about sites to date Filipino women and, like the reading said, mail order brides. Out of the first 10 websites that were shown, there was only one site that wasn’t sex-related. But it wasn’t even about Filipino women; it was about the Filipino people in general. It makes me think of how the way of life is in the Philippines. Are all the women viewed as objects of lust or is this just a cyberspace thing? I went on to type white women on Google. There wasn’t one thing about sex. I went on page after page to see if anything would come up and nothing. I also searched Hispanic women and only one site came up but even then it wasn’t as raunchy as the Filipino sites. We always think that women in general are viewed as sex objects; but maybe some more than others? Again, intersectionality comes into play. We always look at women in general. But we should start looking more at the different types of women.

blog #15: Work and Women

iliana16 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:44:45 +0000

Being hispanic, I have been a witness to the idea that immigrants typically have domestic jobs, or the jobs that nobody really wants. A few of my aunts have worked cleaning houses, my uncle has worked in the dump. But i think it is a huge generalization that mostly immigrants work in these types of jobs. I have seen white people do those kinds of jobs. My parents didn’t receive a proper education but they still never had to clean houses or mow lawns or anything like that. They have decent jobs. One day at my job, my manager asked me if I knew anyone who sewed uniforms. I told him no and asked ” are you asking me because I’m Spanish” and he said yes. I was kind of offended but I didnt say anything . In the reading, it said that the women she encountered were proud of the work they did. I don’t think they should be ashamed of it either. They do an honest day’s work and they deserve everything they earn. As long as you are providing for your family in an honest and legal way, you should be proud of yourself.

The section on the pregnant women shocked me. I felt that taking a pregnancy test before applying for a job is an invasion of privacy. The part that the women lost her baby because her manager didn’t give her an easier type of work was disgusting. It’s so sad that she had to lose her child because he was being such a jerk. It’s not fair that pregnant women were treated that way. I thought it was seen that women having children was a beautiful thing and it is. They have the right to work and provide for their family just as much as the men. They should give the men a test too to see if they had any health flaws because if people are sick that can make a company lose money too.

blog #14: Displacement and Relocations

iliana16 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:41:34 +0000

The part of this reading that reakky stood out to me was the part of the Indian relocation. I don’t get what the purpose of relocating them was. I would never expect that from the U.S. government. I’m sure the Native Americans (I don’t think they like being called Indians) never did anything to us. They were for the most part peaceful and just wanted to keep to themselves and live out their culture. For the government to move them around like they were objects is reallyl unnecessary. They went along with the relocation in hope of a better life. They were shown brochures with happy Indian familied, but as soon as they got there, they had to stay at a hotel in a dangerous neighborhood. They weren’t happy. They were given a false hope that everything was going to be okay but right off tha bat, it wasn’t good at all. And the relocated Indians continued to struggle. They were never given the better life.

blog #13 Travel & Tourism

iliana16 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:53:10 +0000

The whole traveling is not for women idea in this reading sounds completely ridiculous to me. I can’t wrap my head around it. The idea that men are the oly ones who should travel makes no sense. I understand that women were supposed to stay home and take care of the house and kids. But it seems like that’s all they could do. It’s almost like a prison. Men work hard at their jobs but being a mother is the hardest job of all. Women should be able to go on vacation and enjoy themselves. They deserve it. They work just as hard as men do but they dont’ get paid for it and they are not recognized for it. It makes me think back to past readings, when it said the most important thing about being a woman is being a mother. So shouldn’t mothers be able to travel without having to have a man at her side. Not only moters but all women in general. I know if someone told me I couldn’t travel because I am a woman, I would laugh in their face and take their seat on the plane. This is the first time I heard of traveling as a man thing. That is definitely not the case.

blog #12 Playing Unfair

iliana16 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:01:48 +0000

Its not surprise to me that in the reading it said that the perfect body for a woman is 5’5 or 5’8 with long legs and thin. That’s the picture most Americans have in their head about the way women should look. I think the perfect body is different for everyone. It can widely depend on the area where you come from. Where I live, for the most part girls don’t want to be so skinny. They don’t want to be big either but they want to be in between. In my area, we like to call it thick. A lot of American girls want the model body with no type of fat. But in my community, girls want to have big butts and big breasts and the guys in my community definitely don’t like super skinny girls. I think if you want to be thinner than go ahead but do it in a healthy way and in a way that you remain healthy. This obsession Americans have with their bodies shouldn’t compromise your health. I dont think surgery is the answer. Unless you’re morbidly obese and your health is deteriorating. To me, getting unnecessary surgery to improve your appearance is kind of like the women in other countries who choose to get circumsized. We all think it’s so unnecessary but yet we go and get liposuction or tummy tucks to look thinner when we were perfectly fine in the first place.

blog #11: Storytelling and Social Justice

iliana16 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:33:49 +0000

How to tell your friends from an Arab

This article has to be some kind of joke. The things said in it can’t be serious. Some of the ways to distinguish between an Arab and a South Asian are logical. The ways to physically tell them apart make sense. Like how the women wear the veils and how the men wear the turbans. Maybe I was wrong, but I always thought the veils were called hijabs. I was kind of put off when it sais that Arab men wear their turbans loose to cover their face so they could commit acts of terrorism. That’s really not cool. If an Arab or a South Asian were to read this, they would be so offended. This whole article is stereotypical as well. All Arabs and South Asians don’t necessarily have all these features mentioned. It starts to get even more ridiculous at the end. It says that Arabs have harsher personalities because of the desert area they came from and the tasteless food they eat. And that South Asians are warmers because they live in tropical climates and eat better tasting food. Maybe this is true but I highly doubt it. It makes no sense that the food you eat determines your personality. It’s crazy!! The part about the seven eleven is outrageous too. I really hope Arabs and South Asians don’t come across this because they would be offeneded. I would also like to add that this article was awesome in the fact that it was only two pages long.

blog #10 Media Representions of Gender

iliana16 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:35:52 +0000

This is a topic I can kind of relate to. I used to be like the master of watching tv when I was younger. Since I hardly used to go out, I used to watch TV most of they day. I tried to skip the commercials but they were inevitable. I never really noticed how it was always women that were shown as almost rewards to men. That made me think of i think it was an Axe Body Spray commercial, where if used the spray, the women were supposed to flock you. It’s sad to say that I’m used to this idea that women are like prizes. I always thought it was normal and nothing was wrong. I guess those commercials brainwashed me into thinking like that. According to the article, men are mostly always the main characters in commercials. I also never really noticed that but it isn’t a shock. From what we learned so far this semester, women are always underrepresented and commercials are no stranger to that. I think it’s a more subtle way of reminding us that men are superior to women. In t he reading, it also said that women are usually main characters in commercials for women’s products and vice versa. I think that’s logical because who wants to see a tampon commercial with a bunch of guys in it. That would be kind of awkward.

blog #9 Masculinity & Sexual Viollence

iliana16 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:43:49 +0000

It’s weird that this reading has been one of my favorites. Since we mostly talk about women, i would think that something about women would interest me more. That wasn’t the case. I think that the two real life stories helped make it way more interesting. I liked how they compared the two stories. One boy, Sam, came from a pretty normal loving home. The other one, John, suffered from sexual and physical abuse by his stepfather at home. It goes to show that you could have the seemingly perfect life, but behind closed doors, it could be totally different. One thing they had in common was that they were teased at school for being smaller and called wimps. That made them feel like they had to prove their masculinity so they went out and commited acts of sexual violence to kids and in John’s case, his aunt. Masculinity is generally associated with being strong, muscular and athletic. They werent any of that tso they had to prove themselves in a horrible way. I think just because you are small and short doesn;’t make you less of a man. If anything , the way the thought they could prove they were men, made them less of a man. There are betters ways to do that. If you think being athletic makes you more manly, then join a sport. There are ways to express your masculinity that don’t involve hurting others. In John’s case, i would think he would act different from his stepfather because he knows the hell he was put through. But I guess it’s like father like son.

blog #8

iliana16 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:42:44 +0000

Women had almost no rights. They couldn’t vote, they sometimes weren’t able to collect welfare benefits and they couldn’t confer citizenship to their children among others. They couldn’t do all these things, yet they were often the sumbols of the country. They would be on posters representing the honor of the country. That’s a little ironic because they had little to no rights most of the time. Its really unfair how women always had to fight for their rights. I’m sure God didn’t intend to have it this way. It gets me thinking why were women the ones chosen to be subordinate to men. Who started to look at women as inferior and why did people follow? If it were the other way around, I wonder how the world would be now. Maybe this course would have been called Men and Gender Studies instead of Women and Gender.

The section on the disabled women was interesting. “If a poor family has a disabled son, they will do their best to give them a decent living. Whereas when it comes to girls they say, “Why should we do anything?”. I’m so used to families doing anything for their children no matter what they are. So it’s really weird to me that people could not help their disabled child because she is a girl. What happened to unconditional love? If someone is disabled that makes it so they need more love and attention. If at that time it sucked to be a woman, imagine what it must have like to be a disabled woman.

blog #7

iliana16 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:36:11 +0000

I don’t agree that a woman’s biological role as mothers make them peaceful and caring. I know there are many moms out there that are the total opposite. I feel like that is a huge generalization. There are mothers in jail who have killed people and done a lot of unpeacful things. There are also many mothers who kill their own children. That’s definitely not caring.

In class we talked about the reasons many women can’t escape domestic violence. Such as they are finanacially dependent on their spouse or they simply are just in love. In this reading, they mentioned another reason why women would have to tolerate abuse. If they migrated to this country to marry a citizen and therefore become one, they had to stay married for two years before anything could get done. In the meantime, they would get abused and battered. But they were reluctant to leave because they would rather get their citizenship. I think the governent should have been more aware of this possibility. It shows how domestic violence wasn’t taken serious enough. Thank god it’s not like that now.

The story about the spanish woman who couldn’t get into a shelter for battered woman because she couldn’t speak english was really interesting. It got me thinking about how hypocritical that shelter was. Isn’t the idea of a woman’s shelter to help all women in need. Obviously, it wasn’t the case at that particular shelter. Intersectionality really comes into play in this situation. There goal is to help women, but I guess they didn’t think about the different kinds of women who need help. The whole point is about women’s empowerment but if it doesn’t consider all types of women, then what’s the point?