Evaluative essay paper|Social Science

Evaluative essay paper|Social Science

Assignment

The readings from “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” call mainstream feminism into question and introduce us to feminism’s Third Wave, a wave concerned with the intersection of race, culture, class, and gender. Please choose one of the essays we read, or two essays for comparison, and craft an analysis that blends evaluation (assessing the validity of the author’s rhetoric; identifying who is at fault for the problem she explores; or evaluating the ethics of the claim itself) and proposal—what should feminism be and how can we make it that way? You’ll be using at least six additional sources, three of which must be academic, and all of which must be reputable (there are exceptions: if you want to investigate racist and sloppy feminist or anti-feminist websites or blogs, say, you may use illegitimate sources to back up a claim that feminism has lost its way, but no more than two). This means you will have a total of at least seven sources. Please make sure you have researched and found at least three of the sources, though for all the others you can use selections from the book and articles we’ve read, including Woolf and Bressler.

Essay Logistics:

At least 3000 words (10+ pages). Make sure your essay complies with MLA conventions: it should be neatly typewritten and double spaced, on 8.5 X 11-inch paper with 1 inch margins and standard 12-point serif font (such as Times New Roman); follow MLA guidelines for in-text citations and your “Works Cited” page (if in doubt, consult Purdue’s OWL site: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01).

Requirements:

· At least 3000 words (10+ pages).

· An engaging introduction which gives a sense of the terms as they are defined, and the stances as they are argued that does not assume we’ve read them

· A focused, specific and arguable thesis which gives a strong sense of your evaluation of 3rd wave feminism, the reason(s) underpinning your claim, and an optional concession to another side of the argument

· Transitions that logically connect one idea to the next

· Focused paragraphs that draw on ample quotations and specific references to the texts for support. Each of your paragraphs should have logical topic sentences that signal what the paragraph will argue AND connect to the thesis. The topic sentences, when arranged in order, should create an easy-to-follow mini-argument, which the paragraphs elaborate on, support, and “prove”

· A conclusion that assesses the overall effect and implications of your argument. It shouldn’t merely restate the thesis, but should synthesize each paragraph and leave the reader with the overall significance of the claims—the way they connect with the larger world—and a solution or assessment of the situation

· A Works Cited page that includes at least your focal essay and six (or more) other sources

Examples are below:

Example 1:

The Vagenda of Feminism

GENDER EQUALITY AND WHY WE NEED IT

In the Declaration of Independence, it states that all men are created equal, meaning that every person has the same opportunity as the next person to pursue anything he or she wishes. While Jefferson’s famous words in 1776 were well-intended and beautiful, it is clear that it is not true, as there still needs to be feminism today. Social injustice towards women is still shown to be prevalent when the man who represents our country is able to keep his reputation despite his sexist statement of “grab her by the pussy.” Allowing this to happen means that this is acceptable when it should not be the case. President Donald Trump gets away with excuses like “locker room talk” but it only shows people all over the country that the fight for women’s equality still needs to be pursued. Women were granted suffrage on August 18, 1920, but feminism has not achieved its purpose on that day, as there is still a wage gap between men and women, consistent misogyny and sexism in the public sphere, and a phenomenon of ‘rape culture.’

WHY DOES GENDER INEQUALITY EXIST?

Gender inequality exists because stereotypes are set in at an early age for young boys and girls. Between the ages of two and six, children learn of their gender stereotype when introduced to toys, skills, and activities that are traditionally associated with the gender. When children grow up to be the ages of between seven and ten, they begin to act accordingly to what they learned is typical for their gender by “[attributing] certain qualities to women and men, such as that men are aggressive and women are emotional,” Kelly Wallace states in her article, “How to Teach Children About Gender Equality.” Because the media and business companies market products that are based on gender, as well as parents teaching children how to behave, it becomes difficult for adolescents to escape the prevailing gender stereotypes that are enforced on them constantly. Children do not have the innate characteristic to believe that one gender is superior to the other; they learn from the environment surrounding them. Thus, as children grow up, they are bombarded with situations that deal with gender.

MEN GET PAID MORE

The U.S. Census Bureau has released data in 2014 that a woman is more likely than a man to attain a bachelor’s degree. Although women are outperforming men, as women had made up 57% of college students who held college degrees in 2014, inequality still persists in the workforce as it is shown by men at U.S. universities holding a significantly higher percentage of jobs than women. The lack of improvement in equality for women is prominent when found that women are only making 77 cents for every dollar that men are making in the workforce. This wage gap is primarily between white women and white men; minority women have an even bigger wage gap between themselves and white men.

Catherine McIntyre speaks about a career development manager with the Ontario Provincial Police, Lee-Anne McFarlane, in her article, “Why Do Men Make More Money Than Women?” who had taken that job position that paid $30,000 less than the man who previously held the same position. The huge salary difference did bother McFarlane, but she was happy to have the job since the work was rewarding and the new salary given to her was comfortable enough to get her by. It was not until McFarlane learned of her male commissioned officers coworkers who managed to snag a deal with the province to be paid the same salary and given the same benefits as the higher-ranked officers, that she realized that her gender discrimination was becoming a disparity.

The wage gap has been researched for decades, politicians have rallied to close the wage gap for as long as their pledging of legislation, and businesswomen who were successful in breaking the glass ceiling have been advocating other women to do the same. According to the most recent Statistics Canada income numbers, the wage gap between men and women is 31% overall. Since the second wave of feminism, women have earned themselves a mere 10% higher wage, adjusted for inflation. This slow progress is the biggest barrier for women when trying to achieve gender equality because the wage gap essentially creates an environment where women have less economic security and power, making them easy targets to be taken advantage of.

Our workforce and how much it pays people is mainly based on gender, as Fay Faraday, a Toronto-based human rights lawyer, states that “… the more that work is associated with women or stereotypically done by women, the lower it is paid.” It comes out to be true because researchers from Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania examined U.S. census data from 1950 to 2000 to find that women’s salaries for jobs that were historically worked by men had declined. With fewer men working in recreation jobs and more women taking their place, wages have dropped 57%. As for the reverse situation in men replacing women in job positions, wages shoot up, such as in computer programming. When determining their compensation scale for workers, companies are basing it off solely by gender, not work ethic, and devaluing job positions that are worked by women. McFarlane had started her career almost four decades ago, working in a male-dominated correction facility where gender discrimination played a big role, yet she is still asking for equal pay.

“BOYS WILL BE BOYS”

Somewhere in the world right now, a woman is being sexually assaulted yet she will never report it to the police. There is probably a natural tendency for men to view women in terms of only sexual functions since they do, after all, carry the child. Women have to be judged based on their overall capabilities, interests, talents, and skills, and a society that habitually uses that narrow-minded notion will only limit women of the endless opportunities they deserve to pursue. Nevertheless, objectifying women will only encourage rape culture, where rape and sexual violence is normalized by excuses that comment on the way the rape victim was dressed, “she was asking for it,” or “boys will be boys,” which only suggests that men are simply rapists at heart. Blaming women for being victims of rape trivializes the survivors’ suffering and trauma; rape is the oppression of a woman’s will to consent. There should be no excuse for rape because it is a crime, and the more rapists get away with it, the more gender inequality is promoted.

Women do not come forward about their sexual assault because they feel as if they are voiceless, as they fear retaliation, guilt, and shame. Most of all, Laura Palumbo, the communications director at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center reveals that it is “the fear that they won’t be believed or that they’ll even be blamed.” Kailen was a 19-year-old college freshman when she got raped by her boyfriend, Tom, who she had been dating for a few months. She was half-conscious after a night of drinking at his frat house, but remembered him “inside of [her], raping [her], and… remembering saying no, to stop…” (qtd. in Dold). Tom admitted the next morning that he had sex with her without using a condom and suggested that she should get emergency contraception. Devastated and not sure what to do, Kailen told her best friend, but she only looked at her with a straight face and told Kailen seriously, “I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way” (qtd. in Dold). Since even her best friend did not believe her, Kailen could not imagine it plausible to report it to campus authorities.

DO MUSLIM WOMEN REALLY NEED SAVING?

In Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad’s article, “The Post 9/11 Hijab as Icon,” it is examined how headcoverings, such as the hijab, are becoming an iconic symbol for strong Muslim women who still choose to proudly wear the hijab as an act of refusal to be defined by public media and consequent war propaganda after the September 11th attacks. Haddad notes that Muslim women’s voices of Taliban’s abuses towards women have been shut out by the U.S. administration before September 11th, and wonders why it had to take a tragedy to finally magnetize the press and President Bush’s attention. President Bush then saw the need to attack the Taliban in order to “save” Muslim women and launched a propaganda campaign to win American support of its military marching into Afghanistan. Yet, it seems that the focus was only on Muslim’s women burqa, as “the press could not fathom why Afghan women would not cast off their burqas and celebrate” (Mawlana et. al 1992), and how it is only up to the Americans to grant freedom for Muslim women by unveiling them.

This connects back to Lila Abu-Loghod’s question in her article in “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” of whether Muslim women need saving by the U.S. from the oppression that forces them to wear the burqa. The huge problem with this is that the U.S. press and government are not understanding that Muslim women have been wearing the burqa even before the Taliban took over Afghanistan because it is of their culture, as it represents “good respectable women from strong families who are not forced to make a living selling on the street” (Abu-Loghod 786). To say that Muslim women are vulnerable enough to need “saving” is wrong and self-righteous because it only implies that the “savers” are superior over them. Americans should not think to save Muslim women just because they are not like Western women, as no “single woman [Abu-Loghod] knows… has ever expressed envy of U.S. women, women they tend to perceive as bereft of community, vulnerable to sexual violence and social anomie, driven by individual success rather than morality…” (788).

Instead of trying to save Muslim women from their culture, it is to be acknowledged that differences among other women’s cultures are to be respectfully understood, not criticized, because it is not the culture that causes conflict, but it is the history behind it. If Americans start to subjugate Muslim women and thereby view themselves in higher positions, just because they desire different things than others, the deserved freedom and liberation for those who lack it will never be achieved.

THIRD WAVE FEMINISM

The ideology of feminism has a negative connotation, in that an image of a mentally unstable, bra-burning woman is running around protesting against the patriarchy. Third wave feminism has evolved to bring more women together to transform a misogynist society into one that will not allow issues of rape culture and a wage gap in salaries to continue any longer. This new feminism has to be intersectional by “[including] all women of race, class ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation” (Dastagir) because feminism will splinter if the focus is primarily on white women to the exclusion of every other woman. In the third wave of feminism, all women have to share one common goal in this fight, that they demand to have the same rights as the opposite sex ever since the Declaration of Independence was signed. Rather than women being merely viewed as sex objects or a vessel to produce offspring, women have to be seen as human beings as well, deserving the same right as men to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious that intersectionality is still relatively new since feminists are trying to ban the veil although Muslim women have not complained about it. Intersectionality must be embraced, as it stands for the rights and empowerment of every woman regardless of differences. It is acknowledging that a ‘woman’ is not just one single unified concept because those who are less privileged and are underrepresented have a longer history of being marginalized than white women. Feminism should not be composed of mainly white women and represent one type of view because it will not reflect on the experiences of women who come from a variety of backgrounds.

WHITE SUPERIORITY IN FEMINISM

Americans deeming another culture as inferior does not aid in helping women gain freedom and rights that they deserve. With steadfast confidence, Laura Bush believes that “women are no longer imprisoned in their homes” (qtd. In Abu-Loghod 784) due to the U.S. bombing in the Taliban, but Laura Bush being a high-status, white woman in power makes her statement invalid to the fact that Muslim women are only experiencing “increased hardship and loss,” (Abu-Loghod 789), not saving. Haddad asserts that American feminists are viewed by Muslim women as selfish in that they wish to impose their American culture universally throughout the world. After September 11th, this procedure is not new but rather, distinctively familiar to Muslims because in “European and American encounters with Muslims, [there had been] a bifurcation of “Us” and “Them,” East and West, backward and progressive, enveloped in darkness and basking in enlightenment [that] were used to justify Western conquest and colonization of Muslim territory” (Haddad).

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Western female missionaries were empowered by the notion of saving Muslim women who were “victimized,” and they were often requested to care for the “plight” of the “helpless” women that were in another nation (Singh). Even though these “Christian missionary women who devoted their lives to saving their Muslim sisters [from Hell],” (Abu-Loghod 789) this ordeal was not feasible to them, so they decided to change their strategy to focus on forcing their way in through Islamic societies and alter Islamic values. Protestant missionaries carefully designed their schools so that Muslim girls could be “tamed” and taught how to be a perfect wife and mother, despite the fact that the missionary’s own women were not married themselves. Ellen L. Fleischmann goes on to explain in “Our Moslem Sisters’: Women of Greater Syria in the Eyes of American Protestant Missionary Women,” that missionaries saw the veil as the one thing that is keeping Muslim women from progressing. Out of sympathy for Muslim women, American women felt like they were needed to volunteer to convert these poor, pitiful, and helpless women to Christianity, as Fleischmann overhears a missionary saying, “What a relief it must be to put aside those troublesome and awkward coverings that they have to wear on the street, to uncover the face and take a long breath” (316).

Fiona Paisley states in her article, “White Women’s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States,” that in 1895, American feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton had emphasized that white women were the most deserving racial group to gain voting rights in America. Bringing focus to the ambivalence of white women and feminisms that started early in 1999, Margaret D. Jacobs and Louise Michele Newman questioned the interstices of race and gender in national, colonial, and imperial history. Jacobs and Newman believed that white women were the elite women among other women but they “often struggled to make sense of their positions within dominant narratives of civilization and race, as they compared their own lives and worlds against those attributed to so-called primitive women.” To further prove how white women were the biggest contributors to new American social reform regarding feminism, Jacobs and Newman speak about their studies of countless white women who had campaigned for women’s rights, implemented government policy, or wrote about their experiences visiting pre-colonized societies. To Jacobs and Newman, white women’s actions in attempting to resolve compliance with standard rules of society and the selfhood of being a woman, which are shown in their work and writing only go to show “their modern subjectivities emerging against the backdrop of their differences from and interests in “primitive women.”

WOMEN WEARING THE HIJAB POST 9/11

After two decades of research and interviewing American-Muslim communities, Haddad writes in her article that the hijab is now a symbol for a public Islamic identity, in that these women are showing trust within the American system for providing freedom of religion and speech. The war on terrorism that was launched by President Bush created an air of Islamophobia in America, and it has suspended political correctness for Arabs, Muslims, and Islam. The growing American condemnation towards Islam and Muslims also made the hijab a symbol for Muslim women’s anti-colonialism to some feminists’ attempts to eliminate Islam in an increasingly anti-Islamic America. After noticing the spike in the number of adolescents and daughters of immigrant Muslims choosing to wear the hijab in public, Haddad also notes that more Muslim women are partaking in the process of re-Islamization after September 11th. Because the mothers of these young Muslim women have never worn a hijab publicly in America, the hijab has become iconic, in that the second generation young Muslim women are refusing to be defined by American media and war propaganda after September 11th.

However, many Muslim women who had worn a hijab prior to September 11th chose not to wear it anymore as a precaution to avoid harassment. If a Muslim woman’s life was threatened, some Muslim scholars overseas granted religiously-based legal opinions, or fatwas, that it was okay to take off the hijab when needed. After September 11th, some Muslim women managed to convince themselves that wearing the hijab is not written in the Qur’an at all, so that wearing it is only a matter of choice and not out of faith. To them, wearing the hijab only brings the struggle of being harassed publicly. On the other hand, women who wear the hijab are praised by Muslim media like “The Muslim American Society” who published a magazine issue in 2001 with good words for Muslim women who decided to continue wearing the hijab despite the tragedy of September 11th.

UNVEILING STEREOTYPES OF MUSLIM WOMEN

The repercussions of September 11th left many Americans traumatized to merely view the hijab as the identity of the enemy who has declared war on the United States. To Americans, Muslim women who chose to wear the hijab were only pitied because they were participating in their own oppression; the last thing they were thinking about was Muslim women being strong and iconic women refusing to be defined by public media and consequent war propaganda after the September 11th attacks. Azizah Al-Hibri writes in her journal that Muslim women were not admired for their bravery but were verbally attacked by phrases like “I hate you,” “Go home,” “America is for Americans,” and “Death to Muslims,” which caused many Muslim women to stay home in shame.

Although Americans have treated Muslims with disrespect, it was not something that was out of the ordinary for Muslims because Western literature had historically spoken about Arabs, Muslims, and Islam with an air of inferiority. As stated in “Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence” and “Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World,” Karim H. Karim and Edward Said have found surveys of the American press to treat Muslims and their beliefs as nothing but worthy of defamation, as they are found to be meaningless and sexist. In the short documentary, “Hollywood Harems,” it is shown that Muslim women are only cast in stereotypical roles, such as living in harems, veiled and in need of “saving.” There has been a study of over nine hundred films featuring Arab or Muslim characters that found only three of these films had one character who did not play a stereotypical role (Shaheen).

BULLYING IN THIRD WAVE FEMINISM

A poll conducted by research and communications firm, PerryUndem, exploring the view on feminism, abortion, and the Affordable Care Act has shown that although 85% percent of Americans side with gender equality, there are only 18% of feminists among these respondents. In the article, “Third Wave Feminist Bullies Are Destroying Feminism,” Tiana Lowe reports of Joan Walsh’s comment of Ivanka Trump wearing a “girlie” dress to a G20 summit meeting to represent the United States negates that she is anything but a feminist because “that’s not a dress that’s made for work.” It is no wonder why fewer than one-fifth of Americans call themselves a feminist. Women in power are constantly badgered by interviewers to proclaim that they are themselves feminists and chastised if they deny to, or better yet, criticized on what they wear. This is ironic because feminism is about women having the right to choose how they wish to live their lives, and in this case, Ivanka Trump is rebuked for her choice of wearing “a dress that is designed to show off your girlieness, and you know, God bless her, show it off, but don’t then tell us you’re crusading for an equal place for women at the table, because you’re not” (Walsh qtd. in Lowe).

According to a CNN/ORC International poll conducted in 2012, almost all Americans (97%) support women who choose to work even if her husband can lend support. 75% of Americans say that more women in the workforce would encourage more collaboration in marriage. With this evidence that second wave feminism had successful results and “women have largely transcended the social and legal barriers that used to confine them to lives of a single mold [and] now they can choose their own paths” (Lowe), feminism has lost its way in the third wave, with feminists unreasonably attacking other women. Ivanka Trump, a representative of the White House, should be subject for her choices in her impact on public policy, as well as improving the lives of women in America, instead of being criticized solely for her fashion choices. Joan Walsh’s response to Ivanka’s Trump decision to wear a certain dress that is different than Walsh’s preference of choice only exemplifies how third wave feminists are so compelled to delegate how women should dress or look like, just like how they feel that it is necessary to remove Muslim women’s veil as well.

WHAT FEMINISM SHOULD BE LIKE

A woman must fight for her rights by continually taking risks fearlessly when pursuing gender equality because this is her life. Although third wave feminism is not perfect, the lack of progress should not be discouraging but should suggest that we need to continue the fight for equality because feminism shall be prevalent until women finally are considered equal to the opposite sex. Tens of millions of women and their allies have marched for gender equality since Trump’s inauguration, demanding that obsolete gender equity laws and policies be emphasized and strengthened so that women could actually be empowered. Women have come in together, beautifully and soaring, outing their male sexual abusers and speaking out against their lower-paying salaries.

The Women’s March represents what the feminist movement should be like: women being there for each other, fighting for each other, and validating every reason to fight as important because despite women gaining the right to vote and receive a college degree, women still have bigger problems of the wage gap and rape culture to resolve. However, before tackling these issues, women have to sincerely respect each other to not feel the need to “save” someone. Western women ignorantly believe that Islam plays a role in repressing Muslim women without educating themselves that the factors of government structure, politics, and economics are the causations of Muslim women’s subjugation. The stereotyping of Muslim women creates a distraction from the problem that U.S. policies and actions put forth on other nations would essentially support the harsh conditions that the natives live in. Eventually, the idea of saving Muslim women would allow Westerner women to forget about the complex entanglements that they are all a part of and thus create a polarization that feminism is only for the West.

Until the feeling of rightness to save women who are part of the same feminist movement is obliterated, then closing the wage gap, defying rape culture and empowering all women to no longer be seen as insignificant when compared to men will be reachable in the future. American society will remain broken and dysfunctional. In order to allow for a smooth running world, equal opportunities must be offered to everyone, regardless of any difference. As long as society views equality as an essential value to have, and eventually the common standard of society, we can overcome patriarchal culture and raise women up to the same level as men. Patriarchal culture is passed down by tradition but it is people who make and change tradition. Thus, feminism is a process as well, that comes with time and continuing effort, as it begins with education from young and then thereby setting examples for each other in society. Instead of raising children according to gender stereotypes, they have to be taught that they should aspire to what they want to do and not what their gender would likely to do. It is not fair for a woman, nor a man, to hold back on their desires just because their gender tells them to. Once it is clear that men and women should not be defined by their gender but by their innate abilities and desires, the need for women to speak out about the need of feminism is no longer necessary because the notion of women being equal to men will become universally accepted and understood.

Works Cited

Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others.”American Anthropology, Vol. 104, No. 3., 2002. pp. 783-790.

Al-Hibri, Azizah. “Tear Off Your Western Veil.” Food for Our Grandmothers, edited by J. Kadi, South End Press, 1994, pp. 160-161.

CNN/ORC International. “Interviews With 1,015 Adult Americans Conducted by Telephone” CNN/ORC International. 2012 April.

Dastagir, Alia E. “What is Intersectional Feminism? A Look at the Term You May Be Hearing a Lot.” USA TODAY. 19 Jan. 2017.

Dold, Kristen. “Silent Majority.” Women’s Health Magazine. 2017.

Fleischmann, Ellen L. “Our Moslem Sisters’: Women of Greater Syria in the Eyes of American Protestant Missionary Women,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 1998, pp. 307-24.

Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck. “The Post-9/11 Hijab as Icon.” Sociology of Religion, Vol. 68, No. 3, 2007, pp. 253+.

Karim, Karim H. “Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence.” Black Rose Books, 2000.

Lowe, Tiana. “Third-Wave Feminist Bullies Are Destroying Feminism.” National Review, 18 July 2017.

Mawlana, Hamid, George Gerbner, and Herbert I. Schiller. “Triumph of the Image: The Media’s War in the Persian Gulf– A Global Perspective.” Westview, 1992.

McIntyre, Catherine. “Why Do Men Make More Money Than Women?” Maclean’s. 2018 March.

Paisley, Fiona. “White Women’s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States.” Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2000, p. 218.

Perryundem. “Topline Results From a Survey.” Vox. 2015 March.

Rand, Jennifer. “The Third Wave of Feminism is Now, And It is Intersectional.” Huffington Post, 4 Jan. 2017.

Ray, R., and A. C. Korteweg. “WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS IN THE THIRD WORLD: Identity, Mobilization, and Autonomy.” Annual Review of Sociology, 1999, p. 47.

Said, Edward. “Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World.” Vantage Books, 1997.

Shaheen, Jack G. “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People.” Olive Branch Press, 2001.

Singh, Maina Chawla. “Gender Religion, and “Heathen Lands”– American Missionary Woman in South Asia (1860s-1940s).” Lexington Books, 2000.

Wallace, Kelly. “How to Teach Children About Gender Equality.” CNN, 2017 2 October.

Example 2:

Tiffany Ho

English 1C: Progression #3

Evaluative/Proposal/ Research Essay

Saramanda Swigart

Due April 17th

Because Feminism Is For “Everyone,” Yet Somehow It’s Only For A Select Few…

But unless you begin to address your white skin privilege … you will not have our support and you will lose out on a chance to build the kind of world we all need, to live decently and lead full productive lives.

– Michiyo Cornell, First National Third World Gay and Lesbian Conference, Washington D.C. October 12-15th, 1979.

Yes, it’s true! Feminism advertises itself to be for the (human) rights of women in our

everyday communities, but the funny thing is that there are times when women don’t see other women (or other oppressed groups of humans) as “valuable enough” human beings. When women are supporting and empowering each other, it’s in the name of Feminism. Ironically, when women bash each other for the most irrelevant or tiniest things, it’s also in the name of “Feminism.” It seems as if mainstream Feminists (which mostly consists of privileged White women) can’t decide on if something is acceptable or valid to Feminism or if it should totally be against the beliefs of Feminism. This movement is pretty confusing to not just non-Feminists but also most Feminists themselves because it seems as if mainstream Feminisms can’t get along with other social justice movements or even their own kind (aka other “nontraditional” Feminists.) There is just too much hypocrisy that has been going on within Feminism itself, and it ends up tearing everyone apart! The debate on what “true Feminism” should be is always going to be an ongoing topic that no one will ever shut up about. Instead of saying one branch is purely evil and the other isn’t, how about we unveil the hypocrisies on mainstream feminism while also providing alternative solutions on how it make it better for everyone. If it’s meant to lift women up, Feminism itself should be inclusive and non-discriminatory. In addition, Feminism itself shouldn’t value a privileged/dominant group above other groups that are not as privileged or dominant in society.

Colonialism in Feminism

From allegations of Susan B. Anthony of being racist, to Twenty-first Century women

having fantasies of castrating men, feminists are CRAZY! It’s no wonder why men and people of other genders are “scared” of Feminism. A movement with the intention that it’s supposed to lift up and empower women… is actually doing the exact opposite. In documented western history, feminism was created by (mostly) racist white women. Shocking! Sadly to this day, modern-day mainstream feminists that dominate the media are still low-key racist. What makes their version of feminism different from the not so mainstream ones is that theirs is rooted in colonialism. One example of colonization is the oppression of indigenous or minority populations who don’t have that dominant power in the society they reside in.

“Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural

Relativism and Its Others” is an article written by Columbia University’s anthropology professor, Lila Abu-Lughod, who focuses on Middle Eastern Studies. In this article, Abu-Lughod gives her own perspective of US occupation in Afghanistan as a Muslim Arab woman, as well as providing a scholarly and critical analysis of the situation from an anthropologist’s perspective. She criticizes the US’ involvement in Afghanistan in the name of fighting terrorism and liberating “women of cover” (Abu-Lughod 783), but in doing so the US have made the lives of Afghan people, specifically Afghan women, much more disastrous. The US has done everything (wrong) in Afghanistan from dropping bombs, setting up “the world’s highest numbers of mines per capita” (Abu-Lughod 783), raiding homes, and of course killing the local population. In order to save people, we obviously have to kill them, or that’s how the US thinks about their belief of freedom. After the US occupied Afghanistan, they want to liberate women by getting rid of their burqas and converting them to the western standards of feminine roles. She states that this is problematic because who are we to say that one way of living is inferior to another.

“We need to be more sensible about the clothing of women of cover” (Abu-Lughod 785).

The burqa is actually similar to veils nuns wear in which it is used as a form of covering to symbolize purity and self modesty. Even if the burqa gets abolished, Muslim women would just end up finding other ways to cover themselves up such as hijabs, chadors, niqabs, etc. The wearing of the veils do not automatically mean oppression of women. She believes the debate on burqas shouldn’t even be a thing because it distracts from the more serious issues that are actually going on in Afghanistan, other Muslim-dominated countries, and Muslim populations around the world. Her solution to this whole Muslim, Afghanistan, burqa debate is that we should just let these women be because head coverings are already a (nonviolent) essential part of their everyday culture. In addition, we should be focused on more serious issues happening to Muslim women (like violence against women and harassment at the airports) and think more critically about what the US is actually doing in these countries and why they’re doing it.

The US is always biased towards itself so we need to see history from a different

perspective. The whole point of thinking critically is to question what’s already been taught to us and if we can completely trust it. More importantly, can we trust (mainstream) Feminism? One Hawaiian Studies professor named Haunani-Kay Trask doesn’t agree with Western Feminism. In her essay, “Pacific Island Women and White Feminism”, she points out the arrogance of White Feminists who want to recruit Native Hawaiian women to join their Feminist movement. She is critical against this because it’s obvious that the lives and struggles of Native Hawaiian (and other Pacific Islander) women are very different from White (or what Trask calls haole) women. The issues that White women feel are important to them do not have the same amount of importance to Native Hawaiian women. Such issues important to White Feminists (who they feel is only important to women) are “reproductive rights, women’s health problems, employment, and educational concerns.” (Trask 254) She isn’t saying that these issues aren’t actual issues, she’s stating that for Native Hawaiian women there’s other far greater issues they face thus making White Feminists issues NOT their priority.

In addition, she also states that “they [White women] see the oppression of women but

they don’t see the oppression of native Hawaiian women as an product of colonialism.” and “We [Native Hawaiian women] have more in common, both struggle and in controversy, with our men and with each other as indigenous women than we do with White people.” (Trask 254) What her argument is saying is that White Feminists have failed to recognize the actual issues and struggles of the Native Hawaiian women and men. Issues that are important to Native Hawaiian women on racism and colonialism are also important to Native Hawaiian men. This is similar to arguments often made by 3rd wave feminism on men being important to women and should be included in the movement rather than excluded. According to them, feminism is not just about sexism/women’s rights but also about addressing racism and issues impacting one race more than others. Her solution to addressing the divide between Native Hawaiian women and White feminists is stated below.

This does not mean haole, including feminists, have no role to play in our larger struggle for self-determination. Their place is to support our efforts publicly, to form anti-racist groups that address our people’s oppression through institutional channels, and to speak in our defense when we are attacked by white people. (Trask 256)

What this means is that White women are the ones who need to be understanding and having solidarity with the Native Hawaiian women. (Not the other way around.) Only then will Native Hawaiians and especially Native Hawaiian women agree to join White feminists in Hawaii. It’s not just about combatting patriarchy. In this case, it’s also about taking down the system of racism and oppression.

Feminism meant helping and empowering women but if indigenous and/or oppressed

women are being sweeped under the rug and invalidated, there is no positive feminism. Feminism ends up not being inclusive like it’s supposed to be. With Abu-Lughod’s “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” article and Haunani-Kay Trask’s “Pacific Island Women and White Feminism” essay, we can conclude that both of these women agree that US involvement and occupation in their homelands is more problematic than helpful. In addition, they believe that westerners, especially western/colonial feminists, need to be more aware of what’s really going on in the local populations in other countries, especially from the perspective of the oppressed/colonized. My own proposed solution to the issue of racism and colonialism in feminism is westerners and colonizers (specifically the US in these two incidents) need to move towards decolonization and acceptance of local cultures and practices that aren’t western. We need to be more critical of what dominant culture is trying to push onto us and be more informative of what’s really going on in the countries they take over. We also don’t have the right to judge women based on their daily lifestyle just because it doesn’t correlate with our own. We must be supportive of local movements in local populations rather than force them to shift their importances onto something else that may be irrelevant to them. This is important for mainstream feminists to realize because the feminist agenda isn’t even necessary for certain populations of women.

The mixed views of Sex Work in Feminism

Is sex work a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Is it empowering women? Or does it degrade

them? Majority of feminists (regardless of mainstream or not, and which wave they’re from) just can’t seem to agree on if sex work belongs in Feminism or not. The debate on whether to accept or reject, decriminalize or criminalize, respect or attack sex work is still ongoing to this very day. Supporting one opinion means anti-feminism to the opposing group, and opposing the same opinion means anti-feminism to the supporting group. The conflict, criticizing, and bullying of women between the two groups, and towards sex workers from the opposing group, is anti-feminism in my opinion because it involves tearing women down rather than building them up or finding a middle ground/neutral stance for their proposed arguments.

Instead of being anti-sex or anti-sex work, we need to first break down the general

information on what sex work actually is. In “What’s Wrong with Prostitution? Evaluating Sex Work” an article written by Christine Overall, Overall informs her readers on what sex work is as a whole and breaking down what the sex industry and what sex work (or prostitution in her article) is. She admits that she herself is biased against sex work but keeps an open-mind and remain respectful towards the facts and the pros of sex work. The tone throughout this article is mostly neutral and informative. Overall states that we need to “confront sex work in order to build feminist theory and practice, particularly in the area of sexuality.” (Overall 709) The true aim she tries to unveil is “[what] makes prostitution worse than any other forms of paid labor in a capitalist society.” (Overall 710) Women get paid for working so why are women being oppressed at their own jobs? It seemed as if Overall is liberal and very informative on the topic of sex work but then she concludes her article by (sadly) stating that sex work is actually a bad thing because it’s “an inherently unequal practice defined by the intersectionality of capitalism and patriarchy. Prostitution [symbolizes] men’s dominance: it is a practice that is constructed by and reinforces male supremacy.” (Overall 724) With this quote, she states that it’s a male dominated industry created by men, for men, and exploits and degrades women in the process. Because of this favoritism towards the male fantasy and its desires, women (felt they had) have little to no power in the sex industry. In 1992, the year this article was published, sex work seemed like a hopeless occupation for women. Sex work was industrialized by men and the patriarchy, and it was going to remain that way for a while. There wasn’t a solution back then because no one knew of any.

Ten years had passed, twenty years had passed, some attitudes remained the same, and

some attitudes changed. The debate continues on whether prostitution should be accepted by feminists or completely shunned. One feminist Swedish woman, Erika Lust, watched a pornographic video once. After that incident, something then clicked in her head. She knew exactly what was wrong with (mainstream) sex work. In her TED Talk video titled “It’s Time For Porn to Change”, she opened up about her experience on how she felt when watching porn and realizing what the industry really is. Lust herself is sex positive and states that just like men, women have desires too. But in that video she watched, she felt horrified about what was going on in the video and questioned to herself “Is this how sex is supposed to be?” She disagreed with what she saw that day and then decided she herself was going to offer a solution as a woman to women working in the sex industry. She decided to become a pornographic film director and redefine the genre of porn not just for women, but for people.

She started her filming career in the year 2000 but then created her very own

pornographic film company, Erika Lust Films, in 2005. As of 2018, she is still producing porn videos for all people to enjoy. What makes Lust’s works different from the male-dominated mainstream genre of porn is that she is extreme about incorporating ethics into her works. Her videos may have more of a focus on the female perspective and desires, but both genders are respected on-camera and off-camera. From equal pay for equal work to paying living wages, Erika Lust IS a solution to what’s wrong with sex work, and in her case, pornography. She isn’t producing patriarchal-based mainstream pornography and being slapped onto the credits as a female director. She is actually empowering women in her own genre and treating them as human beings to be loved and cared for rather than as objects to be used for male pleasure. She believes sex doesn’t have to be “presented as cheap, tasteless, and vulgar.” (Saul).

In Lust’s interview with Independent, written by Heather Saul, Lust was asked various

questions such as her opinion on mainstream porn, why she wanted to redefine porn, how feminism is incorporated into her work, and what she wants to accomplish through her works.

Lust believes that a lot of people learn from pornography more than they do in a sex education class. When people are watching from a porn genre that degrades women and doesn’t have ethics, it misleads the audience and society will be taught “This is how sex is supposed to be.” and “It’s okay to do this and that during sex.” which is very unhealthy. She is using her knowledge of filming and the female perspective to educate others on what healthy sex/porn should be. When it comes to feminism, women should not be left out of the porn discussion. It’s not only about the criticizing of porn, it’s also producing our take on it and redefining to genre to make it empower women. The mainstream genre and culture of porn doesn’t acknowledge women as consumers of porn which is why male directors and producers think it’s okay for certain things to happen to women in films. But now that Lust makes it possible to liberate women in a genre where they tend to be seen as oppressed, there is going to be a demand for more producers and directors similar to her. Some time in the future, women won’t just take pornography and have it liberated, but also other acts in the sex industry such as prostitution, stripping, and other sex acts.

Mainstream feminism is critical against acts that degrade women. But at the same time

they are also critical against those who defend these acts or are involved in them. To the opposers, they see it as “Why do you continue to support a form of patriarchy that takes advantage of women and exploits them for profit?” To supporters, they see it as “A woman has a right to access her sexuality and do whatever she chooses to do with it.” Opposers see no hope, supporters do. Christine Overall was against sex work because it was a place for patriarchy to exploit and abuse. Erika Lust felt the same way but she didn’t oppose sex work entirely as a whole. Majority of people don’t want women to be hurt and abused. But when there isn’t an actual danger in the way, women should just be themselves. My proposed solution to the mixed (but mainly the negative views) of sex work and feminism is that feminists shouldn’t see all of sex work as derogatory and oppressive but rather an occupation. If that occupation isn’t a safe space for women then we can branch out and make our own genre so that it is a safe space. We must be hopeful and let the sex industry be a more positive and ethical industry. In addition and in my own opinion, I see sex work with consent and human trafficking as two completely different things. I support sex work yet I’m critical against human trafficking. We must respect and leave “happy hookers” alone and focus more on those who are in actual need of help.

From mainstream feminism’s involvement in colonialism and racism, all the way to the

sex industry, we see women clashing against each other. We see that the reason why certain groups disagree with feminism is because mainstream feminism has taught them that they are not welcomed or they must be assimilated into something they are not. “If you’re not this, you can’t be a feminist. When you are this it means you support oppression.” are the words mainstream feminists tell other women. But what they don’t realize is that their definition of feminism is NOT the universal definition of feminism. Women are all feminists in their own ways if they support the well-being of other women. If feminism is exclusive, we’ll make it inclusive, if feminism bullies people, we’ll hold it accountable as being a bully, if feminism ends up putting women down, we gotta change it so that it lifts women back up. Should mainstream feminism be torn down? I say not completely. Should mainstream feminism be accepting of other movements that aren’t labeled as feminism? Absolutely. We should all be understanding of each other even if we don’t completely agree on an issue because that’s what makes feminism diverse. That’s what makes feminism inclusive and non-discriminatory.

Works Cited

Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others.” American Anthropology, Vol. 104, No. 3., 2002. pp. 783-790.

Grebowicz, Margret. “What’s Glamorous about Human Rights?” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, Vol. 20, Issue 1, Jan.-Mar. 2008. pp. 76-83.

Lust, Erika. “It’s Time For Porn To Change | Erika Lust | TEDxVienna.” Youtube, 3 Dec. 2014.

Maynard, Robyn. “Fighting, colonialism, racism, and imperialism: fundamental to a decent feminism.” Canadian Dimension, Nov.-Dec. 2010. p. 34+.

Oprea, Cristina. “Female Sex Workers: A Vulnerable Social Group.” Revista de Asistentă Socială, Vol. 13, Issue 4, 2014. pp. 237-247.

Overall, Christine. “What’s Wrong with Prostitution? Evaluating Sex Work.” Signs, Summer 1992. pp. 705-724.

Saul, Heather. “Erika Lust: The Feminist Adult Film Maker Changing the Face of Porn.” Independent, 15 Jun. 2016.

Trask, Haunani-Kay. “Pacific Island Women and White Feminism.” Edited by Spickard et al. Pacific Diaspora: Island Peoples in the United States and Across the Pacific. University of Hawai’i Press, 2002. pp. 253-261.

Example 3:

We Must Build Bridges Not Walls

There is too much prejudice in this world, too much bias . . . whatever happened to equality, equal rights, desegregation, love thy neighbor, brotherly/sisterly love . . . has everything turned out to be every man/woman for him/her self, male dominance and female inferiority, dog eat dog, selfishness, bullying, jealously, hate, discrimination, bias, prejudice, racism, sexism, ageism, lies, untruth, anti-this, anti-that? Where is the love? There is too much discrimination against the other person . . . all types; there is always something the other person does not like about you or me or him or her or it. Let us learn to be better people, because, we are only here for a short time. We do pass on our biases to the next person, the next generation, the next other, be it your friends, or even your dog, can learn to hate. Is this the legacy we wish to leave when we are no longer on this earth? Do we want our children to hate, and in turn, must be hated in return? There is no other way, than for this karma to end up returning to the giver of hate. We must learn to accept one another for everything that is better. Everyone has a better about them. Everyone is just like you, they suffer the same losses, they enjoy the same joys, everyone is the same; so, let us tear down the walls and build bridges for all to cross.

Together not divided: Let us build bridges, not put up walls of division; can we be together and not be divided? Are we able to conquer our own divisiveness and be as one with all man and womankind? We are all put here for a reason, not as creatures of Noah’s Ark; as individual life forms separate from each other as distinct animals of different make-ups and shapes and sizes. We are all humans, alike for a reason; sure we all have our own individuality, but we are the same; we each as humans have the same basic make-up as humans. When we are born we are babies of the same shape as human beings. We do have minor differences of color of skin, eyes, hair; texture of hair, shape of eyes, size of brain and body, and more; but we all have one thing that is the same: we are all human, not a camel, not a horse, not a bird and more. Sure, we all have preferences and differences in what we like; but we are the same. So why do we need to act like school children on a playground, forming cliques, extending our likes and dislikes to each other, and bullying the other cliques?

Let us not be childish and bully others; let us set the example for all the bullies and not behave as bratty children. We must be inclusive and not be in an exclusive group as if we are better than the others. If this is what Noah’s Ark was supposed to be, we would all be our own individual distinct animal; there would not be two of each animal, but multitudes and infinite differing animals that continuously be only one of a kind. Would there then be hatred among each different animal? Horses hating birds, camels hating monkeys, dogs hating the one human, cats hating dinosaurs and more. Then, we can just differ as to size or strength or appetite. We can eat one another. Is this the behavior we humans seek by behaving the way we do, gangs fighting the other gangs, one race hating and killing the other race, each clique superior to the other clique, all in some type of hierarchy of who is better than whom. We need to be one people, and not behave like the mean trained dogs that kill other dogs (because they do not know better and are taught this behavior), and do so because they are bigger or stronger than the other.

We will be compassionate and treat others as we want to be treated and not bully others for our mere enjoyment of feeling superior. The same goes for humans killing others on this planet because we are bigger and stronger and can be the bullies on the same playground (earth). “Every person, animal, plant, stone is interconnected in a life-and-death symbiosis,” Anzaldúa reminds us (xxviii). Let us tear down the fences and build bridges for all to cross. We cannot lock out our dogs and cats because we are bullies and put them in a cage; we must allow others to be free, as we are free. We do not own other people; we may own our dog or our cat, but do we own them to lock them in a cage to be kept out of the rest of the house? No, we allow them to roam and be as animals able to have their dignity; we do not bully them and starve them. We as people treat our pets better than we treat other people, who we have a prejudice against.

We cannot be that bully to put people into a cage because in our eyes they misbehave. If we do not like them, we must stay away from them if we choose. But they deserve their dignity. We are not better than them. They may be better than us, but we cannot starve them and take away their rights as humans by taking their land, pushing them from where they reside, and starving them because of our bullying. Let us all be one as humans and behave as we want our parents to treat us. We must be supportive of one another, such as, if we were stranded on a single island with nothing but one human that is of a different race, will we kill that human? If we were to that, we would also eventually be non-existent. That is the eventual ending that will be of people bullying people. In this writing, under the blanket of bullying, comes selfishness, jealously, hate, discrimination, bias, prejudice, racism, sexism, ageism, lies, untruth, anti-this, and anti-that; when we do not like another person, for whatever reason, we as humans, tend to try to bully them in one way or another; this is not the way for humankind to survive. For, it is said, the strong shall survive; but, the weak shall inherit the earth. We will be strong and we must still inherit the earth, but first, we must be smart and honor our fellow earth dwellers. I have done research on the different races and racism which I will discuss in the following paragraphs.

Feminism: women versus men: Women of ethnic cover must bridge the gap that appears in the bringing of all women of all races together, and not be segregated by racial boundaries and/or by patriarchal initiators. Should we all be joined together in the Feminist movement? Or should we all remain divided as racists and have each our own feminist movement? Is the time for a desegregated feminist movement? Or should we segregate into one feminist movement? Is this a hierarchy of social class feminism by race or not? So we may need to have a white feminist movement and a black feminist movement, an Asian feminist movement, a hispanic feminist movement and a purple feminist movement. Not everyone wants the same thing. How about a racist feminist movement where we can all join? There is not an answer to all this bickering, bullying, racism, and disrespect for one another. We will need to search for the answer to our failures of our past to bring a brighter future for our world. As Cherrie Moraga say in This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherrie Moraga & Gloria Anzaldúa, “Many

different people of different races coming together is like a crossroad where we all meet” (xxii). This is the way we will get to where we need to go. Let us now discuss some of the problems that are getting in the way of our desired eventual destination.

Muslims and Islam: There has been much anti-muslim and anti-islam in this country; there is bigotry and discrimination against these people. Because of this racism, there is an escalation of hate crimes against these people. According to Erik Love, Ph.D., from his research on race and civil rights, “it remains unclear whether diverse and historically divergent Middle Eastern American communities will remain divided along national-origin, religious, cultural and class lines (1). Love states, “‘Islamophobia’ is a problematic neologism, and the one that is currently the most common term used to refer to bigotry, discrimination, policies and practices directed towards Islam and a [racialize] group of people that includes Muslims . . . In the context of the United States, the chief problem with this terminology is that Muslims constitute only one of the range of groups directly affected by Islamophobia” (2). Because of this racial discrimination, there has been crimes against people because of their “muslim-like” appearance. This pattern of racism is an example of the discrimination caused by differences in ethnicity and race based on appearance and/or other dislikes by one race toward another. In “Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of the United States, South Africa, and Brazil” Cambridge University Press 1998, . . . Anthony Marx says, Racial scapegoating in the United States, [is] a method of producing white American solidarity and nationalism, dat[ing] back to the founding days of the nation” (Marx qtd. in Bauer 1). But, this is not the only race that we as Americans are bias against. Let us look into other prejudices.

Mexicans and Latinos: Currently, we in America are trying to build a wall to keep other nations from entering the United States, but, that is not being neighborly; we in America are all immigrants; we came to this land and invaded the native Indians who were first here when Christopher Columbus arrives to “the land of the free.” According to Doris Marie Provine, a professor in the School of Justice and Inquiry, “The United States is committed to aggressive efforts to remove unauthorized immigrants while honoring its commitment to race neutrality. Yet immigration enforcement has disproportionately targeted Mexicans and Central Americans” (1). Not only are we removing those who are undocumented, but we are instructed that a wall will be built to keep them out! If this is not racial prejudice, I can’t see a more distinguishable action of racial bias than this. Even though many immigrants have been here for decades, with children and grandchildren who are born in America, these grandparents who may not be documented immigrants are to be rounded up and removed from this country.

Japanese Americans: Japanese Americans have suffered the injustice of the lock-up of themselves in concentration camps by order of the president of the United Stated during world war two. This in itself is prejudice and discrimination at its’ core. These asian people who are law abiding Americans and also Japanese Americans, who are also American servicemen who have served in the military in America, are taken from their homes to live in an internment camp. Mitsuye Yamada, author with her own chapter inThis Bridge Called My Back : Writings by Radical Women of Color, writes about life in the concentration camp as a young girl. Yamada is a feminist, who reaches out to white feminist for help in directing herself toward a better chance at stepping up her feminist endeavors; she states, ““[“Asian Pacific American women”] need the help and cooperation of the white feminist leaders, . . . women who coordinate programs, direct women’s buildings and edit women’s publications throughout the county” (68). So, besides her racial injustices which she has felt, Yamada is also feeling the denigration of women in American society and seeks empowerment in her fight for social and human justice in America. I am also seen through the eyes of my friend, a Japanese American, who is born in the concentration camp. My friend Kanzazi is born there not out of choice but because his mother and father are taken to the camp. He has grown up as a Japanese American activist seeking equal rights for all Japanese Americans and Sumi, his mother, and Frank, his father, will never forget the effects of the dishonor as Americans of being in the concentration camp.

Chinese American: I, myself, as a fourth generation Chinese American, have also been discriminated against; I am driving my car, on the outskirts of chinatown, in the financial district, of the city where I am born and raised, when a white male shouts out to me, “go back where you came from.” This is totally uncalled for, is it road rage? Or is it prejudice? Or is it both road rage and prejudice. . . . wait a minute, I was born and raised just a few blocks away; my father was also born and raised a in this neighborhood, and my grandfather also was born and raised in this neighborhood. . . . where should I go back to? This is outright prejudice, assumption, male entitlement, and disrespectful bullying. I can’t go anywhere but stay where I am, because this is where I belong, this is my home, this is my town, this is my country; there is nowhere else I would go, where I would be native to the country where I now reside. Another time, I am on a bus, the white man who comes onto the bus behind, is somehow irritated at me for entering the bus ahead of him; he feels he should be given seniority on entering because I am Chinese? He says to me, “go back where you came from.” Again, there is nowhere for me to go except to go on the bus to my home, because my home is my country, where I and my father and grandfather were born, and where my great-grandfather arrive in this country, as all of us, except native Indians, as an immigrant. . . . be kind to your neighbors (because they know where you live). . . . (just a bit of humor here).

A Suggestion for a Fix: So how can we fix these disparities in female versus male bias, various forms of discrimination, every man/woman for him/her self, male dominance and female inferiority, dog eat dog, selfishness, bullying, jealously, hate, discrimination, bias, prejudice, racism, sexism, ageism, lies, untruth, anti-this, anti-that? Lisa Baker, who is a chief executive in government administration, in the Journal of Housing & Community Development, points out, “[we must] recognize that . . . outward patterns are representative of internal, unconscious behaviors rooted in our neuroscience. Before we can fix the world, we must first recognize how we view the world. We must become conscious of the shortcuts our brain uses to handle information and how those shortcuts shortchange us all in our planning and implementation of programs and projects” (7). Baker instructs us that all of us see our world in our own way and we may believe we are not bias in any way; but, “no one is completely objective” in their thinking; we believe things according to our own perception; and hidden amongst us is our “implicit bias” (10). If we are driving in a neighborhood where we see people with a majority of people of a different skin color, we may think we may be unsafe, and automatically reach to lock our car doors. We may do this consciously or unconsciously, but this is our bias that we may have in us; no one is immune to this, we all have it. We need to have intervention and education, to reduce bias and prejudice through noticing our prejudices, allowing more diversity within our communities, work with all people consciously, be more flexible our thought patterns instead of an automatic prejudice response, think of the bias that is the normal in people scientifically, and realize negativity is not always the outcome when you see differences in other people.

A Solution for a Fix: All women, regardless of race, religion, social status, language, sexual orientation, interest, viewpoint, geographic area, background, or experience, have the opportunity to speak out and be heard. Moraga emphasizes, “writing is one liberation tool at our disposal” (xxiii); and she states, “The very act of writing . . . what has yet to be recorded in history is to bring into consciousness what only the body knows to be true . . . [s]eldom recorded and hardly honored, our theory incarnate provides the most reliable roadmap to liberation”(Moraga xxiv). As Gloria Anzaldúa, Bridge, suggests for us to not dwell on the negative, but to look for positive in her encouraging words, “instead of the rocks and the thorns . . . concentrate on the rain and the sunlight and the spider webs glistening on both. . . . the struggle, the movement toward liberation. . . . don’t build bridges by storming walls— that only puts people’s backs up” (xxvii-xxviii). If we need to say something, there are guidelines that Anzaldúa suggests, “[walk] away from those who are not yet ready to hear us, who perhaps can never hear us; . . . [and] with those who look us in the eye, . . . wait for that glimmer of recognition to pass between us . . . with gentleness” (xxviii).

Online website to submit your own writings: Zobl created a website where all females can write about female injustices, have the platform to speak out and be heard, and discuss and defend their rights as women. Zobl brings together feminists everywhere to share their feelings and builds a network of women to change the world. Zobl specifies, in her article, “The goal of this site is to facilitate the dialog, creation, and growth of an international grrrl [maga]zine network, and to encourage others to actively participate in shaping their own media environment” (1). All women can utilize this online “[maga]zine” to speak out, voice their concerns, and be listened to, by women throughout and around the world. As Helene Cixous emphasizes, in “The Laugh of the Medusa,”Women must write through their bodies . . . aiming for the impossible, and [stop] short before the word “impossible” and writes it as “the end” (886). So, write, you must write, write your dreams, write your joys, write your sorrows; just continue to write, for, as Cixous says, “why don’t you write? Write! Writing is for you, you are for you” (876); Moraga, in This Bridge Called My Back, encourages us (to write because), “we need political memory, so that we are not always imagining ourselves the ever-inventors of our revolution” (1). Anzaldúa adds, ““Using imagination (images/feelings/thoughts), love, and vision to implement change . . . our thoughts/consciousness travel on air and impact others (265). All women worldwide have the International Grrrl Zine network to write, read other women ‘s writings, empower themselves through camaraderie, receive guidance and tools, coordinate and build programs, reaching out to women everywhere, adding their voices, leaving their footprints, and sharing with others who, like themselves, must be heard.

Works Cited

Baker, Lisa A. “Walls & Bridges–Inside the Neuroscience of Implicit Bias.” Journal of Housing & Community Development, vol. 74, no. 5, Sep/Oct2017, pp. 6. EBSCOhost, ccsf.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=126015012&site=eds-live.

Bauer, Gretchen. “Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of the United States, South Africa, and Brazil.” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 114, no. 2, 1999, p. 323+. Academic OneFile, link.galegroup.com.ccsf.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. A55801697/AONE?u=ccsf_main&sid=AONE&xid=f05db959.

Camicia, Steven P. “Teaching the Japanese American Internment: A Case Study of Social Studies Curriculum Conflict and Change.” Journal of Social Studies Research, vol. 33, no. 1, Spring2009, pp. 113-132. EBSCOhost, ccsf.idm.oclc.org/login?url= (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

http:// (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

direct=true&db=ehh&AN=48461394&site=eds-live (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. .

Cixous, Helene. “The Laugh of the Medusa,” translated by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, Signs, vol. 1, no. 4, 1976, pp. 875-893.

Love, Erik. “Confronting Islamophobia in the United States: Framing Civil Rights Activism among Middle Eastern Americans.” Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 43, no. 3/4, July 2009, pp. 401-425. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00313220903109367.

Moraga, Cherríe, and Gloria Anzaldúa. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, SUNY Press, 2015.

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