Women Empowerment

In chapter 8 of the Psychology of Women textbook, they discuss love and relationships. I was quite disappointed that they didn’t have a sub-topic on self-love or even a chapter on it. For women, we take the hit for not only ourselves but for children, husbands, and the like. So I think it’s essential for them to understand their worthiness. They discuss single women in the chapter, but it’s more in the context of someone who doesn’t have another partner or companion. Making it more so about the other. However, I truly believe you can’t love someone else if you haven’t developed some type of understanding of the love needed for yourself. Knowing what your boundaries are, what you are comfortable with and being consciously aware of how your feeling. Being able to have proper self respect and understand that you are not perfect and you do have flaws. Lastly, excepting yourself for who you are and what your capable of doing. If you look at these questions, while they do apply to people individually, they are useful to relationships as well.

 As a child, I never felt quite complete with myself, almost as if something was missing. I always looked for other adults to guide me into the right direction in hope that I would gain some wisdom and strength. Most importantly, their love. As we all know, nothing last forever, everyone has a different journey of their own and so some of these adults had to leave for some reason or another. But I had put all of my faith and dedication in them, so when the disappointment hit, it hit hard. With me being the youngest and the female of my household, I felt quite over-looked, unheard, and ignored when it came down to what I had to say. This was very conflicting internally because I always felt more mature than my age and that never registered for my family until being an adult. I wanted to be taken seriously. And so part of me can be drawn to anyone who sees that and gives me their time. Unfortunately, I learned that not all adults who give you their attention and see you as mature being a child have good intentions all the time. After my assault in 2009, I was very detached from the world and it forced me to reconnect my body to myself all over again. For some time after, I kept putting myself under the dirt just so these same people can be by my side for a lifetime. When in actuality, it was just time for me to let them go.

Now that I’m an adult myself, I realized what I needed to learn was self-love. How to feel whole and at peace with you. To this day, I believe this is a little difficult because as human beings we naturally are always looking for connections with other people. But this can be from taking time out of your day just to be with yourself and listening to your needs, to being open and honest with yourself about things that you haven’t been before. Even reflecting back on your previous mistakes as a learning experience. As women, we can not only can see and hear, but we can feel. And it’s not an obstruction but a gift, use it to your advantage for yourself. That way, you can bring this attentiveness and knowledge into a healthy relationship of any kind.

In The New York Times article, The Drug Dose-Gender Gap, Roni Caryn Rabin explains to us how women are underrepresented in clinical drug trials which causes them to receive inaccurate information about what drugs their taking. I believe this shows ultimately how much our society looks at men to be more of an essential being as opposed women. The fact that women are not being informed on the proper drugs to take and what does/does not work for their bodies also shows how some people don’t view women’s pains as something serious or crucial. It’s one of the reasons why we see commercials on TV that ask you, “Have you been taking ____?” “Are you experiencing symptoms such as____?” By this point, people have already been taking the drug for quite a while and are now in serious condition. Those including death. I find their inclusive trials be very miss informative to the consumer. However, these drug companies know that women represent half of the population and so if they can get more money from other people besides men, they well. Especially at a time when someone’s looking for a way to alleviate their pain and discomfort.

In Ross’s, African American Women and Abortion, one of the messages it seemed to portray was that African American women’s bodies were being used for societal gains or to help the population of a race. Not really for their own decision or even health. I find this to be very appalling because it makes it appear like they’re ponds that can be moved around and adjusted at anytime. In the 1800s, white men who owned plantations wanted their slaves to produce more children because they were considered to be cattle, not a human being.  That was more production for them without having to actually buy another slave from an auction. Throughout slavery, women who were pregnant had less work loads and better treatment, it probably promoted other slaves to have children or more of them. Also, due to the confines of slavery, I’m pretty sure that slaves wouldn’t have had the means to find a person to preform an abortion even if they didn’t want a child. I find that this time period is very difficult to comprehend how the women felt because the system of fertility at this time was mostly controlled white men.

By the early 20thCentury, I believe African American men then began to not control but rather, emphasize and persuade how beneficial it was for African American women to have children to better the population of their race. The eugenics movement within itself was another way to undermine and classify minorities by their grade of intelligence, skull size and other methods. I believe it made things even harder for African Americans to be treated equally and therefore it caused them to look upon their own community to see what could be changed to then help them as a whole. However, that came with a price. I don’t believe a person who is not financially stable should have children because it puts the child in a situation where they wouldn’t have the best quality of life. Which later becomes a pathology, affecting future generations to come.

In Kimberle Crenshaw’s, Mapping the Margins: Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, I very much agree with her statement when she says, “Ignoring differences within groups contributes to differences among groups.” I believe if you don’t look at how there are different narratives to the story of being a women and how diversified we are by intersectionality, then how can you possibly change the whole picture or even one picture? It’s very important to take in every perspective so that when you start to congregate a group it will be stronger by population, by experience and by action. Then when you are faced with voicing your issue to another group everyone is united in some aspect. I also believe that if you do intersect identities, your role is very essential in bringing change to both groups, such as women of color. In the controversial book, The Black Man’s Guide to Understanding the Black Women, I was absolutely appalled when the author Ali said in order to restore authority to the men in the black community, they must use physical force on the women. I do understand that black woman can sometimes be characterized as being strong headed and insubordinate but in no way is violence ever the answer.  Many black women have to take the role of being a mother and father for a child if their is an absentee of the father. But the problem with domestic violence is an issue that occurs across all cultures and genders. However, by being a women of color I think they have the ability to make this known to both groups. 

In the Social Construction of Gender reading by Judith Lober, she discusses the issue of how most westernized societies believe in the fact that there are only two genders, male or female. It brings me back to the Native Americans who were living in the Americas prior to any Europeans even stepping foot on the land and altering their culture. They had people in their society called “two spirits.” This was a very general term for someone who had both a maculine and feminine spirit, as many natives considered the spirit to be your true self. Back then, it was considered to be a third gender. They were looked at as having much knowledge due to the fact that they fit both gender roles and were honored because of it. I really like the name and wish it was used in our society as a third gender because it puts more emphasis on the person as a whole rather than focusing on the fact that they don’t fit the binary. This also makes you less focused on categorizing and labeling within their own group.

In Fine, C. Gender Education, one of the main points that stick out to me is that children are so young yet they learn about gender roles before they’re even four or five years old. I give props to the Bem’s family and other families who attempt to put gender neutral ideas into their child’s life because living in a society where the majority still believe in assigning your child’s gender and roles, it’s definitely a challenge. Especially when the child has influences from other children and teachers in school, possibly daycare. I believe the only way for children to have more gender neutral ideas and options is to see them through out all of their daily life, which means they need to be applied on an institutional level. From my personal experience, I have two older brothers who leave an impact on certain gender roles within my household and my views. I learned a lot from there mannerisms from a very young age due to the fact that they're was a six and twelve years age difference. More so, my parents raised me to do the same activities they did and didn’t expect anything less of me because I was girl. With this being said, I had many examples of being educated by multiple people on gender roles in my household.