Today I would like to honor and celebrate Anne Burrell, who recently came out publicly, but never kept her sexual orientation a secret. Despite the large LGBT demographic for the Food Network, Burrell and Chopped host Ted Allen are the only regular stars who are out.

Burrell is a phenomenal chef and a woman who does not suffer fools easily. A representative of a restaurant where she was recently filming a show said, “She was gracious, fun-loving and every bit the personality that has made her a favorite.” I wish we would see more of her on Chopped, although she certainly appears on a number of interesting shows.

She is also a great example of just how truly versatile a BA in English really is. She received her initial culinary training in New York before going to Italy where she trained and worked. Burell has demonstrated a charitable side as well, most recently when competing for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation on Chopped All Stars.

Stay tuned as we celebrate the LGBTQ community this month.

I assume someone important in the boardroom (a big bald man with a ponytail and a cigar? or am I just picturing Mr. Big from ‘Wayne’s World’?) said something like ‘Yes, we know. But those feminazis can just take their unshaven armpits to some other network! We know what ladies want, and it’s to listen to other ladies talk about the fashion faux pas and confusing rules that man-sports are so full of! Also, those ladies will be wearing lipstick and high heels, it’s crucial!’

Perhaps that executive underestimated the reality of this day and age. When men like sports while ::wait for it:: women like sports too! Or, and this might really blow some bangs back, NOT ALL MEN ARE GLUED TO SPORTS CENTER. And, please sit down for this, women who don’t happen to want to watch hockey just simply DO NOT WATCH IT. They just go in another room or leave the house or pursue another interest and don’t really want to watch a show that explains the lady-parts of a game they honestly don’t give a shit about. When I don’t want to watch hockey it’s because I just don’t care, it’s not because I didn’t have someone there to gab about tie choices or who is the cutest player or what uniform matches best. And if I want to spend quality time with my husband, we find something we both want to do instead of me sitting there holding his hand while he explains things to me.

If you read the comments below this recap of this controversy, you will find a lot of “GET OVER IT!” and “If it offends you, don’t watch it!” or “Girls are such bitches!” And you know I am totally in favor of not doing things that get you all pissed off. As a way of staying sane. But asking women to just ignore things that are blatantly patronizing and sexist is like asking them to not speak until spoken to. I will both NOT watch the show AND say it’s gross.

2. Despite my maxi-skirts and attempts to learn Arabic, I’ll never look or sound or act like a Jordanian. I’ve never experienced standing out so throughly from a crowd as I have here. I’ve gotten used to guys honking at and hitting on me here, solely, I’m guessing, because of my ethnicity. I try to not let it get to me, but it does sometimes.

3. Yesterday afternoon I saw a woman in a burka driving a clean, white Prius. It was disorienting. Here, this black scarf with eyes peering out, to many the symbol of oppression, riding inside this progressive, environmentally-friendly vehicle. I’ve learned here that when a woman wears a hijab or burka, it’s her choice. She’s doing it because it’s her religion and it matters to her. I just can’t ever imagine being that dedicated to anything. Maybe that woman in the Prius was borrowing her friend’s car. Or maybe usually she wears whatever, but that day she was going to see her super conservative uncle. I don’t know her. It was just a sharp reminder that Americans’ ideas about what is fair and progressive and what isn’t – what I’ve been learning about my whole life – don’t apply to everyone, everywhere.

4. Speaking of hijabs: there’s this really cool photography project by an Iranian woman being featured on the New York Times. Although Iran and Jordan are very different, still worth looking at.

5. I went shopping and got a new ring today. Yay shopping!

My mom always said I should be a hand model… Don’t you agree?

Birmingham! A place, I discovered, of cheap manicures, cheap fabric and expensive bus passes; the University Special Collections are in the Muirhead Building, which is monopolised on the ground floor by a sprawling Starbucks. But I’ve never been in a better-run archive. The staff were friendly, helpful and clearly knew their collections, giving me advice on ordering and potential caches of less obvious stuff. The basement room is bright and clean, and the paper catalogues are in a sensible and accessible place. I thought these kind of places only existed in my feverish research dreams.

The papers were also good (although the documentation I’ve found for my PhD suffers from primarily being things that people write in margins in indecipherable scribbles). The Save the Children Fund (SCF) stuff is a relatively recent acquisition for Birmingham, but is well-catalogued online and would be a fabulous resource for anyone studying the religiosity of religious charities, or the internal politics of setting up new missions. Similarly, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) papers – while a bigger archive and better-used – are really fabulous. Again, my stuff was in the margins, but on a last day looking through photographs (always save the fun stuff for the end) I found a fabulous school-style photograph of the Southern Sudanese Anglican community in Khartoum, with some names, from the 1950s: I think I’ll blow it up, laminate it, and see whether anyone I meet can tell me who these guys are.

The joys of archives are the tangential bits and bobs that crop up in files organised around different agendas to your own. Such as the miniskirt ban in Amin’s Uganda:

This reminds me of reports over the last few years in South Sudan of over-zealous new recruits enforcing a kind of social morality (on women’s bodies, obviously – the best place to demonstrate morality) by harassing and sometimes assaulting women wearing what they consider “revealing” clothing. Patriarchal, militarised and authoritarian states have a lot in common.

Hero of the Week

Yet another court struck a blow against DOMA. Barely a week after a California judge ruled the spousal benefits portions of the ironically named law unconstitutional, another major case won its appeal yesterday.

Gill v. Office of Personnel Management was brought to the court of the District of Massachusetts by the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD). The case, with lead plaintiffs Nancy Gill and Marcelle Letourneau (pictured) and a dozen others, maintains that DOMA violates the equal protection clause as well as violating the marriage authority ceded to the states in the Constitution. By refusing to recognize legal same-sex marriages (like those in Massachusetts), DOMA tries to trump that authority.

The case was decided for the plaintiffs in 2010 but appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel of that Court agreed that Section 3 of DOMA is clearly unconstitutional, stating that “moral disapproval” is not a legitimate, compelling governmental interest.

The decision will no doubt be appealed and may well take this case to the Supreme Court. For now, however, the victory is sweet and the message is clear. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the plaintiffs who were willing to take the time and energy to fight for what is right and thank you to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, bills have been proposed claiming to protect the conscience of employers to opt out of providing coverage that goes against their religious convictions, including the Bunt Amendment and a similar bill in the Arizona Legislature.

Are Catholic Bishops and other employers the only people who hold religious beliefs? Or the only ones whose religious beliefs count?

You’d think so to hear the debate on the matter.

In the face of this war on women progressives have rarely questioned whose religious rights are in play. And so conservatives have undisputedly argued that employers – Bishops or otherwise – must be free to follow their conscience. But that leaves women forced to follow the conscience of their employers. The argument is then framed as “right to contraception” vs “religious rights” which makes the latter stronger since that is undisputedly in the constitution.

Maybe women’s religious beliefs are ignored because the perspective of the powerful tends to trump the perspective of the powerless. The powerful have a history of airing their beliefs and they can bully from their pulpits. The Catholic Church has historically been powerful. Women have not. Business leaders have historically been powerful. Women have not.

I was heartened to hear Salon editor, Joan Walsh, finally make the reverse argument last week, five months after the start of this debate. She pointed out that the Priests have religious freedom backwards as they try to force their religion on everyone else. They and the Republican Right are working to impose their religion on the country. Maureen Dowd and the New York Times editorial page have thankfully followed suit.

Shouldn’t the pious be the ones to sacrifice for their convictions instead of asking everyone else to sacrifice for their beliefs?

And when there is a conflict, the religious beliefs and conscience of those whose bodies, health and well-being are directly affected should certainly trump the conscience of those who simply hold the purse strings.

Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Markets Must Be Free; Women Must Be Constrained
Strip Searches Strip Our Liberty

My best friend is getting married tomorrow. Well, she’s already married (in a registry office) and is having a party tomorrow. When she told her boss she was going to celebrate her union by wearing black, not shaving her armpits and have an online gaming competition with some of her geek friends (I am not cool enough to know what this is called) her boss had to lie down on the floor because she felt faint. “You’re a loon, darling, a complete and utter loon!”

My friend may be getting married, but if she’s going to do it, she’s making damned sure she is doing it on her own terms.

“if you’re a girl there’s no pleasing the patriarchy anyway”

Author, journalist and brilliant feminist Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote the famed Prozac Nation. It is the autobiography of a brilliant girl who nearly dies because she is too much – too sexy, too clever, too alive – for this world. She has depression and takes tonnes of drugs and has some messed-up affairs and tries to kills herself but, thank God, survives to be the wonderful thinker she is today. How did she do that? As I remember it, the book doesn’t really tell you. But I think she must have learnt the art of survival. Of learning to play by the rules sometimes so that she doesn’t get punished for living an otherwise unconventional life. She has probably learnt to find the intellectual relief she craves in her journalistic writing and job as a corporate lawyer. A way to rant and let off some steam without totally self-destructing. You should read Prozac Nation. It’s depressing, but great.

I want to read this book as a story of compromise. Compromise has been given a bad rep. Teenagers think of it as a bad thing, a failure to be yourself, and that’s why they laugh at adults in our jobs and relationships worrying about what bed linen best compliments the curtains and which sofa fits in the living room. And that’s why we adults hate teenagers back. For showing us the compromises we have had to make in our lives. We laugh cruelly back at them, because we know they will have to make the same choices or suffer the consequences.

Feminists can also judge women. When a woman has a big white wedding, or decides to have babies at the peak of her career, it is easy to call her a cop-out. It’s easy to assume that when she chooses a career in business over being a self-employed artist or in some other manner follows the heterosexist, capitalist pattern of life she is not thinking for herself. But what if this were her choice?

I think that compromise can be a feminist choice. Choosing to compromise demonstrate intelligence. It shows an ability to adapt and survive. It can be a strategy, a weighing up of the odds. The act of assessing your situation and decide how you are going to survive.

I used to think that the choice to take the path of least resistance was a sign of weakness, of failure, but now I have come to see it as a position of strength.

Compromise can be feminist because it means you’re clever and you’ve worked out the odds. You can’t have the baby, marriage and the promotion. You can’t live in a squat, work for free and still fund your artwork. Compromise means you’ve assessed your situation and you know something has to give. It’s up to you to decide what. For Wurtzel, she found some institutions in which there was the least restraint/most space for her to write out her crazy ideas. For my best friend, a career in art sales gives stimulation and a good relationship helps her to negotiate the craziness.  For another old friend, getting married and earning good money in a banking job helped her survive the demands of her own massive intellect and some shit parenting. Me, my compromise is different. I may have to sacrifice children and financial stability, at least for a while, in order to follow my art. And this is a compromise because maybe I do want kids, and I definitely want a partner and a stable home, but I have learnt that I just can’t survive this world if I don’t follow my creativity. A 9-5 job, a ‘normal’ relationship; that is what nearly killed me.

It is of great importance to create alternative communities and imagine how to construct a society that is not inherently sexist, racist, classist, transphobic etc. But each person also needs to balance their feminist dreams with the necessity of living in the here and now.

 ”to survive in this world you have to know how to play your cards right, and you know women started off with a shit hand”

I am terrified of following my own path. Because I know it will take me to some pretty radical places and I am afraid that I won’t be allowed to survive. That they won’t let me survive. My parents and friends and the world who tells me to get a proper job, have a baby, your biological clock, tick tock. And when I don’t do these things, what will happen to me? It’s lucky that I’m queer really, or I might already be married, in Brittany, with lots of babies. (Yes, that is my parallel life.) But behind my desire to be a writer, I know that I want the option to have a baby and yes, realistically, I have maximum 10 years to do that in and I don’t even have a partner so what the hell am I going to do? Being queer stresses me out because it makes having a baby far less obvious, a much harder option. Goddammit, this life is so unfair! And this fear of the future contradicts my knowledge that now, right now, is the time for experimentation, for my art. I need to follow my own path but I know that path might lead me away from some other options. I know I couldn’t have a baby now. I know I wouldn’t survive, body and mind intact. That it might just kill me.

Thank God for wonders like Patti Smith who not only survive they do so whole and well and seem to find the support for their wanderings. She’s a Buddhist. Religion probably helps.

The fact that so many brilliant women I know compromise and appear to fall in line – get a job, a nice boyfriend, have babies, do the normal thing – doesn’t make them anti-feminist or failures. They don’t do it because they’re stupid and brainwashed by patriarchy, they do it because they’re clever and they know that living this hard and fast life outside of the rules is a sure path to death and/or madness. They do it because they know they couldn’t survive otherwise.

Women who form this kind of compromise are fucking intelligent and have a strong skill for survival. Because to survive in this world you have to know how to play your cards right, and you know women and queers started off with a shit hand.

“It doesn’t matter, really, what anyone else thinks of you”

In these past 2 years of depression I have learnt the trick of survival. Faced with the knowledge that I can’t have everything in this life, I have also made my choice. Just as my best friend chose a husband, babies and a career, I have chosen art and adventure. This may mean I won’t have time to have kids (I’m 40 in 10 years!), but I think I will survive this sadness. And I nearly didn’t survive the other option, so it seems I don’t have much choice anyway. It must be possible to be a healthy artist. Self-destruction is awfully glamorous, but no matter how cool it sounds in a biography, I don’t want to endure that kind of pain. This is why I like Patti Smith when she sings about revolution and then says ‘and don’t forget to brush your teeth.’ She remembers that in order to be a healthy artist you need to take care of yourself. Art and sleep. Art and sobriety.  Art and sanity. It doesn’t sound that sexy, but it works.

Go to bed on time, eat well, do exercise and see a shrink. ‘An artist’s job is to balance mystical communication with the hard labor of creation’ (Patti Smith, Just Kids). Or maybe that’s balancing artistic work with the hard labour of keeping your mind.

I know that we all think there is a set of rules to do things properly. And not only in the mainstream. In queer communities you are expected to have multiple lovers, live communally and not get paid for your work (anti-capitalist). For me, none of these things feel right. But I am still queer and I am still a feminist.

It doesn’t matter, really, what anyone else thinks of you. We all know, deep down, that conforming to anyone’s standards just to be seen to do the ‘right’ thing won’t really please anyone (if you’re a girl there’s no pleasing the patriarchy, or anyone else, anyway) and it won’t make you happy either. So whether you’re a radical queer or a pregnant married woman, it doesn’t matter, so long as you are living by your standards and not anyone else’s. Remember, only you know what’s right for you and only you can decide what you need to do in order to get on in in this world.

By the way, when Patti Smith walked over me, down the aisle of a Catholic church she was giving a concert in, I had to restrain myself from rugby tackling her. From grabbing hold of her ankles and holding her and never letting her go. Good thing I have more common sense than that.

Bigot of the Week

This past month certainly has assembled a Preacher’s Hall of Shame! Two came from North Carolina. First we had Sean Harris telling parents to break their sons’ wrists if they got “too limp.” Then the vile Charles Worley endorsed death camps for LGBT Americans, much to the delight of his congregation. Now we have Pastor Curtis Knapp (of Kansas, for a change) taking things to their horrific “final solution”. He wants the government to put gays and lesbians to death.

They should be put to death. That’s what happened in Israel. That’s why homosexuality wouldn’t have grown in Israel. It tends to limit conversions. It tends to limit people coming out of the closet.

REALLY? And the far right says that all they want is to maintain their religious freedom? Big Ole Closet Queen Knapp clearly demonstrates that the agenda is as despicable as it gets. Just to prove he meant it, he doubled down on the hate in an interview with CNN.

We punish pedophilia. We punish incest. We punish polygamy and various things. It’s only homosexuality that is lifted out as an exemption.

As crazy icing on his crapcake, he also said that George W. Bush, the man who campaigned on marriage inequality, was “too tolerant” of LGBT Americans. This is a dangerous, scary man.  Who will be next on Knapp’s hate list and sentenced off to the death camps?

Where America goes, so usually goes Australia although we know it already has been happening in Australia.

Probably the greatest hypocrisy of the Feminist movements, especially those such as Planned Parenthood, is the turning of a blind eye to, if not the outright endorsement of, abortions executed for no other reason than that the sex of the child, once determined, is undesirable and so the poor soul is destroyed, guilty of only being a boy or a girl with no other medical or psychological factor, danger or trauma present.

Interestingly, most couples and mothers who seek gendercide least want a girl and abort until they get a boy.

Yes, feminism, and its most cherished accomplishment, abortion on demand, has certainly liberated and saved the female sex.

I know a woman who was so happy in her marriage that, she was the one who was used as an example of what a marriage should be. Honestly, I am one of the people who do not believe in all that picture perfect…marriage-made-in-heaven, fairytale love stories. I mean, I am a believer in love but, convincing me that we have great marriages out there…a totally different story…but I digress.

This woman lived in this belief of a near perfect marriage for many years until the day she ‘mistakenly’ picked the call for her husband. The lady at the end of the line was all ‘hello love’ and all that. It was a terrible heartbreak to this lady and that very day, in her own words, everything trust flew away through the window as she began to suspect her husband despite his denials. I mean, I don’t argue with the saying that a jealous woman does better research than the FBI. The lady has become sensitive to everything going on around the husband which she was ‘careless’ about previously. (You just don’t want to get a woman jealous and ready to fight for her man). I side no party in the matter. Each to his/her own…

However, I am trying to look at all this love issue from a totally different perspective. Where there’s love between two people…where there’s understanding…and all the other ingredients that supposedly make for a good union, why is infidelity the deal breaker? I do not ask out of ‘naivety’ as someone might be quick to say. I ask out of an open/ innocent curiosity.  Why would the ‘peace’ and harmony be thrown away because of infidelity?

This is a serious matter. 2011, an Italian man made history for being the oldest divorcé after he filed for divorce from his wife of over 60 years because of her alleged infidelity in the 1940′s. I mean, it is that serious.

I do not condone infidelity myself but, why is fidelity our most pronounced yardstick in our union? Is it simply the green-eyed monster(jealousy)? Or, have we knit our lives and worlds so tightly around someone that everything (and I mean everything)- self-esteem included; crumbles when we discover that that one has extended his/her world to include someone else apart from us?

Please share/tweet me your thoughts. 

This is an on-going discussion on sex, love, friendship and relationships between couples. Stay with me!!!

Education is around us everywhere. We become educated through the many stages of our lives. Some have attended pre-school or day care all the way through their elementary education of 8^th grade. Then we move along to four years of high school, and students become part of a different pedagogical way of learning. Students attending classes for 8 hours a day, forming long-term friendships (or not), sports, lunch, student body activities that bond the high school together and finally faculty and staff that are there. Then these students graduate and move along to higher education: college. College becomes a new experience for these students. For some it is a way to party and meet new people, and others solely believe that the college education is a key component in their success, with some slight partying and meeting new people. College becomes part of your new identity. These students elementary and high school days are over and are becoming a new person or still holding on to their high school years. However, as students become acclimated in their new classrooms, the classroom climate is different from the average high school classroom. You are now left alone, and possibly know no one around you. This tends to be one of the scarier moments when first attending as a freshmen college student. Nonetheless, the first day of classes is an experience that one wouldn’t forget. All the clicks you were once part of in high school is gone, and you are now on your own.

As an educator in higher education, teaching college students in the communication field has struck a very interesting nerve in my body. I notice many different things when lecturing, doing group activities, assignments, and class discussions. Getting a college degree has been and I am sure will always be one accomplishment in one’s life that is very dear to them. Including myself, when I first received my bachelor’s degree a few years ago, I felt it was something that I worked hard for and had many sleepless nights. However, that accomplishment was something I can still remember being a great step and pushed me forward to attend graduate school and become a college instructor. Being a teacher was something that I always wanted to become. At a young age I used to pretend with my younger sisters to play school. I was the teacher often, and they were my students. It felt great to feel as if I were in charge, and actually gave out assignments that they’ve done. Of course it was silly assignments, and from what I remember assignments pertained rewriting sentences from a book, and spelling words. At times pretend teaching seemed real for me, and the authoritative figure that I was to my sisters as their play teacher is what made me feel good.

As I compare my pretend teaching “position” to my now teaching position, being an authoritative figure and just that is not on my agenda as an educator. However, holding the authoritative position in the classroom is something that one must pertain, but to not only use your legitimate power to get attention. I have been teaching now for almost 2 years, and I just can’t seem to stop thinking about women in the classroom versus men in the classroom.  I will be discussing my experience being a young woman educator to college students, women and men in the classroom through my experiences, and how it has opened my eyes constructing new pedagogical ways of teaching.

My Teaching Experience and Image

A couple of years ago, I was just finishing up my Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations. My ability to communicate and become open-minded has been very much influenced by my peers and professors at the university. Standing in front of the class room was not an issue for me; however the thought roaming through my head was “are they going to even listen to me?” Being in the communication field has also pushed me to want to learn more. Therefore teaching a hybrid communication course is very much something I always wanted to do. This course consists of interpersonal communication theroies, small group communication, persuasion, and how to research and construct an informative and persuasive speech. I constantly dreamed about my teaching position, and of course my sub-conscious tends to show me a vision in my dreams that doesn’t necessarily make sense or even true, however it did let me see what could potentially be a classroom. Being a young woman I believe has been hard trying to be heard and known for what I believe in. Being young and an educator to students whose ages range from 18-45 is one of the difficult tasks as an educator. Number one, the young students will look at me as their friend, and second the older student may tend to first stereotypically judge me as very young and uneducated, or someone who can’t possibly teach them more than what they already know because of my age. But it is interesting to point out that I never ever revealed my age to students. I kept that a mystery to them. Every semester when the first day of classes begins, my students tend to see two different people from the first day to the last day. My authoritative persona is definitely out. As much as I don’t like to intimidate students, I tend to come off that way because of my straightforwardness on the first day. Reading my policies out loud to them they tend to give me blank stares or are really scared because they are freshmen. I like to add a little sarcasm and humor on the first day. Humor tends to give them an ease, but at the same time the legitimate power is definitely there to establish a sense of stability in the classroom so that they don’t think I am just a young woman who doesn’t care for them. I find that my techniques for the first day have worked for me in my teaching career. I believe that as they view me as a woman and educated they tend to believe in my ability to help them with their college career. Although teaching is not all peaches and cream. Being a woman educator is not always positive because I do come across those “Wow I can’t believe they just said that to me” moments. Male and female students can look at me in different ways. I can definitely see the difference in the two, especially when they approach me. My philosophy in teaching is fairness. I try to be as fair as possible when it comes to both sexes. However not everyone is the same, and some come off as aggressive towards me when they don’t like what they hear.

I had many unusual and great experiences throughout the semesters that I have taught. One specific memory that stuck to me was from a male student who asked me a question that made me really think. As I was handing back their group projects, he asked me “How do you feel being a young woman teacher and handing back bad grades?… wouldn’t that make people hate you because you are a young woman?” At first I just didn’t think I could respond without seeming too aggressive, but of course I tried to handle it and made him understand that I grade everyone whether young or old the same way, everyone is treated fair, and me being a young woman shouldn’t  affect the way people perceive me in the class. From that moment I believe I put him in a place that allowed him to think about his question and my response. Of course I didn’t say everything I wanted to say to him, and I hated that feeling because there was so much I wanted to say. I don’t think students understand how much they impact teachers. I always tell them I am just like you: human. I am not a robot and yes I enjoy music, shopping, dining out, etc. The way they impact me in the classroom helps with my teaching and how I handle situations.

I am not sure how students really deep down feel about me, however student evaluations have helped me see their point of view. I get a lot of good ones, some are okay, and others are angry at me because of the grades they are receiving in the class. You can’t win them all, and this is something I had trouble figuring out because I wanted to at first win them all. I want them to all be successful, however that is ultimately their choice and how much effort they put in. My students do know I am into feminism, and that I am a feminist. It’s interesting to see that some of them are actually interested in feminism, and think that they offend me when they say something to me face-to-face that deal with women. I appreciate comments and suggestions. I don’t get offended or insulted unless they blatantly want to offend me on purpose or are just purely ignorant. Fortunately I haven’t come across a student who has insulted me. I am sure they might talk about me behind my back but that’s their choice. However, with all the great feelings I have comes with bad feelings. My image is a key component to how students view me. I have long dark hair, curvy, and petite, 5’4, and do have exotic features.

I dress professional most the time, unless it is an off day, and this is something that I believe has helped with how students view me. There is a small activity I do for perception and students have to guess and answer questions about me to see how they perceive me. This leads into my lecture of perception, since we tend to stereotype and judge others before we know them. I ask a question that’s states, “list the jobs you think I used to have”. The amounts of responses are funny at times, however they only viewed me in jobs that women tend to be a part of. They put careers such as, nurse, teacher, librarian, secretary, retail, and cashier. These responses were anonymous, so some felt like putting jobs that were definitely demeaning and sexist. But that’s just what I expect because it’s the phase of being funny, cool, and wanted to get a reaction from me. I tell them I will read off some of the responses, so they think I will mention the bad ones too, but I don’t give them that satisfaction.

Being a woman in the classroom has also struck some interesting thoughts. Male students will look at women teachers as either a sex object or motherly. But because women are often seen as either those two then this then occurs in the classroom. I find that if a woman is an older teacher, students will view her as more motherly than sexy, because the older woman teacher is symbolically representing a motherly figure to them, and is possibly the same age as their mother. When looking at older teachers (40-60s), students will have their own perceptions of who she is. She is not looked at the same way as a younger teacher.  But ultimately they create their own judgments and perceptions of women teachers. As women teachers, we have to have this image and unfortunately we have to meet some of the expectations of how we should look. If a male teacher is dressed down with jeans and a T-shirt or polo, students’ questioning his credibility is rare or not even questioned. But because they already view a male teacher as an expert and holds power, they don’t look at his image as a key factor in his abilities to teach. Our attire is very much part of our nonverbal. Our appearance projects a message to our students. Because we are educators we have to look presentable. I am not stating that male teachers don’t get judged because of how they dress, because they do. However, it is less likely in comparison to a woman teacher. I remember on a day I didn’t feel like wearing heels, I wore flats. I wanted to be comfortable because on that particular day students were presenting their projects. A female student gazed at me up and down and stated, “So you aren’t wearing heels today?” As if I am only supposed to wear heels. I kind of chuckled and said “Yes, I wanted to be comfortable”. I am sure male students look at my image and how I dress. But I feel sometimes the clothes I wear I am considered a “fashionable teacher.” Yes I love clothes and looking nice, but I don’t want to be solely known for my clothes. I usually get comments about my clothes from student evaluations, which should evaluate my teaching, and the course. But I get those evaluations that state “I loved the way you dressed up”, “I never seen you wear the same outfit more than once, you looked amazing”, or “Sometimes you dressed inappropriate”. I didn’t understand how I dressed inappropriate and wasn’t sure what they meant by that because I always dressed professionally, or dressed down on certain days because of the comfort level that called for those days of teaching. These students that comment on my clothes just seen me as a manikin advertising the newest trends. Then I question is it the age and the maturity level of these students? It is quite possible that it is, however I am convinced that my clothes and how I look has a big impact on my credibility and abilities to teach as a woman.  

Women versus Men in the Classroom

I want to now move on to discussing male versus female students through my teaching experience. The ratio of male student versus female students in my course is interestingly low. In my courses it is predominantly women. This is not surprising since more women attend college than men.  According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “between 1999 and 2009, overall college enrollment increased by 38 percent, from 14.8 million to 20.4 million. But, over that time span, the number of enrolled females climbed by 40 percent, versus 35 percent for men” (as seen in International Business Times). But from what I have observed in my classes, I tend to see female students different from men in how they react or respond in the classroom. In my classes I try to build a positive climate. Therefore, I allow questions to be asked, interactions with me during class and office hours, and students to get to know each other (sometimes end up best friends because of my course). I encourage students to speak up and express their selves in my class. It is not straight lecture which is always great because not only am I educating them, they educate me too during class discussion on certain topics.

During my lectures I tend to ask questions to the entire class. But what I noticed is that female students tend to mumble their answers or barely speak up. They sound unsure of what they are answering. At times when they mumble their words, I ask them to speak up. Usually they answer vaguely and don’t expand on their answers. My job in that situation is to help them expand and answer without being vague. When comparing a male student in that situation, they are very talkative and expand on their answers. Even when they answer the question wrong, they still feel confident about their answer. Male students tend to dominate discussions, whether there are more males or fewer males in the class. At times while a female is answering the question, but not accurately, a male student will jump to answer the question. This then causes women to not speak up again because she got shut down by the male student. When women speak in class they feel they must have impression management. Women have been taught to become silent when a man is present. By being taught this way, doesn’t help when she is either in the workplace or at school. Even though some women are very outspoken in their personal lives, by being a student they still feel the need to not speak up because they believe they are silly, vulnerable, and will be judged.

I also notice when a female students answers a question quietly and I ask them to repeat it they are afraid to answer it again. They believe that they are wrong, or make it seem that they didn’t even answer the question. They get easily embarrassed and shy. However, when female students turn in their assignments, their writing is absolutely amazing. They elaborate and have numerous pages of worthy analysis/discussion of theory/concepts from the course. Male students tend to be short in their writing, they are vague, and do not really expand on their thoughts. Some male students are also intelligent and share a lot with me too in their writing, but those male students are the ones who hardly speak up in class. But when they do answer questions, they don’t quite answer how a female does. They expand, and have provided good examples. Not saying female students are all like this, however, this is how they are the majority of the time. During class activities, I put students in groups together. It is random all the time, so this means it could be all male students together, all female students together, or mixed. What I notice is when all female students are together; they are talkative and manage to do the activity great. Conversely, when you stick a male student in that equation, female students are very quiet, and hardly speak up. Also one must think about the beginning of a semester. When you generally have students who always participate in the beginning of the course, the students who don’t normally speak up feel the need to not ever speak up since the talkative students will do that for them. However, I tend to pick students to respond when there is silence. If a student has talked too much I say, “Thank you for your willingness to answer, let’s give someone else a chance”.  The one thing that I am willing to do is help a student figure out the answer, and wait for them to answer. I don’t rush them and seem impatient. When a female student is chosen to answer, she seems flustered and begins to panic. Starts with an “umm” and pauses a few times, and then gives her two-word answer. When I ask her to elaborate she begins the whole cycle again, but this time I have given her a better opportunity to show her competence in the class by providing better examples.

When female students talk to me privately they are very open, and speak up. But still have tendencies to be shy and unsure of how they speak. Male students hardly ever see me during my office hours, and if they do it is to ask questions about their grades. I tend to get female students ask about assignments and how they can improve. This is great and what I want them to do. I believe that when I put myself in these women’s situation, I was the same exact way when I was an undergraduate student. I hardly ever spoke up, and if I did I was completely shy because I was afraid of what people would think of me. I barely participated and was always observing the course. Anytime there was a question asked I always formulated the answer in my head, and when no one would answer it, I still wouldn’t answer it even if I knew it was correct. I hated myself for it because I didn’t show my competence during class discussions, but only through my writing. I see myself in these woman students, and I do not get angry when they don’t speak up, because I’ve gone through with it too. Nonetheless, seeing woman student’s shut down because of males in the classroom is what makes me passionate about changing that kind of atmosphere in the classroom.

My Pedagogical Ways

Being an educator was something I always wanted to be as I mentioned. However, the reasons of being an educator when I was younger are definitely for different reasons now. I had an imagination turned into a passion.  I had no idea how I was going to be as a college teacher, but I believe this is my niche. I will always have great and bad moments when teaching, but I believe that’s what makes me want to be great at my job. I learn from each bad moment, and make it a learning experience for me. Even though I can get frustrated at times, I still see myself being an educator. I hope to encourage female students to want to be strong and open-minded and have a voice in the classroom and outside of the classroom. I feel the person I was as an undergraduate student has changed because I was encouraged by my professors to have a voice and to be heard even if I answer wrong. I know that men will always try to dominate the classroom with their side comments, answers, try to be cool and fit in, however I know that they feel they have to be that way because they believe it is their nature to be this way. Every class is different, and every person is different. I learned that I cannot be the same exact person in every class and that I have to be what I feel suits the class. Some classes are overly talkative, and others are very quiet. The moment those students leave my course at the end of the semester, my heart sinks, because I do tend to have the “motherly” actions of wanting to hold their hand throughout the way. Even though I believe I am not trying to mother them on purpose, it’s just my tendencies of wanting them to be successful and close to perfect.  But then again, I am happy that the semester is over and a new group of students come in to teach me something new. I love the comments at the end that state “You seemed intimidating in the beginning, but after I got to know you, I knew that wasn’t the case and I could talk to you anytime”. These comments I am grateful for and hope to reach out and make a difference, whether they tell me or not. The fact that women attend college more than men is amazing to me, but still we shouldn’t forget that women no matter what degree they obtain, women still get paid less than men. This is something that women have dealt with, and probably will deal with if change is not done. Being a woman and an educator has taught me to be a strong individual and has helped me through understanding people better because of the diversity in the classroom. Incoming freshmen students are not used to the college experience, so they think they have to sit in the classroom and follow policies, raise their hand, and only speak when told to. Then there is returning students who are afraid they are doing things wrong because they haven’t been in school for a while.

Teaching is not about dominating someone and showing them whose boss, it is allowing a student to become something more than what is expected from them. I will always have students who are ready for college, not ready for college, undecided about their destiny, or just there because they think it is the right thing to do after high school. With all types of ways students are I have learned that I can’t save all of them, however I can try. Understanding how the classroom works is something that educators need to know in order to successfully enlighten students. I know I am not an expert, and I need to learn more about teaching, and I am willing to. Some women whether young or older, will always feel the need to not speak up or be confident in what they say. I hope that one day this is not the case for them and that they express themselves with or without men present in the room. Even though I teach communication, I do understand that other fields have similar ways of how men and women are in the classroom or workplace. This definitely occurs in the male dominated careers such as engineering or mathematics. Everyone will find their way in this long journey. Some find it sooner than others and some find it later. I believe that everyone has a journey they are on, it just depends how bad they want to accomplish their wants and needs. I am definitely still on my journey, and once that journey finishes, another one will definitely come. So far teaching has become one of my journeys that I cherish deeply.

References

International Business Times. Why Are More Woman Than Men Going to College? Web. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/262161/20111206/women-men-gender-gap-college-university-degrees.htm?page=all

Și ca să continuu visul, m-am alăturat, deci, unui grup de femei și bărbați feminiști (sau feministe?). Simțeam că aparțin, că fac parte din ceva important, cum ziceam, lipsit de violență. După mai multe întrevederi în care i-am convins de fidela mea aderare la noua mișcare, mi s-a spus că trebuie să urmez un fel de ritual formal, firește, nimic de care ar trebui să-mi fac griji.

To make a long story short, m-am prezentat înspre a fi inițiată, pentru ca apoi să mă trezesc cu un strap-on amplasat în zona subburticii. Trebuia, se pare, să aștept să îmi crească un falus (pe modelul strap-on-ului) îndeajuns de vârtos, încât să pot participa la militantismul feminist. Când am văzut că au început să-mi iasă niște fire de păr negre și ondulate pe piept, am urlat (în vis, încă) și mi-am scos imediat strap-on-ul, moment în care s-a ivit falusul real. M-am trezit nădușită…

POLL: În care dintre cele două poze se află Laura Mulvey? Vă dau un indiciu: „zebră!”

So, you’ve been with your partner for years and they’re still showing no signs of popping the question. If you’re a bloke in a straight relationship and want to marry, chances are you’ll be working out how to ask your lady for her hand, safe in the knowledge that she’ll almost certainly say yes. But, as I have witnessed firsthand in other couples, if you’re a woman in a straight relationship, you’ll probably be dropping hints like crazy: strategically leaving catalogues open at the Engagement Rings section, leaping desperately for the bouquet at weddings and coming out with such gems as: “Tallulah and Tarquin have only been together for three years and they’re getting married already…”

If you’re at this stage, then there is no denying that you’ve submitted to manipulation tactics to get what you want. But is that what you really want? Why do you want it? If you’re happy with your partner, you live together and you have a good, strong relationship, what is the point of marrying? Chances are you’ll spend an awful lot of money on feeding and watering distant relatives, followed by a lavish holiday only to return to the exact same life you had before, only poorer.

Maybe you feel that there’s something missing in your relationship and that marriage is the fundamental link to success and happiness; that marriage will solve all your issues. Or maybe you feel that you’ve been with your partner long enough and after doing so much hard time, it’s absolutely imperative that you tie the knot or it has all been for nothing. That’s the thing about relationships, though – there is nothing to work towards; if you’re in a relationship, you’re in it and that relationship can grow and change, of course it can, but there is no “happy ending.” Marriage is not as dramatic as an ending, it’s not even a beginning – it is a continuation.

Whatever the reason for wanting to marry, why do women drop hints? Why is it such a rare thing for a woman to propose to a man? A hang-up from days gone by, perhaps, but a hang-up that acts as a tiny, but niggling reminder that all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. The institution of marriage is fundamentally flawed in many ways, but its inability to change at the same rate as our culture deems it outdated and regressive.

CONFORMITY IN FRIVOLITY:

                With This Ring…

An enormous amount of emphasis is placed on the ring that starts it all. The engagement ring. Note the singular: ring, not rings. An engagement ring should typically cost the same as the prospective groom earns in a month. You see, it all starts with a deposit. To secure this man’s future purchase of a wife, he must guarantee it against outside interference with a trinket, and this trinket must be worthy of the item to which he is laying claim. Well, that’s how it used to be in the good old days before these damn women started reading too many books that gave them ideas. Unfortunately, there was something misunderstood in the feminist movement that is still misconstrued to this day: the idea that women battled and battled in order to offer other women the right to own their partners as much as they themselves were owned. Equality – yes absolutely – but surely where ownership of a human being is wrong on one count, it can only ever be wronger on both. Two wrongs do not a happy union make. Note that the word “obey” is often omitted from the woman’s wedding vows to make them more equal, it’s never added into the man’s!

But I digress. The engagement has only one ring; there is only one owner in this part of the proceedings and an engagement ring is a talisman to ward off all other suitors. Worn solely by women. And judged massively by the woman herself. After all, if a man loves his woman, he will all but bankrupt himself to give her what she wants, no? The significance of this ring is now one of power on the woman’s part; the ring is a prelude to a promise almost as binding as the wedding vows themselves. And is this ring something that has been picked out because it suits the wearer? Well, it’s a diamond solitaire on a gold band, the slight variation is irrelevant.

                Dress like a Princess…

Then there’s the dress. White, floor-length and, these days at least, strapless. White. For virginity. Let’s face it, most couples are already cohabiting with each other when they decide to get hitched, so to wear a white dress seems somewhat disingenuous. Why white? Certainly not to imply virginity. There may have been a slight increase in the number of coloured dresses to appear in bridal shops, but for the most part, the dresses are still white (or cream). It’s almost like a fresh start; a blank canvas. But if marriage is neither beginning nor end, it again seems somehow inappropriate. It’s a rare occasion when an affianced couple opt for a small wedding to which only close friends and immediate family are invited. It is also a rare occasion when a girl doesn’t spend thousands of pounds on a dress that she will only wear once for a ceremony that lasts all of twenty minutes.

It’s all about uniformity. Conformity. A diamond solitaire ring in a gold setting, a white wedding dress, flowers, drapes, place settings, a sit down meal, a cake cutting and a first dance. “But it’s traditional” you might say. Yeah, and so is slavery, imperialism and oppression of the minorities, but that’s no excuse for ploughing on regardless. Traditionally, marriage was for uniting countries. Traditionally, marriage was to justify sex and childbirth in religion. Traditionally, marriage was a way for government and church to control the masses. Tradition? Balls to tradition! The Wicker Man was a satire of communities who take tradition too seriously – I suggest you traditionalists watch and take note. In a western world that is evolving cerebrally, there is no act that can be validated because it is an act of tradition.

                The Venue…

Whether the bride and groom have chosen a religious or secular wedding, they will no doubt be heading for a wedding breakfast and reception shortly after they’ve had lots of posed photographs taken. Photographs that don’t portray any natural moment of the day, but capture exactly what the photographer wants people to see. Then the guests will throw confetti at the couple, despite the fact that the custom is rice (or the local grain) and that the rice is to symbolise fertility, not just so some people in posh clothes can throw bits of shit at some other people in posher clothes in the name of convention.

It is popular these days for wedding receptions to be held in expensive hotels, where the wedding guests who have probably travelled to see the happy couple get married, bringing with them gifts they can’t afford to bring, are expected to book themselves into swanky rooms. Luckily for the wedding guests, the bride and groom have arranged for all the chairs at the reception to be covered in organza and for fresh, colour coördinated flowers to adorn every table, so that makes up for the expense, doesn’t it? Well, no, not really. It’s a vicious circle: the bride and groom shell out thousands of pounds to arrange the wedding, so it is expected that the guests spend hundreds of pounds each in return. The bride and groom are probably only really bothered about a third of the guests and about two thirds of the guests aren’t that bothered about the bride and groom. And yet, somehow, the groom’s sister has manipulated the bride into making her a bridesmaid and even though the invitation said “no children,” there’s a suckling sprogger screaming its head off because that particular set of owners couldn’t possibly have found a babysitter in the three months prior to the big day even though every other besproggered family managed it.

It’s a stressful do, is a wedding. There is a massive responsibility when seating guests – one mustn’t forget the row auntie Doris had with your cousin Frank in 1998; the seating plan is created and immediately scrapped over and over for just such reasons. Once seated in carefully designated places, the guests will find favours next to their place names, which are generally little knickknacks for which they have no purpose and which will gather dust in a drawer for years to come. Is any of this sounding romantic to you?

                The Presents…

With the invitation you receive, for which you are required to feel suitably humbled and grateful, you will also receive either the name of a shop from which the bride and groom would like you to purchase the rightfully expensive present that you’re going to give them, or a request for money, with which the newly married couple will buy drinks on the luxurious holiday they’re about to go on. Most couples have already lived together long enough to know that they are capable of cohabiting with each other. Wedding presents were generally given when couples lived with their respective parents and so had none of the things needed to make a house a home when they moved into their new pads together.

An important question I think you have to ask yourself, if you are seriously considering marriage, is: “Do I want to be married or do I want a wedding?” Because if what you crave is the dress, the day all about you*, the party, the presents and the holiday, I’m guessing you haven’t considered the implications of marriage at all. Maybe another question should be: “Would I do this if it was just the two of us, both wearing jeans, doc’ martins and skanky old T-shirts with a quick I do ceremony in the register office and nothing more?”

THE VOWS

[Name], do you take [Name] to be your lawfully wedded [husband/wife] to live together in marriage. Do you promise to love, comfort, honour and keep [him/her] For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. And, forsaking all others, be faithful only to [him/her] so long as you both shall live?

Groom: I, [Tarquin], take thee, [Tallulah], to be my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, ‘til death us do part.

Bride: I, [Tallulah], take thee, [Tarquin], to be my wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, ‘til death us do part,

These days the vows are sometimes adapted somewhat, as in the case of Kate Middleton refusing to “obey” Price William. A girl under enormous social pressure to conform and with some pretty daunting boots to fill. Good on her!

I can’t read the wedding vows without wanting to tear my hair out. “Do you promise to love… so long as you both shall live?” how can anyone promise that?! You can promise that at that moment in time you love someone; you can promise that at that moment in time you can’t imagine ever not loving them – you cannot ever promise to love them forever and know that you will keep that promise, because love is out of your physical control. And everybody knows this, deep down. If they didn’t, there would be no instances of jealousy or insecurity. Love is an erratic malady that makes fickle creatures of us all.

Moreover, how can we pretend to not see that wedding vows are superfluous in a world that allows divorce and prenuptial agreements? And how could you not allow divorce?

FOOTNOTES:

* I have a day about me every year… it’s called My Birthday.

I am a mom, a former English teacher, a conservative, a lover of great classical literature, and grammar police enforcer, yet I really really LOVED these books. So much so that they’ve earned a sacred spot on my Favorite Book Series list.

I loved them for the sheer entertainment value they offer. It’s not Pulitzer Prize winning writing. It’s not earth-shattering plot or social commentary. These books are just great entertainment.

I can laugh at myself as friends tease me for reading them. I can chuckle with some of my book club girls who cringe at such a low-brow title pick. But I challenge the critics who are demonizing these books as examples of chauvinism and degradation of women.

I am a strong woman and a feminist. Being a feminist means simply that I believe in the equality of the sexes. It doesn’t mean men are the enemy. It doesn’t mean that I can’t embrace my love of pink and green and get a kick out of seeing my daughter dress up as a princess. It means that I want to see women treated as equals with the same rights and opportunities as men. Even as a feminist, I think these books are fantastic. They’re entertaining, not degrading. If anything, these are books of female empowerment.

As women, it’s in our nature to nurture and care for others. Nurturing is NOT a submissive trait, though. In the Fifty Shades and the Twilight novels, whose similarities have been widely compared, the character in power is the Anastasia Steele or Bella Swain. Without them, their domineering men fall apart at the seams. With his heroine in full-on nurture mode, each man blooms into a downright swoon-worthy character.

The women in these novels are strong and bold. They don’t obey. They don’t listen. They speak out of turn. They can hold their own. Without them, the men each become a heinous brooding vampire and a dark, twisted head case.

These women are perfect examples of what feminism is truly about. Female empowerment. The right to talk back, the strength to forge ahead into these dark relationships without losing themselves, the ability to bring their men to their knees (and not just in the bedroom), and the power to CHOOSE for themselves how they want to live their lives. They don’t bow to their men’s wishes; they make their own decisions.

And, especially in Fifty Shades, they can also choose when to step back and enjoy not being in control.

I recently read another blog post from a husband’s point of view on these books called 50 Shades of Porn. Yeah, I suppose they’re that, too. But what I agreed with most by this blog author was that these books are the greatest source of escapism around. I laughed and agreed that I loved having my copies on my little brown booze bag, a.k.a. my Kindle. I read them while I sat in the line of cars that arrive a half hour early before school lets out because it’s the only way to get a parking space. I escaped.

I hold that these books are stories of empowerment, but definitely agree that they are a great way to escape, too. It’s honestly a really nice escape to swoon over a man who wants control. As strong women, we have that choice, too. To relinquish control and let someone else make all the decisions. That is very sexy.

After all, as moms, we are in control of all of the short (and tall) people in our houses. We control the scheduling, the carpools, the shopping, the menu planning, the house keeping, the family calendar, the gift buying, the activities, and everything in between. Being responsible for all decision-making can be downright exhausting. It’s a wonderful fantasy to imagine someone else being in charge for a while.

If you’ve been hearing all about these books, but weren’t sure if they were worth the read, go for it. They’re for both light and serious readers, men and women alike. Allow yourself to get past the shock value and get to know the characters. Maybe you’ll get to meet your own inner goddess as a result.

This latest news that in NSW a judge has ruled a birth certificate can be modified to remove the surrogate “birth mother” and instead list only both male partners as “parent 1 and parent 2” is a clear demonstration that gay activists have no interest in supporting women or respecting women. It also is a clear indication to me of how the agenda for “gay marriage” will actually erode respect for women.

What is unarguable is that motherhood entails – necessarily and biologically – some real woman placing her life on the line, enduring 9 months of at least considerable discomfort, and risking death during the process of giving birth. Even in surrogacy, where there is no intention to keep and raise the child, still that sacrifice demands acknowledgment, for the sake of the woman herself, and for the sake of all women who have children. But because a gay couple don’t want to be reminded of the biological difference between their coupling and heterosexual unions, they don’t want to acknowledge that woman’s unique and completely irreplaceable contribution to the life of that child. Instead they have sought – and obtained – a court ruling that asserts to acknowledge and record her existence, her role, is “not in the best interests of the child”. I find that horrifying and cannot believe it has not generated alarm from feminists. Why do feminists believe gays are their “friends”? Why do feminists align themselves with the gay agenda? Gays are not supporters of women’s rights. Revolting misogynistic jokes are pretty stock-of-trade from gay comedians – from Oscar Wilde to now.

And of course, this legal “victory” is an indication of the social reconstruction that will follow any legalization of “gay marriage” in the name of “equality”. Within a decade it will be irresistible but the courts will rule official government documents, birth certificates, school and hospital documents, must remove “discriminatory” terms such as “mother” and “father”, and replace them, as in this case, with “parent 1” and “parent 2”.

The “gay marriage” lobby loves their little joke that to legalize “gay marriage” doesn’t make it compulsory. But as this case indicates, there is every intention to make it compulsory to use “inclusive” and “equal” terminology. So be prepared to say goodbye “mum” and “dad”, and indeed goodbye to motherhood and fatherhood. Women, in such a new “equal” society, will be convenient wombs for producing offspring for gay and heterosexual men, but the removal of this surrogate woman from the birth certificate of a child is a terrible harbinger of such an appalling social mindset. It is the ultimate gay misogynistic “joke” on feminists and all women.

I doubt that the well-meaning heterosexual supporters of “gay marriage” have thought through the social and legal implications of such a legalization. But I urge them to do so, and be forthright about whether this is the sort of society they are happy to see “brought to birth”.

This might suggest that women-only sections on public transport would be something I would appreciate, and on first thoughts, it would be nice to not have to experience the things that I have. If there had been a women-only carriage, I could have got away from the men who followed me, and the leches. But first off, who would police it? Would they have to be female? And also, what is the definition of a woman – what about transgender people? And surely that should apply both ways, because women who want to be men, are in the process of being men and have gone through the process are victims of harassment too. In fact, many people are the victims of harassment, and it might be because of gender, but also race and sexuality and religion too, and more besides, but also for none of those reasons. It is impossible to protect people from harassment. And anyway, segregating the victim is not the way to do it; it creates a sense of blame. If a woman didn’t want to travel in the female-only carriage, then that would be absolutely fine. We shouldn’t be told where to go, or be made to hide away, just because of who we are and the actions of other people. But if we didn’t, men might decide to take advantage of that, just because they could. And then people would say that it’s the woman’s fault for not going to the place that would keep her safe. That’s not right or fair. Women have every right to travel in whatever part of the train they want, just like everyone else. Why should we go to a special carriage?

Also, the major flaw here is that it is not just men who carry out harassment. For example, if we had women-only carriages now, this incident that happened in my home town would not have been deterred. The attacker and the group she was with would have carried out their abuse, and the assault would have still happened, because they were all females. If anything, it would have made the attack more likely. I went to school with the girl who was arrested for the attack. If my options were a carriage full of men or a carriage with someone like her in it, I’d pick the carriage with men in it. And chances are I wouldn’t be harassed, because the vast majority of times I have travelled I have not been a victim of harassment nor even witnessed it. But one thing is certain, separating women from men will probably not solve problems, and may even create more.

No, the problem is with the people who do the harassment. It’s not just men, although it is true that women are picked upon because of their gender by men; however, that is just one example of harassment. We can’t separate everyone who might be a victim of harassment from everyone who might be a perpetrator, because that could be just about anyone. What does need to change, though, is the fact that we currently live in a society where people are being told to protect themselves, and while that’s fair enough, what we really need to focus on is telling people not to oppress. They’re the ones in the wrong, so the measures should be against them, not the innocent people they pick upon.

Reading some of the articles surrounding this controversy (namely Mark Serrel’s on Kotaku AU, Michelle Starr’s on CNet and Keza MacDonald’s on IGN), the majority of the criticism seems to stem from the sexualisation of the female assassins and the gratuitous violence between them and Agent 47. Now, while I won’t deny the comments that the women have been sexualized in this trailer, to suggest that this is somehow a new low for the gaming industry is completely absurd. As matter of fact, this has been happening for a long time now –  consider Bayonetta or Lara Croft, Jack in Mass Effect 2, Paula in Shadows of the Damned or even Morrigan in Dragon Age – where was the outcry for those games? IGN had no problem scoring them  7s and 8s – I guess it didn’t bother the reviewer too much while playing? Keep in mind, this blatant sexualisation is also not specific to just the gaming industry either.

Feeling Aroused? No? Me Neither …

To begin I wanted to discuss a comment made by Mark Serrel’s in his article. He mentions, “They get to play beach volleyball; they get to choose which bikini to wear while doing so”, from which I assume, was a reference to Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. Let’s take a look at this shall we? Dead or Alive X2 is a title made by Team Ninja, a Japanese development studio. Now not to stereotype but it’s hardly a surprise to say that Japanese culture is different from Western culture. As a matter of fact, we’ll often see games with noticeable sexualisation when heavily influenced by Japanese culture (think Dead or Alive, think Soul Calibur, think Shadows of the Damned) and I don’t think it’s fair to lump these games together  with all the others and insinuate it’s the norm. A perfect example – we have RPGs and JRPGs as two separate genres – the industry recognizes the difference.

A point each article mentions is this idea that the developers are using sex to promote the game, with comments such as “Let me put it another way: guys, you’re the demographic to whom this is marketed … [are] all you’re interested in is blood and boobs?” from Michelle and “What are you, the Straight Male Gamer to whom Hitman is primarily marketed, supposed to feel when you’re watching this trailer? Are you supposed to be turned on by the nuns, or the violence, or both?” from Keza. Honestly, I fail to understand these questions. If you had even a shred of marketing knowledge you’ll know a company will promote a product to appeal to its intended audience – if its confirmed that this game is for men, then yes – we will like violence and blood and yes, we’ll most likely like women too. Once again, I’m not saying I’m giving the sexualisation a big tick here, but can no-one else see why this direction was taken? What would these two writers prefer? The women be dressed in burqas? Perhaps a nice shirt and business skirt? Tracksuit pants and a jumper? I’d bet that’d really appeal to the ‘Straight Males’ out there. Can I protest this loudly whenever I see an advertisement aimed for a predominately female audience and see a topless male in it? Hell, there are advertisements for women that show scantily clad females – just see the in-store posters for bags, watches and other accessories – do ‘Straight Women’ get turned on by this? Once again I say, to suggest this is only happening within the gaming industry is beyond ridiculous.

Cop Killer? Where Are The Outcries Here?

As I mentioned above, one of the quarrels people had with the trailer aside from the sexualisation of the assassin’s was with the violence – let’s examine this. Michelle makes the comment, “Oh, believe me: I asked myself, would I feel the same way if he was killing a bunch of men like this? And the answer is: a bunch of men would not be treated as some sort of hyper-violent sex show, in which we’re supposed to be aroused while we slaughter.” Much like the questions above, I’m struggling to understand this one. To suggest that people are actually being ‘aroused’ by this trailer. Now, while I can’t speak for all men, I can say I certainly wasn’t feeling aroused as I saw the assassins take off their habits nor when they were being systematically killed by Agent 47 but if I’m honest, I highly doubt all the other guys out there weren’t either. To me, this just seems comes across as some completely illogical extreme-feminist conclusion that is trying to make mountains out of molehills. This is taken further when Keza writes in her article, “But other games don’t fetishize their gruesome demise like this trailer does” – but once again, it isn’t like Agent 47 stands over the deceased assassins and pleasures himself. This is made even more ridiculous when she suggests, “This trailer panders to violence-worship and misogynistic desires” … which to me sounds like the sort of comments that ill-informed people make when listening to rap music suggesting it instigates violence and crime. Violence-worship? Misogynistic desires? Call me wrong, but I sense the these ignorant feminists views are starting to show. Perhaps I should make similar comments for every female who enjoyed the last two Batman titles – if I recall correctly, there wasn’t a single female the Batman attacked. Let me try. ITS AN OUTCRY! THIS IS SEXISM! THIS PANDERS TO VIOLENCE-WORSHIP! See how ridiculous it all sounds?

I once again re-iterate, it’s not that I disagree and don’t feel there is sexualisation of women in games, but I don’t feel this trailer shows anything worse what has been done before in games – and it’s certainly something that isn’t specific or restricted to the gaming industry. If the violence is an issue, perhaps we should make it so women are never involved in violent scenes again – but I suspect there will be outcries that men are again being sexist once again assuming women cannot be just as tough. Or perhaps we’ll have Agent 47 be a female in the next Hitman title and have her take out five men in tight pants without a shirt? Will political correctness restrict games as it does the real world now? Who remembers the Dead Island trailer? I found it much more confrontational to see a small child fall from a building and hit the ground below than some grown women in spandex clothing be killed by a fellow assassin. This trailer isn’t perfect, but it’s far from the most offensive thing I’ve (or you either I’m guessing) ever seen. I think before we go and suggest that people are being turned on by violence against women, or that the developers are ‘fuelling’ misogynistic views, that we take a deep breath and stop over-dramatizing everything because it doesn’t fall in-line with our own personal agendas. Just remember, you’re watching a teaser trailer for a game based on an assassin, not My Little Pony.

- Anchorman Mazda

Here’s a link to the article (and the depressing comments section): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2151169/Sexual-harrassment-time-high-40-women-say-inappropriately-touched-colleagues.html

The Daily Mail also opened up a message board titled “Have you ever been sexually harassed at work?” and allowed women to submit their stories. Have a look: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/chat/f/t-10246650/p-1/index.html

I am not a regular Daily Mail reader nor do I know if it’s a reputable news source, but the content of the article and the comments alone are enough to let me know that attitudes towards creating safe spaces for women aren’t progressing quickly enough. I’m not claiming that every man (or woman) would agree with the sexist comments, in fact I know quite a few men who would certainly disagree. But it’s clear we have a long way to go.

So the other day, I was in a taxi. Since having a crash in the family coupe, this has been my major means of getting around. In other words, I don’t get around much being a man who leaves the house on leisurely drives and in the midst of this drive I decide to drop in on a friend or two. Taxis don’t provide that luxury. On the crash, I might write about it someday maybe soon, I am not traumatized in the least bit. However, I am amazed at how ungrateful to the Deus Ex Machina that must have been in play to aid and abet my surviving the potentially fatal situation unscathed. I should be reborn in spirit, perhaps I am and don’t know it yet. Back to the topic at hand, So I was in the aforementioned taxi and we were at a junction. We had been beckoned to cross the junction and it seemed the driver in the vehicle ahead of us was driving so gingerly and slowly that we were in danger of crashing into the car. Can you believe my luck? I was thinking myself, oh not again. The taxi driver on his part in typical Nigerian fashion rained down some insults on the yet unknown driver,

“Useless driver, some people think na them get road, tell am to put L for their car they no go gree, tschewwww. God punish devil!”

So to avoid driving head long into the back of the car in front of us, we decide to swerve and overtake the car for the purpose I just mentioned and also so we can get a look at the driver, deliver a well-rehearsed scowl and wind down our windows to deliver some insults and hand gestures in typical Nigerian fashion. We are a nation of road ragers if you ask me; everyone is driving at almost boiling point. The courteous driver like the courteous Nigerian who does not make use of “gra gra” is left behind and progresses slowly. So we roll up to the side of the driver and as we are about to deliver our insults and so on, we both discover that a woman is behind the wheel. The taxi driver instantly calms down and speeds off ahead of her before I can deliver my insult or admire the fine babe if indeed she was fine and give my world famous smile (self-delusion, let me be). As we speed off, he explains to me in the midst of my protestation and discussion of the situation that “Na woman o, they no sabi drive” implying that women are naturally pre-disposed to poor driving.

Before I continue, I am no feminist or woman’s right activist. However, I do try my best to accord women the same respect and in the situation above derision I would give a man. This is what my liberal arts education and sojourn in obodo oyibo has taught me. Besides, I can say this confidently, my mother is one of the best drivers I know with proven credentials of almost a decade in Lagos and another in Abuja with its autobahn like roads that has almost everybody in a rush to meet their maker. Driving is just one area where women are discriminated against if that is the right word. I remember as a kid when the pastor gave an edict to husbands that they should not allow their wives to drive cross state or long distance and when one of our church members died in a ghastly car accident it was murmured that her disobedience of this edict and supposedly biblical principle was the cause. My comment? None. Not touching that with a 10 mile pole.

Growing up I always noticed a marked difference in the way I was treated as a boy and my female family members. You see it would seem from an outsider’s standpoint that from the time girls are old enough they are being groomed for marriage in our society. A typical refrain heard spoken to girls who are lazy about kitchen work is, “Is this how you will do in your husband’s house?” Girls are taught how to cook and do kitchen chores and boys are taught to do “manly” things like fix light bulbs, put on the generator, wash the car, cut the grass where necessary and lift heavy things. I for one was a marked introvert and actually enjoyed sitting at home and watching my mum cook. That my friends is the story of how I learnt how to cook, that watching cooking shows and occasionally messing around with ingredients on my own as an only child back then. Anyway, that we have a generation of young women running around from church to church and looking to get married is not fault of theirs. Our society has bred many of these ladies from they were wee for marriage, it has been the mantra repeated at them time and again. Marriage is the apparent end all of a woman according to our society.

This not to say our society has not progressed. Indeed it has gone a long way from the ages when girls were not allowed to go to school and so forth. Heck, on my mother’s side almost all the women are educated. Weirdly, it was some of my uncles who refused to finish their education and alas the women have become the bedrock of my late grandfather’s home. God bless his soul. You see if he was as myopic as some people of his time, he would not have sent my mother to the university where she met my father and I might never have been at least in the form and spirit I am today. I would have remained a potential in the cosmos and chilling with the spirits of the unborn philosophers and physicists. In current society, some families even though they let their daughters get educated still hesitate to fully splurge on the female child when it comes to education. They don’t see the need for the female to get a graduate/post graduate degree because by the time she finishes she might be “too old” for marriage. Hence in some situations a bargain is struck, the young lady gets married before proceeding for her PhD and the new husband supposedly takes care of the rest of the bills.

You see if there is a glass ceiling to women’s advancement in our society it is that of perception by others. You see a lot of times when people see a successful woman the first question they ask over here is, “who is her husband?” It does not occur to them to think that this woman could have worked hard and progressed in her career all by herself without the help of her husband. Yes she might be married but besides emotional and moral support, the husband might have had nothing to do with where she is today. This mentality is apparent in the rumor mills that go around. We have had rumors that a speaker of the house of representative was the concubine of our former president. There are stories of current female ministers being mistresses of the president. These kinds of rumors diminish from whatever achievements these women have made. It seems that behind the story of many “big girls” our sobriquet for society and wealthy young ladies is a rumor of her having offered the diamond in the midst of her ruff to some wealthy chief or Alhaji and in return he gave her a few million to start her business or bought her a shop, a palatial mansion in the choice areas of Maitama in Abuja, Lekki/VI/Ikoyi in Lagos or the GRA in Port Harcourt. The stories of runs girls and their antics are well documented. It seems that this mentality has equally sipped into the minds of some of our women that you see intelligent young women trying to ‘con’ young men or aristos out of money to get ahead. This I call Maga mentality. Perhaps I shall write about that soon as well.

Some young men of our generation do not even honor the opinions of young women; they simply brush them aside as thoughts of a woman. When having a heated conversation with a lady about politics I have seen many men of lesser wits who when losing the argument do not want to concede defeat or that they might have been wrong and simply say, “What do you know?” I fear some these young men have been brought up under the “Woman submit to your husband” mantra and have not come to realize that the opinions of all human beings are valid and should be given equal treatment based on their merits and demerits and not on the source. A civilized conversation should be just that civilized. Before you jump on my earlier comment about obodo oyibo, I know men in obodo oyibo who went to Harvard and the schools of strong repute who still have this attitude. Their egos won’t let them lose to a woman. This might stem from a time in primary school or secondary school when they came second to a girl and were derided at home for coming second to a girl. Thankfully, I never suffered such derision as I have been the recipient of many an academic beating at the hands of the fairer sex whilst growing up. My parents just encouraged me to do better. Another thing that is really serious is wife beating and maltreatment of women. That is just awful.

It is a shame that our society does not fully appreciate the woman as a person. Do they not know that degrading and insulting women is as though you are insulting or degrading yourself. We are all born of women; there is no man alive that was given birth to by some form of Immaculate Conception. If you were then please go ahead and discriminate and deride women as much as you want. As for me, I appreciate the women in my life. I appreciate my mother and my sister and the plethora of female cousins I have. I would not want them to grow up or live in a world that limits their accomplishments.

Do women really get a bad rap in our society? Where does equality start and chivalry begin? Have you witnessed blatant discrimination? What do you think about the plight of women in our society today? Is it improving? How do you deal with it? How can we make it better for our born and yet unborn daughters?

So Behind every successful woman is……?

Bar B. Doll makes a killing

Feeling, Feeding, Depleting.

Those boys they come running

To the Bar Stool which is spinning

Counter clockwise

With a Cheshire smile she stands tall.

Stilettos on a canvas

Nine inches

Lingering lightly on your lips

A taste of fermentation.

Bar B. Doll sips down her favorite

Bulimarexic dream

A nightmare in a glass of milk

A pussy cat lapses upon a shelf.

Nine inches?

No. Nine lives.

She tests each one with razor blades

Piercing into crimson colored happiness

A thigh, a breast, a wing

A fantasy of humanity

Living inside an animalistic reality.

Bar B. Doll

She sits tall

An icon in a mirror

A snort, a lick, a taste

A tear

Falls down unto the floor.

Feeling, Feeding, Depleting

Bar B. Doll makes a killing

Those boys they keep stealing

Until six impossible things

Are only found

Six feet underground.

Click to view slideshow.

]]> http://bolivarianperspectives.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/womens-cooperatives-within-the-bolivarian-revolution/ Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:07:04 +0000 bolivarianperspectives http://bolivarianperspectives.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/womens-cooperatives-within-the-bolivarian-revolution/ –This paper is part of a zine on cooperatives in Venezuela based on several classmates experiences, being made for the Cooperative Conference at The Evergreen State College in June 2012. The entire zine will be posted to this website later.

By: Kathryn Brignac

This winter I traveled to the Venezuelan cities of Caracas, Merida, and Barquisimeto for several weeks each, with a two-month long program through the Evergreen State College called “Venezuela: Building Economic and Social Justice”. During my stay in Venezuela I had the pleasure of volunteering at CECOSESOLA, a large network of food cooperatives and markets. Most of my time was spent working in the large marketplace, or feria, and learning from the compañer@s there. They also brought me to visit and speak with several smaller woman-run cooperatives in the network and with my class I visited several farming cooperatives that included many women, or were started by women, and making a large impact in their community. I went in very curious about how these cooperatives are revolutionary and also feminist, what women’s roles are inside of them, and what these cooperatives really have meant to the women. The cooperative movement pre-dates the current Bolivarian Revolution, and has been a parallel process that I believe shares similar values and goals with the revolution. One of the most important of these goals/values is the creation of a “social” economy that is anti-capitalist or non-exploitative and promotes equality. Both the cooperative movement and the Revolution are having impacts on women that I believe to be revolutionary because of the roles of women in the movements, the development of a new economy and of the people within it. Furthermore, women-run and women-inclusive are a very important part of the feminist movement and so far, an important way to create gender equity by promoting feminist values within cooperatives and the Bolivarian Revolution, through a separate, parallel process.

How the Bolivarian Revolution has affected women and promoted cooperatives:

On paper the Bolivarian Revolution has set many goals around achieving a more equal society for women. The Venezuelan Constitution of 1999 gave women the right to equal pay for equal work (Art. 91); the right to a life without violence or discrimination (Art. 21); and the very important Article 88 that recognizes women’s work in the home as a form of productive work that deserves pay(1).These, among many other articles that affect women indirectly, outline the goals of the Bolivarian Revolution as created by the Venezuelan people in creating gender equality. I feel many of these goals are aligned with the ideas of cooperativism and similar to the goals of women’s cooperatives in particular.

Since 1999, many organizations, social programs, and laws have been established that have directly affected women, and the cooperative movement positively.  This includes the Women’s Development Bank, Banmujer. Banmujer was created in 2001, and has provided training and financial support in the form of microcredit to millions of women to open cooperatives. Also, land reform, started as a decree by Chavez called the Land Law has been important to the formation of farming cooperatives on land that is deemed unproductive and then given to people willing to work it and occupy it, favoring female headed households. With the help of Banmujer, land reform has allowed many more women to form farming cooperatives which are changing the makeup of those who do farm work that is often very male-dominated in Venezuela (2). Several of the women run cooperatives I visited had been started in their own homes and relied on Banmujer microcredit to make them productive and sustainable when they started. Other social programs also focus specifically on women, such as Misión Madres del Barrio which provides compensation for impoverished mothers working in the home and Misión Robinson or Misión Ribas, free adult education programs that many women in cooperatives use to gain literacy and a high school diploma. These misiones have addressed poverty by creating opportunities for women to run their own businesses and also giving wages to women who work within the home, giving all work, domestic or otherwise, economic value and allowing all women to have a higher quality of life. These programs, such as Misión Madres del Barrio also are breaking down many of the societal norms and against the capitalist ideology that only work which results in revenue can be given economic value, thus, implying caregiving and domestic work as valuable. It has also had the overall effect of a drop in general poverty from 49% in 1998 to 27% in 2011 for all people, regardless of gender (2).

Despite the efforts of the government, poverty is still very gendered in the country. In Venezuela many women are still either confined to working in the home or working in the informal economy, selling goods on the street, working under the table as maids, or doing other jobs that provide no security, benefits, labor protections or wage guarantees (3). In fact, “Of the entire workforce only 31.9% are women … Of those with work 63.8% receive an income of less than 500 Bolivars per month”(4); Minimum wage is currently 1,548 Bolivars per month–which is considered the minimum amount needed to live a dignified life. Comparatively, CECOSESOLA workers make between twice and three times the amount of minimum wage in Barquisimeto, with bonuses, health benefits, and lower prices for food and other commodities(5). Lidice Navas, an important socialist-feminist leader within the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), the party of President Hugo Chavez, said that

“the biggest challenge [in the Bolivarian Revolution] has been to break the historical relationships of dependency, discrimination, and exclusion…This has been one of our biggest accomplishments, which has inspired women to create new forms of productions based upon what they already know, non-capitalist production that advance us toward a new form of economy, the socialist or solidarity economy”(6).

Going to other women-run cooperatives, I saw how these cooperatives are including women and women-run businesses into the economic development of the country and getting women out of the home and informal economy by creating other jobs for women that offer living wages, independence, and benefits not offered by domestic work.  Often these jobs offer the opportunity to stay near their community and home if they wish to while they work.  All of this not only alleviates poverty but is allowing for the development of a sustainable economy through endogenous development.

My experiences at CECOSESOLA

The ways I directly saw women being included and empowered through work and achieving equality was not only through benefits such as equal pay, but also through the freedom they have working in a democratic workplace.  CECOSESOLA is based in participatory democracy and thus all voices are heard in small and larger meetings, held multiple times per week, where they make the processes transparent and make decisions collectively. Also, because there is job rotation and the option to do the jobs you want, this means women are not stuck in the worst jobs, or any job they feel is not empowering.  This creates a different power dynamic that is more equal than jobs that run on a capitalist model.  This is not just an economic opportunity for women; it is creating true economic development and human development through including and valuing their participation. Additionally, they are doing work that is providing for the community by offering healthy, local foods and other necessary goods at the market, for lower prices than other places.  They also offer their health services from the health center at a much cheaper cost than private health centers, with reduced prices for members, including services for pregnant women and mothers.

The creation of empowering work for women as well as a new type of economy, based on endogenous development and anti-capitalist values, is an important part of the cooperative movement. Many of the women’s cooperatives I visited were started by housewives in their homes who often could not leave home to work because they needed to care for their children, and they lived far from opportunities, such as in the country. Gabriela at Ocho de Marzo told a classmate in an interview, “Rural women were relegated to working at home and taking care of their children, taking care of their spouses, cooking…we started to see that rural women had value, had know-how, and were capable of doing other work” (7). This, along with a desire to organize women to make something of value out of locally available products, spurred the creation of several of the cooperatives, including Ocho de Marzo, Moncar, and Avivir. Ocho de Marzo started making whole grain pasta using local vegetables to produce something healthy for their community; later Moncar, which formed making pasta sauce and jams, uses the tomatoes, onions, and fruit already available at local farms, including another cooperative, Las Lajitas. They both make healthy food products which are then sold in a stable market, at the CECOSESOLA feria in the city. The women at both of these cooperatives told us how they have gained respect in their communities, and now even their sons and grandsons are coming to learn these skills from them. While these cooperatives pre-existed the current government and its programs, others came about more recently and with more government support. One such cooperative is Avivir, a small women’s cooperative that makes natural cosmetic products and herbal applications, as well as producing goat cheese on the side. They also formed out of the desire to work in their communities, organize as women, and be close to their children. The cooperative began by learning skills from students to make things that the community needed, first being shampoo, then face cream, soap, and now an herbal menthol chest rub, all made of natural ingredients, much of which is foraged locally.  This all started in one person’s kitchen, until they were able to get microcredit and now have their own workshop near their houses, with more equipment. The most interesting part of talking with them for me was the way they have been so innovative to meet whatever demand for a product comes up, and they expressed how difficult it has been to create some of their products to be as natural as they want, for the health of the workers and community. Their work was in stark contrast to the ideals of the nearby Proctor and Gamble plant, where workers use harsh chemicals that are imported, and which does not allow for the same feeling of solidarity or for the convenience of working near your home and family.

More participatory and inclusive organizations like cooperatives, unlike the Proctor and Gamble plant, produce things needed by and produced from the local community, and promote endogenous development, development using resources and knowledge that is already in existence to achieve the economic transformation of their society. This type of development also revives traditional methods, such as using local plants for cosmetic and medicinal purposes, which I saw being done by several cooperatives, including Avivir. It is not only more sustainable and healthy, but allows for production within the community, whether that is wild harvesting plants, or a farming cooperative growing medicinal herbs, such as the several ones we met in the Páramo, a region in the Andes, and also outside of Caracas. Often the skills needed for this are already present in a community and just need to be taught. The resources to apply these skills can be found through community organizing, such as in communal councils, to plan projects or in forming cooperatives to meet some community need For example, one cooperative “Lombricultura Mubay” that was part of the large Mixteque Communal Council in the Páramo is predominantly women who started with the aim of conserving a local river, and are creating humus and using worms for composting. They are planning to reclaim the knowledge of one of the women’s grandmother who was a midwife to begin growing and using medicinal herbs in the community, which is a rural farming community in the mountains.  This shows a dedication not only to their community, but to creating something new that has a value that is not monetary, but recognized as important by the people living there.

Working somewhere that is focused on solidarity and cooperation has also changed how they view work at home, in families, and in their communities.  Both told us they meet with other women’s cooperatives every week to discuss other issues in the community and that machismo still exists in their communities, but has improved a lot since they have shown their work is supporting the community and economy. One of the women at Moncar, Gaudi, talks about their work in an interview:

“We organized ourselves as women to create a space in our society, a space of encounter, a space to address the problems that housewives and women face, and especially rural women who have been very marginalized. And also to liberate ourselves from sexism. Women should occupy a space with gender equity, with equal conditions, and equal opportunities. “(8).

An important note is that within these cooperatives we saw more than a shift in work duties, but changes taking place in the collectivization of other spheres, including what some people refer to as “solidarity work”. Even if Venezuelan women have a partner who is providing for them or are not impoverished economically, the burden of the caregiving and domestic work still falls on them. This is referred to by some people there as the “triple carga” or triple burden of work many women face: domestic unpaid work, paid work outside the home, and community organizing to change their situation.In these cooperatives they have begun incorporating the idea of solidarity and collectively doing the work of production into all of the work included in the “triple carga”, by means of creating support networks in their communities to deal with basic needs such as food, education, caretaking , etc. Many of the women will take care of each other’s children to allow for them to meet their own needs and also to do the community work that is necessary. Additionally working at CECOSESOLA I saw many jobs that may often have been done by women traditionally- such as working in the kitchen to prepare meals for the workers- being done by men also, due to the rotation of work. While I would say on the larger scale men are not being pushed to do more of the domestic work and caregiving as a whole in Venezuela, I think the cooperative structure is bringing those ideas up by changing the values of work to be more socialist and feminist.  Erasing the separation between the home, work, and community spheres is what will allow them to tackle sexism and machismo in all spheres of life and push for equality.

So how do I see these cooperatives as revolutionary?

These workplaces are creating a “social” economy or “solidarity” economy through not only their production, but the empowering values they hold of democracy through participation, development of the whole self, inclusion and equality. Their workplace is non-exploitative, anti-hierarchal, and thus anti-patriarchal. Also, the goal of attaining equality is being initiated by the workplaces at the grassroots level by the very act of changing power structures, challenging gender roles, and giving economic opportunities to women so that they are able to be independent, have solidarity with other women, and fight for equality in all spheres of their lives. By the inclusion of women and creation of women-run cooperatives in the movement, there is a feminization of the economy happening.

Endnotes:

1. Gregory Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, 2007. New York: Verso Press.
2. Maria Paez Victor. “Why do Venezuelan Women Vote For Chavez?” Apr 24 2010. CounterPunch. <http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/24/why-do-venezuelan-women-vote-for-chavez/#_edn16>
3. Courtney Frantz.“La Revolution es Feminista”. Sept 1 2009. <http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4757>
4. Jessie Blanco. “Venezuela Has A Woman’s Face”. Mar 4, 2009. <http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4260>
5.  Elliot Jensen, Anna Isaacs. “CECOSESOLA Cooperative: An Interview with Gustavo Salas Romer”. Sept 202009. <http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4804>
6. Susan Spronk, Jeffery R. Webber, Lidice Navas “To Have and To Be: Building a Socialist-Feminist Economy in Venezuela”. Jul 1, 2010. The Bullet.<http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5466>.
7. Interview with Gabriela Carrera, by Vanessa Hoy, February 2012.
8. “Cooperatives in Venezuela Promote Solidarity, Equality and Dignity”. Radio al Reves. Apr 12th 2011. <http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6128>