First, I have to insist that I try to dismantle the stereotype of the feminist, as a bra burning, man hating, and butch-dyke! Feminists, men and women, through the centuries have tried to abolish social, class and sex discrimination. Therefore, you’re a feminist if you believe that racism is wrong and should be abolished, if you think discrimination based on sex and class should be dismantled, and you’re a feminist if you think you should have a voice in economic and political outcomes, and you don’t. Now that you know, you’re a feminist it’s important to lay down a common ground in which we can build.
“The defined norm is a standard of ’rightness’ against which all others are judged, backed by institutional power, economic power, and both institutional and individual violence”(The Common Elements of Oppression, Q Diamond) Currently the defined norms are white, able-bodied young, Christian males and any deviation from this is considered the “other”. In addition, any deviation from the norm, lack institutional power and therefore are oppressed. Oppression constitutes many elements like economic power, privileges, violence and the threat of violence, invisibility, distortion of events, stereotyping, internalized oppression, isolation, assimilation and tokenism.
There are countless connections to Feminism and our class, People and Resources; unfortunately, no one person has blatantly made those connections. For example, one connection would refer to Andrew Szasz’s book Shopping Our Way to Safety. He makes clear-cut statements about only affluent people being able to purge their lifestyles of toxicities. People of middle and lower incomes cannot do such; therefore, they suffer more, from toxic exposure, cancer, etc. Furthermore, lower-income people, predominantly people of color, do not have a voice to fight these wrongs, in the political arena. I’m speculating when I state, that if white affluent families started to rally against the toxicities in bottle water, more people would listen (probably white men) but the same would not happen for families of color. There is evidence to support this.
I have read several articles and novels and watched a documentary, pertaining to Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice. What I took from it is that many people of color and low-income families suffer unspeakable horrors when they have no choice but to live near nuclear waste facilities and industrial complexes that are known to emit toxins in the environmental surroundings, which now include humans as neighboring inhabitants. These facilities do not exist in white-affluent-neighborhoods but in towns and communities, where the majorities are people of color. For example “Cancer Alley” which runs along the Mississippi in the river areas of Louisiana. Several studies show that cancer is more prevalent there then in any area of the U.S. and if you get an opportunity to watch a documentary on it, it’s well worth the eye opening experience. People, children and adults, suffer horribly and die so frequently from cancer, that a group of children, on the documentary, were playing with dolls, and took off Barbie’s leg. When asked about it they said Barbie lost her leg to cancer and she’s at her funeral!
Another serious connection is when, as a class, we discuss population issues and possible solutions to controlling it. No one really asks who will suffer more, who will be inflicted the most and who will be told to stop reproducing? Historically, marginalized women have been blamed for over reproduction and have been made to suffer for it. Articles I’ve read expose the fight for reproductive freedom and explore racism and the dilemmas around limiting population growth. Some of the articles are Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights (Davis) and In Search of a Community, Three Tales of Pregnancy Loss (Layne) they pertain to marginalized women who were forced to stop reproducing without consent. One story includes a woman bringing her two teenage daughters to receive birth control, and due to a lack of informed consent, the mother signed away her daughters’ reproductive ability and they ended up having hysterectomies. Other stories tell of women of color, specifically Hispanic women, being subjected to experimental birth control, leading to in-fertilization and death. The stories seem outrageous but they’re all true.
There are too many accounts of oppression to address here, they are endless, but when we discuss solutions it’s so important to keep in the forefront of our minds and ask ourselves “who will benefit the greatest and who will suffer the most and why?”
“The defined norm is a standard of ’rightness’ against which all others are judged, backed by institutional power, economic power, and both institutional and individual violence”(The Common Elements of Oppression, Q Diamond) Currently the defined norms are white, able-bodied young, Christian males and any deviation from this is considered the “other”. In addition, any deviation from the norm, lack institutional power and therefore are oppressed. Oppression constitutes many elements like economic power, privileges, violence and the threat of violence, invisibility, distortion of events, stereotyping, internalized oppression, isolation, assimilation and tokenism.
There are countless connections to Feminism and our class, People and Resources; unfortunately, no one person has blatantly made those connections. For example, one connection would refer to Andrew Szasz’s book Shopping Our Way to Safety. He makes clear-cut statements about only affluent people being able to purge their lifestyles of toxicities. People of middle and lower incomes cannot do such; therefore, they suffer more, from toxic exposure, cancer, etc. Furthermore, lower-income people, predominantly people of color, do not have a voice to fight these wrongs, in the political arena. I’m speculating when I state, that if white affluent families started to rally against the toxicities in bottle water, more people would listen (probably white men) but the same would not happen for families of color. There is evidence to support this.
I have read several articles and novels and watched a documentary, pertaining to Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice. What I took from it is that many people of color and low-income families suffer unspeakable horrors when they have no choice but to live near nuclear waste facilities and industrial complexes that are known to emit toxins in the environmental surroundings, which now include humans as neighboring inhabitants. These facilities do not exist in white-affluent-neighborhoods but in towns and communities, where the majorities are people of color. For example “Cancer Alley” which runs along the Mississippi in the river areas of Louisiana. Several studies show that cancer is more prevalent there then in any area of the U.S. and if you get an opportunity to watch a documentary on it, it’s well worth the eye opening experience. People, children and adults, suffer horribly and die so frequently from cancer, that a group of children, on the documentary, were playing with dolls, and took off Barbie’s leg. When asked about it they said Barbie lost her leg to cancer and she’s at her funeral!
Another serious connection is when, as a class, we discuss population issues and possible solutions to controlling it. No one really asks who will suffer more, who will be inflicted the most and who will be told to stop reproducing? Historically, marginalized women have been blamed for over reproduction and have been made to suffer for it. Articles I’ve read expose the fight for reproductive freedom and explore racism and the dilemmas around limiting population growth. Some of the articles are Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights (Davis) and In Search of a Community, Three Tales of Pregnancy Loss (Layne) they pertain to marginalized women who were forced to stop reproducing without consent. One story includes a woman bringing her two teenage daughters to receive birth control, and due to a lack of informed consent, the mother signed away her daughters’ reproductive ability and they ended up having hysterectomies. Other stories tell of women of color, specifically Hispanic women, being subjected to experimental birth control, leading to in-fertilization and death. The stories seem outrageous but they’re all true.
There are too many accounts of oppression to address here, they are endless, but when we discuss solutions it’s so important to keep in the forefront of our minds and ask ourselves “who will benefit the greatest and who will suffer the most and why?”
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