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Heidi Beckles

10 Examples of Gender Inequality Around the World - 0 views

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    I was shocked to have read this quote, populated by the United Nations, but the truth hurts - "No society treats its women as well as its men." This is the conclusion from the United Nations Development Program, as written in its 1997 Human Development Report [source: UNDP]. Almost 50 years earlier, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly had adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which specified that everyone, regardless of sex, was entitled to the same rights and freedoms. The 1997 Human Development Report, as well as every Human Development Report that followed, has highlighted that each country falls short of achieving that goal. The severity of the shortfall varies by country; Nordic countries such as Sweden, Norway and Iceland, for example, are routinely hailed as having the smallest gender gaps. In the developing world, however, women face unfairness that can be hard to fathom. In this article, 10 examples of gender inequality are examined - 10: Professional Obstacles 9: Limited Mobility 8: Violence 7: Feticide and Infanticide 6. Restricted Land Ownership 5: Feminization of Poverty 4: Access to Health Care 3: Freedom to Marry and Divorce 2: Political Participation 1: Education Attainment This site is useful in exploring this week's image largely because it is breaking free and bringing to surface the lack of basic rights compared to those of the male gender that women has had to fight for. Heidi Beckles
Jasmine Wade

Gender Roles and Gender Differences - 0 views

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    This is part of "Child Psychology, A Contemporary Viewpoint" which discusses gender-role standards and stereotypes, gender differences in development, biological factors in gender differences, the influence of the family on gender typing, and extrafamilial influences on gender roles.
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    This website is covering child psychology and children's development related to gender. This page discusses gender roles, stereotypes, and differences. Also mentioned briefly is that there is no evidence of differed gender roles if boys and girls raised by gays and lesbians. Other influences on gender roles, including television and school is discussed. Also mentioned is the fact that most people, especially children are actually to various degrees both masculine and feminine, not completely one or the other.
Alexa Mason

The 1930s" Turning Point for US Labor - 0 views

  • But they spoke too soon. Before the decade was over, the U.S. economy had plunged into the worst depression in U.S. history. The 1929 stock market crash which marked the beginning of the Great Depression ushered in a period of immiseration for virtually the entire working class. By 1932 it was estimated that 75 percent of the population was living in poverty, and fully one-third was unemployed. And in many places, Black unemployment rates were two, three, or even four times those of white workers.
  • the richest people in society felt no sympathy for the starving masses.
  • hey banded together as a group to oppose every measure to grant government assistance to feed the hungry or help the homeless
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  • In 1934, when 400,000 East Coast textile workers went on strike to win union recognition, the bosses responded with a reign of terror, provoking one of the bitterest and bloodiest strikes in U.S. labor history.
  • Most importantly, the working class was no longer segregated along racial lines. The slowdown in immigration after 1914 brought with it a corresponding increase in internal migration. A half-million Southern Blacks moved north during World War I. By 1930, more than 25 percent of Black men were employed in industrial jobs, compared with only 7 percent in 1890. By the mid—1930s, Black workers made up 20 percent of the laborers and 6 percent of the operatives in the steel industry nationally. And one-fifth of the workforce in Chicago’s slaughterhouses was Black. White workers couldn’t hope to win unless they united with Black workers–and that wouldn’t happen unless they organized on the basis of equality.1
  • Teamster President Daniel Tobin even repeated former AFL President Sam Gompers’ earlier insult, calling unskilled workers "garbage."
  • The workers of this country have rights under this law which cannot be taken from them, and nobody will be permitted to whittle them away but, on the other hand, no aggression is necessary now to attain these rights…. The principle that applies to the employer applies to workers as well and I ask you workers to cooperate in the same spirit.23
  • The NAACP proposed to the AFL "the formation of an interracial workers’ commission to promote systematic propaganda against racial discrimination in the unions." In 1929, the NAACP again appealed to the AFL to fight racial discrimination. In both instances, the AFL did not even bother to respond.17 B
  • n the early 1930s, unskilled workers who wanted to unionize had no choice but to apply for membership in the AFL, but became quickly disillusioned by the indifference–and sometimes hostility–toward them by the union leadership. Unskilled and semi-skilled workers who joined the AFL were quickly shuffled off into "federal locals"–as subsidiaries with fewer rights than the brotherhoods of skilled workers
  • Blacks were effectively excluded from receiving minimum wages established in particular industries, because the NRA allowed employers to exempt predominantly Black job categories from coverage. In the South, where Black workers were still concentrated, workers were routinely paid less than Northern workers for the same jobs in the same industries. And in industries in which Black and white workers’ wages were made equal, it was common practice for racist employers to simply fire all their Black workers and replace them with whites, arguing that the NRA wage minimums were "too much money for Negroes." It was with good reason that within a matter of months, the NRA was known among Black workers as the "Negro Removal Act" and the "Negro Robbed Again."
  • The Great Depression was the most significant period of class struggle that has ever taken place in the United States. The sheer intensity of the struggle led ever broader sections of the working class to become radicalized and to begin to generalize politically. For a very short period of time as the working class movement advanced–between 1935 and 1937–the level of radicalization was such that on a fairly large scale workers began to realize that if they were to have a chance at winning, they had to confront all the bosses’ attempts to divide and weaken the working-class movement. Workers had to break down racial barriers and build genuine unity and solidarity; they had to prepare themselves to confront the violence of the bosses, which grew in ferocity during this period; they had to fight against anti-communism; and they had to break with the Democrats and the Republicans and form an independent working-class party.
  • But the Communist Party developed its first national campaign against racism through its years-long effort to free the Scottsboro Boys. The Scottsboro Boys case began in 1931 and dragged on for nearly 20 years, making it one of the most important antiracist struggles in U.S. history. But it was also important because it marked the first time in the U.S. that Black and white workers had ever joined together in large numbers in a campaign against racism. The Scottsboro Boys were nine Black youths, aged 13 to 21, who were arrested in Alabama on a charge of gang-raping two white women on a train. There was no evidence to support a charge of rape, but that didn’t matter–particularly since Alabama is a Southern state, where it was common practice to convict Black men on unsubstantiated charges of raping white women. Within two weeks of the incident, the Scottsboro Boys had been tried, convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury–all while a huge lynch mob of white racists stood inside and outside the courtroom. The Scottsboro Boys case was primarily an issue of racism, but it also divided the Black population along class lines. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a traditionally middle-class, liberal Black organization, refused to touch the case at first. As one author described, "[T]he last thing they wanted was to identify the Association with a gang of mass rapists unless they were reasonably certain the boys were innocent or their constitutional rights had been abridged."52 But the Communist Party had no such reservations. It immediately sent a legal delegation from its International Labor Defense (ILD) committee to offer to defend the Scottsboro Boys in court.
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    This webpage describes the conditions in America in the 1930s. It outlines the struggles of the working class as the depression hit. It illustrates the demarcation between classes, especially the working class and the business owners who fought to prevent unionized workers. The reader learns about the violence incited as a result the business owner's fight to limit unions. The webpage also goes on to discuss the plight of black workers in America. The site illustrates an intersection between race and class through examples such as the Scottsboro Boys' case.
Roman Vladimirsky

A fading middle class - 0 views

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    This website gives more insight into the ever fading middle class in America today. The woman in the photo is part of the lower class. She is also from a time where there was only a third class and a first class. The last 50 years or so there developed a middle class where the majority of Americans fell into. This website shows you statistically how as of late the middle class has been slowly fading away yet again.
melissa basso

National Women's History Project - 0 views

  • Although women now outnumber men in American colleges nationwide, the reversal of the gender gap is a very recent phenomenon.
  • After the American Revolution, the notion of education as a safeguard for democracy created opportunities for girls to gain a basic education
  • based largely on the premise that, as mothers, they would nurture not only the bodies but also the minds of (male) citizens
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  • experts” who claimed either that females were incapable of intellectual development equal to men, or that they would be harmed by striving for it.
  • Emma Willard, in her 1819 Plan for Improving Female Education,
  • Harvard, the first college chartered in America, was founded in 1636, it would be almost two centuries before the founding of the first college to admit women—Oberlin, which was chartered in 1833.
  • ingle-sex education remained the elite norm in the U.S. until the early 1970s.
  • The equal opportunity to learn, taken for granted by most young women today, owes much to Title IX of the Education Codes of the Higher Education Act Amendments. This legislation, passed in 1972 and enacted in 1977, prohibited gender discrimination by federally funded institutions.
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    This particular link is to an article on the history of women's education and rights to equal rights in terms of receiving the same education as do their male counterparts.  The website, as a whole, provides great insight into the history of women's rights in many aspects. It also traces the triumphs and successes of women throughout history. 
Alexa Mason

The Three Waves of Feminism - Fall 2008 - PACIFIC Magazine - Pacific University - 1 views

  • The first wave of feminism took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emerging out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage.
  • Whereas the first wave of feminism was generally propelled by middle class white women, the second phase drew in women of color and developing nations, seeking sisterhood and solidarity and claiming "Women's struggle is class struggle." Feminists spoke of women as a social class and coined phrases such as "the personal is political" and "identity politics" in an effort to demonstrate that race, class, and gender oppression are all related. They initiated a concentrated effort to rid society top-to-bottom of sexism, from children's cartoons to the highest levels of government.
  • sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues, and much of the movement's energy was focused on passing the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing social equality regardless of sex.
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  • The second wave began in the 1960s and continued into the 90's. This wave unfolded in the context of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing self-consciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world.
  • n this phase many constructs have been destabilized, including the notions of "universal womanhood," body, gender, sexuality and hetreronormativity. An aspect of third phase feminism that mystifies the mothers of the earlier feminist movement is the readoption by young feminists of the very lip-stick, high-heals, and cleavage proudly exposed by low cut necklines that the first two phases of the movement identified with male oppression. Pinkfloor expressed this new position when she said; "It's possible to have a push-up bra and a brain at the same time.
  • third wave have stepped onto the stage as strong and empowered, eschewing victimization and defining feminine beauty for themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexist patriarchy
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    This webpage explores the three waves of feminism. The first is the one that we usually think of when we think about early feminism, Rosie the Riveter, yes we can and suffrage. The second wave coincided with many other civil rights activist groups, we saw the introduction of women of color and lower class women. We saw a focus on family, sexuality and reproductive rights. The third, and current, wave is about defining roles and identities for themselves and not based on patriarchy or misogyny. It's okay to embrace sexuality, sexualized appearances, etc, as long as it's a choice and not forced.
Heidi Beckles

Western Feminism in a Global Perspective - 0 views

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    American women have struggled historically against certain paradigms of inferiority that all women experience. The female identity is different according to each culture and their customs, but many cultures are based on a patriarchal past where men exercise more power than women. Women worldwide experience subjugation in the form of jobs, education, sexuality and reproductive choice. American women have strived to overcome these stereotypes and have gained a position of near equality in many societal constructs. In the United States today, men and women enjoy almost equal social standing. Women can and do vote, own businesses, hold political office and have a full spectrum of rights. Even though they hold powerful jobs and play valuable roles in a variety of social constructs, the paradigm of the American housewife still exist. With the above mentioned it is important to know that western culture is prevalent worldwide and imposes both the positive feminist ideals and the conflicting negative media messages on third world and developing countries. The impact of Western culture in the specific realm of feminism and female stereotypes globally establish common goals and difficulties for all women. As a dominant culture, the United States must be aware of the media messages it shares with the rest of the world and the examples it promotes as not all are accommodating with other cultures. This site is useful in exploring the image because it paints exactly what the poster of Donna Gottschalk holds, denying women equality, but at the same time practicing America's freedom of speech and expression, forbidden by women in many countries. It's funny that women worldwide continue to experience subjugation in the form of jobs, education, sexuality and reproductive choice. Those countries worldwide that strive to be like us, from a moral point of view should without a doubt accommodate all positives attributes that the America culture places impact, leading to
Drew Yost

Sweden's plan to bring gender equality to the movies - 0 views

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    This Washington Post article takes a look at a new and interesting way that Sweden is encouraging gender equality. The nation has implemented a grading system at several movie theatres where female characters in films are scored based on their proximity to a fully "developed" character. The "Bechdel" grading system was constructed by an "American cartoonist", and includes several standards a character must meet in order to earn an "A" rating. "Sweden is the fourth most gender-equal country," and the film grading system, they hope, continues to keep this topic at the forefront of citizen's minds.
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