Soaiba Fatima on Robin L. Riley's "Feminism and War"

Riley et al. has a section in the book “Feminism and War”  about Gendered bodies and US wars. Within this section, Riley mentions how in the US, only one story about war is told about war and it doesn't even begin to give the full picture of what the war actually is. 

In the writing, Riley explains that ideas of the foreign women as evil prevail in the US. Meanwhile, individual American women and their beliefs are portrayed as the collective opinion of all American women. The authors mention how female Iraqi researchers are portrayed as evil and dangerous, without any evidence. This made me realize that even though there was no evidence of these women producing weapons, most Americans view all Iraqi women as evil. This is because Iraqi women are rarely represented in our media as anything else.

Another point this reading made was that these foreign women are almost always portrayed in US media as victims to terrorist organizations from their countries without taking into account the fact that they are also, on a much larger scale, victims of the US war. This made me realize that by always emphasizing that America "will save" these poor, abused women, our media distracts us from the fact that by waging war in their home, America itself is abusing those "victims".

This part of the reading reminded me of the myth of a model minority. This myth portrays all Asians as successful, smart, and essentially, the "ideal" immigrants.This stereotype is completely invalidated when actual data is taken into account, as shown in this article: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cap-asian-americans-wealth-gap_us_586bd460e4b0d9a5945c91a7 By glorifying the lives of Asian-Americans, this stereotype fails to account for the struggles and experiences of Asians as a minority and creates unrealistic and problematic expectations for all other minorities as well. This popular stereotype is similar to US propaganda of Iraqi and Afghani women as evil, or helpless victims to extremist organizations from their own countries without taking into account the fact that these women are also victims of the US. 

I would like to discuss the role American media plays in adding to global feminist issues.

Zuzu on Lives in Limbo : Undocumented and Coming of Age in America

    One specific point that I wish to address in this blog is when the author talked on page 41 about a woman named Dora. Dora left high school when she became pregnant, and while she wishes to pursue more in life, she still feels lost.

    My immediate thought was how much this truly reflects the latinx/hispanic culture in my life. I’m Mexican and Puerto Rican and many times, I have personally experienced women having to leave their own goals and aspirations behind due to becoming pregnant. While this can be prevalent in any culture and something many women all over the world do, I think it’s a little different for latinx/hispanic women because they belong to a culture that enforces this idea that women should almost be a servant to a man. A woman is expected to cook for, clean for, and essentially serve the man of her household (whether it be a partner or family member) because he is seen as the provider. Men typically don’t help with the childcare because of work, especially in undocumented families, because of how hard it is to get hired when undocumented. This is not blaming the culture for these circumstances, it is simply something that I’m surrounded by and this reading made me think of it. I think it’s especially hard for young undocumented women once they get pregnant on accident. With no access to many privileges the US keeps from undocumented immigrants, difficulty to find a well paying job that would allow her to properly provide for her family, and a desire to pursue higher education, Dora’s life is full of hardships that many would allow to discourage themselves, so it is admirable that she doesn’t settle for what she has.

    Beyond that, this point also made me think of how hard it is to be an undocumented immigrant and feel lost. I think oftentimes, people think of illegal immigrants pursuing higher education aren’t allowed to feel lost. For example, people are oftentimes only fine with the DACA students because they earn their way through hard work into good colleges. But if they were to face hardships, that if experienced by a citizen would be seen as youthful mistakes and struggles, they are seen as lazy and not driven. People begin to think they are only using the DACA program to get ahead with no effort. And that is such a double standard. It shows that people don’t see immigrants as human beings, and simply things occupying space or going through motions. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone should be allowed to voice their struggles, documented or not.

    An article this made me recall is one about a woman discussing how people believe there is a “right kind of immigrant” (https://englishbitchrature.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/on-being-the-right-kind-of-immigrant-in-america-2017/). This kind of thinking stems from white privilege and puts people with eurocentric beauty features (pale skin, blonde hair, blue eyes) above other immigrants. They are less likely to have hate crimes performed against them or to have people enraged over their presence in their country, despite being the same as any other immigrant who faces discrimination. I thought of this because as i said, I think people want immigrants to behave only in one particular way and if they don’t, then they are seen in a negative light, even if people don’t hold those standards to actual citizens of the country.

    A question I have is whether the high school dropout rate for girls is higher than it is for guys?

Brenda Barrientos on "Gendered Bodies and U.S. Wars"

Within this brief section of to the intro of Feminism and War, the various authors explore women's experiences within war and the relationship between military views towards their bodies and their utilization in warfare. Riley, Mohanty, and Pratt make a point to explore further how militaries - especially the U.S. military - claim to wage their wars in the defense of foreign women, but often end up becoming the instigators for their tragedies and utilize these women as tools to bolster their warfare, especially in media. 

The framework of war in other countries often takes on this dual perspective: where the U.S's soldiers sweep in as "saviors," and the foreign women of those target countries are victims of the cultures within those countries. It's a familiar justification, not too long ago cried by Bush for the Iraq War. In Western media, the authors remind us, these women are often depicted as helpless individuals, unable to save themselves from their situations at home without U.S intervention, despite evidence to the contrary where bombs have dropped down into towns and villages in Iraq and Syria. This pervasive notion of victimhood, tailored with both racism and colonialism, is meant as a way to motivate (i.e. gain support), to feminize 'terrorist' men (by using femininity synonymously with weakness), and to bolster the masculinity of U.S. male soldiers; and all for the end result of control over the target country once a form of victory is assured.

The authors bring up what we as a country have already seen multiple times in the past: a hero and a damsel in a wartime context, with typically white saviors and foreign victims unable to save themselves. This is the familiar framework of a single story: where when limited perspectives are told to explain a complicated and multifaceted reality, it'll remove the other stories connected to them and can lead up to the dangerous erasure of identities, and in this case, the removal of female agency.

The utilization of women's supposed helplessness or victimhood is a trademark strategy for the U.S. military, not only for organizing sympathy and support, but also for encouraging loyalty from its ranks of soldiers for the reasons mentioned above. While U.S media outlets neglect to actively portray foreign women resisting the conditions in their country - or even resisting U.S. notions of  their victimhood - nowadays, however, people are gradually becoming more outspoken, both inside and outside the country. The information is out there,  with real and native women rallying out against these blatant manipulations and slapping false labels on their persons.

In the act of erasing others voices, it is not always the other countries trying to silence these women; oftentimes, its the U.S - it's us - and shouldn't we talk more about how little often we hear about women's resistance and how the U.S manipulates their genders as weapons for warfare?

Noemi Barrera on "Invisible No More"

In the article Invisible No More by Andrea Richie she explains how black women face oppression by the Chicago Police Department. She is able to develop this understanding by interviewing victims who have suffered from any sort of harassment from the Police Officers.

In the article, she covers a broad perspective on sexual assault and even violence black and women of color face. I would like to focus on the much deeper side of Police Officers and their assault on women. After reading the testimonials of these young women and what they had to go through after being assaulted by a higher power person it made me upset. This made me think those type of Police Officers have taken advantage of their position and have used their position as a way to threaten their mission in hurting these women. Instead of protecting these women from harms like these presented they've become a part of it.

As a Chicago Resident myself, I've seen a lot of violence growing up. At some point, I did believe that they were in every right to act the way they should in crimes and those people who refrained from being arrested. After reading this article It opened my eyes that not every gender gets treated the same women, in fact, can be seen vulnerable and that's when police officers take advantage of their position not only working for the law but also as men.

The reality is that women all over the world are taken advantage of just for who they are as a woman. This situation reminded me of something I read about women in Egypt. In Egypt, as I read, it is believed by men that women like to be harassed, physically violated, disrespected, and etc. When incidents arise people only assume that the women wanted to be treated that way. This relates because we see how through these acts feminism arises and even war. Because no one takes a stand for women they choose to defend themselves, but when they do all the system does is turn their heads and act injustice.

https://egyptianstreets.com/2017/07/02/43-percent-of-egyptian-men-still-believe-that-women-like-
sexual-harassment-report/








Do you believe that women of color/black go through sexual assault more than any other race?

Yesenia Saldana on Robin L. Rileys "Feminism and War"

In "Feminism and War" one of the main points that the author makes is that war is not simply just war. With war comes the idea of sexism and masculinity. Like we might know already, many wars rely on these ideas.

In this essay, the author explains that war lies around the idea of the role a man plays within society. War is seen as something good, something that a man is able to do in order to "save" a country. Since men are always seen as more strong than women, a mans quality is said to help a country and the people of the country ( women and kids.) The way in which these man "save" a country is by going out to war and "saving" other oppressed women and kids from their own countries. In reality, the country going at war does not realize or take into consideration all the effects war actually has on the country being bombed.

This is when the idea of sexism comes in. By men going to war it forces women to play the role that society expects from them. Since men go to work women are to stay at home and take care of their children while the man is at war. Women are seen as inferior to men because we are not seen as strong enough to go into a war zone. Like I mentioned earlier, when these men are "saving" "oppressed" women from other countries in reality they are affecting their lives. Since war usually occurs in places where women actually don't already have the necessary resources, war just makes them have even less resources than before. A war makes women and children have even less access to healthcare that they need and education or free social services.

In a movie called "Voces Inocentes" we are able to see how in El Salvador children and women live in fear because once boys turn a certain age they are taken into war zones and are forced to fight. This causes for women and children to be living afraid their daily lives. War also causes the seperation of families as seen in this movie. Like talked about in the essay, it shows how men in this case kids are the targets for war instead of women.
https://www.elseptimoarte.net/carteles/voces-inocentes.jpg

Will there ever be bigger movements that will force war to end in order for women and children to stop living their lives in fear?

Jennifer Riera on Invisible No More

In the chapter, “Policing Gender Lines,” from the book Invisible No More, Andrea J. Ritchie examines the intersectional relationship between race and gender when it comes to experiences of police brutality. However, while her analysis was a compelling one, especially since it reveals the complexities behind the various systems and structures of power in relation to patriarchy and white supremacy, what moved me the most within her piece was her ability to highlight the brave organizing, activism, and mobilization from women of color and gender non-conforming individuals alike. In a time where the agency of women and other minorities are often overlooked or ignored altogether, I think it’s crucial that we take the time to applaud whenever women’s agency is being discussed and highlighted.

As I previously mentioned, when it comes to women’s ability to exercise personal and political agency, this aspect is hardly discussed or highlighted, which can be severely problematic since it strips this idea of agency from our general image of women and implies that women, even when they’re victims, do not have a sense of agency at all. What this lack of agency can do, unfortunately, is reinforce this gendered hegemonic discourse over how women should behave or present themselves and how little agency women should ever exercise, if any. However, as we can see from Ritchie’s book, when women, primarily women of color, are presented as having a strong sense of political agency, it completely transforms the way women and the issue gets discussed.

For example, when women and gender non-conforming individuals exercise their agency and make their voices and demands heard, the issue is no longer just an issue—it is now an issue that women and others involved are taking ahold of and formulating solutions that work for them. While there are cases in which others step in and draft solutions for issues that concern women, what this does is it strips women from any voice or involvement in the same issue that primarily affected them more so than anyone else. Therefore, if we want to improve traditional constructions of women and womanhood, than by presenting women as autonomous beings is a good way to start changing the normative gender ideals our society so strongly holds.

Seeing how important it is to highlight the autonomy of women when dealing with gendered discriminatory issues, I couldn’t help but think back to when Latinas began to take ownership of their disadvantages position within the women’s movement of the 20^th century. Considering the racial tensions of the 60s and 70s, the women’s movement inevitably became a movement that focused mainly on the issues that only white middle class women faced, not the rest of the poor marginalized women of color. Therefore, in response to this, Latinas and other women of color began to exercise their political agency and were able to make their demands for justice heard. Therefore, as we can see, when women of color are confronted with issues, they don’t just sit back and wait for someone to rescue them. On the contrary, women of color use their agency and organize, mobilize, and collectively fight to change their realities. The best part of this display of agency, however, is that, in my opinion, it teaches young girls about the importance of speaking up and exercising the agency that we all have by virtue of being human beings.

https://www.hamptoninstitution.org/images/latina.JPG

Zubia Jahangir on Robin L. Riley's "Feminism and War"

One of the author’s points in “Feminism and War confronting US imperialism” is that the wars relies on the ideas of racism, sexism, and the masculinity of the heterosexual men. The author states, “Given the centrality of US imperial wars in the world today, it is impossible to understand ‘feminism and war’ on a global scale without understanding the specificities of the racist, heterosexist, and masculinized practices and ideologies mobilized by a USA in pursuit of economic and political hegemony.” Such ideologies are the reason behind many wars.

The author is mainly trying to convey that modern wars are based on the idea of militarized patriarchy which means that the manliness of a man is needed in order save a nation and its women, as they are the “saviors” of women. This idea provokes women to only be at home serving their men as these men are serving their country. This idea promotes the idea of female vulnerability that is why women cannot participate in the military. Nonetheless, war demands heterosexuality, particularly male heterosexuality which makes women to play their roles of mothers and wives at home supporting the wars while these “manly man” go out and save other women from “oppression” by bombing their countries.

The wars continue to rely on race, gender, white supremacy, and masculinity. The author says, “…annihilating effect on the lives of women, …with the manipulation of racialized discourses of male supremacy and female helplessness as justification…” The war not only reinforces sexism, but it also reinforces racism, classism, and even homophobia. The militarized patriarchy mostly victimize women of color because they have less access to health and education and are also victims of misogynistic culture and are in severe need of saving. This is justifiable enough for the white supremacist man to intrude, bomb, and hence save these “oppressed” women. This also becomes a reason for white supremacists to oppress the masculinity of the men of color by degrading their heterosexuality and demonizing them as a human being.

In this speech, the former president, George W. Bush, thanked everyone for the great effort of successfully liberating Afghan women and children city by city by their “Afghan Women and Children Relief Act.” This was another war on the name of helping women and children by victimizing the women of color and demonizing the Afghan men; another war based on race, gender, superiority, and masculinity.

Why can people not put themselves in other’s shoes before making any decisions for them or trying to help them in their own ways?