Difference between revisions of "328 2010--Week 12 Questions/Comments"
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Vidal’s point about Chicanas facing triple discrimination is important, because '''discrimination is never a simple cut and dry thing.''' If you solve the problem of class, that does not solve the problems of gender or race or sexuality. I think this is what made, and still makes, the push for equal rights so difficult. '''How does one choose what one focuses on in the fight?''' In the Hispanic community, Chicanas were told by Chicano leaders not to join the women’s liberation movement because “it is an ‘Anglo thing’” (455). Chicanas recognized that women’s liberation was not just for middle class white women, it was for them too. The men in the community were not offering much support, so Vidal, by connecting “machismo” to Anglo chauvinism, compares Chicanos to white males, and I’m sure that Hispanic men did not want to be connected with the very people they were fighting against. – Alice W | Vidal’s point about Chicanas facing triple discrimination is important, because '''discrimination is never a simple cut and dry thing.''' If you solve the problem of class, that does not solve the problems of gender or race or sexuality. I think this is what made, and still makes, the push for equal rights so difficult. '''How does one choose what one focuses on in the fight?''' In the Hispanic community, Chicanas were told by Chicano leaders not to join the women’s liberation movement because “it is an ‘Anglo thing’” (455). Chicanas recognized that women’s liberation was not just for middle class white women, it was for them too. The men in the community were not offering much support, so Vidal, by connecting “machismo” to Anglo chauvinism, compares Chicanos to white males, and I’m sure that Hispanic men did not want to be connected with the very people they were fighting against. – Alice W | ||
| − | This reading is a good reminder that the rights movements were about more than just African Americans and white women, though those are the movements that tend to be recognized the most. In this case, Chicanas were challenging both a racial and sexual social oppression. I think it’s interesting that they were encouraged away from activism because it was considered an “Anglo thing,” at least according to the men who wanted them to stay out it. Considering the first national convention for Raza women was in 1971, how could anyone even have gotten away with that argument, when African Americans had been in the public eye fighting for their social equality for many years? -- Taylor Brann | + | This reading is a good reminder that the rights movements were about more than just African Americans and white women, though those are the movements that tend to be recognized the most. In this case, Chicanas were challenging both a racial and sexual social oppression. '''I think it’s interesting that they were encouraged away from activism because it was considered an “Anglo thing,” at least according to the men who wanted them to stay out it. Considering the first national convention for Raza women was in 1971, how could anyone even have gotten away with that argument, when African Americans had been in the public eye fighting for their social equality for many years'''? -- Taylor Brann |
We've read a bit previously about the double burden of black women, and it seemed to me that this description of triple discrimination is really the same thing. I'm a bit skeptical of the third designation, that of job discrimination--not that it doesn't exist (for of course it does), but rather because of the implication that this discrimination is only an issue with Chicanas, and it almost seems that Vidal is trying to elevate the issue to seem as if Chicanas are more oppressed than women of other minorities, which is not entirely true (much depends on region, etc). I found Vidal's arguments much more successful when she focused on the sterilization, an instance of extreme racism and sexism that is specific to the Chicana community. It was interesting to hear some of the same rhetoric that I've encountered in feminist arguments published last year, much less 40 years ago. At one point I forgot it was the early seventies altogether! --Sarah Smethurst | We've read a bit previously about the double burden of black women, and it seemed to me that this description of triple discrimination is really the same thing. I'm a bit skeptical of the third designation, that of job discrimination--not that it doesn't exist (for of course it does), but rather because of the implication that this discrimination is only an issue with Chicanas, and it almost seems that Vidal is trying to elevate the issue to seem as if Chicanas are more oppressed than women of other minorities, which is not entirely true (much depends on region, etc). I found Vidal's arguments much more successful when she focused on the sterilization, an instance of extreme racism and sexism that is specific to the Chicana community. It was interesting to hear some of the same rhetoric that I've encountered in feminist arguments published last year, much less 40 years ago. At one point I forgot it was the early seventies altogether! --Sarah Smethurst | ||
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I find it interesting when I read pieces about women of different ethnicities speak about women's rights. A lot of times women of ethnicities other than white were not able to come together in the fight for equal rights with those white women because of the color of their skin. They do seem to have many of the same issues, however. In this piece Mirta Vidal talks about being seen as inferior to the opposite sex, women fought to end all forced sterilizations, and the Chicana women were even concerned about having childcare available to them. I find it so interesting that many blacks and Hispanic women had to form their own women's groups for equal rights when they were facing many of the same problems that other white women were at the same time. Amy V. | I find it interesting when I read pieces about women of different ethnicities speak about women's rights. A lot of times women of ethnicities other than white were not able to come together in the fight for equal rights with those white women because of the color of their skin. They do seem to have many of the same issues, however. In this piece Mirta Vidal talks about being seen as inferior to the opposite sex, women fought to end all forced sterilizations, and the Chicana women were even concerned about having childcare available to them. I find it so interesting that many blacks and Hispanic women had to form their own women's groups for equal rights when they were facing many of the same problems that other white women were at the same time. Amy V. | ||
| − | In response to Sarah about the third form of discrimination, I think that Vidal is commenting on the exploitation of Latino’s by employers in agriculture. I am not saying that this did not, and does not continue to happen to workers of other races, but I think a large portion of those exploited farm, nursery, orchard etc. workers that were and are Latino. Going off of that, I was struck by the trifecta of oppression that Vidal was illustrating. “Raza women suffer a triple form of oppression: as members of an oppressed nationality, as workers and as women” (455). Not only are these women oppressed in these ways, but she explained that they were oppressed within their culture by male chauvinism. Furthermore, she blames this “machismo” on European colonists in what seems like an argument against European Imperialism. I cannot say either way if I agree with that notion because I really don’t know enough about Latino culture prior to European occupation of the America’s, but I would venture to say, from what I know about history, she is probably making a valid point. -Caryn | + | In response to Sarah about the third form of discrimination, I think that '''Vidal is commenting on the exploitation of Latino’s by employers in agriculture. I am not saying that this did not, and does not continue to happen to workers of other races, but I think a large portion of those exploited farm, nursery, orchard etc. workers that were and are Latino'''. Going off of that, I was struck by the trifecta of oppression that Vidal was illustrating. “Raza women suffer a triple form of oppression: as members of an oppressed nationality, as workers and as women” (455). Not only are these women oppressed in these ways, but she explained that they were oppressed within their culture by male chauvinism. Furthermore, she blames this “machismo” on European colonists in what seems like an argument against European Imperialism. I cannot say either way if I agree with that notion because I really don’t know enough about Latino culture prior to European occupation of the America’s, but I would venture to say, from what I know about history, she is probably making a valid point. -Caryn |
== "More Than a Lady" Ruby Doris Smith Robinson and Black Women's Leadership in the SNCC, Cynthia Fleming == | == "More Than a Lady" Ruby Doris Smith Robinson and Black Women's Leadership in the SNCC, Cynthia Fleming == | ||
