The Final Blog

I would like to think that I expected this semester to go as fast as all the others. But, I went into this semester thinking that if I don't think about how fast it goes then it wouldn't go as fast. Wrong. It's December and I have no idea how that happened. I think it feels like there have been three actual days this semester: move-in day, Halloween, which brings us to today. But looking through my blog it is clear that there have been many days and weeks of the semester. I loved looking through the blogs I have written over the course of the semester and each week stretched me to grasp new concepts and understand the world in a new way. I think this is a great way to teach women and gender; because this is exactly how one must grow to learn anything in this field. I have loved this class for precisely that reason. The readings for this week expanded on this each one highlighting different aspects that we covered all semester. It is hard for me to pull just one line or one quote from the reading that ties everything together because everything was and is tied together. I think Johnson's article entitled, "The Gender Knot," does what other articles don't necessarily in that it gives steps of "what to do." It's so hard to say what to do with this topic as it is both so personal and so societal all at once. This article plants the seed in essence of what every person can do on all levels. I think that is the biggest thing I have gotten from this class and what makes it different than any class I have ever taken while in school; I leave this class wanting to be different, live different, question differently, and see the world differently.

Gendered Labor

This week’s readings were incredibly informative. I couldn’t help but keep referring back to the week we discussed the globalization of gendered labor. The topics of gendered labor and globalization of labor are so tied together. Movies like "Maid in America" really showcase how women must struggle to raise someone's family while sending money home to their own children. I can't imagine how a family can employee a woman in these circumstances let alone call them part of the family as is shown in "Maid in America." However, looking at the readings, especially the one dealing with advertisements it is clear that these women have no choice to sacrifice their own families in order to make a living working for another family. There is clearly a globalized market for these women. In the reading that looked at the other side of gendered careers I loved the imagery of the glass escalator. I didn’t really think about the impact of gendered labor on men but this article really articulated how men face challenges in the work face because of their gender much like women. Reviewing this semester it only seems logical that these gendered roles are so ingrained in society.

I kept thinking about the concept of workers being a commodity. There is so much emphasis on profit that the human aspect of workers are taken away. This is true in the factories and the domestic situations we read about this week. This made me think of the pay differences between men and women. This summer working at my internship at Women Work! I learned a lot about the pay gap. One of the ways that this non-profit worked to get women (primarily single and raising their children) jobs that paid more. A lot of this involved training women for construction work. There are so many stigmas that women wouldn't be strong enough to do this kind of work that both the women and their male coworkers that they were fully capable of the job. Working at Women Work! gave me many other opportunities to learn about gendered labor. I was able to attend a rally supporting the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Lilly spoke at this rally and stressed that she was just one of the thousands of women who are being paid less for doing the same job. How does something like gender determine how much someone will be paid?