flenny has 10 post(s)

In the essay, the author, Lila Abu-Lughod discusses various factors, which are connected to her argument and supports her claims. The first aspect that caught my attention was why culture and more specifically religious beliefs and women treatment, was more vital than exploring the history of the development of repressive regimes in the region and the U.S role. The history and how politics used to work didn’t seem important and expects were asked to give a full research on the religion and culture. Abu-Lughod prefers questions that leads the researchers to the exploration of global interconnections to have a better understanding why certain things works differently. The U.S is more focus on the cultural and religious beliefs of Afghan women and they are using the Burqa and vail as a reference. The Burqa and veil are symbols of oppression because Muslim women are forced to wear them sometimes it can turn into unjust treatment by man and full control over women. Abu-Loghod states, that the Taliban did not invent the burqa, they came from different places and in a way, were connected for the same purpose. The Taliban was used in one region by the Pashtun women for a form of local covering. And the burqa was another way to cover in the subcontinent and southwest. With time passing the burqa started to symbolize women’s modesty and respectability. A woman without the burqa was disrespectful and immodest (even if she wasn’t the burqa has more meaning than the person itself). In my opinion, all different types of covering form of faces and bodies created a separation spheres between women’s and men’s spheres. In other words, because of this rules that women need to follow on their everyday lives and if they don’t they are seems as someone bad influence for society, man have more opportunity to always be in charge and not be judge. All types of covering are also to prevent harassment from strange man, but I believe wearing full cover doesn’t prevent a man from committing sexual harassment. My question is, does wearing the burqa or other types of covering helps to stop harassment from estrange man. The covering form for women has different meanings depending on the region. I think the burqa and vail are important topics. However, they are more important topics to talk about referring to Muslim’s women and they are not being address. The call to saving women does not focus on women rights, human rights, or women safety of Muslim women. From my understanding, Abu-Lughod at the end of the article is basically saying to put aside the way muslim women dress and look at the things they need. There is a huge lack of women protection, little opportunity of women getting educated, and malnutrition. She states, when saying someone, you are implying that you are saying them to something.

In Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence by Sally Engle Marry, she discusses many important points that influenced women’s laws, specially laws of victims who go through domestic violence and other type of abuse situation by their intimate or family member. Marry argues about how women can be protected against intimate partner’s violence and what can be done to have positive results. With the help of battered women’s movement and the laws women violence can have a lower rate. The rights defined self is a critical issue for the battered women’s movement, which means the right to talk to encourage abuse women to look for help from the law. The battered women’s movement has always focused on a criminal justice component to its activism. In other words, it inspired victims to see violation as a crime to make them reach for the legal system for help. Marry and her assistant went through a long process to support their argument, she interviewed thirty women and twenty-one men and asked them about their experiences with the legal system and most importantly their reactions to the experiences. Everyone had a different opinion and reaction, which helped Marry and her assistant make progress on her project. From my understanding the subjectivities are produced through encounters with the legal system because is a better way to protect victims from domestic violence or any other type of abuse by their intimate partner.For example, women who were victims of domestic violence by their intimate partner were afraid of pressing charges or calling the police for help. Women in this situation would usually make a step back, which eventually give more power to man. One of the many reasons why those women were afraid was because all man was dominant and had power over women. With time women find a way to fit into the laws of being protected and acknowledgeable. The law plays a huge part in the redefinition of subjectivity. The importance is that women encounter conditional help. This is good because by women reporting how they were being threat it by their partners the law would take in mind women’s suffering. Another reason why making domestic violence records was significant at that time was because it gave women an identity as a wife, human being, women who is protecting themselves and children. In conclusion, the subjectivity that Merry tries to break down to make other understand how it works has to do with gender, status, religion, and other factors. Another factor that plays alone with her argument is the rights-defined.

In the article “Nongovernmental Organization” Role in the Buildup and Implementation of security Council Resolution 1325 by Feliaty Hill, Mikele Aboitz, and Sara Poehlman-Doumbouya describes very clear the Resolution 1325 and its purpose. The Resolution was made to stop the maltreatment towards women and girls specially during war. It’s very clear that women’s voices, needs, problems, and ideas weren’t supported or heard by those in power, who are of course man. During war women and girls suffered the most due to the maltreatment, violations, sexual abuse, and gender based violence. Women and girls were targeted at the highest rates during war by armed group man. It gets more interesting when a little percent of man is helping to empower the Resolution 1325 and women are finally realizing that they deserve; equality, development, peace, and the urgent of others recognizing the significant role women plays in society. The implementation of Resolution 1325 was to ensure that women’s group receive a fair deal that consists on concrete, practical financial, and technical support. The Resolution 1325 simply represented women’s roles in society and protection. Going back to the beginning of the article, there was an interesting part; Sanam Naraghi – Anderlini caught my attention on what she believed. From my understanding, she basically said another document defending women’s rights and needs. However, she believed it was another document out in the world that have 50% of working or 50% of not working. At least it’s another document add it to the list that might help in the future. The Resolution 1325 was structure by three steps. First, the ideas and language in this document were passed through the UN system, which means that it directly occurs to the US system. Second, the international and grassroots and nongovernmental provided historically effects, information and analysis to the Security Council. Third, the DAW, UNIFEM, and NGO was possible and there was success due to the synergistic relationship that had taken many decades to establish. These steps were what helped the elements identify the experiences and expertise of women into the Security Council. In conclusion, in order to have results from the Resolution 1325 actions needs to be taken, not just words. The international community must ensure that women are included in every level of peace and security from all points of views. In the 2000, the doors were open enough to help women and put them into a Security Council debate for the first time. The resolution 1325 has to ensure the door remains open permanently.

In the article “Globalization and US prison growth: From Military and Keynesianism to post- Keynesian Militarism” by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, she writes about the expansion of prison that connects to socio-economic problems. She also writes about the existent crises and surplus of prison population and reconstructing the state.
From my understanding the crisis Gilmore is analyzing is the social lack and economic panic, which resulted as a huge capital disorder. The problem is the number of crises accumulated throughout three decades. This means that it would take an extremely longer time to get it fix or this problem won’t get fix. The change of getting it fix was very low. I wasn’t sure, but from my point of view she said that one way to get out of the social-economic crisis is by domestic abuse; which eventually turns out to be a behavior that seeks to take the victim’s liberty and freedom away, violent elimination of foreign and domestic enemies. Crises do indicate a small percent of change specially when those who responsible didn’t attend to result it as soon as they saw a mini crisis approaching. Another problem is that since there huge number of crises happening at the same time it actually means that a lot of people will be suffering, not physically, but economically. In other words, everyone struggles because there is not alternative. Surplus is when something meets it’s requirements and it’s left alone, which means future problems turning into crises. I think that was what happened and this is what Gilmore is trying to explain us. Maybe at some point before all of this happened, those in control and with power had the opportunity to make the right choice and didn’t. In life, everything has a cause and effect and unfortunately the minority and people of color suffered the most.
Surplus labor increased the prison population because there was more unemployment people and less jobs. The result was to look for an illegal job and eventually get caught and go to jail. May people of color and poor saw themselves in this position. In other words, during the mid-1970s there was a job crisis and no way to support themselves and families, one option was to do something illegal. In my opinion the government/police/prison principals only focused on crimes instead of helping increase the economics of the state. Crises and surplus in this cases are the same thing because they influence society.

In the Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici, she talks about the beginning of land privatization, which occur in Europe. She also analyzes how the progression of feudalism to capitalism took place in the and centuries, the segregation of women becoming prominent.
What caught my attention the most was how women suffered the most because man was superior and had more rights. The system was too strict and didn’t allowed women’s vote, words, or ideas. The first thing that came to mind while reading this was what we talked in class; private phase and public phase. Private phase refers to all women and it (not exactly, all white man with property) meant all women had to stay at home doing wife and mother duties. Public phase refers to “all man”, which meant they had the job and freedom to do anything they want. All of this created woman to become dependable on man and allowed capitalism took place faster because they were taking the accumulation of unpaid women labor. In my opination, the capitalism system was created and design to serve the business men man primary. The addition of women to the business industry system is fairly new, leaving women under paid compare to man and constantly fighting for equal salary is the definition of unfairness. Each reading we do in this class helps me understand how and why things happened and why they are like this now. When women were privatized it let to many problems. The outcome of this was an extremely poverty and 100% dependence on men for anything needed and more importantly economically help. Every decision made put every woman down, which let to reduction of families and women’s bodies were controlled. The state worried about the population size by emphasizing marriage, reproduction, and families’ importance. Its incredible how women were treated; they were blame for anything and had to stay quiet. Having all those laws and rules made women look for another way to survive even if it was illegal they did it. anything done by a man was considered good and productive, but something meaningless that a woman did was considered as a problem to society. In my opinion, we still fighting on equal rights. It’s unfair how women have to prove what they are capable of. Federici’s argument is that capitalism was what put completely women down. This was a very detailed and interesting reading.

Human rights are in fact androcentric”, I found this quote very interesting because is basically saying that society or rather say, this world develops pretty much thinking that man was and still are the only focus point or centered. Human rights were made to only benefic man, it’s obvious because someone who was a male wrote those rights. Women were never included or protected by those human rights because they weren’t consider as being human beings. Man, created the ideology of being superior and dominant. Moreover, V. Spike and Laura Paris identify the meaning of heterosexism which, according to Spike and Paris it refers to as being the only one normal aspect of sexual identity, sexual relationships, and social relationships. Spike and Paris demonstrate the differences of man having their own right to do what they want and women having the right to do what they want. Heterosexist collectivities means women weren’t free to constitute groups in their own will or rights because they are mystifying within heterosexist groups. This another example of unfairness and inequality. In order for women to create a group, someone from the opposite sex needs to know and be in charge first. “Self-determination has meant the expression of men’s” (p.142), this is another example of women being discriminated by man. Women are being excluded because making laws is a job for man and still dominant by men. In class, we talked about who to blame for this issue, and we all agree that both gender, man and women are to blame. Its man fault to create an unrealistic ideology of thinking they are better, superior, and dominant. Its women fault to let all man think is this way and not stop it as soon as it happened. Private sphere of the home was the job of a women and public sphere of the workplace and government was a man job. All this issue is still happening, of course, at another level with time women have proof how capable they are. Women are excluded from the public sphere, which focus on human rights discourse and denials women equal rights. It’s extremely outrageous the experience women went through and until this day are. It shouldn’t be this way now because it’s very clear that women have the same capacity a man can have when it comes to making laws institutions, government, or politics. Slowly, but shortly things are and will change.

In the Last Utopia by Samuel Moyn, the first chapter covers many important points to make the readers understand how human rights and rights of men emerge. To understand much better his argument and extremely informative first chapter and whole book, he gave us the history of human rights, talked about important philosophers, and theorists who played a big role when writing and giving ideas about rights of man. As I was reading the first chapter I notice how rules and meaning of these two terms has changed throughout history. My understanding is that there was a cause and effect. In other words, the rights of men weren’t a specific or fair for all individuals, so, Human Rights was invented to protect citizens from unfair situations and with the purpose of having freedom. Human rights offer hope and inspiration to take action in any adequate situation. Moyn doesn’t really define what human rights means or what he believes it is. However, he does define what human rights means in different times and places he is very detailed about how things happened in history. The right of men and human rights are two very different things. Moyn’s demonstrates the concept of human rights which, becomes more significant in the 1970s and was more focused on political and civil rights. Social and economic was put as a second-regeneration principles. Rights of men was during the Revolutionary era (p.34), exemplify by the political of the states basically saying it was created by the government. The rights of man were written by all male philosophers and everything was written to benefit all man in society with the outcome of revolution. Then, he shows the enlightenment theorist influence, well they came up with these ideas from Ancient Greece and Rome, and other religions to invent a new form of human rights.  Human rights go more towards to individual rights against unconstitutional situations, this also means that human go against the unfairness of the state. Throughout history man and women has always being separated, meaning all man are superior in all situation. something that is changing each day is how women are included in the same group man are. In conclusion, Samuel Myon gives us a very detail history of human rights, how they change, and the different definition it took in different times and places. He also says that human rights were more significant in the 1970s. Human rights and rights of man have different purpose.

Wendy Brown’s essay, “The Most We Can Hope For…” Human Rights and the Political of Fatalism addresses many points on human rights activism, she also uses Michael Ignatieff to improve and support her argument.

Human rights are freedom in which every human being needs to have, to protect themselves from cruelty or maltreatment. Brown’s argument is that human rights activism is more than beneficial because it is an efficient factor to limit political violence and most importantly agony. Brown’s believe in political mantle, which makes it seem anti-political to denied human rights to those innocent and powerless people. She explains the differences between how human rights take their shape, moral discourse, which focuses on pain and cruelty, instead of political discourse of comprehensive justice.

Wendy Brown supports her argument using Ignatieff three claims; “Human rights matter because they help people to help themselves”, “civil and political freedoms…”, and “conflict, deliberation, argument and contention.” Moreover, she focuses on Ignatieff position on the Iraq war. One of her most crucial evidence found in claim number one was Ignatieff position on the Iraq war. He came up with the term “empowerment” to hide the truth. In other words, empowerment is going towards the anti-political side. In claim number two, which focuses on the economic and political possibilities. Food, shelter, security, and healthcare are the four most necessary human needs to develop a form of survival. To me it seems like Ignatieff has a very different point of view when it comes to human survival, he is choosing freedom of speech over the most important basic needs of human survival. In claim number three he states, “A world of normal equality is a word of conflict, deliberation, argument, and contention (95). In other words, Ignatieff disagree with individual’s equality and thinks individuals will prospect to empower for democratic determination. Finally, Brown uses Ignatieff own words to prove and support all her arguments. She also talks about Ignatieff poor interest in defending the empowerment people. I agree with Wendy Brown; human rights activism plays an important role in society. It would be extremely unfair to leave innocent and powerless people with no rights or a way to defend themselves from suffering. I had a hard time trying to understand this reading, maybe I misunderstood what Wendy Brown was trying to explain. I know she uses Ignatieff’s claims to support her argument. I can’t wait for the class discussion on Tuesday.

In Sexual Contract by Carole Pateman I noticed how she is addressing how much women have suffered through history; when it comes to being equal and man being superior. She explains how the sexual contract is not quite complete. In other words, the people who wrote it were all males with no women’s opinions. In my understanding the contract will only benefit whoever wrote it and all males. According to The Sexual Contract women were just a subject to man, meaning every man had power over women. The marriage contract only meant two people coming together to create a family, luckily women had the right to stay with the child. This reading reminded me of the first one we did in class, if equality of rights is so self-evident, why did this allegation had to be made. Same thing goes with this topic. It was self-evident how women were thread it and how all males felt towards all females, then why it was so important to made this contract. The argument would be why is so important to make this type of contracts what was the point of it. The social contract left women out with no liberties and political rights, which means women didn’t have a voice to prove that they deserve equality. “only men, that is to say, are ‘individuals’ (p.6). It was officially, women were seen as nothing it was really unfair for women. What exactly a woman or just the female gender did to deserve this kind of punishment. I believe that in a civil sphere women wouldn’t be equal as man and their only right would be to focus on their families or husband. The contract talks about the rule women needed to follow in order to achieve wifely duties. This means woman were seen as property or subjects to man, they weren’t considered civil individuals they would have had the same freedom as man. In conclusion, women weren’t incorporated in the original contract because according the theorists only man were seen as individuals and women as property. In addition, since all females were property all males have the power to do whatever they wish with them. The sexual contracts are a subjection of women and social contract is the freedom each gender had. The argument in this chapter was about women being a property and how man had the opportunity to do whatever they want.

My name is Lenny Logrono and I’m 20 years old. I work at my brother’s girlfriend hair salon in Jersey City as an assistant. This is my first semester at City College and majoring in Early Childhood Education. I’m really nervous to be here because it’s a new environment, people, and school system for me. My goal for this semester is to increase my vocabulary and public speaking skills. I find it difficult for me to speak in front of people, specially when there is 50% chance of me being the only one with English accept. At side from school, my interest is to save up money to travel. I love going to different places and learning new cultures. Last year, I had the opportunity to go to the Dominican Republic, Bahamas, and Canada. This year I went to Colombia with my mom we had an amazing time over there. For me traveling means a lot, every time I go to another country it feels like a dream come true. I like making new friends, working, going to the movies, listening to music and spending time with my family. One of my most valuable possession (material stuff) is my two instax cameras I always take them with me when I’m traveling or doing something new. I rather have a hard copy of my photos than having it on my phone, sometimes I hate technology because it takes a lot from us.

The first chapter of this book was a little bit difficult for me to understand because I was not paying attention to the argument or what she was trying to say. The first time I read the chapter I had no clue of what I was reading, but the second time I understood the argument and everything she wrote. In Inventing Human Rights the author used different points of view and evidences to support her argument. After reading The Paradox of Self-Evidence, I finally understood what she was trying to tell the readers. The argument is that according to Thomas Jefferson equality is self-evident, but the real question is if they are so self-evident why did this allegation had to be made. In other words, if having human rights is self-explanatory why was it necessary to put into writing. In addition, Thomas Jefferson did not explain what he meant when he wrote all his beliefs, which made people question everything he wrote. People still argues and debates the terms he used when writing the Declaration of Independence.