fpaola has 10 post(s)

In the article “Do Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and its Others”, by Lila Abu-Lughod, the author talks about anthropology and tries to explain the reasons why America intervened in Afghanistan with the intention of saving women. She also focuses primarily on cultural differences between women in the world and her goal is to develop an appreciation of it because it has a meaning and is the product of a history that has been changing over the time. The author advocates for an exploration of the roots and nature of Afghan women, their culture rather than a political and historic view.  She studies what is the significance of Afghan women wearing a veil, it is because they are forced to wear it as a sign of oppression, or it has a deep personal meaning. First,  It was believed that Afghan women living under the Taliban and the terrorist rule were forced to wear a burqa, however, now they are no longer under the Taliban rule and continue wearing burqas. Lila Abu-Lughod explains that Southwest Asia has developed the thought that covering up with a burqa symbolizes modesty and respectability. She cites the anthropologist Hanna Papanek who described the burqa as “portable seclusion” because it allows women to move out of segregated spaces as well as separating them from unknown men. It also maintains women’s sanctity according to the ideas of the author.

“People wear the appropriate form of dress for their social communities and are guided by socially shared standards, religious beliefs, and moral ideas” (Abu-Lughod, 785), unlike Afghan women who choose to wear the covering style because it signifies respectable class and it was imposed by the Taliban as religiously appropriate. Even if they are liberated from the Taliban and the imposition of wearing burqas, not only afghan women but also Hindu women, women from Malaysia, Pakistan or muslims women would still find a modest clothing to wear because good respectable women from strong families wear burqas and in addition, wearing a burqa is thought to mean bodily virtue that takes women closer to God (786).

The author points out clearly that she do not support the oppression of women. She advocates for the human rights and especially women’s rights of afghan women that for her should be universal human rights such as the right to freedom from violence of global inequality and war. However, even when afghan women are liberated from oppression, people should respect and appreciate their differences, not always what we want is the best, a sense of respect for their culture the author draws attention to.

In her article “Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence”, Sally Engle Merry shows how women as victims of violence by their husbands  come to take on rights consciousness through their experiences with the judicial legal system. first, one developed a rights-define self when one has the courage to speak up and seek help from the law. However, their encounters with police, prosecutors, judges, really define if the problem is relevant and if the offender is guilty, if he is not, then this subjectivity is undermine. A woman comes to take on a rights-define self when she sees herself as an autonomous self protected by the state. Some women are not still able to be aware of this consciousness because of their abused status that their husbands use as a way to show their masculinity, therefore abused women tend to file charges then drop them.

Through the interviews the author directed to various women sharing their experiences with the law, many women victims of violence by just taking a initiative to call the police for help, have already taken a huge step forward seeing themselves a defined beings capable of getting their rights protected. Since in the town of Hilo, the cases of violence against women have increased dramatically in the last 25 years, as a result of men trying to maintain their identify of masculinity and power by using violence, wives with the help of support groups and social services have taken taken a subject position by denouncing their husbands before the law.

The experience of calling to police, walking into courtrooms, filling out forms, gave women a sense of power and therefore enact a different self. This is how the law defines the self by recognizing women as subjects protected by law from violence even within the intimate sphere. But, when the legal system fail to arrest or to prove that the offender is guilty, this subjectivity  is mediated by this, However, they can still become an entitled person by following through with the case, leaving the offender and overall not provoking violence to prove that she is a rational and autonomous person capable of taking on this protection. After this encounters with the law, either with a good or unsatisfying outcome, as the author states “She acquires a new self, now no longer enclosed in the private sphere of the family but constituted by the law even within that family”.

In the article “Nongovernmental Organizations’ Role in the Buildup and Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 by Felicity Hill, Mikele Aboitiz and Sara Poehlman-Doumbouya, the authors explained how the Resolution 1325 was passed on October 31, 2000. First the Security Council passed the Resolution 1325 on 2000 and it addressing women’s issues, the atrocities they faced in war time, and the inability to recognize them as agents of peace. Countless meetings had occurred between women’s organizations, NGOs, the United Nations Development Fund for Women for the successful introduction of the Resolution. Soon the NGo working group gathered a lot of support when arranging in discussions with important delegates from Bangladesh, Canada, China, Macedonia, Netherlands, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (1257). Even Ambassador Chowdhury offered his support for the fundamental role of women in peace efforts. The same year various entities. created the NGO Working Group on Women and International Peace and Security which strongly supported the participation of women in peace contracts and they worked together with UNIFEM too to talk address the action of women.

In the months of July, August, the NGO Working Group advanced significantly with its purpose by holding meetings with members of the Security Council and finally by September and October  all the members provided documents for the open session as well as women experts were invited to give speeches and shared their concerns to the open session just to mention a few of them Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika from the Organization of African Unity African’s women’s committee on Peace and Democracy, Luz Mendez from the National Union of Guatemalan Women and more participants representing other worldly organizations. Consequently, women’s roles was taken into account with the help of more than 40 speeches.

In a way the introduction of the Resolution started to make some changes such as the inclusion of women in the discussions about the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Also the Security Council made effort to nominate more women candidates as representatives to the Secretary-General or peace missions. The work of the Security Council improved thanks to the testimonies of diverse women who shared their painful experiences during war time from twelve conflict zones. This helped the ongoing work of women for justice and peace. Finally, these organizations still have a long to go working for women and justice, mainly including them at every level, only in this way the Resolution 1325 will be put into action appropriately, working accordingly with the support of international entities. This was an small step that took a long time to be put in affect.

In the article Globalisation and US prison growth: from military Keynesianism to post-Keynesian militarism, the author discuss there are racial, social and political issues that are increasing the jail population rather than moral ones. Since the biggest prison construction in California in 1982, the percentage of inmates in prison rose severely with the highest percentages of African Americans and latinos, and even 7% of women of all races formed part of it. In general this people were the poor class. However she argues that this has a lot to do with globalisation and the increament of economy through  prison’s expansions. First, this was created to maintain the social order even though that was not really the issue, other aspects such as unemployment and inflation during the recession were.

One explanation for the growing number of people in jail was the drug epidemic. Primary, the common use of drugs in the late 1970s and 1980s influenced this expansion where people of color were more decimated. Not only drug dealing but also gang violence which go hand and hand connected provoked the imprisonment of several people even though according to the BJS illegal drugs were used by all kinds of people and had actually declined in the mid 1970s. Another factor was unemployment which pushed people to commit property crimes when looking for new sources of income. Furthermore the percentage of people in prison for this reason doubled significantly since 1982 even though property crime had declined and pushed down crime rate as well. The change in new kind of sentences making them longer and adding more punishable behavior were the causes of the growth in prison.

Anti-black racism and profit generating were the major causes of prison explanations the second one tied to the restructuring of the state. In the mid-sixties radical activism began to appear, including all kinds of people. A prominent one was  The Black Power Movement since African Americans were the ones facing racism.  They fought for equality. However, Los Angeles Watts riots and black or other people protested in the street to condemn economic exploitation, police brutality and social injustice. Different people joined together against Us capitalism and Euro-American racism.

There was not only a social crisis but also a capital disorder or profit crisis, and the population in prison are supposed to fix. The global recession was so detrimental for US, first because the dollar devaluated impeding capitalists the power of buying, it affected everybody specially big corporations and factories that eliminated jobs leaving many people unemployed. There were no strategic plans to employ the state’s capacities and absorb the national surpluses of finance capital, land or labour  (179).

Silvia Frederici analyses the development of a capitalist economy in a different way that Marx did. Marx explains in a logical and historical way the development of capitalism through his concept “primitive accumulation” which is all about expropriation of land from peasantry, exploitation of slaves, the looting in the East Indies which all of it lead to the accumulation of labor never seen in other times . However, he fails to analyze the prominent role of women in the 16 and 17 centuries during capitalism. Frederici argues that land privatization and the price of revolution were not enough to reach the proletarianization, but the degradation of women’s power.

With the expropriation of land women where the ones who suffered the most because since they had no source to work and make money, it was so hard for them to support themselves. “Women’s labor” or reproductive labor continued to be paid but decreased significantly, so it was nothing compare to men’s wage. As a result women become depended on men, and it allowed the state to make an accumulation of capital out of the unpaid women’s labor.

After the general crisis in the 16 and 17 centuries where millions of people died for hunger, reproduction and population growth became an important topic to gain European power again, so the state have total control over women’s bodies. Through the witch-hunt women were not allowed to take any birth control or anything that prevents reproduction. New severe penalties and punishment were imposed for women agains contraception, abortion and infanticide. In fact, in France every woman who became pregnant had to register her pregnancy. If the child died before baptism, the mother was sentence to death whether guilty or not. Consequently,  it was a time of terror for women and midwives who were soon replaced by doctor because they were incompetent in the labor room and furthermore  “complicit”  of the crimes. And therefore male doctors became to be seen as the true givers of life. Women’s wombs were territory of the state at the service of capitalist accumulation (89) , working with their bodies as machines for the reproduction of population and obviously workers for their labor.

Even for proletarian women it was difficult to find work, even simple work. They could just “work” at home, which was not considered even work, but domestic tasks or housekeeping whereas if a man would the same word it was considered productive. So the only career women could do was marriage. All of this injustices made women unable to support themselves, which leaded them to prostitution the only way to subsidize. Frederici talks about this degradation of women’s work force.

In the article “Are Women Human” by V. Spike and Laura Parisi, the authors argue that we should analyze the relationship between gender difference and human rights from a heterosexism perspective. It is inextricably from the state making objectives, authority and power. First at all, heterosexism recognizes as normal the relationships between males and females, others forms of social reproductions are prohibited. The normalization of heterosexism imposes gender hierarchy, where males had agency, freedom and autonomy and women had no freedom of choice, nor have they authoritative status, their only role in the this heterosexual relations was to promote reproduction of one’s own group. it included the acceptance of women’s subordination to male defined interests (138), also the children were to be well taken care in culturally and sexually appropriate ways by their mothers, and taught groups’s symbols, beliefs of the group, rituals and so on. As a result of this, the reproduction of these race/ class groups institutionalized a division of power and labor. How families and groups were formed and the reproductive process had a lot to do with politics and power.

The author summarized the history of women and human rights. She talked about the first generation rights where women were completely excluded, so basically it was men’s rights. In terms of reproduction, men controlled women’s bodies and anyone out of the gender identifies feminine or masculine were not protected. Second generation rights again through heterosexism women were marginalized in economic, social and cultural practices. Not only that but also religious beliefs contributed to devalue women. Third generation rights women’s situation got worse. even though they belongs o certain groups, they did not benefit from the right determination that all the members had, and were opressed by other women belonging to other groups. So since the beginning of history, the state promoted heterosexist practices and gendered division of identify, power and authority (145).

Heterosexual relations brought a lot of violence agains women both physical and psychological. Rape is not considered violence since wives could not refuse to have sexual intimacy with their husbands. The state is complicit because it did not intervene in these abuses. Homosexual couples were persecuted because in some countries it was considered a disease that needed to be treated with therapy, therefore they were unable get married and  adopt child.

Religion played an influential role in regulating heterosexism too since women are assumed to fulfill traditional roles, be dependent on men. In conclusion according to the author in heterosexist relations only men are considered human.

According to my understanding of what the author Samuel Moyn is pointing out about Human Rights in History, is that during the seventeen century, when proclaiming the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, it only included man who own property, as we have seen in previous classes women were not considered citizens, therefore only man had rights. These rights provided citizenship and protection to men, in case their rights were violated, therefore it was all about men wanting to form part of the state. Consequently other individuals who did not belong to the state or had nothing to do with it, their rights were not protected. Each history of Human Rights have its own chronologies and geographies in different traditions and reasons. However, Precursors had given basic ideas for the introduction of humanity, for terms like “humane and humanitarian” to become even thinkable. For example the Stoics helped to take a step forward when they considered that reason rules the world, and that all humans share reason.  Even though in Roman culture they excluded foreigners, women and slaves (15), in a way they helped to unite all men for education. It was a big advancement even though their concept of humanity is not the same as we know now. Christianity also made the term “humanity” be possible.

Before the period of World War II, the Democratic Revolution in America and France including the civil battles in American involved calls for individual rights, also minorities desperately wanted protection and citizenship which were a big push for human rights. The fight of women for their rights through the several women’s movements influenced on the declaration and on their inclusion. Modern Human rights as we know today were contributions made by diverse precursors, events an leaders at diverse times that collaborated for the protection of values by rights.

The concept of Human Rights as described in the 1940s and as the concept continues to be used today it is the result of collective power that was the key for the foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because it allowed individuals before unprotected and considered no citizens to be finally included without distintion. Before rights were based of the politic of the state, through all the history, and many events that shaped it, Human rights are now based on global morality of all the individuals as a collective membership.

In the essay “The Most We Can Hope For” by Wendy Brown, the author makes important points when arguing that human rights are not only to protect individuals from violence and abuse because it is situated in a political, social, historical, and economic contexts. On page 453 She states that human rights are a political tactic with an image of justice, meaning that political uses the image of justice in this case the human rights to keep up or to gain more power in another ways. However, when talking about defending individuals from cruelty, and avoiding pain and suffering, this takes a moral progress. For me what she is claiming is that political power will always be present in human rights even though it presents itself as antipolitical. Like the example of the intervention in Iraq by the United States and Britain, which shows the replacement of an abusive power by another one in exchange of protection, with the hope of reducing suffering, but at the end the power is still there in other form.

Ignatieff insists that what human beings need to enjoy life is a political-economic account of what state needs to thrive instead of the basic things such as food and shelter. This shows again that political power and its political and economic security is all that matters. In his second claim he argues that a crucial  initiative for free market order human rights offers because they are the vehicle for social and economic security, in other words from my understanding he is trying to say that through human rights individuals can achieve many things, even be able to take a part on political and social contexts because human rights guarantee social and political freedom allowing individuals to have agency and therefore it is up to the individual his aims and ends (455). Here we are talking about freedom or empowerment where the individual makes his own decisions.

From what I read, for Brown, human rights are not only shield that protect individuals agains power and permit individuals to make choices but they could be ways and vehicles to reach domination and governance. For instance the fact that Americans have so many rights, even if these can not shape collective power, still this allows Americans to live without fear which makes human rights be a form a power itself . Furthermore “there is no such a thing as mere reduction of suffering or protection from abuse” (460),  this alone is productive of political subjects. I agree with Brown that the human rights activism is not only a “pure defense of the innocent and powerless”, it is more than that simple quote. it actually enable us to live fearless of oppression not only that but also feel protected and be able to speak up about what we think is infair even defying people in politics.

According to my understanding about what Carole Pateman states in The sexual contract, the original contract is both sexual and social. Patriarchal social order was part of the sexual contract, in which men had political power over women including their bodies. Women were not even considered individuals and did not have the attributes and capacities to enter into contracts, only men  therefore women were sexual objects being dominated by men. In this way women were left out of the original contract because they were not even mentioned. In the social contract men can enjoy their freedom. Also, the social contract was created by men for men. However, women came to form part of these contracts only through marriage, because it guaranteed the cicil patriarchal right since women continued to be the subject and the dominated by men. Through The marriage contract husbands had all the right to exploit their wives because it was all about domination and subjection. Subjection was given in exchange of protection in the case the relationship of worker and capitalist in which all the power rest on only one party. An example of capitalist industry was prostitution which the patriarchal right justified men demanding for women’s bodies for sale.

Hobbes the first contractarian, and his radical individualism doctrine influenced a lot in the thinking of the society regarding the original contract. Hobbes insisted that when married women become pregnant and give birth to their babies, mother have power over the child because she will offer protection to the child, therefore the child must obey her mother. In this perspective mothers had a political right over their children which is the power of an absolute lord. He also adds that there can not be a confrontation between two sexes because both are strong beings capable of killing each other. So, the only political right women can have is motherhood. Even though Hobbes seemed to give some kind of minimum power to women, in Leviathan he wrote that a family consist of “a man and his servants, a man and his children, a man and his children and servants, so in conclusion the father is the sovereign leaving women and mother out.

According to another contract theorist, Locke who thinks that as marriage is a agreement between two individuals, furthermore through marriage women are naturally subject to men. So, women freely decide to get married. This shows the incorporation of women in society, However, once married they are subordinate to their husbands which puts them in the same situation as patriarchal order.

Hello class, I am Paola Maldonado, and this is m first semester at CWE. I am currently majoring in Early Childhood Education, and as an aspiring teacher I think it is really important to have a lot of knowledge about Human Rights, so we can be able to talk about it to whoever have doubts or fears because they do not know their rights and therefore are unable to defend or speak up for themselves. In reading the history of Human Rights women were portrayed lessen than men. In fact, women were to act according to the convenience of the state and government. Women weren’t free, whereas men were in charge of everything. However time has passed and society has become racionalized. Overall  through women’s fights and movements we have advanced and accomplished goals that back then were unreachable for women. I still do not understand why before and even nowadays women are not treated equally as men. Why do we still hear that so called “weak gender” for women and the glass ceiling in the twenty-first century. I took this course because I want to find these answers, get educated and be able to transmit my knowledge to help others.

The history of Human Rights helps us have an idea of how society back then came to realize that we are all human beings and therefore The Declaration of Human Rights applies to all living people. However it took decades for people to respect this Declaration due to the morality and discriminating ideas of the precursors. First at all, the articles of Declaration of Human Rights went through a lot of changes because of the terminology; “men,” “man,” “every man,” “all men,” “all citizen,” “society.” I wonder if any of these terms included women as well.  Not surprisingly these rights were only applicable for men; women, children, and propertyless people were excluded because they were not capable of moral autonomy. In the eighteen century when Human Rights became self evident, thanks to philosophers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire and others, who had contributed for the morality of the society to take a big step forward when realizing that torture was just unacceptable, people began to feel a sense of empathy when recognizing individuals as human beings like any other. Eventually, abolition of corporal punishment was written as a article in the human rights. Nowadays, the doctrine of self true, knowing what is right or wrong is clear for most of the people. However, for some people this might not be truly clear since even though few cases of police brutality have happened lately, for me still it is considered corporal punishment. It was widely known the deaths of some American citizens at the hands of police abusing of their physical strengths and as a result killing innocent people, instead of going by the laws. Violence does not seem to go away definitely even though there is laws protecting people. Personally, I think society or some people  true self and becoming reasonable.