SNL Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin

What do black and white share in common (not racist way)?

Both are color (obviously) and it tends to go with anything. Usually we have a habit of/like to look at the differences between objects or people but not as a “similarity”, however that “similarity’ tend to be a problem/topic that we need to focus on. The skit about Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin (SNL) is one of those examples.  They are running for President/Vice President, using different campaigns with different objectives/ideals to serve the country.  I find it interesting to see them standing side by side and mocking each other, using the stereotypes that people give it to them to address the sexism in presidency campaign. While Sarah Palin shows her female role and identity by dressing/acting in feminism, Hillary Clinton is more like independent/masculine type of candidate who would fight for equality if others refer her as week woman. No matter what media portrayed them, either a serious politician who would put politics on top of everything or a lovely, supportive housewife, Sarah Palin, I feel powerful as more women are engaging in politics, hopefully we will have female president like South Korea and other countries in the near future.

American Women in the World

Globalization : “the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets.”  (Merriam-Webster). At some points, globalization has been good, also considered downside to women. Obviously, globalization has created many jobs for women. Women worldwide could keep in touch and get closer to each other through the advance technology and communication, which also help to reduce the unfairness and the isolation. However globalization has increased the distance and inequality among women as well.

“The benefits and human costs of these exchanges are distributed unevenly, both among nations and within them,” (pg.789) today there is hot topic regarding business’s ETHIC, in order to gain more profit and revenue, many of the manufacturing jobs have moved and located in a cheaper foreign market such as Asia and Latin America. These poor women have to work under a worst working condition as they work for long hours and get paid for less than $ 1 per hour, with no benefits or insurance while U.S or other “rich” nations, women enjoy their goods and benefits from work with more than $ 10 per hour.

however there is what called TEAMWORK or FIGHT OR FLIGHT actions when someone couldn't take the bully anymore. Many of Latinas and Asians women have stood up for justice and voice their concern to world; at the result, working condition gets better and women at these developing countries seriously have upgraded a lot. 

chapter 11: Women's Liberation

Feminism movement during the 1960s and 1970s had a huge impact on history of women. It helped to reshape the ideals of equality and marked a significant growth in women’s decision to be a part of movement in order to improve their own lives.
Ellen Willis, through Letter to the Left (1969) criticized the leaders of the Left and made a comparison between Black Power and Women’s Liberation. Who was the Left, you may ask; the Left as being referred to the New Left was group of people who tried to reform on issues such as gay rights, abortion, gender roles and drugs (Wikipedia). It seems that the New Left was doing a good deed for women; however readers could sense a frustration through the Letter to the Left as she implied that they ignored to take active in gender issues and sexism. “Except for a hip vanguard movement, men have tended to dismiss the women’s movement as ‘just chicks with personal hang-ups,’ to insist that men and women are equally oppressed, though maybe in different ways, or to minimize the extent and significance of male chauvinism (‘just a failure of communication’).  All around me I see men who consider themselves dedicated revolutionaries yet exploit their wives and girlfriends shamefully without ever noticing a contradiction” (Ellen Willis, Letter to the Left, 1969, Through the Women’s Eyes, pg. 723). From my own perspective, men could argue that they've treated women equally but as Ellen Willis mentioned in the Letter to the Left, in family system, we are oppressed as Women, and the misconception of being a woman in family as less powerful and as a property of man would never fade.
Similarly, in Outreach Leaflet in 1970 by Bread and Roses, they were unfulfilled with the reformation “DO WE WANT EQUALITY IN THE MAN’S WORLD, OR DO WE WANT TO MAKE IT IN A NEW WORLD?” (pg.726, through women’s eyes). It seems like Bread and Roses could not hold it anymore, the frustration, inequality, and “unrealistic” of their lives. “Sisters, we are living in a world that is not ours- it’s a man’s world”,(pg.725) so what world do Bread and Roses want to live in? This is how I see that world: a world that women could participate and voice their opinion, a world in which woman and men could share their jobs; a world where women can be themselves without having to wake up “angry” and “shocked” and can be true to their real desires.
Mirta Vidal’s Women: New Voice of La Raza exposed how Chicana feminists were beheld from within their culture. They were considered traitors whom against their own culture. Mirta Vidal unveiled the suffrage and oppression that Chicana had to face, not only as a woman but also as worker and the journey of their struggles to fight for the equality on the job to their role in the home.
Radicalesbians have expanded the definition of lesbian in The Woman Identified Woman (1970). “What is a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion” (pg. 729). In this document, Lesbianism is not just a sexual preference or an identity, it becomes a way of representing every woman’s resentment, and their path towards liberation. And other messages were: A woman can be anything they desire to be and still be a woman; indeed, lesbian could break free from "feminine" since she is not a part of description of womanhood.

Week 2-Blog Assignment

From the spatial arrangement, figures positions, and clothing styles in the advertisements, I can see that they emphasized/reinforced the role of women, men and an ideal of middle-class family. Women’s jobs was doing domestic works such as cooking, laundry, childcare and be supportive for their husband; while men were responsible for non-domestic jobs and confidently behave like center, breadwinner of the family.  From my perspective, these advertisements reaffirm the power of men in family and quietly “teach” women how to be an “ideal” with underling meaning: don’t do anything, your job is to stay inactive and serve your family, which is very wrong, women have a right to do everything else besides doing domestic jobs, unfortunately, during that period, that was an ideal for a happy family and some women actually perceived that as happy marriage life.

As the text have mentioned, since 1960, television was a family’s entertainment, more than 60% households owned T.V sets,   we could imagine how much time people spent to watch T.V. I think that was one of reason why advertisers thought these advertisements would sell consumer good and network programming; also advertisers knew exactly who they should target to, women-family purchasing agents, who mainly stay home, doing housework and watch T.V every day. Since they have such market with good distribution and right consumers, these were factors that helped advertisers in my opinion.

Like I said, T.V was entertainment for the whole family, it

brought family together after long day of hardship, it also brought people closer regarding ethnicity, race, or class. Black was on a friendly term on T.V with White, even though they still acted as a maid, they were “upper” maid whom in sitcom, acted as a big mama in the family, a grandmother who received love from their boss.








 Not only T.V showed the change in ethnicity, race and class, gender roles also have changed a lot
since 1950. An “ideal” woman is being replaced by strong, independent, intellectual woman who could do both non-domestic and domestic jobs. Equality is the main topic on T.V. Also, an ideal of healthy family is not the same as those times; sharing the work, respect each other are criteria for healthy family. And one thing that I find interesting is men get intimidated by women in family is on every show (movie, series) on T.V.  That is big change.

INTRODUCTION

Introduction

My name is Thuy Nguyen and I am a transfer student from Chabot College. This is my third quarter here at CSU East Bay and my very first time taking an online class, hence I’m still unfamiliar with how the online classes go, and hopefully I will receive the help and support from you, my fellow classmates and professor.  Currently I work at Isis as supervisor and Staff Mark as mail encoder. I enjoy watching Asian movies and dramas, as well as my love for Asian cuisines, particularly Vietnamese cuisine and Korean cuisine. I was once in swimming team during my elementary and middle school years, however I broke my leg and had to retire from it; I still enjoy swimming from time to time.

Honestly, I enroll in this class because of class requirements, however the reason I chose this class out of other options because I find women’s history is fascinating. I am a woman myself and I want to know and learn about the hardship of women in the past and how they overcame those hardships in order for me and other women to be freed as today. Besides, I think from what women experienced in the past, those lessons could be applied to solve the current issues, even could prevent and predict about the future. I don’t have much knowledge about Women in America history since I spent more than half of my ages in Vietnam, however if you want to know about Asian women’s history, specifically Vietnam’s and China’s history, with my little knowledge about them, I would love to share them with you all.

Thank you