Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies

While this book could be considered very academic, I considered it to be a leisurely read because it was so well written by Kerber. The passion behind the authors want to reveal this unknown historical event of what Kerber refers to as, “ The Womens’ War”, makes the book inspirational. The true meaning of the term “Republican Motherhood”, made the word radicalism come to live in this historical setting. In result of these women changing and breaking the wall of a traditional role, they are finally accepted not just as domestic creatures, but as capable partners to create virtuous citizens. It is an empowering book that opens the reader’s eyes to the one – sided history that previous to this book had been the only text by historians

In “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class”, Standing defines what a precariat is. He says it is an emerging class, comprising the rapidly growing number of people facing lives of insecurity, moving in and out of jobs that give little meaning to their lives. The precariat is not an underclass. He described it as a “class in the making, rather than a class in itself” (p.vii). “The precariat is in the front ranks, but it has yet to find the voice to bring its agenda to the fore. It is not ‘the squeezed middle’ or an ‘underclass’ or ‘the lower working class’. It has a distinctive bundle of insecurities and will have an equally distinctive set of demands”(p.vii). Through Standing’s book, he argues that precariat class is producing instabilities in society. Although it would be wrong to characterize members of the precariat as victims, many go through the four A’s as Standing mentioned, which are anger, anomie, anxiety, and alienation. The precariat is dangerous because it is internally divided, leading to the stigmatizing of migrants and other vulnerable groups. In this essay, the precariat lacks the main assets of the production and distribution system of the time because of the struggle for the redistribution of the key assets needed for a good life from education and employment. Also, they need to move beyond the primitive rebel stage and become enough of a class¬ for itself to be a power for change and get their rights as a class in the making.

The setting of both stories reinforces the notion of women's dependence on men. The late 1800's were a turbulent time for women's roles. The turn of the century

Writer Gregory Mantsios in his article “Class in America”, talks about these things, and how wide the gap is between the rich and the poor and also discusses how the rich continue to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. Mantsios gives his readers the profiles and backgrounds of three hard-working Americans, two of them are white males, whose family background as well as education played a role in their success, while the other person is a black woman who is just above the poverty line despite her work as a nurse’s aide. Through these profiles, Mantsios article shows exactly how sex, race and shows how your parental and educational background of a person can play a role in the things that you achieve. Mantsios also talks about one’s performance in school and the level of school completed can suggest whether or not class that person may belong in.

Everyone knows that poverty can lead to feelings of shame and humiliation, but what many people don’t realize is that sometimes overwhelming feelings of shame and humiliation lead to poverty. In her article “In the Search of Identity in Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street,” Maria de Valdes goes as far as to refer to shame and poverty as a “syndrome” because she believes they’re so closely associated. “It is a closed circle,” Valdes asserts. “You are poor because you are an outsider without education; you try to get an education, but you can’t take the contrastive evidence of poverty and ‘it keeps you down.’” In other words, poverty and shame are an endless cycle because a person will be ashamed to be impoverished, but won’t be able to move up because shame will always hold them back. This can be seen in Esperanza’s mother, who didn’t finish school because she was too ashamed that she didn’t have nice clothes like the other girls. “Shame is a bad thing, you know,” she warns Esperanza. “It keeps you down” (91). Shame kept her down by preventing her from finishing school, and in turn her lack of education kept her from pursuing her dreams. Instead, she settled into the housewife life, which she still regrets: “I could’ve been somebody, you know” (91). She says it sadly, like she’s mourning the loss of what

Also in her work “Their Eyes Were Watching God the author portrays several examples of feminism and gender roles that are similar to “Sweat”. Woman are additionally considered the “weaker sex”. Woman can only gain

In the United States, women have experienced different struggles. From not being able to vote to having politicians say what they can do with their bodies. A writer who can relate to these inequalities is Martha Mendoza, her essay Between a Woman and Her Doctor appeared in Ms. Magazine. Mendoza used different rhetorical strategies such as: imagery; pathos; logos to highlights the struggles that she went through to receive a medical abortion.

The purpose of this book is to show the challenges of being stuck in a social class limbo. This book shows how there is a constant struggle between where you were, where you are, and where you are going. Alfredo Lubrano tells his own story and the story of others like him. Through his various interviews, he was able to show the hardships people faced while climbing the social ladder.

From the start the novel is laden with the pressures that the main characters are exposed to due to their social inequality, unlikeness in their heredity, dissimilarity in their most distinctive character traits, differences in their aspirations and inequality in their endowments, let alone the increasingly fierce opposition that the characters are facing from modern post-war bourgeois society.

Take everything you know about racism, sexism, and religionism and toss it out the window, because there’s an impediment to prosperity that is often underlooked: Classism. Classism is a suppression which always has and always will continue to affect our everyday lives. The disparities that presently exist between the lower and higher classes form a condition where it is unlikely to allow for equality for anyone. The short stories “A Rose of Emily,” written by William Faulkner, and “Desiree’s Baby,” written by Kate Chopin, offered several depictions of classism within a society. “A Rose for Emily” recounts the life of an isolated, aristocratic woman named Emily Grierson who symbolically represents the demise of the old Southern society. Similarly, “Désirée’s Baby” portrays classism present in mid-nineteenth century Southern society in conjunction with the inequalities that exist between race. Class prejudice plays an important role as it was behind the emergence of the characters’ unspeakable actions. In “A Rose for Emily” and “Desiree’s Baby,” classism is emphasized and provokes arrogance, denial, and the demise of others.

The commonly held theories that women are inferior to men, because they lack the strength of character, mind, and body that men are attributed to having, are misleading for many reasons. To assume that men are superior in these three aspects is to assume that all men and women equally share the same strengths and weaknesses of their entire sex. To do this one must accept the fact that all

This week’s reading assignment was intriguing and looked at two different tones when discussing issues on social class. Swift’s essay, A Modest Proposal used a high degree of sarcasm. Conversely, Thiong’o used a direct approach to address class in his essay, Decolonizing the Mind. While both authors addressed a singular problem with a solution, only one detailed a clear answer.

The extreme economic differences between people belonging to the upper and lower classes are ridiculously extravagant. One can see the living conditions between the rich and the poor are extremely unbalanced. This trend is evident in comparing two representative districts in Lima. On one hand is Villa El Salvador, a shantytown located in the southside of Lima where dirty, misery, and hunger are part of the natural landscape on the streets. On the other hand Miraflores, a high-end residential district in Lima where people of white descent live comfortably and the settings are dramatically more favorable than in Villa El Salvador. One can see luxury cars, big houses, and domestic servants of indigenous features in Miraflores and contrast

Women’s physical appearance change with their roles in society. From homemakers with feminine, hourglass figures, women eventually filled positions in offices and went to work. It was in 1941 to 1951 that one of the surges in the clerical work was “accompanied by a clear feminization trend” (A History of Women and Work 10). Later, the number of single mothers increased. Women learned to take on responsibilities that are usually shared with another parent. As Sullivan quoted Hewitt, “the acute awareness of feeling alive induced by pain” replaces their psychological issues with a “euphoric feeling of mastery” (544). Undergoing strenuous activities to stay fit to the extent of getting underweight gives a feeling that could be similar to that attained from painful body modifications like tattooing. In order for single mothers to be able to fulfill their duties at work and at home, they had to build stronger physiques. This also doubles as a confidence boost to remind them that they are capable of doing well in raising their families. This body requirement could eventually become obsessing.

They have their ups and downs, struggling to define who they are, in an often cruel society (Davis, 2009). The two main themes found within the documentary focus on strife in their current lives, and the potential for a better future, both of which relate to our class