Gender Analysis : No Mas Bebes

Stereotypes are everywhere, and there is no doubt that everyone has encountered them several times in their lives. In fact, everyone uses them all the time without knowing it. Stereotypes are overly simplified and fixed images in someone’s mind about a person’s race, gender, or religion, or just about anything. They appear in our daily lives so often that we do not realize its presence all the time, considering them as a part of our normal environment. That includes the media, families, workplaces, and even schools. Unfortunately, certain races and gender roles in society tend to get more exposed to harsh stereotypes, such as Latinas who are believed to only understand sexual innuendo based on their attire and seen as lesser-educated menials. In “The Myth of a Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named María”, by Judith Ortiz Cofer, the author uses anecdotes and pathos to show how Americans hold stereotypes about others of different races. Ultimately, Cofer targets people with ethnocentric mindsets who associate Latinas like herself to negative cultural stereotypes.

Edited by several scholars such as Gabriella F. Arredondo, Aída Hurtado, Norma Klahn, Olga Nájera-Ramírez, and Patricia Zanella, this book in particular highlights the development of Chicana identities in the twentieth century by showing “how Chicana feminist writings move discourse beyond binaries and toward intersectionality and hybridity” (Arredondo e.al. 2). What is interesting is how the feminist scholars in this book used different epistemologies and methods in capturing the experiences of the Chicanas which include oral histories, poetry, theatrical performance, painting, dance, music and social science survey. Some of the contributors also combine “analytical tools and cross disciplinary boundaries” (5). The approaches used are very unique as they enables to unravel the Chicana experiences thoroughly and disrupt “the notion of Chicana identity as monolithic and homogeneous” (6). Also, the format of the book which presents articles and then the responses by another activist or scholars offers a very distinct way of presenting critical and provocative analysis. Such format allows the editors to “reaffirm the tensions and creativity of individual and group consciousness that underlie Chicana feminism and scholarship” (Salas 122). From this edited volume, I choose three articles along with their responses. Those articles are Cartohistografía: Continente de una voz/Cartohistography: One Voice’s Continent by Elba Rosario Sánchez (response: Translating Herstory: A Reading

While gender roles in Mexico are different from American’s. When migrant women step in to America they do not know what women can do. The migrant men shield the American gender roles away for their women. When entering America, border patrol does not help these women. According to huffingtonpost, “They also found that the U.S. immigration system is not designed to recognize immigrant women’s needs and circumstances. Additionally, they found that immigrant women are often presumed to be “dependents” while men are looked at as the primary breadwinners, which results in women and men having different experiences when they go through the legalization process.” Huffington post shows that even in American laws, immigrant’s dependents just like the children are. So, when entering America, they are labeled as just there with their men and not a co-provider for their children.’This Huffington post article provides information about how American laws treat immigrants’ men and women differently. As, soon as women enter America hoping for a changing, they are treated the same as they were in their country. So, Mexican women are view lower than the man who with her. Men are the main person, even though they are both going together doing the same thing. This gives the idea that women have no hope in changing and Mexican men are hoping it stays that way. Men hope during the

The term feminism encapsulates a vast variety of topics important to women’s rights. Unfortunately, feminist theory is often talked about within the restrictions of a reproductive binary. Latinx feminist theory is more than just a reproduction binary. As women of color, Latinx women have historically been undermined and excluded from social narratives. Latinx women however, challenge various forms of oppression, such as the perpetuations of sexism, racism, and violence, by sharing their testimonios to the world- a vulnerable yet incredibly strong form of resistance. This specialized theory addresses many of the barriers that intersect and impact Latinx women on a daily and generational basis. Evident in my resistance poem, through the use

Women in Mexico endure unbelievable hardships all due to their gender. Mexican women are faced with inescapable gender roles that cast females into cruel and subservient positions. Women are treated as second tier to their male counterparts and are commonly treated as subhuman. While men are capable of doing as they want, when and where they please; women have strict duties that must be followed to keep her husband and sons happy. “The macho male is not expected to become involved in child rearing, considered to be a woman’s task” (Deyoung, 1994). Unfortunately, it is all to common that when a women speaks out of term or upsets her husband, cruel and violent outburst occur. This abuse is widely accepted in Mexico, and little is done to prevent domestic violence. Women in Mexico live every day under house arrest, exist in fear of their male superiors. Fortunately in 1970 women began to fight back, and the Mexican feminist movement began. However, unlick the United States female revolution this feminist movement was quite and slow. Nonetheless the percentages of women in the work for began to rise dramatically and domestic abuse took a small step back. The women of Mexico today are still relentlessly fighting for equality. The gender roles cast upon women, men and the abuse women endure due to these gender roles cast upon them are all instrumental steps in the advancement of women’s rights in Mexico.

Harsh labor conditions, and the exploitation of work performed by migrant populations has longstanding, deeply-seeded historical roots and in part can be explained by the shift of the American and global economy through post-industrialization. In the book, Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy, author and activist Grace Chang reasserts this notion, stating, “First World imperialism and development policy in the Third World and resulted in resource depletion, debt and poverty for many people in these nations,” (Chang, pg. 2). Chang goes on to highlight the ways in which migration rooted in the promise of economic opportunity in a new country does not fully account for the ways in which that seemingly more fruitful, and economically viable nation has held a complicit role in disenfranchising the country from which these immigrant laborers are fleeing. In her piece, Mexican Immigrant Women and New Domestic Labor, Maria de la Cruz Ibarra, reiterates this, asserting that migration of laborers from the third world to the first is not random, and instead can be contextualized through a historically analytical framework, where taking into account the economic advancement and

Gender as defined in Merriam-Webster as “the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.” Gender is a culturally and socially constructed role assigned to males or females. Biological sex is “our anatomy as female, male, or intersex” (Planned Parenthood, 2016). Sex is based off of biological characteristics such as our internal and external sex organs, chromosomes, and hormones. Sex and gender are so commonly grouped together to mean the same thing but they are different. Sex refers to the biological part of the being and gender refers to the characteristics that the society or culture says is masculine or feminine. For most people it’s easier to just think of your sex only referring to your sexual organs

In society, people are told to fit certain molds regarding how they are represented in the media such as movies, advertisements, and standards that are set by society. Both men and women are depicted in different ways in American society with unattainable standards that can only be achieved by photoshop or body surgery and alterations. Women are envisioned having the ideal body type that’s shown in media. They’re assumed to be emotional and delicate by much of society. Men are often expected to be muscular while not showing other people their emotions other than aggression and power. There are different ideal body types throughout the world, America for example has an unreachable standard that’s set through uses of photoshop and other alterations that can cause some people to develop emotional disorders. In the book, Composing Gender by Rachael Groner and John O’Hara, it explains how gender is a social construct and how people are often under set gender standards which plays into McDonaldization theory. The McDonaldization theory is explained as the use

She focuses on the struggles but most importantly the discrepancies in the emotional and economic well being of the family. She proposes that, “U.S. immigration policies— particularly through the production of illegality— and gendered opportunities and expectations more powerfully explained these transnational families’ divergent experiences” (Abrego, 2014, p. 193). When discussing the traumatic experiences of the families, she argues that the U.S. production of (il)legality, the array of legal statuses affect the emotional and economic well being of the migrants and their children in El Salvador. For example, she compared the situation of families where the parents made the unauthorized journey to the U.S. The stories of the dangerous journey are heart-wrenching and they are strikingly different to the authorized trip to the U.S. with a visa. Not only does (il)legality affect the journey but it also affects the migrants settlement specifically the “accrued disadvantages” (Abrego, 2014, p. 57). In addition, she explained how the gender norms and expectations cause mothers to feel more emotionally burdened than the father for leaving their

The goal of any good psychology class is to leave students with a better understanding of themselves and others. Psychology of gender is a special topic to most because it is a class based entirely on how we as living social creatures operate, elude ourselves to others, and it delves deep into the underling themes of why and how people naturally form and judge other’s identities. A judgement that is often harsh when people go out of the heteronormative scope of our western society that often leaves negative marks on how someone is able to operate freely within their gender (Purdie-Vaughns & Elbach 2008). One major take home point from a class such as this is that gender cannot be looked at on a sexual binary scale because gender is a lucid

Gender performance is what we do to show how we identify ourselves when it comes to gender. As it says in the second slide of the Chapter three PowerPoint, gender isn’t what we do, it’s who we are, and what we become. If you are a guy, you normally dress like a man. Like the example from class you don’t usually see a man wearing a skirt when he attends class or goes to work. This is changes culturally because not all cultures see gender the same way that our culture does. Our culture usually only identifies or accepts male or female. It is only relatively recently that our culture is starting to accept the people who are not cisgender. And even now it depends on the person as to whether they will personally accept them or not. This is also related to doing gender because we do what society says we do depending on what gender we are assigned at birth (Ch. 3 Slide 2).

Latina women have come from a long line of women that know their place and the values that she should uphold. Marriage is one of the biggest stepping stones in a women’s life, she finally gets to up bring and have her own family unit. She follows and stands next to her husband all the time. She is no longer intentionally part of the family unit that she once was. In this research my main questions regarding the way Latina women have overcome and dealt with the problems faced on a daily bases in regards to Gender Violence in Latino Communities. To what extent do Latina women follow the societal expectations or roles a woman should have? What are the barriers that undocumented woman face when looking for resources, Is there stigma ties to undocumented women, or Latina women? Are societal expectations still a key role on women in these communities in regards to how to deal with domestic violence in the home, and would this create a domino effect?

The discipline of American Studies is focused on exploring and understanding power, American society, culture, and related attitudes and behavior. An interdisciplinary approach focusing both on the retelling of queer narratives in Latinx literature and heteronormative ideology directly links to disciplinary foundations of literary theory, social identity, and cultural conditions demonstrated both in the fields English and American Studies. One specific area of disciplinary focus has been identity emergence and its connection to dominant ideology. Attention to identity emergence in literature has increased in recent decades, especially as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) identities have become more salient. Through the analysis, we strive to locate where heteronormative ideology is demonstrated through the following two texts: Gloria Anzaldúa’s, Borderlands La Frontera: A New Mestiza and Monica Palacios, ”La Llorona Loca: The Other Side.” After locating where heteronormative ideology is found through these texts, we will examine how heteronormative ideology influences the reconstruction of these queer narratives. Lastly, this paper will demonstrate how heteronormative ideology manifests itself through the body. According to our results, heteronormative ideologies influence on the reconstruction of Queer Latinx narratives manifest itself as a “bodily receipt,” which shapes, restricts, and challenges the ideas of dominant ideology, specifically

The concept of a third gender has never really been a prevalent discussion in my life. In fact, I have never heard of any of three examples that Beyond the Binary discusses, demonstrating how little it is talked about, even in the LGBT community. What I found the most interesting about these third genders was the mystical qualities that they had. For example, the Inuits raise children along with their opposite the societal gender role, usually for practical reasons. However, occasionally the cause for this gender reversal is because of an elder embodying the body of the child. Additionally, I had never heard of the concept of Hijras, who have to power to grant fertility or infertility to others. Hinchey states, “Hijras challenged the binary

The Bechdel’s family in the Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic seemed nothing special than other harmonious families, with an attentive mother taking care of the family, a well-educated father teaching English and a few playful kids, all living in a splendid big house. Alison once mentioned this kind of irony, “the sparkling creek was crystal clear precisely because it was polluted. Mine runoff had left the water too acidic to support life of any kind.” The crystal clear creek symbolized the Bechdel’s family, it just appeared too good to be true. There were too many taboos in the family, that living in that lavish house was frightening and pressurized. Each of the characters in the Fun Home was having their own structural problems.