The Occupy: The LGBT Movement

In life we are told to “have it all” by raising a perfect family, getting a beautiful house, and having a high paying job; but is it possible to have it all? How many people can honestly have it all, when so many are just trying to survive? In the articles, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” and “Why Men Still Can’t Have It All,” Anne-Marie Slaughter and Richard Dorment, discuss how women function in the workplace and the different expectant outcomes for each, mainly focusing on the upper class. The primary objective of Slaughter’s passage was to show how women are treated poorly and how they are held to a different standard than their male counterparts. Dorment focused mostly on how neither women nor men should strive to “have it all” because nobody can. Together they consider the subjects of workplace discrimination, housework standards, family involvement, and striving to “have it all.”

“Look at us! We’re just like everyone else. We’ve bought into the same ridiculous delusion; this idea that you have to settle down and resign from life.” (April Wheeler, Revolutionary Road). It has become a society norm that women are meant to serve housewives; to cook, clean, garden, and nurture children, even though they are much more capable of other things. The role of women is greatly overseen, as they are not perceived to be of their full potential, rather than as societies idealistic expectation. This is because men and those who are wealthy are unable to look past gender and accept women as of equal significance.

African American’s have been on the bottom end of inequalities since their arrival United States, although advances have been made African American men still fare badly. For Hispanics high immigration numbers accounts for the inequality gap among them. The presence of women in the work place has add little to the issue and the decline of trade unions has negative implications for all workers. Advances in technology is part of the natural cycle of industry and while some jobs will initially fall victim to it new skills and training will provide for new careers. Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz shows that the overwhelming causes of the current cycle of economic inequalities to be income and capital inequality that exist because of politics and government policies that benefit the rich at a cost to the poor and

In, “Halving the Double Day” by Dorothy Sue Cobble, she realizes that women get the bitter end of having a poor socio-economic status. Women are more burdened than men with balancing activities. Cobble states, “But none feel the pressure more than those juggling full-time employment with what can seem like a second shift at home” (Cobble, 1). Cobble believes that women, especially in lower income households face more stress and have less time to do things they want in life because they are burdened with finding and working in jobs as well as balancing house hold duties. Unlike men, who’s primary role in the household is to go out and work, women now who are in lower income families have to take on both roles assisting in income and doing house work. Furthermore, Cobble emphasizes that only those who are rich can benefit from the vast benefits that outsiders see in living in America. Cobble states, “Similarly the highly touted family-friendly workplace-the coveted market nook with flexible work schedules, job sharing, child care assistance, and comprehensive health and welfare coverage-is not yet a reality for the majority of salaried workers, let alone hourly workers”

The readings examined how classism has negatively affected economics in the United States, how oppression manifests in taking financial advantage of groups of people who cannot advance financially, and systemic issues contributing to low wage and inability to move out of one’s social class. I was struck by the idea that most people in the United States are disadvantaged financially based on the way the country has set up its economic policies. From the beginning, black people have been oppressed by the inability to attain wealth, which continued through the end of WWII. I unnecessarily read a chapter speaking about financial companies targeting poor people, particularly people of color, with money schemes so they are losing their hard-earned money to fees and interest rates. This scheme continues to keep people in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. I related to the reading about college loans creating a paradox that students with degrees enter the workforce unable to find a job in their their field of study. Then the added paradox of not being able to find work making

Inequality is present in every corner of the United States of America. It comes in all different shapes and sizes; it may come in the form of race, ethnicity, sex, or even gender. To showcase how big of an issue it really is I will compare and contrast the differences between them. One of the most ongoing and present topics of inequality is race. The inequality often lies in the sense of income made by different races, the most common being white Americans making more than African Americans. In the 2011, the average income of the white American household was $110,000, while the African American household average was just over $6,000(Vega). The difference is jaw dropping, it would take no rocket scientist to realize there is some sort of inequality occurring between African Americans and White Americans. However, this is not the only type of inequality occurring. Inequality between gender is very similar to the inequality between ethnicities. The wage gap between genders seems to be the most prevalent topic among discussion at the present time. We fortunately live in a society and time where the fight for equality is very strong. We have seen so much change just within the past 5 years. “In 2015, women working full time in the United States typically were paid just 80 percent of what men were paid” (Miller). The difference in wage is jarring. From

Since the time we are born we are fed the lies of capitalism. We are taught that capitalism hurts no one and that capitalism is the only way. Johnson and Robbins have some very influential ideas about capitalism. Johnson writes about the complexity of privilege. He also addresses why some privileged people do not feel privileged through the matrix of capitalist domination. Robbins gives us a background on how privilege became what it is today. He addresses the anatomy of the working class by drawing attention to how they were mobile, divided, powerless, and anxious for a revolution. Through Johnson and Robbins’ eyes we can begin to see how the world is not the one we were taught it was.

In the essays “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?” by Brandon King and “Confronting Inequality” by Paul Krugman, the authors discuss a wide variety of ideas that affect or maintain the idea of income inequality in America today. In the essay by Brandon King, he clearly states that the values of the American Dream are still alive today, but are getting harder and harder to achieve for the average person. King argues that the American Dream of today has drastically changed from what it used to be, and that the thought of being successful only lays within having a steady life with little to no struggle. However, in “Confronting Inequality”, Krugman has a different approach on the topic, arguing that the American Dream is no longer alive. Krugman states that the rise of income inequality will also lead heavily to social inequality, and that the rise of income inequality is a huge cause of social inequality as well. The two authors use a majority of viewpoints and methods to explore the same topic of inequality. However, there are also many ways in which both authors offer different sides of the argument and how it should be handled.

Inequality, it is all around us, in our jobs, at our children schools, in our neighborhoods, and no matter how hard we might try to escape it, there if no escape. We used to think that inequality was a thing of the past, but it is still very prevalent in today’s society. Many think “well inequality does not affect me personally, so why should I care?” While it may not affect you personally, it probably affects someone close to you. Throughout his book Toxic Inequality, Thomas Shapiro demonstrates just how surrounded the population is by inequalities with stories about families who are not only financially divided, but racially. These inequalities are rooted so deeply in our society that it can be easy to overlook the problem and ignore it, but as Shapiro demonstrates we can no longer overlook the problem, we need to face it head on it we have any hope of trying to fix it for future generations.

The history of LGBTQ+ Rights is, as any other civil rights movement, is a complex one. For decades these marginalized people have fought for their basic human rights not only to get married, but also to be protected in the workplace and use the restrooms in which they feel comfortable. Throughout much of history, they have been dehumanized and referred to as sexual deviants. The Stonewall Riots put the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement into motion. The photo being analyzed today was taken one year later on June 28, 1970, at what is now known as the first ever Gay Pride Parade. The photo is owned by gettyimages, though the watermark suggests that it belongs to a man named Fred W. McDarrah. The photo depicts an unnamed lesbian holding a sign which says

She wrote Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America in order to expose the LGBTQIA+ issues in the labor union. It provides insight on the struggles that Americans had to face with a different kind of hiring discrimination. Using stories of those who faced their own battles in the labor union, Frank tries to fill a large gap in history. Starting around the 1970s, she first discusses those who are coming out in unionized workplaces and follows both queer and straight advocates for gay rights in their fight against harassment in the workplaces and union halls. Many LGBTQIA+ people “have come out in the union to make their place in labor’s campaign for economic justice.”

Throughout the nine articles I read, I noticed there were some recurring themes that each author was trying to convey. The most common theme that stuck out to me was the gender gap wage amongst men and women in the United States as compared to other countries that we considered developed countries i.e. Canada and Great Britain. It’s important to note that even within the classification of “women” black women especially, single black mothers are far more disproportionately affected by the wage gap. As one author puts it “was the erosion of black women's relative wages primarily due to white women "moving up" to better jobs, or black women taking the "down escalator" to increasingly bad jobs during the postindustrial transition?” I do not believe it was necessary that black women were moving to “bad jobs” I believe it more so the mentality of White America still believing that black women were inferior to whites.

The 21-st century is characterized by the continuous economic downfall. The relationship between race, class and gender should be evaluated to identify the life chances of people to improve their relative position in our socially stratified world. The increased rates of unemployment, homelessness and poverty show that our society requires implementing a transformative approach to reduce social stratification. The term social stratification is applied to identify and asses different forms of inequality that exist in the US society. Patricia H Collins suggests, “while a piece of the oppressor may be planted deep within each of us, we each have the choice of accepting that piece or challenging it as part of the 'true focus of revolutionary change'” (p. 680). Inequality has become a universal feature of our society; therefore, it exists everywhere and concerns race, class, and gender as the key categories of society.

In the quite hours of early morning my mother rises out of bed, as she has done every morning for the past twenty-two years. She quietly begins her long day by making tea and cooking breakfast. Before the day ends, my mother would have cooked several meals, cleaned several times and worked a full time job. My mother’s daily routine is not unique and has historically been done by women for centuries. Even today, women are supposed to do it all, have a family, and take care of the house/children and work full-time. Women who are in the workforce are unpaid and the work they do at home is viewed as inferior. They often deal with sexism and racism in the workplace. Changes in law and our thought process need to occur to create and an equitable system of work for all women.

Discussing the debate around the queer communities is like opening a Pandora’s Box. The recurrent response to Supreme Court’s decision in Suresh Kumar Kaushal & Another v. Naz Foundation & Others overturning the historic judgement of Delhi High Court which repeals Section 377 has been that of disappointment and contempt. The judgement re-criminalisation of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals across the country was also appreciated by many parts of the nation. The background of the judgement is essential in understanding these responses in a deeper sense. The practice of revealing one 's sexual identity as a means to ascertain one’s identity is relatively recent in India and the "out" LGBTs were not visible in the country until 1990s. The initial efforts to bring forth the issues of sexual minorities in India can be traced back to 1990. The movement to repeal Section 377 was initiated by AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan in 1991, filing a petition in Delhi High Court challenging the constitutional validity of the same. In the next decade the Naz Foundation Trust (India) filed a public interest litigation reviving the case seeking legalisation of homosexual intercourse between consenting adults in Delhi high Court, 2001. In 2003 the petition was dismissed on technical grounds, but as a result of an appeal filed to the Supreme