Contested Spaces

Coming Apart was an interesting excerpt because it dares to talk to about pornography, which is sometimes a difficult topic.  I don’t really know much about pornography, but this passage made a comment that really stuck with me.  They refer to white women as ‘objects’ and black women as ‘animals’.  Neither of these characterizations is acceptable.   Objects and animals? I’m cringing at the thought of these words.  They are so hurtful, and they reinforce the negative way that women are treated.  The husband doesn’t realize the implications of his actions.  He brings home these pornographic magazines that do nothing but make his wife feel like an animal.  He puts more distance between the two of them until they eventually they have to take a break.  I had no idea that the root of pornography was with black women.  I should have inferred this because of slavery and the vicious treatment that they endured. 

The other article that I would like to discuss with this is Cudd’s Oppression by Choice.  In this article, Cudd argues that social structures can lead to oppression and that oppressed people continue their own oppression, reinforcing it.  This seems like an awful cycle where women are coerced to make decisions based on the social institutions that are shaping the way they live.  I particularly enjoyed the hypothetical situation between Larry and Lisa.  It makes perfect sense how together they decided to do something that they thought was for the best interest of the family, but in the end, this decision put Lisa on an unequal playing field with Larry, leaving her susceptible to subjugation.  The worst part about this was that the wage gap was what led them to the decision they made.  It’s ridiculous that men on average make 64% more than women when they’ve had the same amount of education. 

One of the important factors of oppression is that someone must be the oppressor and someone must be the oppressed.  You would think that it would be an easy cycle to end.  Treat everyone with respect and there would no longer be an oppressor or and oppressed.  So why is it so difficult for us to do this?  Unfortunately, people are very power hungry, and this drive for power makes people stop at nothing to get to the top.  Or people use the oppressed to feel better about their lives.  They go do mission trips for the wrong reasons.  The anecdote that Celia mentioned in class about the student who hoped that the oppressed people would still be there so her kids could experience the same thing was very upsetting.  Clearly, the goal of the trip was not to help the oppressed get out of their oppression…