Tag Archives: work

“Real Men Work”

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Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge fan of rap music by a variety of artists. One of my favorite rappers, Wax, has a song called “I Ain’t A Real Man.” The catchy hook qualifies the title:

I ain’t a real man, real men work
Digging, digging, shoveling dirt
The kind of work, that when you get home your back hurts
Blood stains cover your shirt, that’s real work

[youtube]https://youtu.be/rVIIUaWxvb8[/youtube]

The rest of the song goes on to explain how Wax doesn’t consider himself a “real man” for working in the music industry as a rapper when there are firemen, soldiers, plumbers, migrant workers, coal miners, truckers, and even McDonald’s employees who are laboring under worse conditions for worse compensation. I thought it was an interesting perspective, considering most rappers take pride in boasting about their masculinity and degrading that of any competition in the industry.

We learned that masculine identity is often expected to include certain elements of success and self-reliance in one’s field of work, but in spite of this, Wax admires laymen who work more labor-intensive jobs for less wages. Listening to the song is helpful in understanding the dynamic logic he offers, so I encourage you to check it out!

*Insert Feminist Rant Here*

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Just wanted to make sure that everyone was up to date with their sexist-occupations list, since 2013. A few big ones were caught encouraging the “men>women” lie around the world, recently.

(Very recently.) Yesterday, the Women’s Media Center released a report that stomped on my Mass Media Communication Studies Degree.

“Sixty-five percent of U.S. political stories published during a three-month span in 2014 were written by men,” wrote a man for Poynter Institute.

“The report, which examined about 27,000 pieces of content produced at major news organizations during three months in 2014, shows that men produced the majority of coverage in nearly all cases. Three organizations — “PBS Newshour,” the Chicago Sun-Times and The Huffington Post — reached or surpassed gender parity.”

 

  • The New York Times: 32 percent female, 68 percent male
  • The Denver Post: 32 percent female, 68 percent male
  • USA Today: 33 percent female, 67 percent male
  • New York Post: 36 percent female, 64 percent male
  • The Washington Post: 39 percent female, 61 percent male
  • The Los Angeles Times: 40 percent female, 60 percent male
  • The Wall Street Journal: 40 percent female, 59 percent male
  • The San Jose Mercury News: 41 percent female, 59 percent male
  • The Chicago Sun-Times: 55 percent female, 45 percent male

Aside from my journalism passion being crushed, my soccer one also took a hard hit. Adding injury to insult, this Saturday marks the first match of the 2015 Women’s World Cup, and FIFA’s sexist decision to hold the entire tournament on artificial turf.

When Abby Wambach — the 2012 FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year — heard of this news, she noted, “The men would strike playing on artificial turf.”

 

Playing on turf is exponentially more dangerous than playing on real grass. And exponentially more expensive to upkeep. The Men’s 2014 World Cup got a $550Million Stadium built in a developing country (that ended up becoming a bus parking lot after the tournament ended) while women have to settle for turf in Canada.

Many famous female soccer players filed a lawsuit against FIFA, but later dropped the charges. 

The dozens of plaintiffs included U.S. Women’s National Team player Heather O’Reilly, who told NPR that the plan to use fake grass “is a blatant demonstration of FIFA not placing the women side by side with the men. You know, many men’s players refuse to play on artificial turf, actually, and the thought of it being played in the World Cup is almost laughable.”

How is it that oppression against women is still so evident and so prevalent? If professional athletes gave up their attempt to fight discrimination with their high profiles and the resources they have, what does that mean for us everyday women?

#Gogurt

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When asked to stop and look around you for an example of gender, it actually had me thinking for awhile what a great example was.  There is so much around us that could show a great example of gender.  The one example that I came up with is something that I am actually using for another class as well in a presentation about gender and I know we all have seen it!  When you ask anyone around you, “Who is the parent that stays home to take care of the house?” Most people would answer that with stating that the mother is the one that stays home.  With the mother staying home she is the one that has to get the lunches together for the kids to take to school.  Within the Gogurt commercial, you can see that the dad is the one that prepares the lunches in the family.  The boy though communicates with the father using Post-It notes to remind him to put the gogurt in the lunch box.  It is possible too that this family could be a single parent family but we are not 100% sure because we do not see the mother at all.  Even if it is a single parent family it is something that shows the men are starting to step up in our society and taking the roles of the women too.  [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KyHo63_IyY[/youtube]

Ban Bossy

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About a year ago I watched the video for the Ban Bossy Campaign. It’s message rang true for me and hit me hard because as a little girl I was oppressed with words like bossy. I think that this campaign really applies to our class. Take a look at the following information and I think you’ll understand why.

Their Campaign Pitch: “When a little boy asserts himself, he’s called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don’t raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead.”

Their Video Outreach:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dynbzMlCcw[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1q1CiuCET8[/youtube]

Gender discrimination in the workplace

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So although I am not a Nicki Minaj fan, I do think she makes a very good point in this short clip. Yes, our society has come a long way on their views of women in the work force. However, there is still a lot of discrimination out there. In chapter one of Gendered Lives, Julie Woods writes, “The fact that my sex makes me vulnerable to job discrimination, violence, and other injustices is not something I accept as unchangeable.” Nicki Minaj’s clip gives us a whole new perspective of this discrimination with a look at how women in the entertainment industry are discriminated against. One would think that celebrities don’t experience discrimination, but it is clear that this social construction of gender roles truly is unequal all over. When will our society start to see women as equals? Will our society ever see women as equals?

Paid leave lets dads build parenting foundation

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Kenya, the Philippines, Columbia, Saudia Arabia…  not necessarily countries you might associate with “progressive” views of gender.  Yet all these country’s governments provide paid paternity leave.

This article demonstrates how fathers and families benefit from paid paternity leave and how the US is one of the few countries around the world that doesn’t offer it typically.

How Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Is Building a Nursery By Her Office, and Dissing Working Moms

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In 2013, Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo was the subject of much controversy after ordering all telecommuting workers to start working out of a Yahoo office.

Many decried how this affected working parents, especially working mothers.  Here’s an interesting opinion piece about Mayer’s decision and Mayer’s misguided criticism of feminism.