Rogaine please

I am surprised I have hair right now.  Somehow I must have lost an entire day and I feel as if I'm going to go bald trying to catch up.  I know what I want to say and I've figured out ways to back up what I say with facts so it does not sound like solely my opinion; however, I feel deadlines passing me by without even being aware of them.  I totally missed out on a whole assignment about the conference paper. I thought I submitted it and when I went to check it wasn't.  I got down on myself for not double-checking and being so absent-minded.  Today I realized I missed another assignment completely!  It's a rut I'm in because I was late to work twice this week - once on accident because I woke up and was ready in time but got busy straightening my house and had to rush to work and the other I wrote down the wrong time so I was 1/2 hour late.  I am such a hard worker at my job, unlike some others who will stand around and just chat without doing something else, so to have my boss give me her disappointed look because I was late made me a bit angry too. I was already mad at myself and I admitted that I must have put it in my phone wrong, but for someone who "saves the day" by taking other people's shifts when they get sick or have an emergency or stays late when asked because there are extra hours, I felt like all my hard work was for nothing.

This semester has really been difficult and I consider myself to be a pretty good manager of my time, so yeah, frustrated is how I feel about my research this week.  I know this paper will rock but right now, I feel like Bon Jovi - "livin on a prayer."  As I reread sections of Gail Collin's "When Everything Changed" I feel these women's frustrations also.  My boss, a female, is usually understanding, so I try to imagine working for a male about 50 years ago and I want to salute these women warriors who blazed the trail for me.  So, looking to my foremothers, I am using my frustration to say ENOUGH! and onward I shall forge - not letting these setbacks get the best of me.  Like the Phoenix, I will rise from the ashes of my failures and become something much better.

There are so many different ways to analyze rape culture so my hat's off to Fawn! :)

Anti-rape clothing?  Is it a prevention? Yes.  Does it work? Probably not. But is it more harmful than a woman making sure her keys are in her hand if she's walking in to a dark parking garage?  Stranger rape is not the majority of rape cases but I also agree that they are what instills a fear, conscious or not, in women. One of the links in the article went to blog called "Stop Street Harassment" with the quote "A world without rapists would be a world in which women moved freely without fear of men. That some men rape provides a sufficient threat to keep all women in a constant state of intimidation, forever conscious of the knowledge that the biological tool must be held in awe, for it may turn to weapon with sudden swiftness born of harmful intent.” – Susan  Brownmiller in Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/2009/11/an-underlying-fear-of-rape/)  I think she is right on target - it is that turning into a weapon part that implants fear in women.

Do I take precautions? Yes. Would I buy special AR clothing? No. There is a fine line between protection and paranoia.

Puff, puff, puffing along...

I feel like The Little Engine That Could puffing along on my organizing kick right now.  This week I've been sorting through my research and categorizing my articles.  This has helped me set up my rough draft outline.  I am pleased at its easy flow and hope that I can do justice to this topic that demands attention.  While reading my paper mentally will be completely different from hearing me read my paper aloud, I hope that my belief in this cause comes through regardless.  I also hope that my nerves will not get the best of me when I present.  It's not that I don't know what I'm talking about, I just don't like the attention of everyone at once.  I get embarrassed when everyone focuses at me and sings Happy Birthday. I'm trying to take it slowly and realize my paper needs to be written before I can present anything so I should make that my focus now instead of presenting.  I'm trying to psych myself up by telling myself that this is a crowd willing to listen to my idea and I just have to be calm.  As my amazing cousin would say "I got this!" :)

A Paper by any other name would still be a paper

As it turns out, it was a matter of linguistics.  So a paper it shall be! As I mentally set up my outline I notice the gaps in areas I have not considered.  Meeting with Prof. Tweed was great.  She helped me work through ideas and provided me with some really useful feedback about where I can go from here.  I also had a nice partner chat with Ashlee.  I think helping her find her own way to narrow her topic helped me realize some narrowing of my own as well as, like I said, exposing the gaps.  I feel more confident now, even though I feel like this is simply the eye of the hurricane.  Big crazy research part over, calm narrowing research, intense writer's block.  It's like mother nature knows!  With that being sa- er - written, I have a lot of reading to do now.

When Research Goes Personal

On the outside I am calmly reading articles from The Shriver Report from the last few days that have caused me inside to throw an adult tantrum like Adam Sandler.  I am reading story after story about successful career women who are heavily debating opting out or stay-at-home dads that think for some reason their staying home means they are not required to do all the things the mom does.  Who cares about mismatched socks?  Who cares if he still expects his wife to cook dinner after being at work all day because he was home with the kids?  A volcano of four-letter words comes to mind when I think of how much this all bothers me.

Perhaps it is true, we research things that matter the most to us.  And true, perhaps we get too attached to our research to objectively see things anymore.  Is it wrong that I want to take the SAH Dad and shake him until somehow it clicks that being a SAH Dad means all the things that the SAH Mom do are now his responsibility?  Cooking meals, laundry and cleaning are not things that require a vagina to do properly.  And while there ARE some men out there that understand this concept, the majority of SAH Dads seems to be disillusioned that they don't have to do things the same way because they aren't moms.

Has the women's lib movement died and no one told me?  Did all those strikes and sit-ins and protests over equal pay and rights mean that women now get to go to the jobs that pay less for them simply because they are women while their husbands stay home to watch the kids yet still feel justified in asking "what's for dinner?"  What's for dinner?!?! How about WTF? When did we accept that going to work meant we only added more work to our load and receive only a fraction of the benefit?  How much more of getting a fraction of the whole are we going to take?  Are we not outraged enough?

Or are we simply too tired to think of anything else except the next time we can hit the pillow for a few hours before we have to do it all again?  We are wearing ourselves out.  We cannot fight because we are too weak.  We stretch ourselves too thin and we have become weaker instead of stronger.  This is how I see it, if the SAH Dads can ask their breadwinner wives once they come home from work when dinner is, we have every right to reply, "Whatever you made. I've had a long day and I'm tired."  As women, we already know what it is like to be the one responsible for the housework and children.  We want a taste of the business world.  If men want a taste of our world, should we not hold them to the same standards we placed on ourselves?  It is obvious to any woman who breaks the glass ceiling that to play with the business men, one must be able to keep up with the business men.  If I have to miss a parent-teacher meeting to attend a board meeting, my SAH husband can make a meatloaf without overcooking it and having to order a pizza instead.

Reports? Data Sheets? Oh my!

For my annotated bibliography you might notice that several of the reports I found are from over the summer, when I first proposed this idea to my program directors.  I still think they provide a good foundation for me to build upon with scholarly articles and interviews.  I know that I still need to take that interviewing class ASAP. I intend to do so this week.

I will need your help in figuring out how to correctly cite reports that I find online.  I will admit that I use easybib.com for my MLA sourcing and while it is not always completely accurate, it works for me.  However, I get confused when I am referencing someone's else's research when it is being mentioned by someone else.  Also, I know I will need your help in trying to figure out how to properly cite reports and fact/data sheets published by various sources, like AAUW or the Census Bureau.

This is what I have been mulling over in my wording - to include "daily life" or not.  I am leaning towards the phrasing "The financial impact of enforcing the Equal Pay Act for working Latinas [in their daily life]."  I am leaning against adding it for I think it tries to group something that is too diverse - there is not "Latina working experience" because the places Latinas work are not all the same - teachers and doctors have different schedules and pay grades and education levels, etc.
- Jennifer Rey :)

Professor Tweed,

You gave me feedback on my library research that I have been mulling over ever since and I want to thank you.  Having given the consideration to our Twitter chat about how the EPA is tied to family-friendly work policies and appreciation for SAHM in combination with how I could “measure” how the EPA will affect Latinas, I wanted to see if this approach was perhaps more attainable.  This is more or less my thought process and, as we know research is back and forth, so I will no doubt have to rearrange/tweak some if not all of these categories.

Argument/Research: The enforcement of the EPA will have the most impact on the Latina culture in the US since the Civil Rights Movement - or - The enforcement of the EPA will have a dramatic impact of the Latina culture in the US.

Background - The enforcement of the EPA would bring due recognition to Latina head of the household (LHOH), even if there is another working adult in the house.  This is where I would provide some historical context about the idea of mariana and arreglada.  I would then discuss based on statistics (knowing that undocumented Latinas will be hard to cover since, by nature, they are “undocumented” so I will have to rely, if they are willing, on interviews; and going forward understand that “official” statistics change every year so information from even 4 years ago might not be as accurate as present day) the types of jobs that Latinas typically hold in comparison to the types of jobs Latinos typically hold; the best and worst states for employment (with best and worst being defined as the % of Latino/a population that have documented jobs and the pay they receive for stated jobs) and then breakdown that statistic by race and gender so I would be comparing the % that Latinas get paid and are employed in a particular field (for example, healthcare) compared other women as well as compared to men and then have the men compared by race to other men.  I believe a chart/graph would be the best way to display such information as it can get wordy and thus confusing.

I would then look at various statistics, each broken down by nation, state and county in FL, about Welfare/government spending (GS) on the Latina population: % of Latinas on Welfare/GS; % of Latinas working; % of working Latinas that are on Welfare/GS; % of Latinas that would NOT be on Welfare/GS if receiving equal pay; % of LSAHM; % of LSAHM that “opt-out”; % of LSAHM that are college-educated (any schooling beyond high school).  Again, this would most likely be displayed in chart/graph form.

Using that information, I would then present information about how the EPA would impact Latina Stay-At-Home-Moms (LSAHM), either by choice or circumstance, by establishing merit to their work.  Nothing makes my blood boil more than to have someone say SAHM, particularly LSAHM, are not “contributing” to society because they aren’t contributing to the Gross National Product.  This is where I know I will need a lot of help in checking my bias because I have a hard time believing the US can still operate under the same capitalist economy and enforce EPA, and in turn, acknowledge SAHM as added value to society.  One could say, well if LSAHM raise productive members of society then they are added value.  However, how do you judge if someone is a productive member of society?  Their level of education? Their career/job? Their philanthropic work? Their annual income?  Whatever the answer (if one should exist), I believe it cannot be measured by economic status alone.  In order for LSAHM to be able to stay SAHM and be seen as added value to society, there must be a baseline of merit for assessment.  But how can the government label moms “good” or “bad”?  (This argument can be opened to include men as well, which I do not deny, but I am not sure I need to mention them if my project is focused on Latinas)  I am not sure how to approach this one but I think it would provide a good foundation as for how much of an impact the EPA would have on Latina culture.  I would have to say it would impact any culture that operates under a mariana ideology or any culture that relies on gendered work.

My research would then turn to alternatives ways “women’s work” would be appreciated as added value to society once EPA is enforced.  I think finding statistics about how crime rates and poverty levels are intertwined.  Does having SAHM in the neighborhood reduce crime rates – break-ins, rapes, robbery, assault, sexual violence, etc?  I could make the argument that all those LSAHM that “opt-out” are not opting-out of society, but investing in the future of society.  Much like an oak tree does not grow overnight, children do not turn from 18 months to 18 years instantly (despite how it might feel at times!).  All that time spent at home by “educated” SAHM would help socialize children and prepare them to be independent adults.  SAHM could teach life skills that public schools do not have the funds to teach – how to cook food, how to clean, how to sew, how to make a budget, how to make a bed, how to negotiate wages, etc.  The children will replicate their SAHM at a young age, which would instill the idea that one must work for a living, an idea that would help promote further education.  Perhaps make note of the age of child workers other countries in comparison to the US.  Then compare those that work for need/survival to those who work out of want/added luxury.

Using feminist empirical theory, try to provide a correlation between working Latinas and a decline in health-related issues caused by certain stressors.  Perhaps look at studies (if they exist) that show the effects of how an improved sense of worth might help reduce certain health problems like diabetes, depression, hypertension, high blood pressure, etc. If women felt appreciated knowing she was finally receiving equal pay or in her choice to SAH  knowing it would provide a viable means for their family to survive (but more so thrive), perhaps eating habits would be different (no depression-based eating a pint of ice cream or drinking excessively, etc) or heart diseases might decline as women take care of themselves more in order to take care of the family, etc.

                All Latinas, in particular LSAHM, have the added benefit of raising an entire bilingual generation.  To fully understand the impact Latinas would have on the upcoming generation of children, I would find statistics of % of Latinos/as* in US % of Latinos/as* by county in FL and % of Latinos/as* in CFL (*documented).  Through their exchange of language, public schools could (finally) keep the US competitive in a global market by ensuring future generations are able to communicate and compete in the ever-growing globalized world.  Bilingual children will be the key to strengthening relationships between countries as well as form new relationships.  I want the make the point that “English-only” signs will be a thing of the past, as much as separate water fountains or seats on buses.  People from those generations might still struggle with desegregation in much the same way monolingual people will still struggle with multilingual people (be it Spanish, French, Portuguese, Creole or any of the indigenous languages found in Latin America).

               

                Conclusion/Hypothesis: Latinas stand to benefit the most from the EPA’s enforcement as their gain strengthens the nation as a whole.  Perhaps end with a quick recap of how many Latina jobs are the backbone of society as they generally fall into one of these four main categories: service industry, healthcare, agrarian, and law. (I don’t know but I’m guess here.  I would put the correct information once I find it.)

Do you think I’m biting off more than I can chew here?  If so, what suggestions do you have about what I should weed out or replace?  I have re-read what I wrote several times and have come back to it, making corrections or changes bit by bit.  I have a feeling that my topic might seem focused too much on the middle class, but I think I want it to be.  I want to show how “average” the Latina experience truly is.  I don’t want to focus on those below the poverty line or in the top 2%, but the “middle class” chunk, the meat and potatoes so to speak.  I’m hoping my research will give me a median range that I can talk to, so people don’t think I’m purposely overlooking certain experiences.  Is there a way to narrow my research without being attacked by standpoint theorists for not providing the full story of the Latina experience?