Take Action Annotation - Ryan McLay

1.      Goldzweig, Caroline. "The state of women veterans' health research: Results of a systematic literature review." Journal of General Internal Medicine. 21.Supplement (2006): S82-S92. Web. 24 Feb. 2012. <http://search.proquest.com/docview/921025819/abstract?source=fedsrch&accountid=8427>.

                This scholarly article researches which health conditions that are most prevalent amongst female veterans and reasons why women do or do not access health care from the Veteran’s Administration (VA).   I believe this source is relevant to the research I will be doing for our project because, from the research results in the article, I will be able to determine what type of conditions female veterans on campus are most likely to be experiencing, as well as barriers to these individuals accessing VA health benefits.  As this is a scholarly article, I will be able to provide an unbiased perspective outside of my VA sources.  As this article provides detailed methods and data, I will be able to provide solid evidence of the experiences of female veterans.

2.      Martin, Paula. Personal Interview. Date To Be Determined.

    Ms. Martin is the Women’s Veteran’s Program Manager at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta, GA.  I conducted an impromptu interview with her in early February and will conduct a formal interview in March.  She advocates patient outreach, conducting presentations throughout the community and region in her charge, in order to bring in as many female veterans as possible.  By bringing in more female veterans to the VA system, even if they are only registered, she can help maintain funding for the Women Veterans Program.  Developing an ongoing, mutual relationship with this individual and ASU will provide the VA an additional source for outreach and will benefit the health of female veterans on campus in need of health care.

3.      "Women Veterans Health Care." United States Department of Veterans Affairs. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 20 Jan 2012. Web. 24 Feb 2012. <http://www.womenshealth.va.gov/WOMENSHEALTH/index.asp>.

    This website is the VA’s official web page dedicated to women veterans.  According to this page, the missions of the Department of the VA’s Center for Women Veterans includes “monitoring and coordinating” VA services and programs, advocating and recognizing women veterans , and raising awareness “awareness of the responsibility to treat women Veterans with dignity and respect.”  This is the primary source for the government’s program for women veterans and will provide greater detail on the legislation, advocacy programs, and current news and reports relating to issues significant to the discussion of female veterans.  The information from this resource will provide a sense of scale of this issue, tying in nationwide concerns with the extremely local issues taking place on campus.

About My Social Location

I have chosen to use the Augusta Mall as my social location for this project.  I work at Barnes and Noble bookstore in the mall, spending about twenty hours a week there.  I work in food service at the bookstore’s café and with mostly other white females.  As an entry-level employee, I do not have much power over my situation.  My café manager is a white male and most of the managers above him are also white males.  While I don’t frequent the mall outside of the bookstore when not at work, I do spend a lot of my time during my lunch break walking between the bookstore and the food court.

The following pictures will show and analyze how key concepts in the field of Women’s Studies or Gender Studies are active in this environment.

Reflection

    Having carried out this project, taking the time to really analyze the messages around me every day, I noticed a lot of areas where people were not at all represented or poorly represented.  In this location gender inequality seems to reside in centers where women are represented in a highly sexualized role or where the jobs are low-level and filled by mostly women and managed primarily by men.  A lot of times, especially in the food service industry, I have noticed a lot of “light” sexual harassment, such as terms that male superiors call women, inappropriate touching, such as placing a hand on the shoulder or arm, and general demeaning language toward women.  So even though the women in these positions may not be in a sexualized role, their male coworkers and supervisors are treating them like sexual objects or like lesser beings.

   However, I noticed a lot of areas where progress had been made, where you could see people were consciously refusing to take the paths of least resistance.  For instance, while walking through the children’s section at Barnes and Noble, I saw several examples positively representing minority and oppressed groups, especially females.  The American Girl brand features girls from a variety of historical backgrounds and personalizes their experiences, creating a sort of mentor that some groups may not often find in America.  Several books also caught my interest, such as a book called Dumpling Days, a book about an American Asian girl that is discovering her heritage.  Also, a current Betty Crocker cookbook featured young boys, challenging traditional roles.   These examples are powerful examples of creating a pivot point to change the direction of American society’s future.

     One change I would like to see enacted to increase gender equality are better systems enforcing accountability and strengthening boundaries of what is appropriate inter-gender behavior in the workplace.  Corporate training programs would be useful.  Training helps individuals recognize when someone is being treated unequally, helps the culture change by making employees take the issue more seriously, and creates a system of accountability, such as a formal complaint.  Another change that could be made is how individuals are selected for promotion.   If an individual’s traits, such as their gender, masculinity or lack thereof, race, etc.  are taken out of the equation when promoting someone, not only does an organization have less inequality overall, but they also are using the best individuals for the job and the organization functions more efficiently.  One way to carry this out is through a merit-based system, such as an exam or a point system to track one’s abilities.

Sexism

    Both of these pictures were taken at the novelty adult store Spencer’s.  The first picture shows a t-shirt with man aggressively pointing his finger in a woman’s face; the words on the shirt read “I HAVE THE DICK SO I MAKE THE RULES”.  The second picture shows a 1950’s style housewife in an apron making a recipe and the shirt reads “WIFE:  WASH IRON FUCK ETC”.

    Both of these pictures are examples of how individuals working in a sexist model interact.  In the first, the male is making a gesture that could be considered violent or potentially violent.  The woman is leaning in toward him, possibly arguing or complaining, so the implied assumption could be that the woman “deserves” the harsh treatment she is receiving from the male.  More explicitly, the verbiage on the shirt basically says that the woman does not have the freedom to make her own rules; thusly, she is being discriminated against because of her sex or gender.  The second shirt shows a woman dressed in 1950’s style clothing, a period that Betty Friedan criticized for its oppression of women, and carrying out the role of housewife by making food.  The text on the shirt further confirms that her primary roles should be limited to housewife and sexual object.  Again, these roles, oppressive in nature, are being placed on the female primarily because of her sex or gender.  The Redstockings Manifesto strongly emphasizes the role of individuals in sexist society.  Reinforcing the views that are on these shirts, the manifesto reads “[Women] are exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor.”  The document goes on to read, “All other forms of exploitation and oppression are extensions of male supremacy:  men dominate women…”  I’ve found items such as these in our society as very inappropriate and disturbing, especially in light of achieving social equality.

    I remember from a very early age how sexist norms were applied to me.  For instance, when playing house or ‘make pretend’ with my male cousins, I would always be a mother or a housewife staying at home and completing chores.  Also, I had no say in what sort of games we could play as my female opinion was often dismissed.  So, even in that small of an example, my opportunities as a female were very limited and I literally had to play by the male’s rules.

Refusing to Take the Path of Least Resistance

    This image is from the selection of children’s books at Barnes and Noble celebrating Black History Month for the month of February.  Within the selection of these books are stories for children recounting the accomplishments of icons such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama in advancing black privilege in American history. 

    While the books in the image are not actively refusing to take the path of least resistance, they are representing periods in U.S. history when oppressed individuals and groups have taken the path of least resistance.  Key events, such as the 1963 March on Washington featuring Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the use of the underground railway, Rosa Parks’ refusal to get up from her bus seat, and the election of the first black American president are shown in these books as historical examples of how individuals consciously made steps to fight oppression.  However, Allan Johnson in his book The Gender Knot states that enacting change is typically limited to certain groups, that, for most people, enacting change is not a real possibility.  He wrote, “Systemic paths of least resistance provide powerful reasons for people to go along with the status quo.  This is why individual change is often restricted to people who either have little to lose or who are secure and protected enough to choose a different path.”  Because of this, occasions such as Black History Month are important to remind us of the individuals and groups that have come before us that have refused to take the path of least resistance, and have caused changes in society to give us the life we have today.  Keeping this in mind is significant as a catalyst for future change.

    While I have not had huge examples from my personal actions of how I’ve applied this term in my personal life, there have been moments, such as a brief participation in the Occupy movement or voting for Barack Obama, where I have felt the significance of being involved.  One moment I wish I could have taken a real refusal to take the path of least resistance was in March 2003, when we began bombing Iraq.  Still in the Navy, I woke up the morning we had bombed them, on the ship that had bombed them, to see on the large television screen what had happened.  The position I was in during that time, the voice that I didn’t have and the action that I couldn’t take, disturbed me for some time afterward.