Rapes Against Native Women..Race + Gender Injustice

So I know that there's been news debunking the black communities claims to native American ancestry. My own family claims connections to Cherokees. A Cherokee woman married an Irishman 4 generations back on my maternal grandmother's side.

So this short report was interesting to me esp. given that lack of knowledge about it and it reminded me of why I like GET RELATED not DATED! There is so much more we need to get related to facts, feelings, having awereness of what's happening to the opposite sex in so many contexts OTHER THAN just dating.

This report is powerful and enlightening. It says "1 in 3 Native women will be raped in their lifetime reports the Department of Justice".

Exploring Gender Cross-Culturally: Black and Asian Women More Likely to Be In Debt

So this week, actually this moment, I am taking control of my debt. I got more than I ever thought I would ever have. My first experience with money was a passbook savings account from my mother. It had $500 in it. I spent it all within months on candy and other miscellany at 15. My mother gave me money but no context for what to do with it. All I knew was spending, not generating more income with money. Boy if I had to do it all over again.

Here I am. I have made more money than probably anyone in my family as a professor and I am still that 15 year old spending and not investing and creating new income. I might as well have a nine-to-five the way I operate around money and my job. I behave like a slave to my work instead of making work and money work for me. I have some much clout and credibility and I resign myself to be a sort of wage laborer in my mentality. And being a woman on top of that doesn't help.

I found this great TV show produced on AlJazeeraEnglish TV called Everywoman. It features excellent journalism on women around the world and fits perfectly into my theme this week on cross-cultural perspectives. This show pointed to some revealing insights.

In this episode: Men owe twice as much money as women, but women are more likely to struggle with debt and more likely to use 'sub-prime' credit - credit which is easier to access, but costs more in interest rates.

Everywoman - Women and Debt - 28 Dec 07 - Pt 1


PS. I may be offline til Monday as I am heading to DC area, Rockville to be exact for a performance at the Caribou Cafe on Norbeck Rd July 5th at 6:30 - 9:30pm. All my peeps from my hometown are coming and I am so excited! More next week.

Caribou Cafe Jul 5th 6:30 - 9:30pm
301-460-0047
5562 Norbeck Rd Rockville MD 20853
Photo credit: Gerald Peart 2007, Geefoto.com

Exploring Gender Cross-Culturally: Wrong Bathroom (GIE)

THE WRONG BATHROOM


Ever had someone question your actual sex because you don't look like you express the gender associated with it? Gender Identity Expression is a serious source of confusion, hate, and even murder. Gender cross-culturally does not require crossing national borders to understand. For our friends and family who are gay, lesbian, transgender or bi, they encounter other "borders" of culture.

Most of my posts are coming from the perspective of being a black woman, a heterosexual, and a professor interested in stretching my own and others frame of reference. I often don't think of gender identity expression when thinking about gender relations but this video reminded me that my gay, lesbian, transgender and bi friends have other distinctions of gender that I can overlook.

Exploring Gender Cross-Culturally: Persia/Iran

Thought it might be interesting to introduce other worldviews of gender during July. By comparing our norms and expectations of the relations between the sexes we gain the most insight into our own (not the other's). This is from Encyclopedia Iranica.

About the photo below: An Iranian woman veiled in modern fashion crosses a street in Tehran, 24 October 2006. From body-covering black chadors to colourful headscarves, the wearing of the veil is obligatory for all mature women in Iran, even though there is now a striking diversity in how it is observed. AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI

GENDER RELATIONS Although belied by a more complex social reality and beneath temporal and local variations, three interrelated patterns permeate gender relations in contemporary Persia. They are (1) segregation of the sexes, (2) male domination/female subordination, and (3) the primary role of woman as wife and mother within the family unit. SEGREGATION OF THE SEXES In addition to divides defined by class, religious, ethnic, and generational differences, there has existed in Persia another division of the social order, one based on sex. This axis, around which society was, and, to a certain extent, continues to be organized, kept the world of men and women apart. Traditionally, men engaged in activities outside the house in the public sphere of politics and the market place. The world of women, on the other hand, was indoors. It was private and domestic. One of the most compelling justifications for sex-segregation has been the belief that sexual desire is easily stimulated in both sexes and, if unregulated, can cause social mayhem and disorder. To channel sexual conduct properly, various forms of physical and symbolic barriers were created between the two sexes. To protect the integrity of the male line of descent, women's sexuality was closely monitored and contained. ... Women's chastity has been inextricably linked with space. While mobility has always been valued and admired in men, it has often been associated with opportunity for sexual promiscuity in women. Kò^a@ba@ngard (street-walker), velgard (vagrant), and harja@÷^ (belonging or existing everywhere) are terms synonymous with prostitution when applied to women. Gomra@h kardan and az ra@h ba dar bordan (leading astray) are equivalent to seducing. The veil (see ÙADOR), the most conspicuous expression of sex-segregation, like the hymen (parda-ye bekarat), is perceived to be a physical impediment, an obstacle to men's and women's sexual temptation.

What is the most conspicuous expression of sex-segregation in American culture?
Is there something or some context analagous to the veil in U.S. society or within black culture??

• Bathrooms?
• Saunas?
• Music production?
• Genres of music and literature
• Pornography (for men v. women on sale at news-stands)