blog 39

Of course there needs to be several changes in the profession of law to help women become the 'ideal worker' since the ideal worker is severely out dated in today’s work environment and society. English's reworking of ideals and issues brings women more to date in today’s work environment. Alternative work schedules allow female lawyers to have a family but not at such a large expense of their careers. It helps them keep the hold in their firms that they worked so bitterly for in the first place. Alternative schedules, more access to the firm’s partners and higher ranked attorneys while being able to socialize within the firm would make women’s opportunities better and more frequent. Also women are afraid to take maternity leave and so are fathers paternity leave is frowned upon, we need to change or at least tweak the mindset that balancing life is a bad decision. Work in America seems to be at the forefront of priorities when in most countries its second, that being said a lot of countries have a fair more populated work environment, women wise. Another main reason women cannot seem to gain access to partners is because most are men. Men tend to congregate with other men, and women have a hard time breaking through the barrier. This is because they do not have access to the partners through company functions and meetings that are dominated by males. As a few lawyers pointed out many women’s actions seem to make other older partners think they are not committed, children aside women tend to look at different aspects of an argument and when there is an acknowledgment of the other side they are seem as impressionable. Women’s ways of dealing with people, time, arguments, and money vary greatly from their male counter parts and since it is a new way of doing things it is frowned upon and when you are frowned upon or at least your actions are you aren’t usually promoted.

One of these things is not like the other.

Blog 38

Judge of the supreme court of justice, appointed by a republican. Arizona senate leader and senator. Arizona assistant attorney general. This is an impressive resume for anyone, but let’s figure in that she is a female and she was the first female to be appointed onto the supreme court of justice, lets also figure in that she was appointed by republican Ronald Reagan and that was in the 80's when females were still struggling to get hired in law firms. O’Connor paved the way for women, and what is so extra ordinary was not only did she do it she did it in a south west state being a republican and she pretty well liked in general. The likable image is almost impossible for females in politics and law because we are not used to hearing a woman’s opinion. She also was a female that was pro choice although she personally against it, the fact that many of her views where liberal and she was a female who was still respected by her peers and stood strongly for what she believed in put a foot hold in law for women. Not only did she serve and was held in high regard while she was in office but she is still revered and has been given the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Her vote, which was never accounted for because of her liberal or conservative views helped push many acts into law and helped keep reproductive rights for women as well as seal George W. Bush's presidency when she stopped the ruling for recounts. She has stood up for women's rights, as well as gay rights and the rights of minorities while holding a more conservative outlook on other areas. She has championed human rights while still holding true to her own beliefs making her the swing vote several times. She made herself indispensible to the court as well as to the history books by changing how Americans reacted to the law and how the law treated its citizens, especially those with very few rights originally.

Blog 37

What I find most prevalent with women in the profession of law is that each one has to make her own dent and fight her own battles. One women's success is not shared with others but one woman’s failures are shared with all. The negatives are always looming around the corner and they will always shine like a neon light affecting thousands of females within the same profession. The American Bar Association has several reports finding discrimination in various stages against female lawyers. While some progress has changed the problems females in law face it has been passive aggressive tactics to help them. Time, is not an option since that is how we have been handling sexism in the work place and it has shown unsatisfying results. I do think time will only help females since the women entering law schools keeps jumping up statistically and women are making up more of the percentage of co eds. Women are becoming more prominent in the work place despite little effort to improve their working lives by corporations, more women are coming back to work because of the economy but also more women are putting off having families so they can establish themselves first. Women are not the ideal worker because of families, which makes them postponing them somewhat of a irony, men will never take off time because they have a wife or a women to take care of their children. We need to change societal views as well as implement better hours that offer some flexibility without harming the mothers career or the corporation/firm. It seems that women cannot win in this profession because they aren’t aggressive enough but are too forthcoming. I female lawyers need to step up their aggressive tactics in the courtroom and leave emotions outside the door but we really need to stop stereotyping and putting all women in one category. You never hear about a male lawyer being emotional and thus effecting all male lawyers’ reputations.

Blog 36

I think women are itching to get back to work. Not all women mind you but many aren’t satisfied sitting at home watching the children. Women want to have careers we want to be known for being good at what we do and that isn’t just care giving. Corporate America will have to do some readjusting before it can lure a large percentage of women back into the work force and I think work life will be radically changed in the next few years. Time has not proven to be kind to women in the work force, and there has been more of a push to gain credit, and recognition in the work place in the past years. The way the economy is and the need for jobs will push women back into work and also have them taking less time off which isn’t fixing the problem but it is a great way to make strides so that future more economically stable women and men can make flexible hours and get the careers they want.

Women are already taking back their careers, more women are getting an education and more are venturing out into male dominated professions. Women are becoming more business savy, due to more education and more of an economic need. The cost of living is expensive and many women have husbands who are out of jobs, or are raising children by themselves so their need to work and to get good work with good pay has increased. More of them are carving out a notch in the work force because it is a necessity and others are refusing to take lower pay, worse hours, or be bullied into generally female labor like being just a secretary. More then likely the receptionist sitting at the front desk will run her own business or work her way because she is going back to school. Women cannot possibly be going back to school and enrolling for the fun of it. They are planning on having careers and going into the work force. We may not be able to lure back women but we can most defiantly make use out of the younger generations ambitions.

blog 35

The article gave insight onto men’s work situations which are being hit economically in these times; women’s work outside of the home has become more needed to support the family. I would assume that with this added responsibility of supporting the family fiscally would make women more of a lynch pin in the working world. Yet, it seems that women in the work place deal with the same issues that they did when they weren’t ‘bread winners’. Are gender norms that engrained in all of our heads that we cannot bear to see a women make a decent paycheck while the man nurtures his family? Gender norms are the reason women aren’t making bigger strides in the work place and most companies stick to the bare minimum when securing care givers rights. The more flexible the work place is the more women who are most likely to benefit can give to their jobs on off hours and from home. The communal stand point of flexibility at work and care givers rights would suggest we all benefit by helping others but in the world we live in now that isn’t a popular theory. The more we work cohesively with care givers the better their work will be because stress will lessen and there will be more work and promotion opportunities for women and minorities. Men still make the ‘ideal worker’ because they need no time to raise children, so women are still being punished in the work place. Women are making up more of the student body in colleges across the United States so it is interesting how work places are going to adjust with this new influx of females in a few years. Will they still be reluctant to hire females even though there are more of them with more qualifications? Will they figure out that women will be just as productive since they will be more qualified or will history and sheer numbers of work days prevail?

blog 34

Working women, may feel like they have nothing to lose by leaving the work place. They deal with so many negatives that it drives them away from the work place, yes it is letting sexism win but can you blame someone for leaving an unhappy environment? I am not saying all women are in bad situations but many do get to deal with harassment on a daily basis so it probably is not that hard of a decision to leave that job to pursue family. Women choosing to leave the work place are different from them not working to get to the top. How frustrating is it to pour hours and work into something you may not get credit for? Some women choose to just give up and some work harder sacrificing time with family and friends. Women are long suffering when it comes to gender and the work place, we aren’t seeing much difference then we saw 20 years ago and it can get discouraging.

Mainstream media, also is glamorizing stay at home mothers with shows like ‘girls next door’ and ‘housewives of Atlanta’ and other cities. These shows are promoting house work and not going into the work place where women are expected to work and act more masculine even if it is not a male dominated field. Women are expected to take on a more ‘male oriented’ work ethic but still they are expected to take care of home and family and to raise children. Their needs our masked by what others expect from them while we do not expect any more from their husbands. If women are expected to work more and to work harder to get promoted something needs to shift outside the work place and in the home. What is amusing is that most companies have consumers, without women there would be no child or new consumers. The full circle is not being looked at either. Women struggle to find their place in their work environments and that is never easy for anyone women have a worse time because they are seen as outsiders in most jobs that are male dominated they have to work harder but are never able to gain as much footing. Their situation is a lot like the welfare reform act forcing single mothers to go to work but not help find child care or help them get any sort of education that would get them a supporting job.

Women are not the ideal worker but we are talented in many areas plus we bring new ideas and a new light onto the work place because we are new to it. Women are getting more education then men these days, and I believe that once this generation of women enters the work force it will start to develop more. I do not believe gender roles will be any different because society is set in their ways of thinking but I think women will start to gain not only more power and prominence in the work place but also they will gain more understanding from employers. Women should not be as torn as they are about having children and a career society should be more supportive towards females working because it stimulates the economy it makes our children more likely to be harder workers and to gain more education. More education and work opportunities means less welfare and more productive companies.

blog 33

Before it was normal for women to be in the workplace many believed that females could not possibly have the brain power to become lawyers. It was a man’s job, and even though it is still a male dominated profession women are charging ahead and breaking through glass ceilings. The fact that women are usually viewed as competent in this profession is a high step. Although there are a multitude of problems regarding sexism in the legal profession.

Most women have to face different issues when trying to get hired on in a law firm. They usually have to have better bar exam scores, and come from higher ranked law schools than their male colleagues do. Women in general have to do more once they are hired as well, they miss out on opportunities that men solely benefit from (guy talk, parties, functions) so they have to work harder with longer hours to get the same recognition. Men’s achievements at the firm are more recognized and more seen then a female’s. Women of different races also have a extremely difficult time being recognized and usually have to work harder than anyone at the firm to get promoted or gain a better book of business.

Family life also interferes with career, women are less likely to be hired because they are thought of as not as serious about their job. Women tend to take time off to have children, which is understandable but in the legal profession it is seen as a nuisance. Male partners are less likely to hire females solely for this reason, and because once a female lawyer has children and a family they sometimes go to part time which is also frowned upon in this work environment. Women even though they may have no intention of having a children still have that bias against them from the start making it harder to prove themselves. They are grouped together instead of being looked at separately.

blog 32

Many of the women in chapter eight spoke about stunning colleagues or being nervous about announcing their pregnancy one women spoke about how another female in the firm was disappointed that she asked for a flexible schedule after giving birth. I never took into consideration how other females viewed female co workers which is shocking to me, I have viewed female co workers that have done less then respectable things with a sadness thinking it’s going to make it that much more difficult and that was at a college get by job. The stresses of being a lawyer and then a mother are over whelming and you can put your child on the back burner, its sexist that many women have to pull out of work and their husbands don’t but that is the normal way of doing things. Many mothers even envy the women who quit when they have children. The women who do stay on or opt out of family life must feel disappointed, let down, and worried when they see more of their female co workers drop out or ask for part time. Even though they are not the same they are all lumped into the category of female and it is harder to break out of that mold when your co workers aren’t there or are living up to the negative expectations of the boys club that can be a law firm. Similarly women with children who work full time are looked at negatively, for instance when I was in 2nd grade I told my teacher how much my mother loved her job, child services was at our door a week later. Im not kidding about this, a women from child services knocked on the door talked to my parents, my grandmother and myself asking if my mother was a fit parent because she worked full time. It was horrifying for my mother and I never understood why until reading this because it was making her out to be a monster when all she was doing was putting food on the table and keeping her and I secure. Women get penalized on both side if they work and if they don’t, instead of focusing on how to make jobs more flexible and how to make sure women get the same benefit men do (vice versa on paternity leave) they are focusing on how a women and her unborn child could affect the bottom line in the black and white structure it is now.

blog 31

Family is a job in itself; children are a huge responsibility and a huge financial obligation. Women come to cross roads when it comes to their career and their family. They have spent so much time, so much money, and years working towards becoming a partner at a law firm and they may be extremely close, but when they have a family things start to shift. They may realize that they aren’t being taken as seriously anymore because many of the male partners do not want someone who is stretching their time so thin and they want the firm to be number one priority which usually is not the case when children come into the picture.
Flexible work hours are not up for negotiation when it comes to law firms, which such a huge want to be in the field there is always someone younger, hungrier and more unattached to take the hours you can’t make because of children. If they do get away with flexible hours the more ‘dedicated’ usually male lawyers have a low respect for them and they are not considered to be key players in the firm. This also makes face time with partners, and it doesn’t make you available for promotions. Also co workers become more hostile if a female in the firm is getting work and part time because they are full time or they are constantly at work. These environments and hostile attitudes make it hard to coop at work and many female lawyers do not want the added stress of that and feel that with added hostility their career goals are further out of reach.
Women have a hard enough time in the field of law, they do not need added point against them, as great as it would be to change the minds of older egotistical males I do not believe that will happen. Men view women as inferior in the work force in pretty much every field but nursing and teaching. Adding on the stress of a family is not good for a career women especially one in a male dominated profession.

blog 30

Sondra Sotamayor is a perfect example of gender roles and being bashed for breaking or trying to break the mold. Gender expectations are doled out to everyone even politicians, female politicians are blasted for being aggressive, smart, and out spoken whereas men are encouraged to be just that. Societies views on women are threatened by women liked Hilary Clinton and Sotamayor and that makes them targets for media and negative back lash. These expectations are stereotypes they expect women to be demure and accepting of others decisions, women are not thought to be leaders they aren’t suppose to be in the forefront of issues and they aren’t suppose to be smart questioning decisions of men. Slowly gender stereotypes and expectations are being rewritten but it takes time and a lot of sacrifice. Hilary Clinton for all that she stands for will be bashed and then in 30 years, maybe less some other women will be able to make it more popular. “Albright is careful when it comes to discussing current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the second woman to hold the position. Rice was mentored by Albright's father, Josef Korbel, while studying at the University of Denver."I am suspending judgment in terms of her particular activities. ... I think we probably learned different things from my father," Albright says” This is also a classic difference, Albright understands that her aggression will get her nowhere in the media and with other politicians so she makes a remark that is biting but still passive aggressive. This isn’t straight forward which I believe is a women’s weakness but her comment makes her point clear without saying anything whereas a male maybe even Bill Clinton could say that he looks down upon her decisions because they are wrong and he would be agreed with. Leadership styles are more about aggression and who can speak the loudest either with words or actions. Women technically are usually very soft spoken compared to men, this give them a disadvantage because they aren’t heard and their ideas can be over looked or taken. Both genders have different qualities they bring to the table, I think the real difference is how women implement authority. Women are more prepared education wise but the subtly of sexism does not prepare them for her battles in higher up positions. Women are going to feel alone in upward positions there are too many men at high level these men are comfortable with the situation so they prevent more women to break through maybe they are doing it purposely or maybe it is subconsciously. The benefits of having female leaders, is that new issues and new ideas come out of their different styles of leadership. Politically more minority groups find more benefits education goes up which helps the economy in the long run. Management wise things can become more structured and organized. Women seem to be more cunning and organized then men, they do have more ‘morals’ because genetically they are more emotionally based but they have the ability to prosper in poor conditions because they are used to having to fight for everything in the work place. Shared leadership is key when it comes to all aspects of life, women and children benefit but so do men, different styles bring different benefits and the expectations of society shift. I also believe that when women take on leadership roles it forces them out of their comfort zone and others comfort zone, women become more aggressive more ambitions and work towards getting to the top it brings out a more efficient worker and affects the rest of the staff to be more productive as well. Most women do not make it to the top of the work environment food chain because they either start families and companies are not flexible or understanding, another way to keep females from making partner or president. That or women become discouraged, which many employees do after they cannot make a dent in the gap or get a simple promotion after years of working they leave to company they are with and start over at a new one. Every time there is a turn over it is expensive and unhelpful for both the company and the employee and women in leadership roles that are fairly earned can make sure that no bias take place as often as it does resulting in a equal work environment.

blog 29

Who knew so many well educated people could be so stupid?
An Asian woman lawyer reported:
"They gave me a document in Korean and said, 'Can you read this?' And I said, 'This is Korean. I'm Chinese.' And they couldn't understand why I couldn't read it."
I believe I was 4 or 5 when I was told about different ethnicities and races and was told that all Asian Americans are not Chinese that there are all sorts of different ethnicities that make up the American population. It is truly stunning the way minorities are treated in any profession, but in Law you would assume, incorrectly that they would be sensitive to race. Gender is another obvious issue in large firms and it isn’t a surprise that white women and minority women get passed over more often than any race of man. Minority women switching to different law firms after racist or sexist issues, is also no surprise no one wants to stay somewhere that they feel oppressed and unwanted or harassed.
Minorities get passed over more frequently for events, promotions and various other opportunities but women of every race get passed over more than any man. So minority women literally have to claw and fight tooth and nail to make it in any firm. They have to be from better schools to even get a job due to their race, they have to work three times as hard, put in more hours and more effort to get scraps. Putting in so much effort only to be passed over for say a white male who is friendlier with the partners is a slap in the face and its upsetting because it’s a cycle. Women aren’t going to be invited to the country club to talk about sports or smoke cigars so they won’t get that face time that is required to get favoritism even more so older partners probably have very strict gender roles in their minds and having a woman of a different race is probably even more bizarre in their minds. It’s a shame that race mixed with gender makes it almost impossible to break down barriers and progress within a law firm.

Blog 28

"She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue." Second circuit judge
It is about darn time a women had an inflated opinion of herself, because no one in politics will. Even though this is a ‘negative’, good for Judge Sotomayor. I find this terribly amusing since most men even ones with no career have a high opinion of oneself. Is it wrong to be confident, to be domineering? I don’t think so and these traits would be a positive for a man and even sought after they wouldn’t come as a judgment. This is also interesting since Antonin Scalia, is dominating downright aggressive when defending his thoughts and opinions (especially textualism) yeah he might get flack for being a huge conservative but no one would call him on his domineering attitude.
“A persistent and ubiquitous gender stereotype portrays smart and aggressive women as domineering, mean, nasty bitches. This stereotype explains much of the negative treatment that Hillary Clinton received during her presidential campaign.”
This stereotype happens every where every day in every profession and it is annoying! Hillary is no more aggressive then McCain was and the way several media outlets portrayed the female candidates made me feel ill. I find the opinions of several male commentators unbelievable sexist and out of line. I don’t think Sotomayor helped herself with the ‘wise Latina’ comments but I don’t think she deserved to ripped apart on David Letterman either, can we portray a white male politician as a domineering, possibly adulterous, and loud mouthed instead of just focusing on minority politicians? At least even things out a little bit. It is easy to go after politicians since they are in the forfront of the media but it seems like I heard more about how much of a ball buster Hillary Clinton was or the Wise Latina crack or even what the first lady was wearing more then I heard about several different sex scandals or Edwards cheating on his cancer striken wife. If we are going to poke fun at todays politicians at least give a hard time to those who really deserve it and I would think it was easy to make fun of a closeted conservative southern white man then it would be to make fun of a well educated aggressive women who graduated from Princeton.

Blog 27

The case Schaffer is bringing to GE seems a little off, she got demoted after a meeting and all she says is it is because she’s a female. True, GE is a male based corporation it deals with male based industry and in general is prominently run by men. I feel like we are not getting a full story, so she has a good work record but when they demoted her surely they had to give a reason no huge corporation would just keep the door wide open for a sexism suit.

I don’t believe men understand what it is like to be a minority or a underdog in their profession, the stresses and annoyances they had to endure during their internships and first years are not even close to what women deal with. Women in firms even those who are highly esteemed have to constantly fight for attention and recognition that they are thoroughly competent. This can make some women feel uncomfortable if they need to be aggressive, condescending, or in general act in a more negative manner. Perhaps men are more relaxed with female partners, and feel less threatened by their presence than they would a male partner but many men do not give the attention or recognition that is deserved to a female partner. This is condescending and stressful hurting work relationships and burdening the staff. It can also harm a client, if a female is underestimated by a male lawyer the male lawyers client may end up paying for it in the long run. By not believing that a female is a worthy opponent in the court room they are not doing their jobs to the fullest. Male attorneys who do find themselves ‘superior’ are out of line a lot of the time and play games of aggression with female associates this turns into unprofessional behavior all around which is a slap in the face of the law the justice department.

Blog 26

Female lawyers have always had to prove themselves more then their male colleagues. They still do not usually get paid the same amount and are still looked upon as being incompetent or if they aren’t they have negative stereotypes about being masculine or vicious. The American bar association polls show a leap in how many women find that they have to work harder to prove themselves in the workplace. It is strange since women are suppose to be more liberated now than they were in 1983 maybe more women are hungrier for success than their predecessors but I also think expectations are raised because of the rise in females in law. It is always good to have someone in your corner at work and more females are finding men to back them up especially in law. Men that are already accomplished and recognize good work in their female colleagues are backing them up because they realize that they can help their new co worker achieve more than they could by themselves and they know their colleague will watch out for them in return. Everyone has a need fulfilled, but it is saddening that women need the help of their male coworkers to be taken serious by other males in their field. Clients as well do not always value females so getting a male to be on their side helps them get their clients to do what is necessary. Also some females in law find it impossible to get what they need done so they ask a man to step in. As one women put ‘society isn’t gender neutral and if a man can get what you want done who cares?’ Many male lawyers do not have faith in others to see their female colleagues so the women tend to be the work horses and the males the presenters this is not helpful because no one sees how determined and dedicated the women in the work place are.

Blog 25

Seriously now, do you take a woman (or a man for that matter) in a mini skirt seriously? How about if she’s leaning over a desk? Are you listening to her speaking or is your mind wandering off? If you’re a man your probably not looking her in the eye and if your another female your mocking her in your mind. Women should not rely on sexual manipulation of their colleagues to get where they want because it isn’t effective and its degrading. Find some that works and you can be proud of, using sexualized behavior doesn’t flaunt how kick ass (excuse me) you are at your job. Ms Brockovich would have looked awesome in a well tailored pant suit.

I have never seen a man use his sexuality as a weapon, he doesn’t need to in the work place. Men have a confidence at work that many women do not have simply because they are the minority. Reverting back to sexual behavior to get what they want out of their career isn’t going to help in the big times they’ll hit a glass ceiling because when it comes down to it men will not remember that she closed that deal with a huge company they’ll remember her ‘pretty women’ boots and women who have made it far in the business without sexualizing themselves wont promote someone they find unprofessional. Being a firm believer in not mixing business with pleasure the idea of using ones body to advance makes me feel ill. Women doing this are only setting back others, women are smart, tactical, articulate, and clever and in whole great assets to companies we need to be seen for that and not what we are wearing. Like female politicians it isn’t necessary to focus on what we are wearing or how we look but what we say and do. So Ms Brockovich you look some much classier and your new wardrobe reflects you better. Lara Croft put on a bra, Britney and Lindsey put on some pants and be proud of your talent (?) you don’t need to be super sexualized all the time give us normal women a break!

Blog 24

Maria is a cute and tiny 24 year old with now dyed brown hair and some plastic surgery. She was in a sorority and looks like a cheerleader but she is a law student at University of Arizona. She comes from a family of lawyers and that is all she has wanted to become since a child. She has to be one of the most well read people I have met and her less then serious looks throw people off when she opens her mouth to speak. She dyed her natural blonde hair brown before her first year in law school because she thought it reflected her personality better and would make her look more serious.

Maria had to deal with a lot of issues her first year, she was home sick for one and she was dealing with several male professors. She was an English major at Arizona State University and had more female professors then men. Dealing with mostly men was new to her and she was no longer a big fish in a small pond. She experienced some sexism with other students and professors but that wasn’t really what bothered her. She was surprised that she didn’t have many other females in classes and the women that were there were very competitive and had no real sense of camaraderie. Through the years she’s been there she noticed the women in her classes have settled more and are more friendly. It seems that being a female in this field carries the burden of having to watch your back and having to figure out what works for you because of your gender and you need to figure it out fast. The levels of stress Maria deals with are outrageous and I have read articles that alcoholism and depression runs rampant in people in the law profession. Women, I believe have it worse because they have to deal with stresses of their job trying to break ground and get taken seriously as well as the normal issues of the job then they have family stresses like children and husbands. The article I attached is about female lawyers and the stresses they have to handle in daily life, how it affects them emotionally and how it affects their relationships with their families.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6732234.ece

How to be a fashionable politician….blog 23

A former beauty queen turned governor triggered a nation of updos, maybe even her most memorable contribution to the 2009 presidential campaign. Sarah Palin, is not just any old politician in fact I barely heard of her or what she had done in her political career I just heard she was a moose hunting mama with a knocked up teenage daughter. Why do we tend to focus on the woman instead of her actions?
I cannot remember a time when I heard what President Obama was wearing, was it an Armani suit or a Ralph Lauren? Who cares! Female politicians are given grief over their choices of clothing they can’t be too dressy or too pretty because then they aren’t taking seriously but if they are ugly or dress poorly they are depicted unfavorably in political cartoons. In general women are supposed to be pretty, dressed well, and they are supposed to be quiet! So what does society do when they want to belittle a woman and her opinion? Pick on her appearance. Janet Napolitano and Hillary Clinton come to mind when I think female politicians getting roasted for their appearance. No they might not be the most conventionally attractive women, but they are darn good politicians in any case. You may not like their policies but they got to the top of the heap and they’re still going pant suit or not. Of course everyone should take pride in their appearance but the fact that Michelle Obama is now a fashion icon and people aren’t focusing on her good causes (families of troops etc.) is never a good thing. Issues not head bands are what is important and the fact that no one cares what Joe Bidden was wearing makes a true statement. We still view all women and objectify them; we make fun of their appearance to put them down when in fact we have had some awful looking presidents. Either way being dressed well or being ugly, or pretty, or frumpy if you are a female in politics you’ll still be attacked one way or another it makes no difference. It is easiest to attack females for what they wear then what they say.

blog 22

I was so excited to see that Obama had nominated Sotomayor for the Supreme Court of the United States. Not just because she is a woman, not because she was of Puerto Rican decent, and not because she was a catholic more because I like seeing all hell break loose when the majority of the United States is over taken by votes and support. It’s great to see not one (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) but two women involved in high ranking politics, it means our voice have more of a chance to be heard and the issues like abortion, equal pay, and education for low income neighborhoods won’t be left up to super conservative Scalia.
Although it is great to see a woman on board, I am not her biggest fan. I did not agree with her on many of her rulings and thought the her Wise Latina remark was way off base but she is qualified to be a member of the supreme court. The media acts any politician whether it is conservative to a fault George W Bush or Liberal Joe Biden. You cannot please everyone, but women are viewed as especially threatening in politics to the majority of America (men and women). Hillary Clinton wasn’t called Senator Clinton even though she served for about 8 years that’s about 4 years more then President Obama served yet he commanded more respect as a politician. Yes President Obama is a minority but he is also a man, he isn’t as much of anomaly as a woman is in politics. Women in politics is almost bizarre and doesn’t happen frequently because they are still viewed as subservient and lower class then men in most cases. Sotomayor is no exception if she had been a he I doubt that Sotomayor would have been attacked so thoroughly in the media. Her gender played a bigger part in the situation then her race or religion, many did not believe a woman could hold her own in the supreme court and I truly think a large reason of this is because there haven’t been enough women in politics. With every woman that becomes involved with politics and makes a career for herself it will become a little easier for the next.

blog 21

Holy Moly, so after reading their legislation a lot of it sounds like it shouldn’t need to be written out it should just be a priority. Like zero tolerance of rape and sexual harassment of female officers, it is so sad to see a ‘gender neutral’ work place that allows this to happen enough that a organization needs to push for it. Violence towards females is not widely accepted in the real work and rapist go to prison (not as often as they should) so why is it ok that a correctional facility is allowing such atrocities to happen to their own employees?
Training should be number one priority for all officers’ not just new ones. Continuing education should be mandated for officers to keep themselves safe learn how to deal with situations violent and non violent alike, and how to treat females co workers, as well as how to deal with inmates of both sexes. By making procedures in training less gender neutral or geared towards males it would bring female officers and inmates more onto the surface and more noticeable. The more females are recognized in the system the more likely they will be such an anomaly and they will not be penalized for being a minority as often. Workers that are being penalized for their race or gender are effected in several ways due to these reason, their emotional stability and stress levels are higher because they can’t make as much money as they need to. They have to see how their white co workers are treated as compared to how they are and this brings on a poor sense of self worth. Their mental health is compromised as well as their physical well being if their co workers do not see them as being as important. If a predominant officer sees another as less then there isn’t much doubt that they will not come to their aid in a violent situation.Female officers are still a marginal but their numbers (As well as female inmates) are growing rapidly. More women are finding themselves outside of traditional roles in the work place and that is a fact that needs to be accepted and brought up more.

blog 20

I have a new female role model, her name is Dora Schriro. I have heard of her before but since this is my first class that really takes a look at prisons in depth I am finally getting to know about her and other females in corrections. The article about her in Phoenix Magazine defiantly fixates on her being female; it almost plays second fiddle to the amazing things she has accomplished. Several times they say she had to fight against the old cowboy way of the Arizona corrections department and that many thought she was too soft. Schriro has restorative justice beliefs which do not sit well with many Arizona residences since we are a south west state with the death penalty. Schriro is a woman in a male dominated field and she faces the same prejudices most women face especially Janet Napolitano.
The hostage situation defiantly showed what many female officers fear, the male guard held hostage was beaten but then let go*. Whereas Lois Fraley was raped and held hostage for fifteen days not only was her ordeal more horrific but she suffers mentally and emotionally from it as well. The crisis confirmed that women can be put in more dangerous situations while working in prisons but also that officers need more training and that the prisons need to be run professionally. I do not think the situation would have played out better for the officers if Fraley was a man in fact I think it would have been worse. Men feel more intimidated by other men and would have more than likely shot a male officer. The ‘John Wayne’ approach with inmates would have made the hostage situation more violent and probably more of a disaster.
Male and female prisons have different rules and structures due to gender differences and sexuality. Men the more aggressive, violent, tactical inmates have no privacy, stricter rules and policies, and are not given exception to a female officer. Female inmates are usually treated with a little bit more dignity (sometimes) when it comes to privacy from male guards. These are another example of why training should not be gender neutral gearing towards male inmates/guards. Men sexuality is not seen as a problem and have had rules, regulations, and even job duties geared to help them avoid the least desirable duty of pat downs and stationary positions in the prisons. Female sexuality is a huge issue in prisons because they are seen for their gender or sex. Male inmates are more likely to sexually harass them this is seen not as a problem for the female officer but a problem because the female officer, these issues and ways of dealing with them are sexist and prevent women from moving up in the correctional field. Even when female officers earn their promotions it is seen in the eyes of their co workers as favoritism, it seems that no matter what women do in this field supervisors and colleagues seem to have a negative explanation for it.
It does not supervise me that African American male officers are the least satisfied with their work environment. Officers use derogatory language with inmates frequently usually using words ‘describing’ their race. Who makes up a obscene amount of inmates in the United States prison system? African Americans. Female African American women deal with the most job stress that also is not surprising; they are hit with sexism and racism every day at work. The environment they are in daily to provide for themselves and family is toxic and stressful in general they have to deal with harassment from inmates and fellow employees as well as trying to erase her gender and race as much as possible while on the job. Since many ‘white’ male officers feel that affirmative action makes for poor employees I wonder would they still feel that way about qualified employees of different races, or do they believe that ‘filling quota’ is just a numbers game. White male officers still have the best picks for promotions and positions at the prison and still make up more than half f the employees. I can see why it is more stressful being a women or a minority, it is extremely hard to get anywhere in the system if you aren’t the majority. Sadly, that is how it is with a lot of minority inmates that cannot afford representation and racism plays a part in their sentencing. Co workers that have the upper hand are usually already under the impression that they have a unspoken right, they treat inmates poorly because of their status and also I believe race/sex plays a part in that and they treat their co workers poorly, because they can. The system does not do enough for women and men to compete fairly with one another in the prison work place.

Blog 19

People love a fight; I’ve seen quite a few fights on Mill Ave watching men fight and women fight. There are only few differences in female and male fights. Females seem to be more vicious they don’t really care about seeming cool or impressing anyone. That’s probably because females are trained to be fighters they are not suppose to be tough. That being said, are female officers more efficient when it comes to physical violence? Do they know how to step in, stop a fight, and also how much force to use? I do not think women have an inability to deal with physical violence, I think we don’t see a lot of women using physical violence because it is ‘unlady’ like and we don’t want our little girls using force.
The media depicts women in male dominated professions are tough, masculine, and neutralizes their femininity. Take for instance SVU, the female detective Olivia Benson is great with children she has a mothering role even to her hyper masculine partner and she is attractive though it is rare to see her with a romantic interest or even be thought of in that way whereas the men on the show all have wives or romance problems. She isn’t hyper masculine, although several women on the shows (SVU/ Criminal Intent) are they also show that all of the women have had some sort of abuse to explain why they are in the field most of the men on the show just ‘wanted to be a cop’. The media doesn’t show beautiful level headed women as police officers, corrections, firemen, EMT’s they show them as wives, mothers, care takers, and teachers. This sends a message to girls but also to boys who become men and then treat female coworkers differently and see them as less. Media sexism doesn’t only damage girls and their career choices it damages society as a whole because they don’t show women kicking butt and taking names. They are a back drop, a minority and women will stay that way until something changes and people take notice.

blog 18

Christine, a 26 year old female friend of mine was telling me about the differences in testing to be a police officer. Some argue that it is sexist, but when they make it gender neutral there are more complaints that it is impossible for females to pass saying that they are weeding them out. On the other hand Christine probably could kick most men’s behinds. She has been doing extremely well in her exams but she does admit its hard to find her place in the classes as a female. She is a minority already, but all the films, training, and most of the educators are males. It will be hard for her to relate to females in her field once she is done with training, although her knowing how to do her job the way supervisors would is a great plus for her.

Correctional officers, that have watched the films have very low understanding of how female prisons work, how to speak with female inmates, and how they should interact with male inmates if they are female. By establishing these policies it leave a lot to be determined while on the job, training should include female based programs as well so that there is an understanding in all respects of the job. Women’s prisons seem to be a lot less strict and more comforting (not gender neutral) so after watching male based programming and training a lot of officers are thrown off by the extra ‘comforts’ the women have and the different procedures. Being in full understanding of procedures and what is expected and needed on the job should be part of the training but since it is male based/gender neutral it is not. It is interesting how the training becomes male oriented when it is being ‘gender neutral’ because many times being race neutral is being white. Stereotypes about the job and inmates become what is the ‘norm’ maybe they do this because it is easier for educators they do not have to go into the details and possible situations that could happen when females or minorities are involved. The job is predominantly male but women are growing into the field also the rise of female inmates should determine how officers are trained.

blog 17

Working within a prison is dangerous, not only are you exposed to dangerous people but you are also in danger of contracting disease, your exposed to mental illness and you deal with a great amount of stress due to your job and these dangers specifically. Building any sort of relationship builds trust, the power dynamic in a correctional officer and inmate relationship is almost impossible to build and trust is not something that should be involved in this work situation. The officers talk about how some inmates are experts in constructing weapons out of random items, examples like this make for a good argument that you cannot trust an inmate.
The officers assumed the worst a lot of the time; in the video some female officers used gloves so they wouldn’t have any skin to skin contact. This was for various reasons including sexual arousal and disease. I also think that the lack of enthusiasm or the prominence of negativity is also the conditions in which these officers work. It’s an aggressive, sometimes very unpleasant environment, they are dealing with people who obviously don’t want to be in prison and they are on constant alert. Not to mention prisons themselves are usually dirty, or they have harsh conditions. When explain why they were in corrections a white man, a white woman, and a African American man all had different but similar answers. They stumbled upon it, it had benefits and decent pay plus they didn’t have any other education after high school. Correctional officers are in demand and since they do not have high qualifications it is safe to say that many officers may not be the best fit for prisons.
Hearing that inmates are the ones that actually a help ‘train’ officer is very upsetting, I would suspect that inmates do know how to do the job since they observe it all the time but it says something for the amount of training these officers get. It also says something about the safety they are providing for themselves other employees and even the inmates. The training deals with a lot of physical aspects for the officers, but what many reported was the mental issues they had on the job. Seeing as the job can be tedious or violent any given day they should offer more training in all areas. Also they need to make training more specific and let women know what they are getting themselves into with male and female inmates. Britton mentions that many officers being trained only knew what to expect in male prisons because the women’s prisons are so different, their assumptions were that all prison and prison systems are alike.
Officers of color see more of their race on any given day then a white officer. There seems to be more of solidarity among minorities a feeling of brother/sisterhood so not acknowledging you own race must be extremely difficult. Also seeing an inmate as a human being and not as a dog is hard for some people, it has to be astonishing when inmates show humanity and become a ‘friend’ to an officer. You don’t always want to see people locked up and maybe they even disagree with their sentence depending on their crime but the job is to be something like a care giver. They make sure that the inmates aren’t sick, dying, or hurting one another or themselves. Some talk about the inmates having it too easy some talk about how inmates don’t have enough rights. There isn’t a single mentality of the correctional officers in Britton’s book because in different prisons there are different standards and different guidelines. Different officers of different races have mixed feelings, not so much based on just race or their race but differences in the crimes and the individual inmate. Which looking at people as individuals even inmates is helpful in the long run because an officer can determine what that inmate needs and how much of a risk they are to the prison and to the officer. Correctional officers, have a lot going on not only physically and dealing with convicts but how to determine what is appropriate when it comes to interaction with the inmates both male and female. They aren’t necessarily trained well, but they learn along the way which can be expected to a certain degree. Mentally this job is exhausting because of the constant stress, influx of prisoners, and changing technology.

Blog 16

I never really thought about how the capacity of jails affecting the people who work there. It is obvious, but it is something that doesn’t automatically come to mind. I never really thought about the imminently danger of the job either I thought more of prisoners like animals at the zoo. Docile and behind bars but these officers have a lot of contact with them on a day to day basis. Women officers were referred to as a ‘steak you can’t eat’ if that isn’t rattling to hear from a convicted murder I have no idea what is. I think male officers have to deal with more hostility from male inmates but females have to be more vigilant more by the book because many will not be able to simply over power the inmates. Females also have to be more aware of their surroundings since many of the inmates are convicted sex offenders.
Coming from a gender based society and the women who are officers probably have help more female based jobs this can be a total culture shock which may have harm on their mental and emotional well being. The need for guards is high and since many of these workers are becoming officers as a last resort (in today’s economy many are taking last resort jobs). I feel like females are more in this category whereas their male counter parts had similar jobs (police, military) and decided that becoming a correctional officer had more to offer them or they winded up in the jobs. Many young boys want to become a police officer because their fathers or other male role models where and they make most male cops look so appealing on television and in movies, women are not portrayed very often or in a flattering aspect making a lot of females shy away from corrections and police work. I feel that gender norms are a huge part of recruiting and then the danger levels and the on the job hazards count more for the amount of people that stay in the field of corrections.

Blog 15

The United States is one of the very few modernized countries with such a high incarceration rate; most of the offenders are there for non violent crimes such as drug possession. Back when the United States first started incarceration men and women were there for multitudes of crimes, they were different ethnicities and had different occupations. This is interesting since now most prisoners are minority males on drug and possession charges. You could say there was more diversity in the prison system back in the late 1800’s.

Prisons now are flooded with minorities’ not just men but also women. The prison rates have sky rocketed looking at just the difference between now and the 70s. Each year the rate of women in prison grows, although they still make up the smaller percentage of inmates. The number is made only more obvious with the number of male prisons and the number of female prisons a couple thousand more for the men. The growth of women in prison can be blamed on a multitude of societal ills like amped up aggression and violence in the media, bad economic times, but also the fact that sentencing used to be a lot lighter for females. They could get away with a lot more, with judges going lightly on the females, now with laws in place that are (more) gender blind that has stopped and the rates of imprisonment go up. What is very interesting is that the rate of females incarcerated are highest in states like Montana, Arizona, Idaho and Oklahoma these aren’t ‘podunk’ states but I expected New York and California to be on that list. They have high violence and crime rates, (so does AZ) but maybe more women are getting arrested on other charges then violence and drugs? I also think that female incarceration rates have increased because of the lack of programs to rehabilitate, women seem to do better in these programs that don’t have much place in the prison systems in the U.S. but since they have been cut out no one male or female can benefit.

Blog 14

Dr Frost said that ‘incarcerating women has a profound effect on the families and communities left behind’ it automatically made me think of how our economy slipped after we started cracking down on illegal immigration. Society is a delicate balance and I believe so much has been thrown off that society is crumpling under its own weight; female incarceration which is rapidly increasing is just one of the many factors.
Separating workers lives into private and work increases the female gender role of care taker. Women and men are expected to go into very different realms of work, so the private life of child care which is usually left up to women is pushed even farther away from males and the workplace. Gendered concepts are more set in stone, than actual gender roles (families are all different) which can be increasingly frustrating in the workplace, if women in more male dominated work places cannot get child care they have less of a chance making a case. A female working in child care or another female dominated profession would have an easier time getting child care and not having to fully separate private and working life.
Structures in prisons are very gender based, most guards are males or they are white (male and female). Society places female guards in a category playing down their feminity/ nurturing. The prisons don’t have childcare which also harms the female inmates children place them in foster homes. Men do not have to worry as much as their female co workers about domestic responsibilities because they are less likely to be a sole care giver, or they have a wife. Men also in general make more keeping females from dominating the work place and helping their status in society. Women suffer in organization that are gendered simply because they are newer to the work place and they are required to keep private life private they do not have the ability to be a mother/wife in the work place.

blog 13

In movies, television, and stories police officers and correctional guards are mostly white men. Women do not have the stature or a lot of times the typical attitude of stereotypical police/ guards/officers. They are going to go through more problems than men who go through training. People in the field already (males) are going to be more cynical of females wanting to enter the field. Judging by peers is more detrimental to the worker is going to cause more stress and ultimately cause more women not to join the force.
When I think of female correctional officers or police I think of a more masculine women, I believe this is because every time I mention my major someone always asks ‘you want to be a cop?’ with a raised eyebrow. No I do not want to be a cop, I don’t think I have what it takes physically or mentally but why does everyone need to be shocked at the idea of it? Is it because I am small, because I wear dresses and make up? Or is it because of my gender alone? I don’t think I have the confidence that many women in the field have, plus I have no idea how I would handle the stress of the job. I don’t fit into the mold of stereotypical police officer, most women I know don’t but I know one woman who went through fire fighter training with mascara on so you never know who has that interest and passion.
There are definite images portrayed in the media of correctional officers in different prisons. Women’s prisons seem to have a more backwoods image whereas most men’s prisons seem very urban. I have no idea whether that is because of the population inhabiting the prison or not. Women’s prisons are just as dangerous because women inmates are just as problematic, they may or may not have as much force behind their violence but it is still a problem. Female officers are probably in way more danger in men’s prisons due to the fact that they are female and the inmates will go after them instead of a bigger masculine guard. I think women are just as capable obviously but in the eyes of men they are not. It is hard to work that kind of job when people who need to trust you can’t and it’s hard to work in a place where you are constantly doubted.

blog 12

Men and women are supposed to have equality in the workplace, but where men dominate women take pay cuts and cannot seem to do anything about it. Women are gaining more presence in nontraditional workplaces, this way they can make more money because they are more of a commodity. With that being said many women still face sexism in the workplace due to their male bosses or co workers who are not trying to break ground but who have already established themselves in that workplace. Most jobs that are male dominated have been that way since the beginning; women are new to the field and therefore are a minority, in many cases minorities do not always fair well. Many women will find it hard to break into these professions because of engrained gender roles in society, many men and even women believe manual labor is only for men. Only small percentages of women take up roles in the fields of labor and skills, this is due to both beliefs of tradition and the unwillingness of men in dominated roles. Things are changing due to this economy and women are finding themselves in more and more nontraditional roles.
Women and men both benefit from women having more nontraditional jobs. Women gain skills most do not have and can capitalize on that, they have the abilities to make more money than they would by doing receptionist work or child care. These nontraditional jobs give single mothers a chance to make more money without giving up as much time with their children. Jobs that most women don’t break into give more opportunities not only to women but to their families plus they give women more work that is needed and usually will pay for training. I believe men still are benefitting from women working in nontraditional roles, by diversifying the workplace men have different views on their jobs, plus women still do not make up enough of the nontraditional workplace to make any negative effect on their male counterparts.

Disappointing

From unemployment rates,to a magazine cover struggling working poor especially women with children are very much in the media. Nothing is being done about it though.

blog 11

Erin Brockovich is a good example of a working mother struggling with child care issues, money issues, and holding onto a job. Granted the movie turns a job into a career and she deals with somewhat neglecting her children but this is what a lot of women deal with. Erin’s neighborhood was mixed income, and in the beginning of the movie the women who was taking care of her children was incredibly unreliable. This is a completely normal situation for many single mothers who cannot afford regular day care. Also Erin doesn’t eat dinner one night so that her children can, although Erin does have some luck when she finds a good care giver she has to cope with her children missing her and having to sacrifice time with them to put food on the table.
Many women even high income ones face struggles when it comes to being a mother and having a job. Finding adequate child care isn’t the only problem it is a main one but finding someone who you trust your child to who is also willing to be stable and help work with them on an educational level is ridiculously hard to find anywhere, it’s almost impossible to find in low income neighborhoods. Single mothers don’t have the funds to pay for child care and that hurts not only the mother but the child in question, also it is hurting the child’s future and the child’s ability to learn so they can earn more later in life. Children need to be able to get a better education then their parents did so that they can one day pull themselves and possibly their families out of low income and into better neighborhoods and schools. Although their mothers may not have the opportunity to earn more money and thus give their children more we need to provide so that yet another generation will not end up in poverty.

blog 10

Some of the women talk about living in shelters and going on assisted living to get out of bad living situations. These women go through very poor situations only to put themselves in a shelter and try to make enough wages to support themselves. This is yet another reason that single mothers shouldn’t not be as heavily taxed they are working they are trying but they have more obstacles then average families or low wage men. The video with tent city residences was hard to grasp because although there are tons of homeless shelters there obviously isn’t enough. With the economy the way it is and more and more people drowning financially it is not hard to imagine where women stand in these hard times. Women are usually up against more when they try to begin a job or career. Sexism is one problem but so is being a mother, single mothers have to figure out child care, and a lot of their options are not good ones. Educational child care isn’t usually an option with social networks such as grandparents neither are neighborhood day care centers that are most often too expensive. No one realizes that the unemployment rates are rising and that those numbers are made up of a lot of women. A lot of women with children, who need food, education, care, and medical treatments these families cannot afford any of these necessities and fine themselves in a increasingly bad situation.

Looking towards other countries would be fine, but many times looking at other cultures government acts on things concerning family will not work here in the United States. For one many countries (which have laws regarding children and family) have lower poverty rates, some have higher senses of family or have bigger families so social networks of child care are easier to find. Also in many countries education and school start at earlier ages so finding more child care once the child gets older isn’t always an issue. We as a country, need to acknowledge the growing child care problem and provide more pre schools and after school as well as day care centers for the growing number of working mothers. Although minimum wage has gone up little by little so have the price of living wages, that are earned in low wage jobs don’t begin to cover the expenses.

Chaudry says that most single mothers want to work and take the options given to them depending on what is best and works for them and their family. This isn’t always the best choice for the family, but it is the only choice. There is only so many options for single mothers when they aren’t making more than minimum wage. Children are not responsible for the poverty they were born into, yes it was the card they and their parents were dealt but children shouldn’t be second class citizens because of their parent’s economic status. President Clinton changing welfare and moving more people into the workforce, which is great it helped our economy and got people to start taking charge of their financial situations but now that the economy is on a serious downgrade what happens to the people who already make minimum wage? Low income workers are usually the most expendable and are usually the first on the chopping block when recession hits. Child care which is a necessity for working single mothers becomes unattainable when they either have no job or a low wage part time one while they struggle to keep what they have. The recession can also be blamed on low wages because more and more people go into debt sending more and more companies into bankruptcies. There is no escape like ‘OB’ said in the video ‘The Other America’, the vicious cycle is hitting everyone but low wage workers that don’t have a high level of education and therefore are not qualified for higher paying maybe even more stable jobs.

blog 9

“Thirty-nine percent of the nation’s children—more than 28 million in 2005—live in low-income families”

How are we allowing this to happen in the world’s richest (even though we’re going through economic turmoil) nation? Why are we letting charities like food banks and shelters bear the burden of low income and impoverished families and more importantly the children it affects? We send 39% possibly more of our nation’s children to bed without a nutritional meal that does not sound like a land of plenty. Understanding the ‘pull yourself up by the boot straps mentality’ and even believing much of it there is no possible way most of these families can do that, there are too many struggles too much hardship for these families to gain any footing since it is hard enough just to survive.

“35% of black children live in poor families. 28% of Latino children live in poor families. 29% of American Indian.”
Yes, poverty does affect minorities more, which furthers claims that the government does not care enough about them. The children of this generation and even the ones before it are not the first to suffer poverty, they come from a long line of poverty and low income. The cycle is just continuing with them as their parents or more likely mother struggles to keep afloat. Their mothers work long hours struggle to find child care which probably hurts their slim chances of finding a stable job, they collect welfare and food stamps, the children are forced to attend below par schools which will never provide them the tools to claw their way out of poverty. If they are lucky they will finish high school or even go to college but the likelihood of that is slim. The fact that they are minorities almost forced into the ghettos and project housing into bad schools and in rough neighborhoods these mothers cannot afford to give their children anything but societies scraps because that is what they can manage and that is what they are given no matter how hard they try. Children shouldn’t suffer any longer because their mothers cannot afford simple necessities because they are heavily taxed, because we don’t put enough money towards everyone’s education and because our government chooses to ignore their needs. Working mothers have a hard enough time caring for their children if we require them to work we need them to require more assistance.

Blog 8

The problems working/poor mothers in Urban poor areas face are different and similar to the mothers in mixed income areas. Their safety, health, and oppurtunites and the oppurtunities for their children and greatly different. Schools, after school programs, pre schools, housing, food, and crime rates in general lean towards a more positive aspect in mixed income areas. Many mothers do not have the ability to house their children in clean and well built homes/apartments or supply them with good food or send them to a good school in urban areas because there are simply none around.

Jessica’s video was heart breaking because she tells of how she sacrifices, she tells us how she’s scared that her children will get hurt because of her area, she talks about how hard her life is and how she wakes up every morning to find herself working for minimum wage and being surrounded by poverty. The women who introduced the videos says it immoral to expect low wage workers to raise a family. The responsibility from what I see fall almost solely on the mother, this is harsh and women who are already facing sexism in any job market have to fight to keep their jobs and to raise their children. Most of the working poor are mothers, and a lot of them are single mothers even more of these families live in low income housing. Its hard to find any relief from poverty and minimum wage when you have to surround yourself with it to survive. Its unfair to the children who go to poor schools and have to eat low quality food and do not have access to computers, to better part time jobs and do not see their mother because she has to work forty plus hours a week to scrape by.

The government’s answers to poverty fall very short of actual help that is needed. I understand we tax low income workers more because they use governmental service more often. To me this seems backwards and unhelpful that isn’t assistance that’s just sanctioning their funds to give back to them with food stamps which is extremely unhelpful. They need to stop throwing heavy taxes they need to improve the spending value of minimum wage and they need to wake up and realize that taking care of low wage workers takes care of our economy and our country as a whole.

Blog 7 unpredictability of children

Children as well as life are unpredictable, even when they are young adults. My junior year of college I got very sick and my mother who was the only one around (it was summer so most people had gone home) had to drive down from Colorado to take care of me for a week. This was only a week and she has job security now, most mothers’ especially low wage and single have the issues of missing more than a week of work because a child is sick. A lot of the stories involving the single mothers deal with children getting sick – a lot of the time it is due to asthma caused by inadequate housing. Children make it hard to reach consistency especially when their parents can’t provide for professional child care, consistency is what employers look for especially in low wage jobs. When a single mother cannot show up all the time, she gets fired because it is easy to replace her. Also since many low wage jobs require a multitude of hours and some require evening hours it is harder to find childcare that is willing to keep up with those hours and it is impossible to pay someone to. Again, it is a vicious cycle, without child care women cannot find or keep a decent enough job to improve the quality of life for her child and herself and without a decent and stable job a woman cannot provide income for child care. Julia and Jacqueline as well as a number of other women in this book provide prefect examples a lot of their stories have to do with job hopping because they couldn’t find child care. Brittany as well she had to juggle work and Bethany and work two different jobs to pay for child care and get grants for day care. There was no stability for anyone involved especially the child and mother but the employers also had a rough time. You would think that the government or corporations would be more willing to help employees with child care if it meant more productive and loyal employees.

Consistency blog 6

Although families no matter their economic stance have been patching their child’s care together for years the only difference is that low income families don’t have many choices. Low income families use day care centers but they are expensive and sometimes they have grants and scholarships for them, they use friends or friends of friends and family or neighbors. There isn’t anything wrong with this but the independent child care givers do not give consistency or work on education. There isn’t any structure and no way of telling if the child is getting what they need out of their care. Though mothers have different preferences many of the moms liked the structured day care that was expensive they felt it gave a constant to their child’s lives and was dependable others liked having children at their parents or friends because it was familiar faces taking care of their children. Consistency seemed to play a large part in any of the decisions, many of the problems with using non contract child care is that the provider doesn’t have the training or they will start making requests that are unattainable (like in Brittney/Bethany’s situation) or they become unreliable which can be harmful to the child and put their mother’s job at risk.

What is sad is those actual childcares providers won’t take the child care welfare vouchers mostly because the paperwork is tedious. In my opinion day care schools are for education and to make sure children are being provided for when their parents are working. This oddly enough resembles the poor education low income children get when they become older. Its discriminating and classist which harms not only the child and the family but our economy, every child needs child care and as a country we can’t force someone to work without presenting aid for their families they need more than a job to pull themselves up and out of welfare.

working doesnt always work blog 5

The videos all have the same theme; the poor are staying poor because of the vicious cycle of poverty. It is almost impossible to save when you are making minimum wage and working paycheck to paycheck. The collective stories we heard in the videos are gauging poverty and its extremes the food stamps, the minimum weekly pay, a family of four living on less then 21, 0000 dollars a year. Not only does the salary hurt these families but their children will grow up in poverty they will not get the same nutrition, the same education, they’ll grow up in unsafe neighborhoods with stressed out parents who probably will not be around enough because they are constantly working. What is an awful fact is that many of these parents have no education so yes, they may work several hours a week taking them away from their children but they aren’t in good paying jobs because they aren’t educated. Why aren’t they educated? Because public schools where they grew up offer them nothing in the sense of education, we are keeping the working poor, poor because we refuse to set up more education opportunities for their children and the neighborhoods they live in. Why do we tax low income families more when we provide them less in the long run, I think it’s great that Clinton urged and required parents to work to get assistance but it has gone too far. If you require them to work, they require you to provide education and child care. If you provided education chances are the need for public child care would go down, the economy would go up and less people would need to be on welfare. Most people in the videos talk about themselves as the working poor or do not classify them as the working poor but all the people in those videos had something to say about low income and work how the government could improve the quality of life for low income families and workers. Every single person who offered a solution said the word ‘government’ and even some said ‘tax wealthier people’. I idea that we take more from poor workers because they use the assistance which is not that good more than wealthy people do, it is a backwards way of thinking honestly and what is the point of taking more money from the low income workers just to give it back to them in the form of food stamps?

Blog 4 children first

There is millions of different family set ups around the world or even in one city. Not one structure is good or bad but should be defined as such by the happiness and health of each family member. A good family life, have the family members healthy, happy, and well connected as well as stable. Children should feel safe and secure with their family and adults should be able to connect well with each other while providing for their children and their spouse (both adults not just one or the other). The mother who describes career and children in the film says there is guilt and hectic schedules that are hard to balance, she also spoke about sacrificing different aspects of life sometime the children don’t have mom at a school meeting but they have their attention at home which is more important in the long run. Sure sacrifices for the children and also regarding the children will come up but when you balance a career (that may be putting food on the table) and your children you have to figure out what is more important and what can fall by the wayside. Growing up with two working parents I got to bond with my grandparents more than the average child does and I also had a sense of logic, self efficiency, and independence instilled in me as well as appreciating the time I did spend with my parents every night or early mornings.

We have all seen the movies where there are children racing around the kitchen shoveling food into their mouths while mom in business attire cooks and dad in a suit drinks his coffee the hectic life style of having children plus a career is often depicted but it also shows the mother doing domestic roles that are ‘expected’ of her. Movies like Mr. Mom show how ridiculous it is for a man to take on the female housekeepers kind of role within the family it is so out of the ordinary that we made a movie about it…how very telling. These different aspects of life can be hard to handle successfully if one of the family members or an employer refuses to be flexible when it comes to schedules. If the mother doesn’t help the children with homework the father can feel overwhelmed or if the father does no housework and leaves it to the mother, also if the children or other people who live in the house don’t help out nothing is going to get done in an orderly fashion. Households are a team, and a team doesn’t succeed if only one person is doing the work. Employers who have a right to expect certain things from their employees also need to assume that people have families that need their assistance from time to time and should be willing to bend when necessary to the influx of mothers and father in the work place.

In the United States we still very much adhere to the traditional gender roles, women cook they clean and usually they take care of the children more than their husbands do. It’s what most of us have grown up seeing and these gender roles are passed along to various generations because monkey see monkey do. Because of these roles that have been passed onto our generations men make up a large part of the supervisor branches in the work place and do not see why women need to either break that glass ceiling and at the same time run home once in a blue moon to pick her kid up from school because he has chicken pox. With the changing times it is hard for everyone to be on the same page when it comes to gender in the work place and gender roles at home. Some women may not want to give up household chores but others are simply afraid to demand help. It isn’t normal to see a stay at home dad as it is to see a mother staying at home to raise the kids and keep house. Employers that are family friendly aren’t hard to find, many have day care services within their buildings, some offer different lunch hours to pick up children, some work in teams so all team mates can have a flexible schedule but still meet deadlines businesses like parents have gotten creative over the years to accommodate working parents. Unfortunately I have seen bigger companies like chain stores offer less flexibility to their staff which in some cases have children and cannot afford daycare because of how their low income. These are the mothers and fathers that need the most flexibility.

Supportive family members and family friends are how I grew up and how many of the children on my block grew up, sure we lived in a kind of ‘slummy’ district of Virginia but the families where nice and made sure the kids didn’t burn the place to the ground. I was lucky enough and my parents were lucky enough to have outside support from their parents and I wish every kid had their grandma as a babysitter but the reality is not all of us can. Day care businesses like KinderCare need to become more affordable or more accessible, businesses need to make an effort to work with parents and start putting children first.

Blog 3 change starts with the family

Care work is bound to hit someone at any point in their life, especially when they have elderly relatives. Many families, like mine could not afford nursing homes, or in home nurses and assistants and many simply do not want to send their grandparents, mothers, fathers, or spouses away. Living in a three story house was one heck of a workout during 2006 for me, my grandmother who was around 83 lived in the finished basement and I was upstairs. Many time I would hear her call or just hear a loud noise and rush from the upstairs to see what she needed or what happened. My parents also took care of her obviously, we took shifts. My mother who worked during the day would take care of her in the evenings and at night, while I took the smaller shifts during the afternoon after school so Mom could have some private time. Dad took the day shift since he worked night shifts at the hospital. We had our own chores around the house and involving my grandma (who cooked a lot given her health issues) we made it work but it was a stressful and hectic time for all of us. Many families do not have the luxury of the situation we did with different work shifts and willing children plus my parents both worked in the medical field which helped tremendously. My personal experience wasn’t a bad one actually it was good in the fact that my grandma and I bonded. While I did laundry she would talk to me, and I would help her cook or we would watch Murder She Wrote (sounds lame but it’s a great show). My parents have often said that year has been the most organized and efficient year of their lives and while we all know that most of these situations don’t work well or they are stressful (trust me it wasn’t a cake walk all the time) we feel grateful that ours worked out well.

Society will not change, but individual families do need to make the necessary changes for women in the workplace and at home. By having businesses be more flexible with schedules and having different methods of managing and working they have cut back a lot of stress and have increased production in the United Kingdom. Women’s work has been limited to homes but some of the most stressful and necessary jobs are technically ‘women’s jobs’ like nursing, and teaching plus being someone’s secretary stinks (I did it for 4 years). It is strange how these jobs which are important and crucial to our society are labeled a woman’s job but women aren’t necessarily welcomed in the working world outside these few professions. Personal situations within the family is where change can really make a difference, by allocating different chores to husbands and even children women can make a bigger impact on the workforce while possibly increasing their wages and breaking through more glass ceilings. Society is not going to be making changes any time soon the majority likes the way things are (Silly men) for the most part so it is our jobs as wives, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, boyfriends, husbands, daughters and sons to make sure we take on responsibilities so mom and dad can help pay the bills and have equal footing in the workplace and that for generations to come women will be able to expect more from their husbands/spouses.

Women and Work Blog 2

My first three classes I ever took at Arizona State University were taught by women (who looked more than a little frazzled).One was a women studies course so it didn’t surprise me and the other two were English and history but as I progressed from taking 100 levels to 300 hundred levels I saw the amount of female teachers dwindle most of the professors where older men or PhD students that were men, I also saw that the students responded to male teachers a little better than they would female teachers. What struck me was a difficult professor that was female was a witch but a male professor was just difficult. I don’t see sex segregation that much in the staffing departments or student workers in fact I have had more female TA’s than male. I read in Women’s Health magazine a few months back that women are becoming more educated and are more likely to hold jobs than their male counterparts these days and it is getting more difficult for women to find a significant other equal to her education. Good news in some ways, right?

I was lucky enough to have a very open minded liberal house hold when it came to gender roles. I am also Italian so that means Mama ruled the house with an iron fist, when it came to me they didn’t really give me a lot of dolls and ‘nurturing’ toys like a kitchen set I more often got legos, books, and coloring books instead. My parents worked a lot so both of them split the chores and expected me to help out as well. In that sense I was very lucky and didn’t have gender roles forced upon me I did however hear ‘act like a little lady’ a lot when we would have guests which meant be polite don’t talk a lot and smile so I guess we did have a certain set of gender rules, that or my parents just wanted me to stop yakking away. When I got older gender roles started becoming more prominent by ways of dress, hair ,and make up this didn’t come from my parents so much as my friends who where all discover boys and stealing their mom’s mascara.

What is so crazy is that women may be getting paid less but women are not losing their jobs at the same rate in this economy. Women are taking more jobs to earn wages to keep their family afloat their husbands who work mainly in construction, engineering, and financial institutions which are getting hit the hardest. Women who work in health care and more government jobs (teachers) are still in demand and are not being put off because they are needed. Women work more often in jobs that are female dominated and do not realize they aren’t getting paid well enough, women in the areas getting hit harder aren’t being paid what their co workers are so employers may not cut them as quickly as someone they pay more. This doesn’t touch on the benefits package that many women do not receive because either they don’t make enough or they are part time. What’s unfair here is that since women aren’t getting paid enough at their main job is they have to take second jobs to keep their family clothed and fed while their husbands look for new work. Women still are feeling the economic problems in our country and we are lucky enough to find second jobs or keep our same ones but we still aren’t being compensated enough for a hard days work.