Annan + de Tocqueville

First off, I must be honest and say that I did not appreciate de Tocqueville’s essay. He was saying how horrible America was, and being American, I have learned to take pride in our country. Too many people now a days are focusing on the negatives of our country, when to be truly united as a republic and a powerful democracy, we have to focus on the positive things that our country is truly doing. De Tocqueville saying that we have produced no great writers because our lack of freedom of speech is an abomination. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman and Mark Twain are all some of the most famous writers still, and they are all three American. SO..I don’t know. I just don’t agree with that essay and it made me not like him. The end of that. In Annan’s Nobel Peace Lecture, he talked about how true borders are not between nations, but between the rich and the poor, etc. I think this is really true, and I believe that Kofi Annan was probably a great advocate for peace. Unlike some other people who have recieved this award.

How these essays relate to justice:
Governments should have less control of what is happening with the people in order to have a greater amount of justice. To keep justice, people need to realize that other people in other places are always going through worse stuff than they are. People fighting for what they believe is right is just. People saying what they want to say or believe, without being punished is just. People fighting for the rights of other people is just.

MLK + Thoreau

In Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, it is proven that justice is not equal to following laws. Justice is more than being a law-abiding citizen, it is doing what is truly right, whether the government agrees or not. MLK breaks a law and is sent to jail, but it is for trying to create peace and justice. He even says “…I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” (213 WAW). To MLK, I think justice is civil rights and human rights for all. This can be connected to the homosexual fight for civil rights today. I believe that MLK and Thoreau are similar in Thoreau’s thoughts that “The government is best which governs least”. The government can sometimes take too much role in trying to provide justice, and in return be taking justice away from some people. Thoreau believes that people should determine their own futures, and their own fates and that large government can get in the way of that heavily. When the government is determining the futures of it’s people, that is defeating the purpose of trying to create justice, by creating injustice.

Justice and Superheroes

Today at the art museum, I was not really inspired by any of the paintings to be quite honest. I felt this way until I ventured to the back of the exhibit where I saw two paintings depicting Superman with both heroes and victims of the 9/11 tragedy. When I saw these paintings, I realized that justice was more than just making sure people are following the law. All police officers have to do their job in making sure that the law is being followed, but there are a select few that are actually passionate about making sure that people everywhere are being treated justly. Justice is more than just following the rules, it is doing what you believe is considered right, sticking up for people who cant do it themselves, and being a positive leader and role model. Justice is not fighting crime, it is trying to prevent anybody from feeling unsafe. I think that even though the original paintings of superheroes alone did not inspire me, superheroes can be seen as fighters and providers of justice. They are doing what they believe is right, just like most police officers, firefighters and doctors depicted in the painting above.

Readings 3

1. I believe Sultana Yusufali is an “other”, while her hajib is the “self” almost. If it weren’t for her hajib, Yusufali would feel exposed, and like a sex object. But even with the hijab on, she is being judged. The hijab defines who she is, and without it she feels incomplete. Her identity is determined by that hijab.

2. I chose my quote from Box 6.
“By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities, though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents.” (Watson [1968], of Rosalind Franklin)
REWORDED: She was quite masculine, but you could tell she was pretty. If she tried to be girlier, she could look quite good.

This is just a before and after shot.

Readings 2

Both of the readings this week were about women, and the obstacles they are overcoming both in sexuality and the workforce.

 “Why I Wear Hijab” is about a woman who, in order to keep her identity as a woman and not a sex object, is wearing a hijab. The way she talks makes the hijab sound liberating. I believe the hijab is not actually something that most women would like to wear. It seems like a way for men to cover their wives up, making them less equal. Yusufali says this is not the case though. “..the hijab, contrary to popular opinion is actually one of the most fundamental aspects of female empowerment.” (WAW 757) After watching this video from YouTube, I realized that the hijab is something that was not ‘chosen’ by Middle Eastern women, it was forced upon them. Men were so angry that some women protested at first, that they threatened with weapons and stabbed some protesters.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kanx8kWeDs8)

 

“The Way we Live Now” was a story about the recession, and how more women are thriving than men. They say that one reason may be that women make 77% of what men do, so they are ultimately cheaper to employ. I believe this is true. I don’t think the fact women are paid less is unethical, it is just the matter of how things are. Women are more dominant in fields such as nursing, education and front desk work, while men dominate the fields of dentistry and construction. Men make more, because they choose jobs that pay more.

Readings 1

“Oryx and Crake” and “Beijing Forum on Women” were our readings for this week. I honestly didn’t connect or feel empowered by either one of them, but “Oryx and Crake” stood out to me the most, although it was in a negative manner. This exerpt was about two boys who grew up in a home where the parenting was non-existent. Due to the lack of supervision, Jimmy and Crake would participate in voyeuristic activities online. From executions to porn, they would sit back and watch people being tormented in different ways. Due to the access they had to these ‘shows’, they became desensitized.

I believe that when there is a lack of parenting, or any supervision at all, the realization of what is right and what is wrong doesn’t disappear, but moves slowly to the back of the mind. The boys knew what they were doing wasn’t normal. At one point, Jimmy says he becomes reluctant to partake in the viewing. He doesn’t know why, but he does nonetheless. Watching and enjoying people’s deaths and torture isn’t normal, anybody with common sense knows that. But, if there was a presence of parenting in the boys’ lives, the realization may have been more clear that what they were doing was wrong and derogatory.

In “Beijing Forum on Women”, San Suu Kyi talks about how women should have more power in government. She says that no war have been started by women, but I really think this is because the women have not been given enough power, for long enough to start a war. If you look at the statistics, more men have been in power for a longer amount of time, so it is fairly safe to say..more men start wars. Obviously. If we overthrew every man in office, and replaced him with a woman politician, I still think wars would go on. Just because something hasn’t happened with minimal woman participation, does not mean that it won’t happen when the participation is upped. I am not saying I think that more women would start more wars, but I think that in order to make a fair statement, she should look at it from a numbers standpoint.