In the first paragraph I was immediately engrossed in this reading because throughout hearing about race you always hear about African-American women and Caucasian women and even Latino and Mexican women but you seldom hear about Asian Pacific American women. However, when Yamada was speaking in terms of Women’s organizations that tell every women to “join” and give “input” and how these are the better ones I am not quite sure I agree because in reference to the Combahee River Collective, African-American women found that though they may say that it is not necessarily how they really feel. Now given you cannot speak for every woman’s organization but in respect to what Yamada said I don’t know if I would go as far as to say that those are the “better ones.”
While reading this I felt that a lot of the oppression she was speaking in terms of not being recognized for anything other than stereotypes such as “passive and sweet” closely parallels the oppressions that many African American women face. Probably any female minority faces. While reading I felt and realized that in a sense it’s our own fault sometimes as women for how oppressed we are. Not saying we as women caused this but just as the reading said and even the reading from the Combahee River Collective stated some women in groups are “into pushing their own issues” and that’s disgusting to me. Why is it so hard for women to stand together and stand against all racism, oppression, and sexism? Not just one form of it. And Yamada states the exact same thing when she said “The two are not at war with one another; we shouldn’t have to sign a ‘loyalty oath’ favoring one over the other.” We all have trials, tribulations, and strife’s that we must fight through. But it’s ridiculous when we as women try to discredit the next woman. Understanding that just as Joy said this is not rocket science but in relation to hearing other ethnicity’s plights and oppressions in relation to ours it opens my eyes up tremendously.
Even while reading Chicana Feminism, oppression of women in one form or another is displayed. What more are we going to have to do in order for all of us women… all… to recognize and understand that they “men” will keep holding us back if we do the same to our own. Same race, ethnicity, etc. we should not have to choose.
1 comment:
But even if you think it is hard for women to stand together, I do not think that we CAUSE our own oppression. Our oppression is imposed by the masculinist forces in society. We do not wake up and say, " you know, today I am going to find a way to cause my own oppression." It is hard to break that mold, when 50% of the human race is against your struggle. It is a head to head battle that those in power have continue to prevail. Yes, the time is now. We have to work together to ease this overlapping oppression that women of color experience. When there is a collective of minority women, I think things will be much different, in that the cohesive effort would challenge the exisiting structure even more!
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