Ethnography Paper...

After reading opting out, I became really interested in this trend that working women are taking on. Since I grew up in a household where both my parents worked, that's all I ever knew. I don't think I was negatively affected by the lack of parental presence when I was younger, but I sometimes wonder if parents, especially the mother feels like they are harming their child by not being present for every aspect of their maturing. Along with this I was wondering about people who have the option to opt-out and why they decide to, although this may seem harsh, choose to keep their career in lue of making their children the number one priority. I feel that when I get older, I too will want to try and balance a career and have children. I know that it will become hard, but as of right now, I can't let my children take away my since of independence.

Methodology: While thinking about these topics I decided to follow the life of a typical working mother, trying to balance time with her family and contributing to the success of her family financially. My question: Do you think that working could cause a negative affect on your children? and if you had the option or do have the option to opt out, why haven't you? I followed around Annette Powell, a full time worker and mother of 3. Her hours at the aiport call her to work at a minimum of 4 days a week with hours ranging from 6am-2pm or 1pm-10pm.

Interview...

Q: Do you feel like you have missed any significant part in your child's life? if so what?
A: I do sometimes because my job does interfere with events at school. My job does not give me the ability to just take off whenever I want to.

Q: I see that you leave early every morning, do you feel that this morning time not spent with your child could be a negative?
A: Sometimes the father has to take the place of taking the child to school and getting them ready and It's just a part of teamwork. it's good because it shows the child to rely just as much on the father as the mother, rather than just one primarily.

Q: Do you have the option to opt out?
A: No, because with three children and the expense and the cost it takes to raise them, to cloth them, to feed them, that it is to the children's benefit to have two parents working. It's attainable because both the mother and father are fully engaged.

Q: Why do you enjoy working, instead of staying at home?
A: I enjoy working because I feel like my husband can take up the slack when I'm not there. This shows the children that nowadays the mother is not the only care taker and she has the ability to be successful on her own. When she's happy with her accomplishments it can be a role model for the children because they realize they can accomplish the same thing.

Q: Was this your plan to do so your whole life?
A: I always thought that I would stay at home when the children were little but with the kind of job my husband had, it made it possible to be able to work and have a family life.

Q: What do you think this is teaching your children?
A: I just teaches them the value of parenting as a team and taking equal responsibility with raising the children. It is attainable.

Q:With the economy as it is, are you seeing the rewards to deciding to stay with your job?
A: Considering we are in a recession, In my opinion it does take two incomes. We can't afford to take any chances with the way the economy is. If one of us were to lose our job, we would have a back up plan.

Notes...

As mentioned above I followed her throughout her day. She woke up at 4 a.m. to get ready for work and since her commute to the airport is 30 minutes away she left by 5:15. This was way before any of her children had awoken. They are all elementary aged children so they had school that day. She explained to me that it was her husband who helped get them ready, fed, and off to school in time. After work if was her duty to pick the children up from school and then take them to their various activities. Throughout the time, I noticed that her absence was in fact not a burden to the children. Although she expressed it could be hard some mornings for her to miss getting them ready, she does in fact spend a lot of time in the afternoons with them. This sharing of powers gave the children a chance to look at each parent as equal and to get to spend a separate time with each parent. After viewing I now feel that I too can, when the time is right, balance a family and a job. Although opting out could have been an option, in trying times like these, each parent will see the benefits in caring for their children equally when it comes to working.

Blog 8...

I'm very confused what happened because I thought I posted this yesterday but I guess my computer did not follow through with posting...? Oh well here lies Blog 8...

In many of the articles I read online they outline that opting out is just not always an option. Since Belkin showed this idea through her very successful friends, she fails to show that not all women have the luxury of opting out of the workplace. May it be they aren't financially able or perhaps they are a single mother who is the soul income provider for her children. This idea is just not an option.

Another idea against opting out is putting too much reliance on the male figure in the household. What if there is divorce? What if the spouse dies? That luxury the woman once had is gone in a flash and they are now forced to re-enter a very competitive workplace that has changed drastically since they first left. An author on the Mothersmovement.org points out that Belkins friends may find themselves facing displaced homemakers' syndrome. The woman writing the response is a recently divorced free-lance writer. Although she claims she will be more well off then many others in her situation, she struggles with the fact that she decided to opt-out herself and now she is facing the harsh concequences of her decisions. She wishes she would have listened to her advisors when they said "only you can take care of yourself, don't left anyone else fill that position." When her husband was financially stable to take care of her, she opted-out and now she wants to warn others of the problems that can occur with this decision. With divorce rates rising, the idea of opting-out is a scary one. Although no one goes into a marriage expecting a divorce, I think that women should arm themselves with the possibility.

I come from a family with divorced parents. My mother has always worked her entire life so when this unfortunate circumstance took place, she did not have to worry about how to take care of me on her own. Although both my mother and father are active in taking care of me, my mother's job was just as financially stable to keep us from changing our normal lifestyles. She has forever drilled into me that I need to be responsible for myself. I don't need a man to give me everything and I should NEVER rely on one completely. Obviously my mother did not go into the marriage with my father expecting the worst but since she came from a divorced family herself, she knew how vital it was to support yourself financially no matter how much money your spouse makes.

Blog 7...

Okay so I am normally an avid movie watcher but I have to say I've been rather lacking within the past 2 months. I've seriously only seen like 2 movies, which to me is kind of ridiculous! But anyways between the two I've seen which is Milk and Coraline...the one I saw most recently was Coraline so I'm going to attempt to describe it in terms of gender. Coraline is a 3d movie. Its characters and surroundings are very similar to those of the Nightmare before Christmas because they share the same directors. But anyway...the story line is about a girl, Coraline, who moves with her family to a new town. Her family is very involved with their work so they pay little attention to entertaining and interacting with their daughter. Coraline is left to create her own adventures and use her imagination to discover her new surroundings. During her search, she discovers a door that leads to world unlike her own. When she enters, she is encountered by her "other parents." These parents unlike her own, seem to live their life only to please Coraline. They make her favorite foods, they create gardens and sing songs about her, and they treat her like she is the only thing that matters in her life. It is easy to see why Coraline becomes enchanted with this world. But she soon figures out that her "other parents" are really just figures of her imagination created by an evil witch who plays the role of her "other mom". The rest of the movie is full of twist and turns as Coraline fights to beat the evil witch and return to her own life in the real world. So basically it is kind of hard to describe it in terms of gender but in reality, I think this movie breaks a lot of gender stereotypes. Coraline is obviously a girl and she is the strong heroine of the movie, which is unlike most movies where the male is the central hero. Her nemesis is also a woman. She is the wicked and strong counterpart to the courageous Coraline. The witch even has control over the whole made up environment. She uses characters like "the other father" to her own advantage of enticing Coraline to remain the other world. There are many other characters that do portray specific stereotypes but overall the women are the lead characters of the movie. Although Coraline's sidekick is a boy, he typically takes direction from Coraline and although at the end he has a shining moment to save the day, Coraline is the one that takes part in most of the aciton. It was actually a pretty good movie especially since it was directed more towards a younger audience. It was refreshing to see the girl as the heroine fighting to protect her family. It helps to break the stereotypes to young children who may always believe it is the man's job to save the day.


In reference to the readings...

After reading I noticed how much times have changed. Well obviously women aren't only thought of as the extension to their husband..or only functioning by the terms of the husband. But really now we have such a hard to struggle to overcome. We still have the motherly instinct and being a mother requires so much time. It scares me to think that soon I will have to face the decision to either further my career or start a family. But I want both so badly. There is only so much time in life. There's so many things I want to accomplish. It feels like the early twenties to early thirties are the times of your life where you really set yourself up. To think that so much happens within that small time frame is a bit overwhelming. This class has really challenged me to think more into the future so I can set my goals straight so when the decision comes, it will be well thought out.

Blog 6...

When I first saw this ad, I was disgusted. This not only portrays the woman as weaker and inferior to men, It portrays the man as a the dominating power. It insinuates that the men are going to use their dominating power to take advantage of the woman. What kind of picture does this paint to Dolce and Gabbana shoppers or even people passing by viewing the advertisement. Not only is Dolce and Gabbana a primarily women bought brand but it shows that obviously the women continuing to buy the products are supporting a brand that is advertising using the weaknesses of women. There is no text within this advertisement but but I believe that's even worse. They are just leaving it for your imagination to make up what you think the ad is trying to say. Obviously, we all no what it is insinuating. It just disgusts me that this ad was actually thought up and mass produced in order to sell clothes. I don't think it has much to do with clothes at all, it just shows the male dominance the men continue to hold over women. If we continue to have ads like this, women will all ways be thought of as just a piece of meat that men can take advantage of.


In Response to the readings...

In the Beauty Myth Chapter online, Wolf shows how although women are gaining more power in the work place and in the world itself, we are still plagued by the beauty and image insecurities. Wolf talks about how women images are used to beat down our ultimate fight for equal rights. Women's images and jealousies are ultimately breaking up our unity. We have become so jealous of the pages we see in the magazines, of the images we view of tv, that we forget that most of these are merely just photoshopped creations meant to make the perfect women. That women just doesn't exist in real life. Although I fall into this trap everyday, I have to remember that I am my own person, I can't be like anyone else. I need to own my own faults and be proud the body that God has gifted me with. It is hard in this day and age but if women can overcome this, we can no longer be taken advantage of by our own sex.