Unit D - Blog #38

Myra Bradwell effected the very beginnings of women as lawyers. She discussed and studied law with her husband in 1869 and passed the Chicago Bar Exam later that year. She applied for a license but was denied. She took it to the Supreme Court of Illinois where they upheld the decisions saying, "The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many occupations of civil life....The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign office of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator." [83 U.S. 130 at 141]. She appealed and they overruled this decision making her one of only five women lawyers in the U.S. in the 1970 census. She started The Chicago Legal News which did really well. This kind of a woman broke all conventional rules especially for the era she lived in. By overturning the ridiculous first ruling, women were able to break free from the sanctity of marriage confining a woman to only feminine roles. While it did not end the ideas and practices of women carrying out only womanly roles, it was a major step in setting precedence for future rule breaking women to come.

Unit D - Blog #37

Women's progress as of 2003 showed increase numbers across the board in law firms, court appointments, professors at law schools, and in Fortune 500 companies. However even though the numbers increased, they are still so low. Fortune 500 companies now compromises of 15% women as compared to 6%. But still. Women are half the population and only 15% of major companies have women in high offices. In the supreme court it is 22%. Judges that interpret the law are made up on mostly men allowing for our laws to be male dominated, no wonder we cannot enact change. Women are now at 76% of a man's pay as compared to 73%. I wonder why there is even a gap in the first place. If a woman and man go through the same schooling and have the same experience there is logically no reason why their pay would be any different. And this happens in law firms in major cities, not rural areas. Discrimination suits are still filed in law practices for women being sexually harassed or paid less. This only reinforces the stereotypes of women lawyers who are found to be bitchy, emotional, or not as aggressive in the courtroom. Men see these as weaknesses even though if the woman is aggressive she becomes bitchy. The same qualities that we look for in a male lawyer are seen as bad in a female lawyer. But is she is not aggressive then she is weak leading to a double bind.

Unit D - Blog #36

Corporate America will only be able to lure women back into the workforce if it changes its policies. Women do not want to be treated as less of a worker because they are female. They need care giving options if they are mothers and there is nothing wrong with that. You want women in your company? Find a way to help her with the children. Women are also more increasingly aware of pay rates and if there is a difference between theirs' and a man's, they are not going to want to work for that company. Women will also want to see other women in leadership positions so that they know there is upward mobility available to them. Women bosses will provide hope and encouragement to new incoming women employees. Do I think that the corporate world will change this? If they really want women back in their fields, and they should, they will slowly start to bend their policies and make room for women. Women play intricate roles in the corporate world, sharing insights and views that men may never see. These women are smart and talented but feel jaded by companies. These companies need to recognize a woman and/or a mother as who she is but not treat her as handicapped because of her gender. This especially applies to mothers. Women with children need the same consideration in promotions as other women. If corporate world does not change its patriarchal structure, they will be hard pressed to integrate women into their labor force ever again.

Unit D - Blog #35

EEOC promotes practices that would encourage men to work in more family work situations. It also talks about the strong overlap between women's rights and caregiver rights. Both of these issues need to be addressed since disproportionately women are the dominant caregivers. But because they are women they have always been paid less even though job is becoming more critical in our society. In order to change this, we must work for better pay for these women and these positions so that they are earning what they deserve. Men should be encouraged to participate as well and should take on family roles if the woman in the household works outside these roles. While it would be very difficult to pass actual laws about these changes, smaller legislation within states can occur in order to change the way things are going right now.

Unit D - Blog #34

Joan Williams' book, Unbending Gender, talks about the unyielding family roles that continue to persist in our culture. There are two realms of work for her, outside work and family work. Outside work is a job or career that pays for your time while family family work includes child care, taking care of elderly, or the sick. She argues that women disproportionately are in charge of family care work even when they hold jobs themselves. If a woman is a stay at home mom, she feels devalued almost as if society finds her useless and unwanted. But then when a woman goes to work, we want her to stay home. Working women still carry out family work roles which leads to a society where males are expected to do outside work and little to no family work. This type of society is hurting children in the process because mothers are overworked or feel undervalued and fathers continue a track of not helping in the family work arena. While Williams suggest legislation to help assist in paid leave and childcare, she is more concerned about how society views family life as a whole. She believes that is the true crux of the problem. Unless we change our ways of thinking, there is no way to change the actual problem. Overall women must take less of the family work and men must start participating in it.

Unit D - Blog #33

Even though most of these blogs have been about doom and gloom and portray a lot of negative impacts that occur to women lawyers, there are some advancements that have occurred recently for women in offices. With the media attention on Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton in 2007 the world was exposed to two high powered female leaders. It also gave the world two distinctly different female leaders. You had a conservative, mother in Sarah Palin and a liberal, former first lady in Hillary Clinton. Both advocated for very different morals and ideas but were not afraid to stand up with the men and talk politics. Both were of course analyzed over and over again for being a woman instead of analyzed for what they stood for as a politician. Hillary Clinton then obtained a high ranking cabinet position in Obama's administration. The majority House leader is also a woman showing society that it is time for change. Women are staying at law firms for longer periods of time (except minority women) showing that they are persevering though the man's world and maybe even changing some firms' minds about how women operate. They still face challenges of being promoted and being stereotyped but hopefully more leadership roles will discourage this way of thinking. If women who are in high leadership roles stayed away from interviews about their makeup and wardrobe I think it would benefit women as a whole because we could see that they truly care about their positions and it does not matter what shade of red you wear when you are running for office.

Unit D - Blog #32

Female lawyers who are mothers versus male lawyers who are fathers have very different roles in the work place and at home traditionally. Most male lawyers have wives at home that can afford to stay with the kids while dad is at work. Mother lawyers have husbands that generally work other careers or do not desire to be a stay at home dad. When a male lawyer says he has kids no one questions the amount of hours he works or does not spend with his own children. When a female lawyer says she had kids people want to know if she misses them all the time and who takes care of them. These women are under attack as opposed to males who are supported by others to go to work and provide for the family. Because traditional roles mandate that a mother be with her child as much as possible, many female lawyers experience guilt and higher stress levels because they are missing time with their child. They start to feel like they are bad mothers for choosing a career over their children. High powered female lawyers experience this on an even higher level. They are viewed as being deficient as a mother and therefore are under much scrutiny if anything ever happens to the child. To society this woman has chosen to abandon her child in order to gain success. A man in this situation would be considered to be "providing for his family" at that status. Women who work hard in their careers are always associated automatically as being unfit mothers though.

Unit D - Blog #31

The legal profession has as many difficulties as any other profession when it comes to child care. In their cases though they always have long extended hours. Many childcare options are not available for this kind of time. Childcare centers are generally open nine to five and do not offer later hours. If relatives are helping out, many times they will have other family obligations, part time jobs, errands, etc and will not be able to help on a twelve hour day. Some solutions proposed are allowing lawyers to work from home. This is difficult however even with all the technology available because working from home does not provide immediate access to people within the law firm or files that are stored there. It also risks compromising a case if a lawyer is a mother and she is being distracted from her real job. This may lead to prolonged cases because it will take longer to research and prepare. Another solution is to offer daycare at the firm but there is just no institution out there like that. Their hours would have to be long as well and spending that much time in a daycare can be harmful to a young child. Plus any daycare working in a law firm would have to be super worried about the liabilities. That is the last place any caretaker would want to work. Even when children enter school, there are few after school programs that last very long. This all effects the dynamic family structure because either dads or relatives or babysitters start to take a larger role in the children's lives.

Unit D - Blog #29

Few minority women stay with law firms because they are treated as minorities for case assignments. What I mean by this is that minorities are generally matched up with minority cases because firms believe that women lawyers will better relate to women cases of their own race. This may be true but what also happens is that these women are then seen as NOT being able to relate to other people that are not the same race or gender. This leads to a selective amount of cases for minority women and they are unable to advance their careers and therefore leave their jobs. The stories of NPR reflect the frustration that former women layers have with firms and the legal system as a whole. We are supposed to be living in an equal society but instead women are being chastised for who they are as females and then divided by race stereotypes. All the women definitely agreed that they were being assigned to cases that were for them as designated by their firms who were headed by white males. Some of them carried a lot of resentment towards their former employers and how the system works. Some of them almost agreed that with their employers saying that they understood why they were being assigned the cases they were. They left because they knew this type of practice would continue but they were not as resentful maybe because as women they believe their role to be subservient to male bosses.

Unit D - Blog #28

Sonia Sotomayor was characterized as a "fiery Latina woman" from the beginning of the murmurs that she may be nominated for the Supreme Court by Barack Obama. This is a common stereotype of Latina woman by the media for years. Latina women are very quick to anger and run households with an iron fist. Due to this Sotomayor's character as a judge was asserted to be very temperamental and "bitchy" and somewhat of a bully on the second circuit bench that she currently worked for. Her competence was overridden by her strong emotions that she had. Even though she was a Princeton and Yale graduate who graduated with honors, that was all taken away by her bad temper. Our 42nd and 43rd president, George W. Bush graduated from Yale with straight C's. When he was first nominated no one insulted his intelligence. Of course it became a joke later once he was seen making speeches with unknown words. Sotomayor on the other hand has been articulate and precise in her speeches and is clearly a learned student of the law. But her temperament becomes the focus on the media instead of her record as a judge. One reporter who critiqued her even admitted, "I haven't read enough of Sotomayor's opinions to have a confident sense of them, nor have I talked to enough of Sotomayor's detractors and supporters, to get a fully balanced picture of her strengths." Instead anonymous sources were used and PUBLISHED. Even when the article was called out for being spineless, the newspaper never apologized or made corrections to some of the quotes that were cropped to make Sotomayor look bad. This sends a clear message that the media was definitely villainizing her to Americans because she was a female Latina. Her actual accomplishments were always downplayed, even though if a man had those same qualifications he wold be glorified for it.

Unit D -Blog #27

Due to the fact that men are favored in the legal profession, they are able to obtain better internships which lead to better careers and a fast track to promotion. This allows for them to become more knowledgeable quicker that a female lawyer. Because of this women are purposely left behind and are not able to work their way as quickly up the ladder as a male colleague. Women therefore receive less vital cases which only hinders their experience as a lawyer. Because they are never given the opportunity to expand their knowledge, they are never able to progress in their careers. Women therefore become less adequate for certain cases allowing for men to continue their dominance in the field. Male lawyers will use this to their advantage against many female lawyers when trying to win cases. They may point to her history in the field pointing out a lack of cases as compared to himself. He may also use her education as a weapon against her, pointing out more knowledge from his extensive research in a particular field. Because women are also able to network less in the law arena, they have less contacts to rely on who are well known. This may also work to a male lawyer's advantage because he may be able to receive more guidance and information on a case because he had the opportunity to network with people in higher positions. Knowing people is always a huge advantage in any field, but in particular the law field. Male lawyers may have worked with the same judges before and therefore know their style and behavior better. This is because males will receive more cases than women. This again can hurt a woman's opportunity in winning a case.

Unit D - Blog #26

Women are assisted by men in almost all cases of law. This is because many firms will not allow women to work on cases alone or with only other women. This practice places gender roles on the law because it insinuates that the law must have a male present in it to oversee the process. This goes back to classical republican thinkers where there are two spheres that exist in the world- the house and the political arena. Women belonged in the sphere of the home, taking care of expenses, cleaning and the children and men belonged in politics, making laws and ascribing how the rest of society should act and behave. This has been seen in the law process in the U.S. for many years. "Man" is the word used to describe men and women throughout the U.S. Constitution. At law firms the men are taking women as interns almost as if they need guidance from a man because he will know what is best for the woman to do. Examples of this include assigning a female intern to a case with a male as a leader. Women lawyers are also not promoted as quickly due to this because they are viewed as not being able to handle their own course loads. Women are also not likely to be partners in the firm, but if they are it is always with another male figure. This allows for men to be deciding the interpretation of law more often and thus excludes half of the world's population from getting their views across as a woman.

Unit D - Blog #25

Using sexualized behavior as a lawyer may have pros and cons to it. On one hand, it may allow a person to get his or her way around the office. Being a woman, if you want certain cases, you may make claims that a woman can better handle the situation. Males can use their dominance in an office to take cases away because they are seen as being "in charge." In court, a woman lawyer may better appeal to a jury of women depending on the circumstance. Male juries may feel more comfortable being told the evidence by male lawyers. The cons, in my opinion, far outweigh the pros though. Using your gender as a weapon only perpetuates the cycle of gender biases. Around the office, men will lose respect for women who use their "female-ness" to get their way and women will be annoyed by men who think they are the "masters." In the court of law, if the everyday American witnesses the use of women and men as a tool, even if it is only subconsciously that they make this connection, they are going to associate this with the rest of the world. This strategy is presented by the media as being negative especially for women. Media will blast women for using this tool even though in many cases lawyers are told by their firms to behave in this manner. Liberal media will also point out how it is a step backwards for women. Feminists will argue that the only way women can break free from gender roles is by eliminating acts such as these.

Unit D - Blog #24

When I talked to my cousin Terri who was a former lawyer, I asked her a lot about the expectations were in her office because she was a woman. She told me that as an intern starting out she was doing a lot of woman based secretarial errands such as making coffee, copying papers, and getting the lunch orders for the day. She commented that the male interns were usually not assigned these duties. Once she earned rank she commented that cases were subject to gendered roles. She received a lot of child cases because women around the office were seen as motherly and better able to handle the distraught parents. Big, important cases that involved corporations and billions of dollars were given to men. While her interest lie in family court, she knew a lot of female lawyers who worked solely in tax court with businesses that would be much more useful in these big cases. As a law student, she said that women were always expected to read but not called on for answers as much. They were to know the details while the male students were to understand the big picture and were much more likely to be called on and used as an example. When asked about her fashion choices she said that it was just assumed you never wore anything flattering or bright because older women students and faculty would look down on you and no professor would take you seriously. From the get-go fashion was denied as an aspect in a woman lawyer's life.

Unit D - Blog #23

Many female lawyers and politicians struggle with the images that are portrayed by the media due to their fashion. Notably, Hillary Clinton has for years been an icon/source of entertainment for the media. She is known for wearing women's pants suits which are the closest resemblance of a man's suit for professional women to wear. These pant suits generally are matching colors with loose fitting pants, a blazer with little shape and worn with a neutral low colored heel. The media has over and over again blasted Clinton for her style because it takes away from her femininity. But once a woman does wear more feminine clothes, she looses some of her credibility or respect. Let's take a look at Clinton's counterpart, Sarah Palin.

Palin had a more feminine edge to her style with a more Jackie-O appearance. She had longer hair which created a more feminist view of her style. Media started paying attention to her clothes more than who she actually was. Magazines ran specials on her favorite lipstick shade. Instead of focusing on her political views, we were worried about her face washing routines. This is an example of how dressing in more flattering clothes labels you as unprofessional. This is a double bind for women lawyers and politicians. If you dress in suits, you are labeled as not womanly. If you dress like a woman, you are not taken seriously.


SOURCES: http://dc.about.com/od/photosofmuseums/ss/MTussaudsPics_4.htm,
http://www.barking-moonbat.com/images/uploads/sarah-palin-tina-f_1009438c.jpg

Unit D - Blog #22

Sonia Sotomayor has been critiqued from the beginning of her induction into the media realm. Because she is a woman and a Latina, the press deemed those traits as having effect on her personality as a judge. In news stations, cable programs, radio talk shows, and newspapers critics raved about her as being a "reverse" racist. Conservative outlets believed her race would effect her decisions as a judge because she would advocate for minorities simply because of their background. They also attacked her for the following statement: "All of the legal defense funds out there, they are looking for people with court of appeals experience because the court of appeals is where policy is made," she said, laughing a bit through the next part: "And I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law. I know. Okay, I know. I'm not promoting it. I'm not advocating it. I know." Conservatives ranted that nominating Sotomayor would be allowing a woman to make her own policy as she saw fit since that was her view on judgeship. Many liberals backed her up claiming it is actually true since Congress may make laws, but courts interpret it, hence making policy. Liberal media hailed her as refreshing and showed evidence that minority groups outside of Latinos were also excited for her nomination. An AUL gay activist said, ""Nobody wanted to talk to the queer person at that time," said Ettelbrick, who represented Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. "She was the only one [on the advisory committee] who made a point to come over and introduce herself. She was totally interested [in gay civil rights issues] and supportive." The liberal media even used her race to support her though saying, "To Hispanics, the nomination would be an absolutely historic landmark. It really is impossible to overstate its significance. The achievement of a lifetime appointment at the absolute highest levels of the government is a profound event for that community, which in turn is a vital electoral group now and in the future." For conservatives,Sotomayors race and gender were binding problems, but to liberals she was a marketable minority.
SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/01/sonia-sotomayor-supreme-c_n_194470.html

Unit C - Blog 20

The conditions in the toward reflect some of Britton's findings about the fears faced by women correctional officers who are in male prisons. Fraley, the officer, was raped by two inmates and not allowed to eat or pee on her own accord. They were abusive and wanted to exert power over Fraley. Both men were no where near being released from prison and so they ultimately had nothing to lose. They probably picked Fraley because she was a woman which accurately reflects Britton's findings about how a small population of men do not like women officers having the power.
Prisons are gendered organizations because the Arizona prison system was in shambles before the new woman in charge of the prison. Formally the "cowboys" that ran the place where known for "locking 'em up and throwing out the key." Schriro however had a different approach. Be tough on prisoners but give them a chance to restore their lives. In the first article Dora is portrayed as very intelligent and innovative. She is the first director in a prison hostage situation to get everyone out alive. Her persistence and tactics saved Fraley's life. The COC was found to be in shambles which is what made the Tower situation such a long ordeal. Plans for the tower were not communicated to staff at all and there were no maps or good communication lines that existed.
Britton discusses keepers and turnkeys to talk about people that are in favor with their supervisors and people that are not. The working conditions are affected by how guards relate to their supervisors. Before it was like a good old boys club and white males were friends with the white male supervisor therefore placing them in line to get promotions. With affirmative actions nowadays people complain that others are promoted to fill status quos only and they are not really qualified. In Schriro's position she found many workers could not pass standardized tests and has raised that bar so now all her officers are at the same proficiency level. Schriro has improved the Arizona prisons greatly making her one of the most respected prison supervisors in the nation.
Britton says prison is a total institution referring to the fact that it lies completely outside of society. It is separated from the world and nothing is supposed to come in or out of it. Dora has a completely different take on how prisons should really work. Instead of being a total institution she takes on a reformative justice stance saying that the men and women of prisons can offer society something while they are in prison and when they leave. Her goal is to make something of the inmates and give them goals so they can get their lives back.
Prison guards are engendered according to Britton because of the preconceived perceptions of prisons and the training they receive. Men are taught to be physically strong all the time and that they mist play protector roles. Even men who are shorter still look at women as being weaker. On the flip side when women can perform physical tasks they are still degraded by men who say "that's pretty good for a woman." In Fraley's case she was able to stay alive which is an amazing task to do with two very dangerous incarcerated males. This is a test that many human beings, men and women alike, would not be able to do.
Britton suggests that training needs to focus on the difference of men and women inmates and the effect of men versus women correctional officers factor into the prisons. This may have helped the tower situation if men and women officers were taught how to deal with crisis situations like this. The tower was very ill conceived and never planned for. A study into the difference in men and women correctional facilities will lead to policies that affect these areas differently which can only help aid the safety of inmates and their officers. Without acknowledging that men and women are different and accepting that is NOT a bad thing, prison engendering will continue to occur. These separate policies will not have to make things softer for women but instead address the differences that occur because men and women facilities are different.

Unit C - Blog 19

Media plays a large role in how people perceive women in reverse gender roles. In Thelma and Louise, critics wrote about how women start carrying guns and the world has gone crazy, it is not wonder many men were opposed to women becoming correctional officers at first. However, Britton says now that many contemporary men see women as an asset in the prison. However, they still feel the need to take on more dangerous jobs especially when it comes to violent situations. Some women are happy about this. In the media, men are always depicted as saving women or being the protector. These roles persist in real life and causes many women to feel grateful for a man's protection. While it may upset them that men do not think they can perform the job, they also feel like they need to be thankful for the man's chivalrous act. This is the problem with women claiming gendered roles in their workplace. They cannot advance themselves because they are not able to form social networks with the men who are in charge. If they refuse a man's help at the prison they are isolating themselves but if they do accept their help it is like they are admitting defeat to accepting a more difficult job. Women face the same physical tests that men do and must pass them in order to receive the job at the prison. Therefore they are capable of performing the jobs but because they are never placed in high security areas they are not able to showcase their abilities in order to prove themselves. Without trusting in their skill they will never be able to advance unless they know a "daddy" as Britton mentions.

Unit C - Blog 18

Because prisons try to be gender neutral in their policies and generally men are the heads of most prisons, the rules become male dominated. The main reason is that they focus on the violent aspect of prisons which is mostly male dominated. Because of this officers are trained to be physically ready for these kind of outcomes and are not trained for the emotional aspect that many non-violent prisoners will show. The correctional training programs are also very hands on when they are dealing with working with the prisoners. For the most part they will allow trainees to see the violent outbreaks to gain experience. This reinforces the idea that prisons are extremely violent.
Men and women prisons are different because men and women prisoners have different ways of reacting to situations. Many officers report that female inmates will react to situations with emotional outbursts while men will react violently. They also say that women are more likely to do this over "petty" instances where as men are arguing over "real" matters. This is a problem because officers start to treat women and men prisoners differently take some matters in men's prisons more seriously then in women's prisons.
As long as prisons trivialize these instances then men and women prisoners will be treated differently. The hyper masculinity shown in many male officers may egg on male prisoners to exert their power too. This is especially prevalent for female officers who have to watch men masturbate. Many women claim it is because the men want to gain some control over them because they are not used to having women tell them what to do. Many women will combat this by embarrassing the inmate and therefore preventing future problems. Male officers have to be more careful about women making claims against them for being sexual. In female prisons they do this by pairing a male and female officer together. In male prisons, women do not perform any searches or showers for the male prisoners for fear of arousing the men or harming the female officer.

Unit C - Blog 17

Correction officers need to be careful about how they form relationships with inmates because emotions are hard to separate in such a different work environment. Britton says that officers either take a view that offenders are still human or they believe the offenders are given too many privileges. In the video, the officers did not really talk about their personal views but you can tell that most of them do not think that the prisoners are too pampered. In fact, at this prison they have many opportunities for the prisoners to work and learn and enhance their lives. They even allow women to start a cosmetology allowing them to work with scissors. It appears that for the most part the CO's in the video take Britton's first view that criminals are still humans that just happened to make mistakes.
According to Britton officers have a view of female inmates as being emotional and good at playing mind games. Most officers prefer working with males because their training consists of handling violent conflicts and not emotional outbursts. In the video I felt like the officers assume that they women there are to be regarded as dangerous until they prove otherwise. They are very harsh when it comes to violating any of the rules and lock them in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. There were examples in the video of women crying and there was one time when a woman was waiting to hear how much longer she had to be locked in her cell when she starts crying because she cannot wait to see her prison girlfriend. The officer that is with her says some consoling words but generally looks uncomfortable which can relate to Britton's findings that most officers do not know what to do about emotional situations.
Britton mentions that Latino and African American officers did not face many differences than white officers when being placed in female or male prisons. Many people believed that the disproportionate amount of minority prisoners would cause minority officers to befriend their inmates. However, this is not normally the case and in the video it appeared it made no difference. There were white and non-white officers and all of them appeared to be treated with the same respect and/or disregard.
Officers in Britton's study go into their jobs assuming that prisoners are going to be very violent and trying to trick them all the time. Many reported that the way prisons have been popularized in media as war zones prevented them from considering the job in the first place. When they get into the system they are very cautious because they are waiting for violent outbursts, especially in male prisons. It is hard to tell what the officers assumed in the video because most of them have been there for many years.
The overseer in the video was very mild mannered and looked like a housewife from the 1960's with her nice matching suits and pearls. However, she did talk about being strict and handling problems with officers immediately. She seems to take everything very seriously which can be related to the African American guard who called an inmates ketchup packet "contraband" because they were not being handed out at lunch that day. I think many women of color play the rules by the book because they do not want to get in any sort of trouble. If all the rules are followed strictly there will be no problems for the prisoners or themselves.
Britton says that officers who become friendly with inmates may lose respect with other inmates because they appear to have favorites. It also can get them in trouble if other inmates become jealous. There was an example of this in the video where a prisoner admits that she would seduce officers to get money. Obviously this officer would give a lot of money to stay out of trouble, but other inmates are bound to find out and therefore you put yourself at risk.
Britton does not talk a lot about the social controls but in the video they spend a lot of time talking about the isolation chambers where the women are subjected to being alone for 23 hours a day and receiving 45 minutes of exercise time in an outdoor cage essentially. The threat of the isolation chamber generally keeps women in line. They also are rewarded for good behavior with jobs and education classes so that they will work hard to be good to receive these benefits.

Unit C - Blog 16

For both men and women correctional officers, a majority had no idea that they would wind up in that professional arena. Many men started out wanting to be cops but found that the prison offered more jobs and better pay and benefits. Women were less likely to even consider the job and come form all sorts of "feminine jobs." Many were child care workers and secretaries. They considered correctional officer positions after being attracted to the health benefits and pay. In social networks, women from a young age are not even encouraged to be in police work let alone prison guards. Because of this they feel they do not have anything to offer to that field and are very unaware of what they would be required to do. Men were similar in the way that they "fell" into the field because it is just not a common job that is talked about as a possible career when people are young. Social networks, even as adults, discourage women from becoming correctional officers because they feel it is still a "man's job." And while there are threats to a woman correctional officer, they are not as popular in prisons as the media makes it out to be. In training there is a video shown about possible prison violence which sometimes causes women AND men to quit before finishing training. Men were less likely to admit it was because of the fear of violence though. The point is that society teaches us prisons are like a war zone which discourages both sexes from seeking the position. The main motivation for people to choose this as a career is the pay and benefits. Because jails are in rural areas, there are not a lot of good paying jobs in the area, especially with benefits.

Unit C Blog #15

Statistically women have been incarcerated at a much higher average than men in the last quarter of a century. In fact it has gone up over 700%. Women prisoners have gone been gendered for much longer than males, being forced to do things like cooking and sewing while in jail. They were also trained to be servants for middle class women and then had middle class values pushed upon them. Women were also treated as less than "women" when they were placed in jail. They were assumed to be abnormal and outside the normal realm of how women should be and behave. Eventually this ideology has changed so that women are being treated more fairly in the respect that they are not being as stereotyped hence why there has been a much larger increase in women going to jail over males. Male incarceration has been steady since the beginning of the jail system.
Arizona history is similar in the respect that it focused on males primarily. However, they caught up more quickly to placing women in jail and they have many women correction facilities. Arizona also has been more progressive in employing in women at jail facilities. The biggest problem is tent city where more men are pulled over and arrested for DUI's then women. Whether it be the lack of women actually being caught for DUI's or the lack of women actually driving drunk, men are disproportionately represented in Sheriff Joe's tent city. Another trend that Arizona follows is that mostly men are in higher positions at jails. Sheriff Joe has been the sheriff for a very long time and is extremely conservative which makes him not a high candidate for enforcing women's rights.

Unit C Blog #14

Britton's theory of gendered organizations focuses on the persisting wage gap between men and women due the structures of organizations, cultural assumptions, and the agency themselves. In part she is asking how all these affect why women are getting paid less and that there is no one single reason, but an array of factors that need to be considered. Structure, agency, and culture all affect prison guards for example. Within the structure, there is hierarchy and men have always been placed at the top. In cultural terms we have been taught that men are the punishers within our society. At the agency level, female guards are more likely to be give secretarial work over then men within the same facility. All of this affects the way that women are paid and viewed within their fields. When Britton says that structures are gendered she is talking about how men and women act "men and women" in their organization and reproduce how other men and women in their positions have before. They act with appropriate gendered characteristics such as a women lawyer will take on family cases before a male coworker does. In private and public spheres there are many gendered concepts. Private spheres are able to discriminate more based on sex and public spheres are not. I think that in some cases public spheres will have more women because they are required to and are trying to show a change. In private spheres they will hire women and pay them less because they can. Labor laws have been mainly directed at public spheres until recently when laws were passed for equal pay rights.

Unit C Blog #13

Britton writes that the media version of a correctional officer is popularized as a bug, hulking man. You imagine a tough guy who never cracks a smile and is ready to use violence against violence within the prison walls. Likewise when you imagine a jail, you imagine chaos and unruly men. The truth of the matter is that women are entering the prison workforce in large numbers and in the book it mentions in 1995, 19% of correctional officers were female. Considering that is almost 15 years ago, the numbers are probably much higher. When discussing this with a fellow student who spent some time in tent city he mentioned that a majority of his correctional officers were female. He even mentioned that one of them was a very attractive female. This struck me as interesting because it depicts how even if we are open to the idea of females in prisons, we think of them as being masculine and unattractive. This is a major problem facing many women who work in non traditional roles. Because they are entering places that are male dominated, they are considered to be "less feminine" and unattractive. I think that this is a leading problem with encouraging women to enter other job fields even if they are interested in the subject. Women do not want to be perceived as manly. I think that in male prisons, male officers are shown to be extremely tough and not likely to be very caring. In female prisons, the male officers are probably a little more soft but women can be just as dangerous so I do not imagine it is that different. As far as recruitment videos go, females are portrayed as being very physically fit and motivated to be at their job. They usually are attractive looking because it is still a media piece and they are advertising ideals of how women should look.

Unit C - Blog 12

Sex discrimination still persists because many women will not even try to apply for jobs because they have traditionally been taught to not pursue male dominated careers. Employers can also discriminate by using methods of physical discrimination by posting heights, weights, etc as required ideals for a position. Atmospheres in the work environment can also be hostile forcing women to quit their jobs even if they liked them. This also happens because of the way we are brought up as children being told that girls become teachers and boys become firefighters. We give kids toys that enhance these views, such as trucks for boys and barbies for girls. By enforcing these ideals throughout our lives by the time we get to college, we pick majors that fit this criteria and then careers that match our gender related majors. Social institutions that inflict this upon us would be our schools and churches. Schools are a major influence on a child growing up. If they see mainly woman teachers, they assume that is what is normal. However, they also see males as the principals of schools and so they get this idea that the male is generally in charge. In a church, the leaders are principally male as well. Over and over in your most social institutions you see men as the leading figures and women as the followers.

However, when women break into these roles that are male dominated, they are serving as role models for young girls. The can be inspirations for other females their own age as well because they prove that women are just as capable in a field as men. Women are also able to make more money in these male dominated fields. Especially in trades, hourly wages start out much higher that receptionist type work. Males can definitely gain from women entering these fields if they got over the fact that a woman is "entering their domain." Women will offer a perspective they may have never thought about before. It is also a fact that women work harder to prove themselves because they feel they are being weighted more against men. Men will benefit from this because they will have co-workers who truly care about their labors and are willing to put in 110% effort all the time. There is no downside to allowing women to enter these fields, and in fact should be a desired quality for any work environment to have.

Unit B - Blog 10

Ajay Chaudry based his studies off of working poor women who had to deal with being in the welfare system and what to do after it failed. Many of these women had no choice but to find adaptive strategies outside the system because welfare programs were simply too full. A preferable choice would be father care if this is an option. Most mothers desired for their kids' fathers to be around, but only if they were positive influences in their kids' lives. For people like Julia, she was not happy with the laziness that her kids' father presented and eventually they broke up and she never heard from him again. The most common choice that these women went with after father care was kin care. This is of course the most obvious and probably best choice for many women. Family is someone that you can trust and rely on to actually love your kids and provide a home life setting...or so most people thought. In the case of Julia and Jacqueline, Julia asked her cousin to watch her three children but she complained that her cousin was "lazy" and only willing to help because she got paid the welfare checks. When the checks were delayed, her cousin actually denied Julia childcare assistance. This is a problem that many women face-they do not have family that either lives nearby or is willing to provide the care. At this point, many women had to find outside child centers. This could be in people's homes or actual businesses that are set up for child care. Many women found that the cost and strict time limits at these centers were very hard to keep up with. However, mothers also liked the stability and structure that it gave to their children. If it was a center that was run right they felt that it was the best option outside of their own care. But in some cases, such as Jasmine's, she felt that her child was being neglected at her care center and she knew she could not leave her baby there another day. What I found most interesting too was that the hours provided by care centers do not really match up with a work schedule. If a day care is open 8-5, most people have to be at their place of work BY 8 and cannot leave UNTIL 5. This leaves the mother in a jam, be late to work and leave early, or pay the extra fees to pick up a child late?

This leads into how work and care are related in so many ways yet treated by society as two completely different entities. Working hours and day care hours cannot be the same time. Day cares need to be open before and after normal working hours, for at least an hour, to allow time for traffic, accidents, meetings, etc. How can we expect mothers or fathers to make it to and from jobs at exactly the same time everyday? And how can a person ever grow within their company if they are late or leave early every time? If a mother loses her job because of this she can no longer send her child to day care and the day care loses a client. Work and care also directly impacts a child and how they grow up in the world. This is probably the biggest effect of a working mother on her child. Even if a mother has a part time job working 30 hours a week, that is 30 hours where the child is awake that he or she must interact with someone outside the home. In many cases these outside resources made children feel uncomfortable, sad, or bored. Many mothers recognized the changes in their children but because they were young they were not able to communicate what was really wrong. In most cases though mothers were working full time and usually more than 40 hours a week or like Julia, she was working and going to school, needing well over 40 hours a week in child care. This of course is a lot of separation time between a mother and her kids.

Lastly what Chaudry's critiques run along the same lines as those that we have been learning about throughout the semester. There is simply not enough being done on the part of welfare reform. There is no way for these mothers to make a decent living without the assistance of child care. People keep saying these mothers need help getting an education, and they do, but no one bothers to mention that when they go to school there needs to be someone to watch their kids. I mention this throughout my blogs, but unless we bring attention to this serious matter, nothing will change because we are not forcing politicians to deal with the problem at hand. Welfare needs to stop being seen as a vice in the American eyes and instead be seen as an aid in helping mothers who truly are trying to just take care of their children and provide them with a decent life.

Unit B - Blog 7

Jacqueline and Julia are just a sample of what many poor working women face on a daily basis. The welfare program in the United States is very inconsistent and messes up a lot according to Julia. Because working women usually have to take jobs that do not have 8-5 hours, they require childcare at an inconsistent level. In Julia's case she was trying to go to school and work an internship. Between school hours and an internship she would obviously require more child care for her youngest two daughters. When she took her first internship, she was not getting paid enough so she worked at a fast food restaurant. Hours there are never normal and so her and her sister worked alternating shifts in order to provide care for Julia's children. The problem with welfare at this point is that they do not offer assistance to Julia even though she is going to school and working hard. She was on a list to get assistance and there was a long line. Welfare is so behind in being able to meet the demand, that working poor mothers are forced to take whatever care they can get. When mothers are waiting to receive assistance from welfare, they are taking harder financial hits because they must rely on outside childcare. Julia had some family such as her sister, but her sister eventually moved on. Then she had a cousin, but the cousin was "lazy" as Julia says and refused to take care of Hope and Jacqueline when the welfare checks stopped coming to pay her. If Julia had no family she would have had an even worse time finding care and probably would have found it impossible to continue her education.

In another example, the Scotts are a married couple with two children who make low income. They started at a day care center and received a scholarship through United Way to help them supplement their bills for the child care cost. When the mother received a raise they took the scholarship away and forced the Scotts to hire a friend who was a substitute teacher. If she gets called in to work, the only option the Scotts have are a very sick father in law who is waiting for a kidney transplant. This is clearly not an environment for two active young kids. It is situations like this that force working poor mothers to continue to struggle for assistance.

I think what is really sad about all of this is that I never realized the problems with welfare and child care until I took this class. I never stopped to think about it and a large part is due to the fact that there is zero media attention on this crisis.

Unit B - Blog 11

There was a recent report released on the human development in Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina. In the report, three researchers looked at whites and African Americans, male and females, and parish the participants lived in. In the male and female section they found that white males in Louisiana were on pace with other white males across the United States. However they found that white women make a shocking $16,000 less a year than their male counterparts. This is a 3% decrease from white women across America. What we can determine in here is that women in Louisiana are struggling because wages are clearly not being matched for what a male is making. This will leave working mothers highly disadvantaged. This report is interesting because it shows the progression or lack thereof that Louisiana is experiencing since the disaster. As mentioned before, working poor women have much more to worry about and less help to improve their situation. With stagnant wages and no hope to make more money they are stuck in a helpless situation. Louisiana is just a small portion of what is going on across America. With women making less money in general, $.70 to every man's dollar, they are already a step behind half the population. Taking care of children should not have to be a burden though and that is the stress that lies on the working poor women more than their concern for money. No mother wants to subject her children to a life where they feel like a burden for their parents. The source for the Louisiana Project can be found at www.measureofamerica.org.

Unit B - Blog 9

Working poor women face the same obstacles that middle class mothers face such as childcare, food, bills, and all the little extras that children require. However, working poor women are constantly faced with the worry about money. Day in and out they are concerned about where the next meal is going to come from or the next pair of shoes after the last ones wear out. In one of the videos, a mother is taking her 4 kids to the park where the Red Cross hands out free lunches for the community. The mother lost her job a couple months ago and the father lost his job 8 months ago and took a job that pays much less. Their family car does not run so they have no vehicle and no money to fix it. No matter how old the kids are, they can understand that something has changed in their family dynamic. They will recognize that they don't have a car anymore and that they are getting lunches from other people outside their family and school. Kids are also very receptive to stress within their families. They will react to their mothers being more tired and less focused on normal activities. Working poor women are humans too; they don't have super human powers to live above the stresses of being a mother and being an employee. It is for this reason that wages have to start matching the rising costs of food. Poverty levels in the U.S. reflect an outdated system where food, housing, and clothing are given a proportionate amount in a families' budget. However, today housing and food far outweigh the costs of clothing and therefore budgets are skewed and inflation is unaccounted for.

Unit B -Blog 8

Urban working mothers have more issues to deal with that working mothers who live in mixed neighborhoods because there are more factors to deal with. One would be that there are many more single mothers in urban areas due to the fact that more and more men are winding up in jails, leaving families to fend for themselves with one parent. Even if they leave jail, it is hard for them to then get hired and get a job to help support the family. Another reason would be the drive to investigate the using and selling of drugs because they are more abundant in urban areas. Women may see this as an escape to the stress they experience everyday and as a quick way to make nontaxable income. And once drugs are introduced into the family, it is likely the child will accept that as a family trait and become involved themselves. There is also the concern for the way children grow up in urban areas. There are more gangs which leads to violence and early pregnancy. This will only increase the stress on the mother and force the child to stay at a poverty level if they decide to join a gang or become pregnant. Urban areas also have worse living options. Areas that are affordable are usually apartments that are run down, tiny, and cramped with people. One video in a previous section mentioned that many people live in a studio apartment with seven to eight others. The apartments are usually not inspected and have poor heating and cooling systems. Urban areas also do no include front or back yards for the children to play, leaving them to roam the streets or hang out in parks that are unsafe. The last thing I would like to mention is aside the fact from the gangs, in mixed income neighborhoods there would be more of an opportunity for poor children to see different types of people who are successful. Mothers feel like the influences they see will have a more positive effect. If a child in poverty lives in an urban area with heavy poverty levels, they will know no other way of life and they will only be interacting with other poor people. Parents want the best for their kids so it is only natural that they would want them to see a potential for a better life rather than seeing the same struggles in every family they know.

Unit B - Blog 6

The range of childcare varies for poor working mothers. It can be a friend of a friend to a sister to a day care program. Some women are lucky to have family around but as one woman points out, they are not always the best types of people to look after young children. In chapter to of the book it mentions the many constraints that working mothers have on their child care situation. Using friends and family members may still cost money and actually cause a sense of guilt. It also forces that person to be available a minimum of 40 hours a week which many people cannot sacrifice because they have other jobs or responsibilities as well. Some family may also live far away causing a strain on transportation. Day care is not always reliable. In one report they mentioned in California that day cares get inspected only every 5 years. In some states, child care centers are not even required to have licenses. So the woman may be paying a lot of money for childcare that is actually not healthy for the child.

I would say many women prefer child care centers that are consistently close to a preschool set up where there is a structured setting. Women that are in that area of "near poor" who have experienced day cares that are certified prefer those ones because it teaches the children what they need to experience before going to real school. I would say that what happens is they start relying on hodge-podge child care from relatives and friends. Whoever is most available is who they use and they have a few back up people who they really do not want to use but might have to in emergencies. As mentioned before, in California child care centers are only inspected every 5 years. This is not a place that most mothers would want to send their children to. Dog kennels actually get inspected more which shows the widening gap of American concern for the children of the poor and nearly poor. The problem may lie in the fact that there is not a lot of media attention on this crisis. I said it in my last blog, but I really feel it should be the responsibility of the media to report on concerns that truly affect us as human beings. How can a nation survive if we don't protect our next generations?

Unit B - Blog 5

Chaudry states that the public feels less of an obligation for the working poor because people do not really think about the children who are automatically born into it. It is easy to understand that there are adults who do not have money because you see them working in your everyday life, at grocery stores, gas stations, janitorial staff, etc. However, most people forget to look at that person and think about how they have to support a family and they have children that they love and want to support through school with everything that the other children have. We also need to keep in mind that children have no control over what parents they have and the lifestyle they will lead growing up. They cannot get jobs legally even if they wanted to help their families.

In the videos on YouTube, I really felt like the majority of Americans actually do understand the "working poor" situation. No one was demeaning them or passing judgments on them, they simply stated the truth: people cannot afford basic rent and bills and raise themselves out of their situation because they simply do not get paid wages that are good enough. It is stated over and over again that minimum wage is not high enough to meet the ever increasing demands for living expenses. The videos suggest to me that it is the policy makers who fail to care about our children of America. This goes back to the responsibility of the media not focusing on issues that really matter. It is time we started tackling these problems because the elephant in the room is gigantic and stomping all over us-not hiding in the corner.

Unit A - Blog 4

A good family life, for me, would entail spending time with your family and enjoying that time. I do not even think that a good family life has to be rich, but not being in poverty would be essential. It is much more difficult to support a family and enjoy them if you have to be at work all the time or when you are home, you are too stressed about bills, etc to take care of your family. A good family life would be having at least one parent around who cares about you all the time. Ideally you would want both your mother and father around but there are many people who live happy family lives with just one parent.

Balancing a career and family life means that you must take on many responsibilities as a human being. You are responsible for creating wealth at your business and being attentive to your company and bosses' needs. You also must be able to think about your families' needs and what they expect from you. What this essentially boils down to is that there is no time at the end of the day to ever be on your own and do something for your personal needs. Balancing a career and family also needs to include balancing personal time which I feel is the reason many working mothers are upset and feel inadequate. We expect so much from mothers and fathers who work and have a family but no one ever talks about the need to maintain your individualism as a person as well.

There are many factors that make this balance difficult. If you have a sick child, husband, or other person you are taking care of, you are required to spend much more time on them. If you are at a high level within your company you are required to work more hours and be more dedicated to your business than the average worker. If you are the "average worker" you are expected to never ask for time off. You get your two weeks vacation and that should be sufficient in the mind of employers. This never takes in account the problems that arise in family life. Balancing also becomes difficult in economic crises. Your family feels the pinch of money and therefore the money earners in the family need to work more hours, forcing you to choose work over family.

Traditional family roles used to designate moms as nurturers who had time to stay home and make their family dinner and do all the cleaning and the laundry. Dads went to work and came home to play with the children so the mom could clean up. Now that women are going to work and raising families-which is almost expected in this day and age, there is less time to nurture but the emphasis is still there. We still want moms to clean and cook and be there all the time but when they have jobs they are exhausted and worn out. It leads to men having to step up in family chores but they are generally just as tired after working all day too. This is why there needs to be a sense of community within a family. Like I have mentioned before, a family needs to work together and forget about the "gender" roles. When a couple has a baby they are both responsible for raising that family. The only way to do that with both parents working is to help each other.

Employers are generally family people themselves. If they are they should place themselves in the shoes of their employees and understand when you need to leave 2 hours early to make it to Billy's championship soccer game. If employers are not family oriented, they were once part of a family so they should know what it is like to have a mom and dad around or to not have a mom or dad around. If employers stopped looking at the bottom line so much and started looking more at the faces of their employees and understanding that humans needs to care about each other instead of working to death, then maybe this world can stop itself from destroying each other. It is sad how companies only care about profit. People buy products or use services and in the end if you don't take care of people, there is no point to money.

Having a supportive friend, family, or neighbor would be immensely helpful to balancing priorities. It seems like now many people feel that they have to do everything themselves. If they don't do it themselves, then they feel like they failed somehow. When we ask for help, it is like we feel guilty for doing so because we should be able to do it ourselves. Instead, we should all be there for each other, helping without feeling guilty because that friend or family member WANTS to help. That's why people that have a loving family member, friend, or neighbor are so much happier. They don't feel guilty asking for help and therefore can actually accomplish a lot more and feel okay doing it. In the end, if we all acted like a community we might actually do some good in the world.

Unit A - Blog 3

The care work I have experienced in my life has been through both of my parents and from outside help from cousins, grandparents and hired babysitters. For the first ten years of my life, my parents worked opposite hours, my dad during the day and my mom at night. The overlapping hours of their jobs, between 2 and 5 is when my brother and I would be home from school and need dinner and looking after. I know that we were lucky because my mom has a huge family so she had nieces and nephews that were old enough to watch us. Of course not many 16 year old teenagers want to watch their young cousins five times a week so they split the time between my grandma as well. Even with all my cousins, some lived too far away and eventually they got older and were too busy so every once in awhile my parents had to search for hired babysitters to take on the task. My brother and I never went to a day care but we were always taken care of a few hours each working day by outside help.

Now that women are working a lot more in the public sector, society needs to accommodate the working caretakers. In the UK, they experienced a large influx of female workers so they are trying to make it easier for them to still take care of their children or elderly. Society should be more like Canada where they allow women to take six months off after the birth of their child with 60-90% of their pay intact. There also should be childcare offered at places of business. If companies want to work their employers 9-5, they have to understand that school gets out around three in the afternoon. How can they expect mothers and fathers to take care of children when they are forced to work restricting hours? Society needs to also accept that mothers need to work to support their families because the cost of living has continuously been increasing around the globe. People cannot afford to have a family unless both parents are working and to suggest stopping the creation of families would be telling the human race to force extinction upon itself. If everyone just works together to help each other out and realize that an employee is more than a profit but a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a caretaker, a sister, a brother, then all of us could benefit in more than just monetary gain.

Unit A - Blog 2

Sex segregation is the concept of paying women less money for the same job a man might perform. It also refers to the idea that there are "female jobs" and "male jobs." Within our socialization process in the United States, there is an assumed notion that males become the doctors and females, the nurse. Teachers in elementary school are thought of as female while professors in college are depicted as men. You can see this example in the faculty of ASU. In areas like biology, mathematics, and economics there appear to be many more male professors and male TA's. In social science such as political science or English classes I have seen more women professors. I know there are always exceptions to the rules, but from personal experience these are the trends I have observed.

Personal socialization in my life has led to many gender specific roles but because I grew up fascinated by academic works and ideas I have always maintained an awareness for how women and men are expected to play certain roles. My family is a prototypical four person household with a mom and dad that have been married for 30 years and met in high school. They have two children, one boy and one girl, and we always had dinner together with mom being the cook 90% of the time. However my mom and dad made about the same amount of money for the first 10 years of our family life. My dad worked during the day and my mom worked at night forcing my parents to share the household work. So what may seem like an idealized situation where the man and woman had to share chores, I notice looking back that the chores they chose to do were still gender biased. My mom still did the cleaning of the house while my dad would do the yard work. My mom still did the grocery shopping and cooked while my dad would do the maintenance on the cars. I think still that seeing them share the work helped me realize that women should not be expected to do everything and if my mom had to work overtime my dad would cook dinner showing us that a family always works together regardless of your gender roles.

With the current economic situation it is not a shock that more men are being unemployed than women. With men assuming the position as the "bread winners" they are in more jobs that are blue collar and stereo-typical of men. Construction sites have very, very few women at them and that field has been one of the hardest hit in the crisis. However, it is easier to keep women underpaid because they are willing to take the lower pay just so they can keep the job. Many women will say they just "feel thankful to have a job at all" and therefore they do not feel they are in a position to demand a higher wage. Plus, with so much unemployment people are desperate for jobs, so if a woman demands more pay a company will fire her and replace her with someone willing to take the position. This is the reason there needs to be a lobby for women in Congress that can actually make a difference for all of us. This should be a national issue, not something that every woman has to fight on her own.

This is the second time I have created a free blog. This is also the second post I have ever made. Needless to say the last one did not work out so well...Round Two of internet blogging all in the name of an A.

I titled my blog based on the notion that males and females need to coexist in order to keep the human race in existence. It is the concept that you can't have one without the other, the peanut butter and jelly of life if you will. However, I also think that there is a unique perspective that comes from being a man versus being a woman. To define ourselves as inseparable would be taking for granted that there is no difference. So males, you receive the honor of being part of the word female, and females you get the extra two letters that separates you from the other half (a little less than technically) of the population.

I am a senior this year double majoring in political science and justice studies. I picked this course because I have taken several other women's studies classes and I would like to continue furthering my knowledge about the subject. I hope that this class is able to deepen my understanding of how women are treated in the work force and how this could potentially apply to me one day. I also am determined to find out why such an advanced society in 2009 is still grappling with the idea of equality between men and women.

When I first chose to study justice I picked it because it matched well with the political science degree. Upon my first course in the major I realized I had no concept of what justice actually meant. For now I like to think that I have a distributive outlook on the justice system meaning that I believe in changing people for the better to create a better and more informed society. Currently most of our criminal justice system works on a retributive view where we punish those who have committed a past crime. The idea is that a punishment will deter future crimes. However, as many of us can see this is not ultimately the best approach and in fact has not lead to a satisfying decrease in crime. A distributive program would help people, particularly those who have committed blue collar crimes, get their lives back on track by sending them to rehabilitation centers that get people started in a real job and a real home for example. I think this applies to women in the work force on a level that we seem to deal with problems after they have already occurred. Instead, we should be proactively supporting women in the work force in order to create an environment where women are respected for their skills at the same rate men are. To sum up, I do not think it is solely men's fault that women are in the position they are but rather it is a collective thinking of current society that keeps us from moving on from the "sex wars" and appreciating work for what it is-work.