Women's rights

In the last blog, I mentioned women's working environment in the world. Unfortunately, there is still bad condition in some developing countries. I found an interesting book to change women's working environment for the better.

Have you ever heard of the book "Half the Sky"? This would be very good book who is interested in women's rights. There are many stories about women who change the women's rights for the better. I especially like the story about Mukhtar Mai.

She is a woman from Pakistan. When she was young, she was a victim of the gang rape. She was very depressed after that and thought to suicide to cleanse herself and her family of the shame. However, she also thought it would happen again to other people if she did not fight for the women's rights. Then, she decided to report it to the police even though she did not want to talk about her sad experience.

After the attackers were arrested, she received money as compensation. She donated all the money for girl's education. By using those money, she had her first school for girls. Thanks for the school, more girls were able to get education. It increases girl's literacy rate. She believes in education and thinks education is most important thing that women have equal power as men.

Now, she got so many awards for women's right, and she has her own organization to make women's life comfortable.

There are a lot of wonderful story of brave women in this book, "Half the Sky". Have a look, and I am sure you will like it.

Women's working environment in the world ~maids and sex workers~

I have talked in one of my blogs that more women started to get higher position at work these days. At the same time, however, it seems like there are still many problem of women's working environment in the world even though many people would think men and women are getting equal in society.

I found a interesting book called "Global Women" written by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild. This book basically talks about the third world women who work in the first world as nannies, maids and sex workers.

In many developing countries, women or mothers are forced to work in developed countries to feed their family. Most women are single mothers, and they would not have support from their ex-husbands. Therefore, women have to work outside the countries to feed their children and pay for education. Women who work as nannies, maids, and sex workers usually have bad working environment. For instance, their employers are very strict, and they are forced to over work. However, working in the first world still makes more money, so they were compelled to work far away from their family. Many children are having hard time without having their mothers.

I think those could be a problem because the third countries lose young women and mother's workforce and power, and that makes their economy even more worse. Moreover, children lose motherhood when they need it.

One solution I could consider is having better education in the third countries especially for girls. That helps to increase literacy rate of women, so women could have better and stable job in their own counties. More children hopefully will be their mothers when they are small. I hope there will be more smile in the third world in our near future.

Feminism in music

We listen music almost everyday. I sometimes care what the singers say in the songs and I found some songs which have feminism message which means women's power and independent. Did you come up with any ideas? I have some examples that I thought there's feminist messages.

"Take a bow" by Rihanna would include feminist message because this song has very independent woman's message. It seems like she would never go back to the guy again and shows independent woman. If people were in this situation, many songs would be sad songs. This song, however, it tells us not weak woman, but strong. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3UjJ4wKLkg

I have one more example which is "I'm not missing you" by Stacie Orrico. This songs tells us independent woman, too. She used to be weak and rely on the boyfriend all the time. However, she started to be strong, more likely independent. I could tell she wants to be by herself since she is strong enough. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlLckjP337U

Music is always close to our life. We can listen almost every where even if you are not into it. Let's take one minite to think if there is a certain message in the song. You would probably find some gender messages or women's message in the songs.

Women's power and feminism in Korean film

I just introduced two Gensha films in my last blog which shows women's power. As I mentioned in the last blog, Korean films started to show us more like that. Today, I would like to introduce one of my favorites "My Sassy Girl".

This is a story about Korean couple. The girl is very strong and her role is always active instead of passive. She always ask something to her boyfriend and makes him do it. There are a lot of interesting scene in this film. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKZn8CFnyQY&feature=related

I think this film is very female centered because the boyfriend just followed what the girl friend said. It is very interesting because there are many scenes she made him feel like "he has to follow" what she says. We can tell how she talks and act. I think this gril is very powerful, and this is the first film for me which made me feel women's power.

At the end of this film, however, we could actually see her feminine side at the same time. She had a will to see her boyfriend again even though she once said good bye to him.

through this film and a couple of other films, I realized that there might be a feminine side when the film shows strong women. This is one of the parts I thought interesting. What I thought one more thing is existence of those women's power's film means women started having more power compared to a decade ago. It is very interesting thing, too. I am interested in what the women in film would be like 10 years later.

Feminism in the film

I recently realized that we can see feminism type of films more in Asian films. I know a lot of Korean films which shows us strong women. I felt those are very women centered film which used to be rare a decade ago. Today, however, I would like to introduce two of the Japanese cultural films which show us strong woman. I thought this film is interesting because we can see feminism and male gaze in one film.

The name of the film is "Sakuran". Basically, this is a story about Japanese Geisha. If you are not familiar with Geisha, I would say Geisha is Japanese proffesional entertainers trained in traditional dancing and music. They usually wear Japanese traditional clothes, Kimono. Even though this is a story of Japanese culture long time ago, we could still see strong women in this film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRH_GYnx9IQ

This film also shows us Laura Mulvey's theory "Male gaze". Women are totally object of desire and many scenes are seen from men's perspective. Those beautiful outfits and makeup, and some erotic scenes. It is interesting because this film has gender message like women have power. Moreover, we could see the Male Gaze at the same time.

There are one more film which is similar with this film. It is called "Sayuri". This film also shows us Geisha culture. Therefore, you would see a lot of strong women characters in this film, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWDdI9rFgWM

Sayuri is very interesting, too because this film basically shows Japanese Geisha culture, but the directer is an American who is from Madison, Wisconsin. It would be from different perspective compared to Sakuran since Sakuran has Japanese directer and Sayuri has American directer. But I am sure you will enjoy watching the strong women and Male Gaze in both films.

Is appearance very important in society?

I am a woman who have been taught by my parents "intelligence and having some skill is very important when you get a job." They also said that "being pretty does not guarabtee entire life. It might be not true for some people, but it is very important to have some sort of skill for your future." Yes, I still think it is true. However, I have been feeling some "change" in these years.

I have interviewed some presidents of companies. I asked "what kind of people do you want to hire? or what kind of people are you looking for as your employees?" They answered "well, communication skill is very important because it is indispensable for any kind of job." I was surprised because I thought they would say how smart is important such as certain collage degree is needed or good greades from college is needed. Moreover, they mentioned that "appearance is very important because that gives customers good impression of the companies since now is a generation "the service industry."

I also found some examples or evidences from the textbook. There are a couple of examples, but what I thought imteresting for me was "China's cosmetic surgery craze" because it seems like height is socially important in China. For instance, people in China should have certain height to be a foreign ministry because they are expected to be tall to match the height of their foreign counterparts.

It was very interesting to find out that appearance is important especially in some occupations. I am sure the growth of service industries makes us require good appearance. This is true in 2011, but I still feel like improving ability is important.