Talking Point Four!

While I was exploring the People Like Us website, I found various articles and interactive games that show you how even the littlest things identify who you are.    For example, there was this interactive quiz (Name That Class) that asks you a few different questions in order to determine your social class.  As I was answering the question, I found it kind of humorous where my answers where getting me placed.  One of the questions asked where/how I would get a sandwich if I was treating myself to one—my answer placed me in the blue collar social class.  Yet when I answered that I hoped my child would someday have a steady job, that answer had me placed in the trailer park class system.  Oh! And wanting to visit Disney makes me middle class!  I found it interesting that little things we tend to overlook can actually contribute to your identity and how others identify you.

On the Youngstown State University website I saw that there is a Center for Working-Class Studies.  This program was the first academic program to focus on issues revolving around and involving work and class.  This program paved the way for the new Working-Class Studies Association for people who are interested in the history and experiences of the working class people.  I thought it was awesome that this association teamed up with another program to shed some light on a new generation of workers.  The issues of work and class are obviously very important to these two programs and teaming up will only make their voices louder.

 

“Why and how is economic inequality a feminist issue?”

Ø  Before I could answer this question I felt that I needed a better understanding of what economic equality was exactly. As I searched for a definition I found that in simple terms, economic inequality is the gap between rich and poor or wealth and income differences. 

Ø  I feel that economic inequality is a feminist issue because there are different economic classes and women within those classes can face very different problems.  Women who are considered to be lower class may not have an education that allows them to get a decent job.  Whereas women who are considered to middle class have a bit more power and may tend to have a better education and then of course the upper class has more power than the middle class and may have an equal if not better education than the middle class.  Power increasing with class can be a product of having more access to resources than others.  Also, if women are married and both partners are working while raising children the issue of child care can affect each class differently.  Lower class women/families may not have the funds to send their child to daycare or may have no other child care options but to stay home or work under awful policies.  Middle class and upper class women/families may have more funds and may have the opportunity to send their children to daycare or may have the funds to have private child care at their home.  However, other than education and resources and funds there are a lot of men who still believe woman should not work; this way of thinking can also put a retraint on economic equality.  There are “old school” ways of thinking still floating around in society.  What I mean by this is, there are many people, men and women, who believe that men are supposed to go to work and women are supposed to stay home and take care of the children.  There are also people who still think that women cannot do the physically demanding jobs that men can do.  Only when people begin to open their minds a little more will we then see some change start to occur.