Gender and social movements
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Gender and social movements
Introduction
The gender and social movement is a topic that covers the voice of the discriminated minority in society. Discrimination mainly occurs based on gender, race, and social status, resulting in unequal or unfair treatment at work or, worse still, gender-based violence. Most women in different work environment face sexual harassment, but they tend to suffer in silence due to fear of stigmatization by society. Women also tend to perform many household duties that are not compensated for as the same is usually regarded as feminine roles. The movements help create a safe space for the oppressed, the unfairly treated and the victims of sexual harassment to speak up with no fear of stigmatizations. The movements also focus on campaigning for women rights in the workplace. This essay will discuss different gender and social movements, focusing mainly on what they advocate for and the target group they seek to liberate or the social norm they seek to call out.
One of the reasons for the gender and social movements is unpaid and unrecognized work carried out by femme and feminine people. According to Angela Davis (1981), women perform a lot of housework that goes unappreciated and unpaid. The duties collectively described as housework include preparing and cooking food for the family, dishwashing, doing household laundry, cleaning the house, sweeping the backyard, and gardening roles. The household roles consume a lot of hours in a day as they require thorough attention. As demanding as these roles could be, women who perform them receive no token of appreciation as their labour in the household is seen as naturally feminine roles. The only households role that a woman can achieve and receive appreciation or visibility is childbearing and motherhood.
Nevertheless, Angela Davis also notes that most parenting roles like caregiving and housekeeping rarely go unseen as the family members tend to see the unlearned dishes over the delicious meal prepared for them by the women. They are various movements that advocate against the feminine roles that are unpaid and unrecognized. Some of the movements include the Black Women for Wages for Housework and the National Domestic Workers Alliance’s caring Across Generations campaigns. The two movements advocated for payments to women and females that perform the household duties and the parenting duties that go unnoticed. The movements also advocated for fair pay and fair working conditions for the immigrants, the black and brown workers and women performing the stereotyped feminine roles of caring for the elders and the disabled (Leah, 2017). The movements led to creating ground rules applicable when the femme and feminine groups are giving care. These rules include the no one needs too much for the disabled people, the masculine gender can also perform the care roles, it is okay to ask for a favour or compensation for caregiving, and the caregivers deserve weekend offs and vacation breaks too (Leah, 2017). The movement also resulted in men helping do household chores like cooking, babysitting and caregiving (Davis, 1981)
Another reason for the gender and social movements is the harassment and violent killings of liberalized women who chose to do sex work. The killings are associated with the men not understanding the idea of women performing sex on their terms and conditions and getting a living out of it. The notion of male dominancy is diluted by the idea of sex workers as sex is a tool mainly used by men to dominate women; therefore, sex workers becomes a threat to male dominancy. The sex workers are also easily targeted and killed due to their vulnerability to the nature of their work. The other issue contributing to the ever-rising cases of whorephobia is the bias from the police against the female sex workers. Police prejudge the sex workers and fail to protect them if they report violence from customers or attempted murder. The bias favours the offenders giving them the courage to go after sex workers since they will hardly be reported missing, and the police would barely believe a word from a sex worker (Sherronda, 2018). The other factor contributing to the sex workers killings is the criminalization of the female sex workers, making it easy for the offenders to justify their actions. The movements against the massacre of sex workers aim at creating awareness of the unjust killings of sex workers. The campaigns also advocate for people to positively speak up on behalf of the sex workers to reduce the criminalizing and stigmatizing associated with the profession. It also advocates for the rights of the sex workers since they are human too and that their line of work isn’t illegal or criminal related. The campaigns aim at reducing the vulnerability of the sex workers by getting the community to accept and protect them (Sherronda, 2018).
The other reason for gender and social movements is to advocate for women and immigrants rights. Most women, as said before, are victims of sexual harassment at the workplace, and so are many immigrants. Both the immigrants and the women are vulnerable to most sex predators due to the lack of transparent laws and rights for women and immigrants. According to Huerta and Rosenbloom (2018), women and immigrants requests can be addressed through society and the education system. The two suggested that the education system be adjusted to enable learners to access information about women education, ethnic education and labour rights education from an early age. The teaching would help create awareness of the sexual harassment women go through and ease stigmatization for those who speak up. Huerta and Rosenbloom advocate for women to stand for themselves against sexual harassment at work. The two also stated that the only way women and immigrants’ rights will be enforced is through the inclusion of women in forums that create and implement human rights and never let the campaigns and internet sensations die.
Conclusion
Gender and social movements are great tools for advocating for equal human rights of the minority rich and the majority poor. The movements are also essential in women liberation, which ensures women are compensated fairly for their work. The movements also enable the dilution of the stereotypes surrounding women’s work as household unpaid and unappreciated roles. With the movements, the attainment of human rights fair to both women, immigrants, and femmes is achieved. Men’s household duties are also performed as women benefit from the compensation for what they do. Women’s inclusion in labour laws formulates and creates awareness through media and educational materials through gender and social movements.
References
Davis, A., (1981). Women. Race and Class. Retrieved on 16/4/2021 from:
https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/davis-angela/housework.htm
Huerta, D., & Rosenbloom, R., (2018). Ask a Feminist: Dolores Huerta and Rachel Rosenbloom
Discuss Gender and Immigrant Rights. Retrieved on 16/4/2021 from http://signsjournal.org/dolores-huerta/
Leah, L.P.S., (2017). A Modest Proposal for a Fair Trade Emotional Labor Economy. Retrieved
on 16/4/2021 from https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/modest-proposal-fair-trade-emotional-labor-economy/centered-disabled-femme-color-working
Sherronda, J.B., (2018). The insidious link between incels, serial killers and their targeting of
sex workers. Retrieved on 16/4/2021 from https://www.wearyourvoicemag.com/incels-serial-killers-sex-workers/