I was able to find a couple of videos on YouTube through the CBS channel that showed the hardships of working class women. One story in particular was about a family living in Florida. The family consisted of a mother and her two daughters, one who is 16, and the other is younger than that. The mother had taken various pay cuts from her own job just to stay employed, but supporting her two daughters along with her house payment became too much for her to handle, mostly due in part to her ex husband owing them 88,000 dollars in backed up child support. The family's house ended up going into foreclosure, and now the sixteen year old daughter works for minimum wage at a retirement home and gives her mother half of the money she makes every month just to help out with the house payments. The mother was visually upset with the fact that her daughter had to help out with the bills and it showed in the way she spoke. This was a family that was self supportive when the economy was booming, but like many others, they could not maintain the lifestyle they had made for themselves after the market went downhill.
This type of story is all too typical for working class women in the United States. It is deeply unfair that she has to support these children on her own, and that the government can not do anything about the fact that her dead beat ex husband owes almost 100 grand in child support. I am sure that this type of story is mirrored all over the U.S. and it is truly sad. This working mother took pay cuts just to keep food on the table, because if she refused to take a pay cut, there is a huge chance that this family could be living in a homeless shelter. We need more government support for women in this type of situation where every day is a struggle to keep up with the bills that are a staple of modern life. If more resources were readily available to her she would be better able to keep her daughters fed and happy, which is extremely important considering these children are our future. We need to do more for the working class poor, especially the working class poor mothers that support for their children when the men will not.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Unit B Blog #9
While studying the correlation between working poor women and poor children the connection is obvious. If the mother is poor and working a low paying job, the children will be poor also, because the child is basically an extension of yourself. If the mom is working a lot to try to put food on the table, the children often mirror this kind of lifestyle and learn to adapt to the low wages of often time both of the parents, but unfortunately many times the mother is on her own with the children.
The charts on the website showed me that a lot more children than I expected were living in conditions that would be considered impoverished. This is awful because many times the children that grow up in these conditions are never able to get out of them, and they end up repeating almost the same life as their parents did before them.
The videos showed us that there is a lot you can do to attempt to put food on the table, and while it may not be much, places like the salvation army and the shelters that were discussed in the NPR stories do a lot for the poor working class. The videos showed us that without the salvation army many of the children in that Wisconsin community would have gone hungry, and that is something that no person would wish upon a child. These kids are born into the situations, they do not get a choice, and the video about the "food pantry" in Houston, Texas showed us what a great person can do. That lady took in five children that were not her own on a bus drivers salary. She was struggling to feed them all but she never gave up, she never surrendered. Places like the Houston food bank do a lot for communities such as this, because without these places and services available to the working poor, our communities would suffer. Organizations like this make you appreciate the things that can be done to help out a struggling family. I know it gave me a new insight.
The charts on the website showed me that a lot more children than I expected were living in conditions that would be considered impoverished. This is awful because many times the children that grow up in these conditions are never able to get out of them, and they end up repeating almost the same life as their parents did before them.
The videos showed us that there is a lot you can do to attempt to put food on the table, and while it may not be much, places like the salvation army and the shelters that were discussed in the NPR stories do a lot for the poor working class. The videos showed us that without the salvation army many of the children in that Wisconsin community would have gone hungry, and that is something that no person would wish upon a child. These kids are born into the situations, they do not get a choice, and the video about the "food pantry" in Houston, Texas showed us what a great person can do. That lady took in five children that were not her own on a bus drivers salary. She was struggling to feed them all but she never gave up, she never surrendered. Places like the Houston food bank do a lot for communities such as this, because without these places and services available to the working poor, our communities would suffer. Organizations like this make you appreciate the things that can be done to help out a struggling family. I know it gave me a new insight.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Unit B Blog # 8
"Urban poverty" can create tons of problems for poor working mothers, and examples of this can be seen in cities all across the United States. In poor areas there are many things that are involved in the every day struggle of life that many people in middle class and upper class neighborhoods know nothing about. A large problem in lower class areas is the percentage of men in poverty that are doing time in jail. Without the ability to support for their families and pay the bills, men in these areas often take the easy way out, which is to sell drugs or take part in prostitution rings in the most urban areas. Many of the men who make the decision to dabble in acts such as these end up in prison, often time leaving their families alone, and their female counterparts to be the sole provider of support for the entire family. Also, drugs in areas like this are a huge problem for women too. When there seems like no escape is to be found, many women turn to drugs like cocaine and crack cocaine, especially in areas where these drugs are manufactured from stove tops. The money which should be going toward to the children and the living situations is often blown on the streets for hard drugs. Another problem for these mothers is the level of violence in the poorest areas across the country. Kill to win is all too often the case for these types of places, and murder rates soar through the roof in the most urban and poverty stricken places. It seems almost like survival of the fittest, but within our own country, and that is perhaps the most disappointing thing of all.
A poor women living in a mixed income type of environment will obviously have an advantage over the previously mentioned. In cases like this it might be easier to keep children away from the temptations of life on the street, and also it is easier to find people who live in a decent environment to provide things like child care or babysitting while the mother is working. When the overall atmosphere outside is better, for example less guns, drugs, violence, the better off the family is at attempting to maintain a stable life and helps with the ability to provide for their families. I believe that a poor, working women in a mixed income neighborhood has an extreme advantage over a poor, working woman from a more urban and poverty stricken area.
A poor women living in a mixed income type of environment will obviously have an advantage over the previously mentioned. In cases like this it might be easier to keep children away from the temptations of life on the street, and also it is easier to find people who live in a decent environment to provide things like child care or babysitting while the mother is working. When the overall atmosphere outside is better, for example less guns, drugs, violence, the better off the family is at attempting to maintain a stable life and helps with the ability to provide for their families. I believe that a poor, working women in a mixed income neighborhood has an extreme advantage over a poor, working woman from a more urban and poverty stricken area.
Unit B Blog #6
The cost of child care is something that is a big issue in the United States. Mothers obviously want the best for their children but more often than not they are not able to afford it. They dream of a place where their child can grow mentally and socially, while being taken care of and attended to properly. What they often get is a cheap and pretty much the only affordable option, which often shows itself in the form of license-less or non certified care givers, with the chance of extreme neglect because of the staff numbers. One article mentioned that in California child care centers are inspected only once every five years. This means that once inspection time is complete, a lack of care and/or experience can be displayed. Also in a place like L.A., people are often trying to get the cheapest form of child care that is available, and the sad part is that they may have to sacrifice extremely important things like comfort and attention among other things that are essentially what a child needs in a vulnerable age from 1-5 years old.
When using this cheap and un-preferable type of child care, parents take the risk of effecting the child's proper development. This could mean that without the proper amount of attention or the lack of an atmosphere where the child is able to grow mentally with a learning focus, or socially from adults taking the time to speak with them, there is a lot to lose. Mothers and fathers alike obviously want for their children what will make them happy as well as what will increase their chances of getting out of a situation where poverty is the clearest option, but without even average level child care, often times they are losing the opprotunity for their children to break the cycle and escape this lifestyle. This is a risk that most parents hope they do not have to take.
When using this cheap and un-preferable type of child care, parents take the risk of effecting the child's proper development. This could mean that without the proper amount of attention or the lack of an atmosphere where the child is able to grow mentally with a learning focus, or socially from adults taking the time to speak with them, there is a lot to lose. Mothers and fathers alike obviously want for their children what will make them happy as well as what will increase their chances of getting out of a situation where poverty is the clearest option, but without even average level child care, often times they are losing the opprotunity for their children to break the cycle and escape this lifestyle. This is a risk that most parents hope they do not have to take.
Unit B Blog #5
I believe that it was easy to see from the videos that the problem of the working poor is a very public problem. In the interviews on the streets of what looked like a very metropolitan city nearly every person that the interviewers spoke too were well aware of the problem of the working poor and the poverty line. It is also strange to see the view of the government and what they view as the poverty line because even the common citizens on the street knew that it is nearly impossible, or at least an everyday struggle, to try to survive off even double of what the government considers the poverty line.
There are certain paths or ways that can be navigated through in life that make it almost impossible to survive. It can be seen in examples all over the United States how people can be born into a life with nearly no chance of escaping, comparable almost to a caste system but with a hint of "American Dream." If one is born into a family of let's say, a single mother, and they cannot afford to stay current with their bills, then children often have to drop out of high school to help with money. When something like this happens the best that child can now do is a GED, and in a market where education is a give in for most jobs, the opportunity to make a living wage can be eliminated and thus we have another family starting down the path of attempting to live below the poverty line. I believe that additional government help is essential for these peoples survival, especially in large cities like New York, L.A., and Chicago.
There are certain paths or ways that can be navigated through in life that make it almost impossible to survive. It can be seen in examples all over the United States how people can be born into a life with nearly no chance of escaping, comparable almost to a caste system but with a hint of "American Dream." If one is born into a family of let's say, a single mother, and they cannot afford to stay current with their bills, then children often have to drop out of high school to help with money. When something like this happens the best that child can now do is a GED, and in a market where education is a give in for most jobs, the opportunity to make a living wage can be eliminated and thus we have another family starting down the path of attempting to live below the poverty line. I believe that additional government help is essential for these peoples survival, especially in large cities like New York, L.A., and Chicago.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Unit A Blog #4
I do not think that there are any certain characteristics of a "good family life." It is all in the eyes of the beholder, because if you think that your way of life is good and it makes you happy than who is to tell you that you are wrong and would try to push their views upon you? A family life can be good on a lot of different levels, as long as the children in the family enjoy their life, because childhood cannot be replaced.
A career life and a family life can be successfully mixed as long as both can be mixed. For instance, some jobs will allow for you to talk to your loved ones on the phone, which is great and makes for a pleasant work and family relationship. Other jobs that it is not possible to communicate with your loved ones while on the job can also work out just fine though, as work for the day can be left at work and when you get home the attention shifts to the people who you care for and the people that are considered to be your family. There is no right or wrong way to balance these two lives, and people make it happen all across the world everyday by making certain sacrifices.
A mix of these two can be difficult to achieve if you have a very demanding job, such as one that requires you to constantly be focused on the work place and do work from home. A job that requires travel can also make home life a little more difficult. To me it seems that the idea of the family having a breadwinner is a thing of the past and that today's society allows for a healthy mix of work and family with more couples both attending work regularly. Like I said before though, there is no right or wrong way to attempt to balance these things.
I would say that the only thing that becomes more complex by gender work equality would be the fact that the child or children do not have the constant emotional attachment to say, a stay at home mom, and perhaps they have to spend a lot more time with after school programs or nannies, or babysitters. This definitely shows that there is a change going on but at the same time it is almost necessary in this day and age to have both members of the couple working if they want to have things like a house and if they want to be able to put food on the table for their kids. Other than that i think that this will soon not be considered complex, but rather the norm for families attempting to live in what is considered a middle class, or even lower class way of life, but it is hard to leave a class, even without a caste system.
There are many ways in which an employer can be more open to the needs of their employees when it comes to their family lives. Things like at work day cares, or even the simple ability to contact your loved ones from the place you work makes it easier to do the balance act of work and home at the same time. I'm sure that more jobs will attempt to make changes so that their employees can provide for home too, but in a place like the US where capitalism is the way of life, it is hard for these employers to even want their workers having home life at work because it could effect their job performance. Which is a sacrifice they are not willing to make in most cases.
Support is something that is considered good in most walks of life, it is the thing that keeps you going when you feel like it is time to give up. If every person in this world cared more about each other and was more willing to help without really asking "whats in it for me?" then we could essentially reach a harmony in the world. The balancing of priorities would become that much easier, and the world would be a better place.
A career life and a family life can be successfully mixed as long as both can be mixed. For instance, some jobs will allow for you to talk to your loved ones on the phone, which is great and makes for a pleasant work and family relationship. Other jobs that it is not possible to communicate with your loved ones while on the job can also work out just fine though, as work for the day can be left at work and when you get home the attention shifts to the people who you care for and the people that are considered to be your family. There is no right or wrong way to balance these two lives, and people make it happen all across the world everyday by making certain sacrifices.
A mix of these two can be difficult to achieve if you have a very demanding job, such as one that requires you to constantly be focused on the work place and do work from home. A job that requires travel can also make home life a little more difficult. To me it seems that the idea of the family having a breadwinner is a thing of the past and that today's society allows for a healthy mix of work and family with more couples both attending work regularly. Like I said before though, there is no right or wrong way to attempt to balance these things.
I would say that the only thing that becomes more complex by gender work equality would be the fact that the child or children do not have the constant emotional attachment to say, a stay at home mom, and perhaps they have to spend a lot more time with after school programs or nannies, or babysitters. This definitely shows that there is a change going on but at the same time it is almost necessary in this day and age to have both members of the couple working if they want to have things like a house and if they want to be able to put food on the table for their kids. Other than that i think that this will soon not be considered complex, but rather the norm for families attempting to live in what is considered a middle class, or even lower class way of life, but it is hard to leave a class, even without a caste system.
There are many ways in which an employer can be more open to the needs of their employees when it comes to their family lives. Things like at work day cares, or even the simple ability to contact your loved ones from the place you work makes it easier to do the balance act of work and home at the same time. I'm sure that more jobs will attempt to make changes so that their employees can provide for home too, but in a place like the US where capitalism is the way of life, it is hard for these employers to even want their workers having home life at work because it could effect their job performance. Which is a sacrifice they are not willing to make in most cases.
Support is something that is considered good in most walks of life, it is the thing that keeps you going when you feel like it is time to give up. If every person in this world cared more about each other and was more willing to help without really asking "whats in it for me?" then we could essentially reach a harmony in the world. The balancing of priorities would become that much easier, and the world would be a better place.
Unit A Blog #3
In my personal life I have experienced carework in a way that both of my parents worked for all of the time in my life that I can remember. They utilized things like after school programs and youth camps and such to ensure that they were able to pay the mortgage on our house and put food on the table. They also were able to continue to work by hiring babysitters and things like that, which also led to them being able to have a social life as well. I think that tying in work with your family is very important, but at the same time it is also important to have a social life as well. This is because all people have needs, and some of the needs must be addressed even when facing the busiest of schedules. Carework is so vital to our nation and it would be nice if the government could incorporate more programs other than just leaving all of the camps and programs to the City sectors of the state government. The government could make the overall chemistry of the nation, and especially these mothers, raise significantly and the morale of these anxious groups of young mothers would be lifted at the fact that they can successfully provide for their families, physically, emotionally, and monetarily.
I believe that the term as well as the idea for "women's work" needs to be forgotten about. It exists because of some invisible line drawn in the sand about who's duties are who's, and what a man or a women should or should not have to do around the house. This makes you wonder that if there was no divide between the things that either gender could do around the house, then the topic of the situation as a whole would dissolve. In this day and age people need to take on the responsibility of performing multiple duties in a household in order to keep the stability and happiness of the house raised. We have grown up to think that certain duties should be performed by men, and others by women, and I am a victim to some level of this thinking as well because of the way I grew up. In my family my dad or myself mows the lawn and jobs like this because we would rather do those jobs than some of the other ones around the house and my mother has been vocal about doing things such as the laundry in a way that she would rather do the laundry than mow the lawn for instance. Whether it comes down to personal preference or the way we have always been socialized is up for debate.
I believe that the term as well as the idea for "women's work" needs to be forgotten about. It exists because of some invisible line drawn in the sand about who's duties are who's, and what a man or a women should or should not have to do around the house. This makes you wonder that if there was no divide between the things that either gender could do around the house, then the topic of the situation as a whole would dissolve. In this day and age people need to take on the responsibility of performing multiple duties in a household in order to keep the stability and happiness of the house raised. We have grown up to think that certain duties should be performed by men, and others by women, and I am a victim to some level of this thinking as well because of the way I grew up. In my family my dad or myself mows the lawn and jobs like this because we would rather do those jobs than some of the other ones around the house and my mother has been vocal about doing things such as the laundry in a way that she would rather do the laundry than mow the lawn for instance. Whether it comes down to personal preference or the way we have always been socialized is up for debate.
Unit A Blog #2
When trying to determine sex segregation and the role that it plays at ASU I try to start with the areas that are a part of my own education. I am a Justice major with an English minor so it seems that most of the teachers that I have had in my most recent years here have been females. I cannot really see many other trends in that sense however, as I have had a healthy mix of male and female professors thus far in my college career. I think that it is obvious that this sex segregation exists in a lot of job fields, for example construction, auto care, among other things for men, and daycare jobs, nannying, and many more fields for women. It is not a given that these specific jobs will be only one or the other, but the trends tend to go in that direction, as explained in one of the videos from this section.
For me it is hard to attempt to visualize the factor of socialization in my own home because I am not accustomed to analyzing myself in the microscope. My father is a mechanic which I guess could be scene a a job that is usually men, but his work life never affected me in a way where i wanted to become exactly that. My mother works in the recreation department for the City of Chandler along with myself, and the mix of men and women in the job environment there is about as diverse as it can be. My home life, to me, doesn't seem to have affected the way i was socialized, and both of my parents provided for the family with jobs of their own. My father made more money I believe but this was he had opportunity to get various certifications for his career and obtain raises. Even with things like work and school, in the places where I am at least, gender roles are not blatantly obvious.
I believe the argument about the wage gap and the rate of job loss is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. They are both able to be tied in with one another, but they should not be looked at side by side. The wage gap is obviously unfair, with women earning less in the same positions that men hold. The idea that men having a higher job loss rate is true, yet irrelevant to the initial argument about the wage difference. In one of the videos a man mentioned that women's wages were increasing faster than that of men, but this is an invalid point, because if two people are equally qualified there should be no difference in the first place. Women should be, and should have always been, making the same amount of money as men, because if they are not, which they still are not, that makes this a patriarchy.
For me it is hard to attempt to visualize the factor of socialization in my own home because I am not accustomed to analyzing myself in the microscope. My father is a mechanic which I guess could be scene a a job that is usually men, but his work life never affected me in a way where i wanted to become exactly that. My mother works in the recreation department for the City of Chandler along with myself, and the mix of men and women in the job environment there is about as diverse as it can be. My home life, to me, doesn't seem to have affected the way i was socialized, and both of my parents provided for the family with jobs of their own. My father made more money I believe but this was he had opportunity to get various certifications for his career and obtain raises. Even with things like work and school, in the places where I am at least, gender roles are not blatantly obvious.
I believe the argument about the wage gap and the rate of job loss is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. They are both able to be tied in with one another, but they should not be looked at side by side. The wage gap is obviously unfair, with women earning less in the same positions that men hold. The idea that men having a higher job loss rate is true, yet irrelevant to the initial argument about the wage difference. In one of the videos a man mentioned that women's wages were increasing faster than that of men, but this is an invalid point, because if two people are equally qualified there should be no difference in the first place. Women should be, and should have always been, making the same amount of money as men, because if they are not, which they still are not, that makes this a patriarchy.
Hello my name is Justin Bayer and I am a senior. My major is Justice Studies with a minor in English. I hope to work in the field of human rights in a global justice organization and to write about these injustices for the interested public. I also would like for my job to eventually pay for me to get my masters degree.
I took this class because it is an upper division course that I need for graduation. If I do gain anything from this course I would hope that it would be a new outlook because that is the best part, in my opinion, of taking a justice course.
I am very interested in many aspects of justice, mostly focusing on the enormous amount of current inequalities that this planet has. I do not know of a perfect world, or how one could be created, but it seems to me that mankind is on a crash course for permanent instability if changes are not made.
I took this class because it is an upper division course that I need for graduation. If I do gain anything from this course I would hope that it would be a new outlook because that is the best part, in my opinion, of taking a justice course.
I am very interested in many aspects of justice, mostly focusing on the enormous amount of current inequalities that this planet has. I do not know of a perfect world, or how one could be created, but it seems to me that mankind is on a crash course for permanent instability if changes are not made.
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