What have I learned? Coming into this class I had a very close minded perspective on rights/equality of men and women. I was raised in an environment that did not tolerate mistreatment of women and therefor I assumed that the remained of the world would not either. However, I was badly mistaken. America is a unique environment for women, we try our best to assimilate all cultures, races, and genders into our society so that there is freedom for all. I once believed that this was executed without flaw. How could America go wrong? This is the best country in the world. To an extent I am still correct, this is the best country in the world in my opinion, but we do have flaws. Gender equality did not begin until the early 1900’s and race equality did not begin to evolve until the early 1960’s. With these physical differences comes the unethical medical treatment, unequal education, and numerous other rights that are granted to all citizens of this nation no matter gender or race. Some of the major things that stuck out to me in this class were the Global Gender Gap, the difference in treatment of women based on geography/traditions, and immeasurable amount of physical/psychological harm brought on by sex trafficking.
No matter where you are located on Earth studies show that women are often healthier than men. Coming from southeastern North Carolina I grew up in a perfect example of this statement. Most of my family friends and family members have experienced the loss of a loved male in their family at an early age, most often a much earlier age than the loss of a female loved one. Before I thought about this statistic it did not resignate in my mind why this was occurring; now though, I see why women are living longer than men throughout the world. My father is currently a carpenter, before that his profession was hog farming, and before that he was a marine/firefighter. All of these professions are physically demanding and take a tremendous toll on the body. Often these jobs require patrons to work 12-16 hour days with little time off. Easy to see why people that work jobs such as these will have a tendency to let their health be a minor concern in their daily lives, especially if they have a family. This was the case with my father, he chewed tobacco, smoked cigars, and a pipe for nearly 40 years, and he continues to drink like a sailor. His doctors told him that these were the reasons he is overweight, and has abnormally high blood pressure, they said if he continued he would surely pass away earlier than expected. Unfortunately for many families in America this is the case for the man of the house. Most jobs that require this type of lifestyle are performed by men who are only providing for a family. At least that has been the norm until recently. Not only do men engage in life threatening work, we take pleasure in activities that greatly increase likelihood of death. Such as skydiving, bungee jumping, base jumping, and wingsuit flying just to name a few. But why? For the adrenaline rush of course. Men often take pleasure in outdoing another man, perhaps it’s to satisfy the superiority complex. Whatever the reason, we will often ignore risks in all facets of life to be the most manly man possible.
Where are women treated best? Studies show that the three best places for a woman to live are in Finland, Iceland, and Norway. The worst places are Somalia, Chad, and Yemen. Unfortunately America is 20th on almost every list. These ratings were all based on access/ease of healthcare, political equality, and amount of money women earn for every dollar a man earns. Most of the problems with our subpar rating was the result of women still not making as much money as a man in the same workplace. Since the early 1920’s women have been pushing the government for gender equality, yet there are still some changes that need to happen before women will gain true equality with men. Unfortunately many of those changes are not government related. Instead they need to be made at the lowest levels. In some parts of America women do not believe they such be given every right as a man, some of them believe their place is in the home. Now this is a very small percentage of women, but it does show there are some women who are skeptical of themselves. The percentage of men at these same levels of society who do not respect the work ethic and capacity of a woman is much higher. Many men in rural areas of America believe a woman should not and could not take part in politics or be capable of running a company. This is far more prevelant though in third world countries where women are not even allowed to attend school past a young age because of their requirement to stay home and support the family while the boys attend school. For instance, in India women are treated as second rate members of society from birth, that is if they even make it that far. Many families in this country will not allow a female child to be born if they learn of the gender before its birth. They do not want to have a girl because of the requirement to pay bridewealth upon her marriage. These practices are ancient and have been so firmly ingrained into their society that there is little hope for changing them. Countries like this also see no harm in men treating women however they want, keeping no laws against rape or sexual abuse.
Cambodia and Sierra Leone, these two countries have almost no respect for a woman’s personal rights. After watching the film Half the Sky I was disgusted with the way a woman could be shunned for even attempting to prosecute a man that physically or psychologically abused them. I knew that rape was an atrocity and have always felt that is deserves a maximum punishment, but I did not know that anyone in the world would be capable of ignoring it or even worse punishing the victim rather than the rapist. In America rape is punishable by prison and even death if the incident results in the death of the victim. However, in Sierra Leone if a woman is raped or assaulted she if often forced to live with her disgust and often STI that she contracts after the rape for the rest of her life with no penalty for the perpetrator. Women live in fear that a man could rape them and get no punishment because the government will not enforce their laws. Cambodia is even worse. Brothels are almost as popular as Mcdonald’s are here in America, and they are supplied by girls who have not even reached menarche before being forced to live a life of misery. Prior to seeing the film I did not realize that people were capable of such crimes and I am still not even able to fathom what these girls have gone through. As a Christian man I believe men were created to protect women, that is the reason for our superior strength, not so we can overpower them. This is truly as horrific of a crime as I have ever known.
So what have I learned? I learned that men can do great things for the world when we put our knowledge to use. Marion Sims made monumental strides toward the treatment of women and the study of Gynecology. But just as we can take steps forward, we can take even bigger steps backwards. Many countries in the world do not appreciate the value of women and it is my hope that eventually the world will see how women really do hold up half the sky.

HR: all artifacts/handouts to date

Reflective tag: Humans always spot a difference in others, and often times we judge someone based off their differences. This happens to transgenders every day all day. These people are attempting to live a happy life and for their desires they are treated with hate and even subjected to death.
Artifact 8
The world is cruel to people for various reasons, all of which seem unjustified. Certain groups of people experience a heightened state of cruelty for the duration of their lives over something they claim that is uncontrollable. People are born most of the time as either a karyotype male or karyotype female, meaning that they grow up to be normal men and women just as it was intended. However, some children are born with fallacies in their genetic makeup that forces them to believe they were born in to the wrong body. These people often go through the early stages of life with a feeling of disgust for what society demands of them. We demand that if they were born with a penis then they must be a man and if they were born with a vagina they must be a woman. Sometimes though, people can not stand to live a life they do not believe in and thus go through surgery to become another person completely, these people make up the transgender community.
As a Christian I believe that we were created with a purpose, and should live out life as what God created us to be. But as a human I also believe people should be happy and I can not blame someone for wanting to change their lives in order to be happy. I would never act out against someone who wants to be different, I believe we are to love one another no matter who they are or what they do. There are many people here in America though, that believe to change your body in to something it was not created to be is a horrible thing to do and thus deserves punishment. In the film “Southern Comfort”, Robert Eads and other members of the transgender community were followed for a year through all their trials and struggles. Robert was a born a biological woman and believed from childhood that she should have been born a man. She went through early life unhappy, but got married to a man and had children, living life as a woman until menopause. At menopause she decided that she could no longer live a double life and thus she underwent upper body surgery to become a man. She wanted to have her ovaries, uterus, and fallopian tubes removed but no gynecologist would operate on her knowing that she was trying to become a transgender. He eventually developed ovarian cancer and died from it. This is only one instance of people mistreating others because of their desire to live another life. There have been murders and numerous suicides along with other hate crimes committed against this community without any justification.
Why is nothing done to stop these crimes? People are creatures of habit, and we do not like things out of the norm. Members of the LGBT community only want to live a life with the same freedoms as normal people. Southern Comfort attempted to open the world’s eyes to the willingness of these people to go to any measure to be happy and their desire to just be accepted as human. Unfortunately they we likely always experience some form of discrimination for their differences, but there have been changes since the film’s creation. Transgenders still experience struggles making their transition but there are doctors who will do surgeries, for a large fee of course.

HR: Southern Comfort film, Minimizing Health Disparities Among LGBT Patients

Reflective tag: Women are beautiful in almost every way. Men desire to be with a woman more than anything, except when it is that time of the month. In America we normally only go as far as not wanting to have sex while a woman is on her period. But, in some parts of the world when a woman is experiencing menstruation she is completely shunned by her family and her village. Something that is the sign of new life can be the last thing some women ever want to see.
Artifact 7
What is Menstruation? For a country boy that means one thing…run and hide because PMS is on the way; for real though it is a major topic of discussion for men all over the world. Blood is seen as an unclean thing no matter where it comes from and the thought of it originating from a woman’s vagina is appalling to every man. The natural cycle for women everywhere is somewhere around 29.5 days. From the time she has her first period until she undergoes menopause, she will have a regular bleeding cycle ranging anywhere from 2-7 days depending on the person. She will likely also have PMS(premenstrual syndrome), which is a group of symptoms women experience just before a period begins. These symptoms often make women irritable, hungry, tired, and not much fun to be around. Therefore men often run away from a woman on her period. At least in America they but other countries are not so forgiving.
Kenya, Africa. The entire continent of Africa is a hard place for a woman to live no matter where they are. However, this region is especially tough on women who are experiencing their period. During this time of each month women are not allowed to touch any animals or drink any of their milk. This is a major problem because the majority of agricultural work is performed by the women and they need nourishment from the animals much the same as men and children do. Women are expected to not even come close to any of the livestock for fear that their presence will curse the animals and result in their death. The women of this country are expected to clean themselves and stay away from the men and children but they have a very limited supply of cloths and unless they live in a city there is no access to sanitary wipes or tampons. Likelihood of infection and disease is much higher in a country such as Kenya, perhaps this is why the men insist that women without access to clean supplies stay away from their families until after the bleeding has ended. Another prime example of differing opinions on this subject is Nepal. This country has little problem with menstruating women in the cities; however, in the country/mountainside women experience many problems with their cycle. When a woman’s bleeding begins she is immediately kicked out of the house and made to live in a small hut with numerous other women who are experiencing their cycle as well. They are not allowed to have contact with their men because of the superstition that they will “curse” the men if they do. There is little or no access to sanitary wipes or tampons to help ease the cycle. Most women in this part of the world use rags to help ease the bleeding or nothing at all, and if this was not enough they are expected to continue providing wood and caring for animals while not being allowed to be part of the family.
What makes America great? While there are still some setbacks that women experience in everyday life, women are at least able to access medicines and sanitary tools to help with menstruation easily. The cost of these products is somewhat reasonable and women are not kicked out of their home. However, women will probably always be feared by most men while their period is running its course, just to make sure that we can avoid pissing anyone off

HR: power point on menstruation and issues, videos/notes from class, google(PMS)

Reflective tag: Should traditions overrule safety? All too often cultures believe that they should, resulting in girls and boys lives being changed forever. Circumcision is used as a rite of passage in many countries creating a sense that it is an ok thing to do even it is not wanted. However, for men there are benefits for undergoing the surgery, as long as it is done safely.
Artifact 6
Cultures from have many different beliefs about what makes a man separate from a boy and a woman separate from a girl. Often times the transition from boyhood into manhood is seen as a rite of passage thus treated with much diligence and tradition. The same can be said for the transition of females. Unfortunately in some societies these traditions are carried on from a centuries old practice that uses outdated methods and is performed in unsanitary conditions that can be harmful to anyone undergoing a transition. Why can changes not be made to these practices, and why are devastating results not seen as problematic?
In countries such as Egypt, India, and most African countries some form of female circumcision is performed. However, it is often done without the recipient’s willing participation. This results in Female Genital Mutilation(FGM) or Female Genital Cutting(FGC). These mutilations are recorded in severity on a scale of 1-3. Type 1 is labeled “Sunna Circumcision” and refers to a tradition taught by the Prophet Muhammed, it entails removal of parts or the entire clitoris. Type 2 was invented by Sudanese Midwives in response to British outlaw of type 3. This involves removal of the clitoris and removal of the labia minora. Type 3 is also called infibulation or pharaonic circumcision, this is removal of the clitoris and labia majora/minora, then sewing shut of the vaginal opening leaving only a small opening for urine and menstrual fluid. This is the most painful and inhumane of all type of FGM. Aftermaths of this circumcision have shown that many women die from infection due to unsanitary tools used in the process and the lack of rehabilitation. Not only does this occur in third world countries, but also here in America. Many people that have moved here or elsewhere carry on traditions of their religion or family and perform these acts themselves or have someone qualified, that agrees with their customs, come and do it for a small fee. Male circumcision, although different in practice, is performed all over the world for many of the same reasons. Several of the third world countries have unqualified personnel perform the actual cutting of foreskin from a boy’s penis. But the act of being circumcised is a major transition into a man from a boy. For instance in South Africa many boys are taken from their families with a big celebration then left in the wilderness for a month to rehabilitate on their own and then allowed to return as a man to their families once the process is over. Unfortunately some boys die from infection that results from unclean knives used in the cutting and unsanitary living conditions. Circumcision is being encouraged all over the world though because it significantly lowers the chance of sexually transmitted disease. In America this view was only recently acknowledged, for a long time the powers at be took the stance that a man should make the decision for himself rather than have someone else choose to have him circumcised.
The advancements in medicine have allowed for safe circumcision in many countries, but unsafe circumcisions are still practiced all around the globe. Mainly a traditional thing that many cultures do not want to deviate from because of their beliefs, these unsafe conditions exist all too often. Changes are being made though, many countries are outlawing these practices allowing for boys and girls to make decisions for themselves. There is a place for the circumcision of men but the mutilation of women is a problem and should be stopped.

HR: notes from class on circumcision, powerpoint slides on women’s external reproductive systems