Sun Lasting wrote a new note: Celebrate International Women's Day - Oh Sister, What the great Second Sex (of de Beauvoir) and the Female Eunuch (of Greer)...
Oh Sister, What the great Second Sex (of de Beauvoir) and the Female Eunuch (of Greer)...Celebrate International Women's Day -
March 6, 2015 at 11:12am
~ Vernacular Sociology Series: Crystal's authentic free-mini-moocs~ on sex, gender, class and their intersectionality.
For March 8 (Sn), 2015
..../\„,„/\..........//^ ^\\ Live simply
..( =';'= ).......(/(_•_)\) Speak kindly
.../" * * "\......_/'' * ''\_ Care deeply
...(,,,).(,,,).......(,,,)^(,,,) and Love completely
Happy Birthday to you! 願您 慈悲為薪, 智慧如火! Have a nice weekend.
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What a LOVELY story!!! Very encouraging! We need more...A group of roughly 20 men walked through the capital of Afghanistan - wearing Burqa to draw attention to the rights of women ahead of international Women’s Day on 8 March, 2015 - referring to:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/international-womens-day-2015-afghan-men-wear-burqas-to-campaign-for-womens-rights-10088743.html
This nice event reminds me of a talk that I gave a while ago about C's 3-women stories. I revised a little bit (when I first wrote it, I used the "present tense" relating to C's mother, which needs to be changed into past tense, for C's mother passed away a while ago) and re-posted here to share with you. A small old episode of personal account attached at the end.
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First of all, I would like to thank you for the fantastic job you have done to open my eyes as a brand new member. Then, I want to thank Kathleen who introduced and encouraged me to join this big family, so I have this opportunity to learn from you. Peg picked us from the airport along the way to the conference that made me feel so welcomed. Cheryl and Rusty, thanks for the email connection and the sincere help to make this trip possible. Finally, I want to show my appreciation to your Mayor who sang a wonderful song for us. I won’t forget his wonderful voice. Please promise to say our thanks to him.
I was amazed to know that AAUW was 121 years young. 121 years is equivalent to C's grandma, mother, C herself, plus her nieces’ generation together. During that century, when AAUW had accomplished so many great jobs to encourage /help girls and women to reach their potential, what did C's grandma, and mother do? And what about C' generation and nieces’ are doing? So, I decided to re-tell C's three women’s stories happening in Taiwan.
Once upon a time, a little girl was born in Taipei, Taiwan, 19xx. Her name is C. When she was about 6 or 7 years old, she told her mom that she would like to be an artist, ballerina, poet, and diplomat. This is the first story of the three. So, you can see, most of her interests seemed relating to feminine fields. But think about it, a 7 years old girl was hardly qualified to be enlightened as a young "feminist" during 1960s in Taiwan. The possibility of being a female computer scientist or engineer was equivalent to the cats in “A Room of One’s Own” wanting to go to the heaven.
Since talking about cats, which the bishop commented in the Virginia Woolf’s article, she needed to confess that she had not read it when she was young. If C had known she needed a room of her own with a lot of CASH to be herself, she dared not to tell her mom about her wannabe. Furthermore, if she had learned earlier about John Adams’ famous remarks, she dared not to have made such “enormous” wishes. Adams once said “ Because of my father’s hard working, so I can study military and politics, so my sons can learn law and engineering, thus my grandsons can be artists or poets,” something like that…. You see, what an interesting statement that made me think!
First of all, it is all about men- the father, himself, the sons, and the grandsons. Where were the great grandma, grandma and the mother, the daughters and daughters-in-law, and the “Shakespeare’s sisters”? Secondly, it lets her think how wonderful or how lucky it could be to have a father from Adams’ family!
Finally, darn it, she is not a son, but another Shakespeare’s-sister-could-be!
Since she has mentioned "father", let her just quickly and briefly introduce her father (though we are talking about women, without men, women's stories would have been much more different??). C needed to be objective and neutral toward her father who passed away several years ago. C's father was born in 19xx during the Japanese’s occupation. Putting in this way, let us recalling a movie, maybe you have seen it- “The Last Emperor.” It was the last Sino-Japanese war of the last dynasty, the Qing was defeated and gave away Taiwan to Japan. From 1985 to 1945, Taiwanese people were like orphans suddenly being tossed away to a foreign regime that strategically ruled her (both repressive and assuaging tactics) for half of a century. After having depicted the historical background, let her go to some details about him. C's father was forced to have 4 years’ Japanese elementary (to uproot the culture heritage) education which was all he could attend. Such a "privilege" given to him perhaps, he was born with a desirable gender.
To save time for the key stories, C skipped her father's, and went into the second one. It was about C's mother. Born during Japanese’s colonization, like most of the poor women, C's "illeratate" mother was encouraged to have as many children as possible. The "reproductive machines” were highly demanded to produce more workers, and soldiers for Japan’s military expansion needs. Her mother did have 10 children. According to the comparative advantage, and since some education would damage the womb (Edward Clarke, 1873), C's mother, and women of her generations were deprived the opportunities of education. So, she could not read, nor write. Although she was so-called illiterate, she insisted that children should have education. “Children should have education” is equivalent to “people need to breathe, to eat, and to drink” in today’s society. So what’s new about it?
Now, again the story needs to be situated in the historical context (for detailed conditions, refer to one of my theses: A Multi-Level Analysis of 228 Social Movement (A Massacre) of 1947 in Taiwan, deposited and publshed - could be found in the General Library of UW-Madison). Among her peers, education to women was like a camel wanting to go through the needle’s eye. Just taking a look of her contemporaries dealing with their daughters, you can imagine how noble an idea C's mother had! Among Taiwanese women of her age group, approximately 95% were poor and illiterate. One of the major anxieties of them was not able to pay daughters’ future dowries, thus giving away or exchange daughters for the future-babybrides-in-law (童養媳-who were usually brutally mistreated by the future mothers-in-law) was a popular practice in the low social class. Many young girls were even sold to rich families as child laborers or chateau slaves, and some of them ended up in the highly demanded business - brothels.
C's mother loved her children very much, but still, sons were more valuble than daughters - a dominant gender ideology constructed though thousands of years. Though those young girls’ horrifying nightmares had never happened to her female siblings, her eldest sister had to sacrifice herself to help out family. Right after graduating from elementary school, at that young age, she worked at textile factory as a weaver- a very popular and booming industry at that time during the 2nd wave of globalization marching through Taiwan. As to C, she realized how important money was to her family. C always had a strong desire to please her mom to soothe the constant anxiety of family financial stress. She worked many tiny jobs starting from elementary school days. Two of them were multinational corporate company’s branches in Taipei. One was the Max Factor Cosmetic Inc., the other one was an International Traveling Bags Manufacturing Company. C remembered she took her younger sister L working at those difficult working conditions to earn 3-8 cents per hour. No such a word -"child laborers” existed at that time, not to mention the Child Labor Laws ever been heard off, because children were assets not liabilities when time did not favor children's innocence! Kathleen just now mentioned the positive and negative sides of Globalization (not Internationalization), C thinks that her female siblings are good witnesses of those there the days of sweet-bitterness!
Definitely, her female siblings did contribute efforts to the first stage of globalization in Taiwan, and were also part of the legend in establishing the famous MIT (Made In Taiwan) kingdom with unimaginable joy (tiny yet significant money) and sacrifice (terrible working conditions). Male siblings even born in the humble background still could get enough attention and protection from C's mother and nurturing from sisters. For example, C had to do all family laundry by hands and cleaned brothers’ rooms when she was a very little girl. C and her sisters took turns to do cooking and cleaning. Recall when she as in high school which was a very competitive one (the Taipei Municipal First Girls’ Senior High School), she anxiously saw most of her classmates staying at cramming schools after class for another 2-3 hours' extra home assignment drills and preparation, so they could do well on next day’s quizzes/exams and kept very competitive in class, while she had to go to families hiring me to tutor their children so she could bring some money home. You can imagine, after family chores, tutoring jobs, school works, there was not so much time for her to prepare myself for the next day’s challenges in school. But fortunately, through those events, C learned to keep the head above the water, and survived well. Who says that “What cannot break you, make you stronger,” indeed!
Now she had better quickly jump to the third woman’s story. She was a wet-nanny. A wet-nanny, mainly, a woman living in poverty, who saved her milk to nurture other families’ babies for whose mother could not or did not want to raise them. Thus the nanny was called in to serve and earned the service fees. The third story was relating to C's mother. C's biological grandma died right after giving birth to her mom. You know at that time, woman’s partition was similar to put one of her legs into the casket ( just recall the horrifying and ordeal that Mary Wollstonecraft had been through for such a tragedy!) It was a 50-50 % chance to survive for most of the babies and the mothers. The grandpa had to marry a widow with 4 children of her own. He witnessed the abusive behaviors of the step mom toward the little baby – C's mom, thus he decided to save the baby’s life by sending her to the wet-nanny’s house and paid her some meager fees. In the long run, C's mother decided not to go back to the step-mother's and stayed with the nanny's family.
The nanny (C called grandma) had 7 children, three boys and four girls. Each time she gave birth a baby, if boy, she kept him, if not, she would arrange to sell or give away the female infants (named with gender derogation, such as 罔腰, 招弟, 一招, 再招 - frequently seen at that time. For more details, my another thesis: Social Ideology and Gender roles- Contemporary Women's Issues in Taiwan (社會意識型態與性別角色-論臺灣社會變遷中婦女問題 ) deposited in the Grad Library of National Taiwan University). Thus, the milk could be saved to nurture other families’ babies. She only kept one girl for family chores and took care of other family members. Two of her daughters were sold, and one of them almost ended up in brothel, whom C's mother (she became the oldest one in the nanny's family whom the nanny dare not to touch) used all the possible methods to rescue her out of the misery. As to the money the nanny earned, she used to support the whole family. Remember, during Japanese’s occupation, Taiwanese men were oppressed in a different fashion!
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Now, I hope you won’t be misled by my anecdotal stories about the true face of women in Taiwan during the early 20th century. I wish I would have presented more accurate data about the social condition during those days. But, now, the misery of women has been replaced with a new vitality through a tremendous socio-economic transformation: just comparing my current academic and career conditions to my mother’s.
So, regarding the generation next to mine, are you curious about it?
Yes, let me tell you, each time I go back to Taiwan, I just could not tell whether my nieces are American girls or Japanese young ladies! They enjoyed the tremendous economic affluence in Taiwan. They dyed/highlighted their hair, changed their contact lens by colors, and dressed up like Japanese girls or westerners with all sorts of fancy stuff which make their auntie Crystal look like a modern pumpkin. They just want everything that the modern American and Japanese girls enjoy! They are experiencing the fourth stage of Rostow’s economic development model- the “high consumption era.”
The trajectory of women’s development in many societies has striking similarity reflecting her specific socio-economic conditions and the cultural ideology. That's why it is important for women from different cultures, nations, races, and classes getting together to share our female experiences.
Taiwan presents a wonderful case study for women’s striving for justice among developing countries in the 20th and 21st centuries. The history of development of women in Taiwan was young, but impressive. The female grass-root movements have generated more than 50 NGOs (non government organizations) to fight for the women's rights. Via 30 years’ empowerment of education, women’s movements led by the well educated middle class women and their relevant associations have accomplished the following major successes legislatively, economically and politically a decade ago:
1. Taiwan had the first female Vice President in Far Eastern Asia, elected in 2000, and the first female Presidential candidate running against two males with a narrow margin of loss in January 2012;
2. passed the Equal Rights, Equal Pays Law;
3. amended several family laws to protect single parent and divorced women; and
4. passed the Civil Liberty Union Law that same sex can legally marry and is protect by the law.
Due to time constraint, the statistic data relating to the changing socio-economic statuses of women in Taiwan will be shown through the slides/PowerPoint presentation! Thanks for all of your attention and patience.
------------------------------------------------------------ A minor article might not directly relate to the above story and was not a new story either. But I would like to put them together as a response to a Mainlander-official who worked in the Taiwanese Foreign Affairs Dept in Canada as a public serviceman, paid by Taiwanese taxpayers. (Note -There are Taiwanese Chinese, Chinese Taiwanese, Taiwanese, and the natives as well as other different ethnic groups in Taiwan). This gentleman derogated Taiwanese people's multiple-century suffering into insignificance that caused a socio-political scandal a couple of years ago.
他的名子叫 被割割 March 2009 Crystal Li-chin Huang 他的名子叫 被割割。這個名子犯不著對 "范蘭欽" 有任何自由聯想或對他有畫蛇添足之 "閒"。(這仁兄宣稱臺灣人是"賤"民. 是可忍孰不不不不不不可忍?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (You could see this was done by a big turtle in typing characters).
被割割很認命與守舊。深信書中自有外交屋，書中自有謙忠恕。中學作文得數獎，大學聯考歷史考了個一百分。算是個左腦 (右腦是在媒國啓蒙的) 有開發的人。被割割一心一意想拼個謙忠恕外交官以報家國養育之恩 (真是顽固迂腐到極點!)。首度赴特考戰戰兢兢, 然而慘遭敗北 - 這科國際公法雖非本行, 也不該考個如此無能的分數。捲土重來信心十足。不料晴天闢靂高分落選。
回想多年前時的被割割並非輸不起那一分，而是被割割 那不識字的母親滿懷疑問 "那ㄝ安內生? 歷哪目賙放ㄎㄨㄟ ㄎㄨㄟ去考，歷史也不會考二十五分!!!" 一輩子沒機會上一天學的老母卻苦苦巴望她十個苦命兒 中能有一兩個有出脫當個 像包清天那 樣 的 ”官”，一如歌仔戲 (忠孝節義封建承控機制) 中那十年寒窗一舉揚眉顯親的莘莘學子鬆口氣 地說， ”此後不再受虐於猛逾虎的苛政”。 然而複查成績的結果是白紙四大黑字- "查無錯誤"。
被割割只好安慰老母: “媽，您的每日清晨夜晚虔誠欽天敬祖，燒好香做好待， 祖宗神明會原諒我的失誤。” 然後被割割嬉皮笑臉地對媽說 “可能是真的， 想當官要燒三代的好香做好事呢! 媽， 一定是前兩代阿公阿祖香沒燒夠!” 私底下，被割割卻無奈地想著那報考的履歷表上的確是要你提及祖宗三代。不過不是有關燒好香做好事，而是祖宗們的學經歷背景。被割割的兄妹們倒是黃家頭一代出產的識字人。在台灣，這是一件很值得誇耀的事。
言歸正傳，這 “ 二十五分的歷史教訓 ” 從此深深烙印在這個社會學没讀透的狂狷青年心頭。
話說山不轉路轉、當不了駐外人，被割割 倒也扛轎周旋於幾個小型官場，看了幾齣現形記 (時當解嚴天蠶劇變之際，於國府殿堂)。厚黑與薄白戲碼趁機上演，看得眼花撩亂，做得澎湃洶湧 。 說得遲那時快，一個有份量的獎學金使被割割覺悟一切有為法，如夢幻泡影 - 痛心地空遁到海外, 專心投入百年樹 (媒國)人的工作 (不夠格樹本國人，只好退而求其次)。 所以, 從一個當了七年親愛精誠的丘八官與抬轎人如今成了個 “住” 外的樹人。
如此一來，被割割時而仰天長嘯壯懷激烈一番, 時而自我調侃自我阿Q，自封個背 "彩虹旗" 的人 (有綠， 有藍， 有紅，有黑，更有白)。如果你要為被割割駐個名 (不論是加罪或加封)- 這嗎 騎牆騎得太離譜??
不過看官要是知曉這荒唐辛酸個中味， 說真的，這種旗也真重得難扛。 試想被割割對著大鼻混眼的媒國學生唱著 望你早歸，梅花，雨夜花，易水寒, 與 高山青以解說社會階層和族群理論時，卻無法用那美麗的母語的精神分裂折騰?! 被割 割的自 我流放, 值得反省, 值得三思..
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Sun Lasting See, this over-work, non-pay Woman ! Where are the Daddies !?? How do the ideological systems working (or constraining, if you don't mind) on sentient beings across all sorts of genders and sexes??https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFkdcsgPke4
Mommy Opossum Carries 15 Babies
My daughter's grandfather captured this video of a mother opossum transporting 15 baby opossums on her back....
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Sun Lasting Just a little cerebral (or hormonal) cortex teasing fun ! Express deepest respect and commemorate all the sacrificed mother-cows and their MALE babies...
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Sun Lasting What a great motto?- what a Blessing ! Who DOESN'T need it !?
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Sun Lasting If knowledge, status, power, privileges, and wealth are the inevitable results of individual's hard work (and/or endowed talent, if you like), wouldn't these women be the world "deserving" successful millionaires?? ! Why aren't they?
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