see attachment

Length: 7 pages (not including title page or references)

Specifications: Times New Roman pt. 12. Double space please! Must include a correctly formatted work cited page. The essay must have a thesis statement.

Purpose: Research women’s issues in another country. How have women organized to address these issues? What are the tactics and frames used to talk about the issue?

You must reference at least 5 course readings from our text. (See other attachments) You must provide reference citations to all organizational literature. You may use outside sources in addition to the five course readings (not in place of them). Papers not using course readings do not meet the expectations of the assignment.

Writing Prompts: You are writing an essay in which you address the following issues (Do not number the answers in your paper.)

1- Research a women’s organization outside of the United States. It can be an organization that is located in a specific country working on a local issue like the Revolutionary Association of the Women in Afghanistan (RAWA) or a transnational organization like “Women Watch” of the United Nations.

You can either start this by thinking about an issue that captures your interest (Rape during wartime, maternal health, AIDS) or a geographic location you want to know more about (Women in Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Peru, China, Morocco).

A couple of resources to get you started:

https://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/links_actv.html

2- Once you have decided on an organization. Post it to the webliography section of our course.

3- Please address all of the following questions in your paper.

· Where is the organization located?, What issue(s) are they working to address?, How do they organize to address these issues?, Do they organize marches, raise money or educate people on their issues?, Describe their tactics.

· What kinds of information does the organization provide on their website?, What appears to be the most affective advocacy tool they have?

· In what ways is the organization similar or different to the information you have read in our text?

I am looking for you to engage with at least 5 readings from the text. You can do this in a variety of ways. For example, you can discuss how gender is socially constructed and varies culturally. What article discusses a similar geographic region? What similar issues are talked about in the text? Find 5 different texts to engage with.

Textbook: Brettell, Caroline B., and Carolyn F. Sargent. Gender in Cross-cultural Perspective. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2013.

October4, 2002

The Costs of American Privilege

By Michael Schwalbe

When it comes to knowledge of the U.S. government, foreign students often put American

students to shame. Many of the American students in my classes don’t know how Congress is

organized, what cabinet members do, or how governmental powers are divided among the

executive, judicial, and legislative branches. The foreign students who have shown up in my

classrooms over the years tend to know about these matters and more.

The gap is even wider with regard to knowledge of U.S. behavior around the globe. When

foreign students refer to exploitive U.S. trade policies, military interventions abroad, and support

for repressive dictatorships as if any educated person would of course know about such things?

American students are often stunned. Foreign students are equally amazed when their remarks

are greeted with blank stares.

But this level of ignorance is not so amazing, really. It’s a predictable consequence of privilege.

Like white privilege and male privilege in our society, American privilege brings with it the

luxury of obliviousness.

Privilege comes from membership in a dominant group and is typically invisible to those who

have it. Many whites do not see themselves as enjoying white privilege, yet as Peggy McIntosh

has pointed out, there are dozens of ways that whites are privileged in U.S. society.

For example, whites can live anywhere they can afford to, without being limited by racial

segregation; whites can assume that race won1t be used to decide whether they will fit in at

work; whites who complain usually end up speaking to the white person in charge; whites can

choose to ignore their racial identity and think of themselves as human beings; and, in most

situations, whites can expect to be treated as individuals, not as members of a category.

Men likewise enjoy privileges as members of the dominant gender group. For example, men can

walk the streets without being sexually harassed; men can make mistakes without those mistakes

being attributed to their gender; men can count on their gender to enhance their credibility; men

can expect to find powerful sponsors with whom they can bond as men; and, even in female-

dominated occupations, men benefit from being seen as better suited to higher-paying,

administrative jobs.

Whites and men tend not to see these privileges because they are taken to be normal,

unremarkable entitlements. This is how things appear to members of a dominant group. What1s

missing is an awareness that life is different for others. Not having to think about the experiences

of people in subordinate groups is another form of privilege.

In contrast, women and people of color usually see that those above them in the social hierarchy

receive unearned benefits. At the least, they must, for their own protection, pay attention to what

members of more powerful groups think and do. This is why women often know more about

men than men know about themselves, and why blacks know more about whites than whites

know about themselves.

It is no surprise, then, that foreign students, especially those from Third World countries, often

know more about the U.S. than most American students do. People in those countries must, as a

matter of survival, pay attention to what the U.S. does. There is no equally compelling need for

Americans to study what happens in the provinces. And so again the irony: people in Third

World countries often know more about the U.S. than many Americans do.

We can thus put these at the top of the list of American privileges: not having to bother, unless

one chooses, to learn about other countries; and not having to bother, unless one chooses, to

learn about how U.S. foreign policy affects people in other countries. A corollary privilege is to

imagine that if people in other countries study us, it1s merely out of admiration for our way of

life.

The list of American privileges can be extended. For example, Americans can buy cheap goods

made by superexploited workers in Third World countries; Americans can take a glib attitude

toward war, since it1s likely to be a high-tech affair affecting distant strangers; and Americans

can enjoy freedom at home, because U.S. capitalists are able to wring extraordinary profits out of

Third World workers and therefore don1t need to repress U.S. workers as harshly.

But privileges are not without costs. Most obviously there is the cost of ignorance about others.

This carries with it the cost of ignorance about ourselves. One thing we don’t learn, when we

refuse to learn about or from others, is how they see us. We then lose a mirror with which to

view ourselves. Combined with power, the result can be worse than innocent ignorance. It can be

smug self-delusion, belief in the myth of one1s own superiority, and a presumed right to dictate

morality to others. We also bear the cost of limiting our own humanity. To be human is to be

able to extend compassion to others, to empathize with them, and to reflect honestly on how they

are affected by our actions. Privilege keeps us from doing these things and thereby stunts our

growth as human beings.

The ignorance that stems from privilege makes Americans easy to mislead when it comes to war.

Being told that they are 3fighting for freedom, and knowing no better, thousands of American

sons and daughters will dutifully kill and die. The ugly truth that they are fighting for the

freedom of U.S. capitalists to exploit the natural resources and labor of weaker countries is rarely

perceived through the vacuum of knowledge created by American privilege.

But of course it is the people in those weaker countries who bear the greatest costs of American

privilege. In war, they will suffer and die in far greater numbers. In peace, or times of less-

violent exploitation, their suffering will continue and once again become invisible to citizens

living at the core of the empire.

There are positive aspects of American privilege, and from these we can take hope. Most of us

enjoy freedom from repression in our daily lives, and we value our rights to associate and to

speak out. Perhaps, then, we can appreciate the anger created when U.S. foreign policy denies

other people these same rights. Perhaps, too, we can use our freedoms to more fully fight such

injustices. If so, then our privileges as Americans will be put to noble and humane use.

If Americans are often afflicted with ignorance and moral blindness when it comes to the rest of

the world, this is not a failing of individuals. These problems result from a system of domination

that confers privilege. And so we can1t make things right simply by declining privilege. In the

long run, we have to dismantle the system that gives it to us.

MICHAEL SCHWALBE teaches sociology at North Carolina State University. He can be

reached at MLSchwalbe@nc.rr.com.