Having read 'Gender and Race' by Evelyn Nakano Glenn last year in Peace & Gender, I was intrigued to see a. how increasingly awful my memory has become since the start of college, and b. how I could interpret the conflict aspect of the article.
As anticipated, my memory is not what it used to be(probably because of ALL THE STUDYING I've been doing), but I was able to go back and look through my notes from last year, so it was simple to examine the similarities that way.
The obvious commonality between the two were the frameworks of gender and race, and how the two are continually mutually constituted. So how is one to differentiate between peace and conflict? I like to believe I am not the only person who is aware of the obvious positive connotation associated with peace, and the negative connotation that comes with conflict. So for the sake of this class, I will take on a relatively negative attitude to discern how the framework of gender and race are influenced/influence conflict.
If anything, this article made it brutally clear that by creating social constructs of gender and of race, it not only has a negative impact on how society perceives one another, but how women of color are continuously left to the wayside. The extent of cultural and social violence occurring within that section of the population; not only are they experiencing multiple levels of oppression (intentional or not), but they are essentially being phased out of society.
In essence, it is quite obvious to see why conflict is arising within society; I wouldn't want to be tossed aside in two major aspects of my identity either. Being a woman today is difficult as is, which leads me into the class discussion; how gender constructs affect the way society works, for example: the vocabulary we use, the way we interact with one another, etc. It also influences the way we interpret gender in terms of negatives and positives. Sexuality is a key element because if a woman is promiscuous, the only thing anyone can think to call her is a slut or a ho. Where as the worst thing you can call a man is player or pimp, both of which have relatively positive connotations.
Finally, it is clear that there needs to be some sort of reformation to the way society constructs the concepts of gender and race. They need not be mutually exclusive, which may in fact be the root of the problem.
Your friend,
Eliza
