In the movie Legally Blonde, we meet a girl by the name of Elle Woods, she is blonde and beautiful, she is also a fashion major and a sorority girl. At the time of her enrolling in college she was dating a guy by the name of Warner, he was pursuing to be a politician and go to Harvard Law School. As Elle and her boyfriend went out to dinner one night, he broke up with her because he believed “she wasn’t serious enough” about the life he wanted in college. Elle later believed she could win her boyfriend back if she pursued a career in law, she earned a 179 on the LSAT and got accepted into Harvard. At the end of the movie, Elle worked on a case, sent the defendant to jail and Warner asked to get back together. After Elle realized her worth and what she could accomplish, she rejected him.
Throughout the whole movie, Elle Woods was overcoming stereotypes made for women trying to pursue careers where it was male dominant. Not only was she criticized due to her looks and blonde hair, but people also just truly didn’t believe she could accomplish high levels of education. Her own father in the movie tried to talk her out of it by saying law school is a place for people who are “boring, ugly and serious.”
I chose this movie not only because it relates to me personally, as I am pursuing a career in law but because this related great with one of our class materials. One of the materials we read in class was “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, we see throughout that reading the author touches on how women will never be on the same level or seen the same next to a man. Whether that is in society or in a work setting, the movie Legally Blonde relates to that reading so well. One of the famous lines of the movie was when Elle ran into her ex-boyfriend in the Harvard school halls and Warner asks if she’s here to see him, she responds, “No I go here,” Warner responds to her with remarks like “You go where?, You got into Harvard Law?”. Elle responds with the famous line, “What? Like it’s hard?”. That scene is a clear representation of how Elle’s ex-boyfriend believed she would never even make it into a school that he got into because she was never on the same level that he was, when in reality she was and broke many stereotypes. This movie is a great example to young women that no matter what someone tells you or how many times you get told you can’t do something, you most certainly can.
Hello everyone. My name is Peyton Herman and today’s podcast episode is going to be about systemic injustices. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been doing diary entries talking about systematic injustices, and how necessarily they make us feel and others feel. And I feel like over these past couple of weeks, they have made us really realize what goes on in the world. But it has also opened my eyes to kind of see what has been taking place in the world along with even you know, our personal lives and around the world today. So I want to tap into a couple of things that I wrote about over the past couple of weeks during these diary entries that I feel are super important to touch on some things, you know, that we sometimes overlook, and some things that I feel like weren’t easily resolved. So the first injustice that I’m going to be talking about is the one that I found interesting throughout the couple of weeks that we were taking diaries, and it is the school dress code with girls around the world. Even in middle schools in our country, I see this take place a lot, even from personal experience. I feel as though school dress code with girls has been somewhat degrading for girls, whether that’s leggings, or spaghetti strap tank tops, everything seems to be an issue with what girls can wear in schools today. When we look at the strict dress code, with girls prominently in middle schools, you see the boys dress code where they can wear shorts freely, they can wear white beater tank tops, freely, and they don’t feel any type of pressure as to what they should wear when getting up in the morning. While as girls can’t be comfortable in leggings, or in tank tops that they feel comfortable in. It’s always this pressure of what am I going to wear today, and if I’ll be dress coded, what is going to happen to me if I wear this. Not only does this take place in the United States, it takes place all around the world, really with women’s dress code. I remember one of our neighbors at the time of family, the father of the household had a job in Saudi Arabia that they were going back and forth from Ohio to Saudi Arabia, and the mom of the household because they had two sons, the mom of the household had to cover herself to not be too distracting or revealing to men, and necessarily that’s taking away a woman’s rights. Now in middle school, when I was 13 to 14 years old, I didn’t really think about my rights being stripped away from me, I just saw it as I can’t wear this because my principal said so, you know, thinking back to it when I’m 20, 21 years old, that was my rights being taken away from me, and fearing of what I could wear and what I couldn’t wear. And those were rights being taken away from a girl and a woman during that time. I believe every girl has an experience of this, a personal experience from this, where they can say that they’re not allowed to wear that certain top because it shows too much shoulder and that may distract a boy. Well, I never knew that my shoulder would distract a boy in middle school. That just seems ridiculous. From a personal experience of mine, I remember I was sitting in the cafeteria in middle school and one of my friends she was wearing leggings that day. She didn’t feel good and she just wanted to be comfortable. And I remember that the assistant principal of the school she she was a woman also, she pulled her up on stage. And she made an announcement to the cafeteria at the time and said, This is what you don’t wear to school. I remember that happening. And I just remember the embarrassment that was written on my friend’s face and I couldn’t believe that they actually brought her onto the stage to humiliate her in front of all of my classmates. While also having a personal experience of my own. I also wanted to do some research on the topic when creating my diary for the week. So while doing more research on the topic of strict dress codes in school and seeing what else was out there regarding other schools, I found an article speaking on dress code, including race and gender. And this is what the article had said, these rules aren’t neutral. Many target girls and especially black girls by regulating skirt length and head wraps a report on school dress code in the District of Columbia that was compiled by the National Women’s Law Center states and the rules aren’t applied equally either. Students report that black girls are especially curvier students, and are disproportionately targeted. This is no longer a topic of conversation with just gender. This is now involving race with clothing choices with girls in schools. This is honestly taking the creativity away in students and the freedom of choices and clothing. And honestly, it’s from personal experience. It’s the worst thing ever because sometimes clothing is your creativity while being in school, whether that’s with crazy socks or wearing leggings, or even a fun spaghetti strap tank top. It’s all about being yourself in schools and that shouldn’t be taken away from girls. The next systemic injustice that I’m going to be speaking about is another personal, hitting home one. It’s one that is not easily resolved and I believe that this is something that a lot of people can relate to when they have elderly grandparents. I believe
Unknown Speaker 5:00
This topic isn’t easily resolved because it is involving the medical field in nursing homes. So sometimes this can be a very touchy subject to some people. And sometimes people just don’t really understand or really notice or do the research on these type of things that happen in nursing homes or in the medical field. So the systematic injustice that I’m speaking about that tends to not easily be resolved is Alzheimer patients and abuse. I see this take place, whether it’s on the news, or actually, I’ve often found a lot of information through my mom, because it is my grandpa, who is 80 years old, that was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and he’s been battling the continued disease for around three to four years. I can honestly tell you before three to four years ago, when my grandpa got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, I wasn’t really too in-tuned with the disease at all, I didn’t really know or have any information about Alzheimer’s or dementia. So when I started to learn more information from my mom, because it is her dad, or even just watching my grandpa throughout the years, and his memory kind of dwindle away, it is a severe disease. So when you start thinking about an even more severe patient in a nursing home, where there could be possibly abuse going on, when you have a severe patient, that typically means that the patient has no memory whatsoever, and they tend to forget things very quickly. So that’s typically when abuse tends to happen, because these patients don’t remember anything. So when the abuse takes place, they will forget it 10 to 15 minutes after and won’t remember anything that took place. It could even be a shorter amount of time as well, with each Alzheimer’s patient abuse can take place in a care center. And actually, this was something I never really knew before before my mom started to tap into it and start to educate me more on the topic of memory loss and Alzheimer’s patients. Like I said before, why I believe this is something non easily resolved is because you know, most of these patients have memory loss and can’t speak up for themselves. And also, a lot of people don’t know that this is going on, just like when my mom, you know, had to tell me kind of that abuse was taking place in these homes. I didn’t know any of that before. And I feel like it’s a topic that isn’t really touched on by a lot of people, because either they’re just not educated enough, or they just don’t really know that it’s happening. This was something that I really did want to touch on during this podcast, but also in our diaries as well. I believe that this topic does need more attention and it does need more research done on this topic to see really what is going on in these nursing homes with Alzheimer’s patients. When doing more research on the topic of Alzheimer’s and also the abuse that could possibly take place in a nursing home. I went to the Alzheimer’s Association website to find out more information on abuse and this is what I found, abuse can occur anywhere including at home and in the care center, people with dementia are especially vulnerable because the disease may prevent them from reporting the abuse or recognizing it. Kind of like I said before, they also may fall prey to strangers who take advantage of their cognitive impairment. The website also listed different forms of abuse that aren’t just physical, the abuse could also be mental, sexual, emotional and neglect. This is an injustice that I will continue to educate myself on and prevent happening to elders at any age. This is also something that I want to tap into more especially with my grandpa having the disease. While my grandpa is currently at home with my grandma in a great place and his care is in great hands. I do want to keep fighting for the elders that do suffer abuse in these care centers or in nursing homes all over the world. The next systemic injustice that I’m going to be talking about is one that I’m really uneasy about. It just didn’t sit well with me when I was writing about it or researching it or even when I saw it in the news, it was something that really upset me and made me just feel uneasy. I was actually sitting in the kitchen one day when I saw the news report an Asian Uber driver that was harassed and it was shocking to me that I saw this on the news I was actually so saddened by watching this news report. This Uber driver was coughed on, his phone was grabbed, and one of the passengers ripped off his mask. The three passengers in the Uber were all young to middle aged women and they were told multiple times to put on masks to follow COVID guidelines. They continuously didn’t follow rules in the gentleman’s Uber car and the Uber driver even asked them if they wanted to stop over at a gas station to buy a disposable mask so they could follow COVID guidelines in the Uber. When the Uber driver asked if they wanted him to pull over to get masks, that’s when they started to cough on him grab his phone and rip off his mask. It was particularly one passenger that grabbed his phone coughed on him and ripped off his mask as the other two passengers were just blatantly screaming at him. I think that this injustice was something that I was so uneasy about because when I first saw it on the news, I was completely and utterly shocked that something like that would take place. But then I started to educate myself more on Asian Americans and the racism that takes place in the country and all around the world and it’s honestly shocking how much takes place and that we’re not educated enough on. After the news story broke and the dash cam video footage went viral, the girl that coughed on the gentleman, and ripped off his mask and took his phone, turned herself and also took the other two girls into custody that were passengers and by standards, I believe the topic of Asian American racism is not spoken about enough nor are we educated enough on the topic of racism with Asian Americans, but I will continue to better educate myself and the people around me with the topic of Asian American racism. So concluding this very informational podcast over the past couple of weeks, I have really, truly learned so much information on all these in justices and really have opened my mind. After doing all these diaries, reading about the showcases and other people’s experiences with injustice or learning about them from the media, to even doing this podcast, it has really opened my mind. And I have also been educated so much throughout these past couple of weeks on these injustices. I truly believe that this will be such an informational experience for each and every one of us students, and we will continue to educate and better ourselves on the topic of racism, discrimination and inequality. I hope each and every one of you have gained something from this podcast, and I cannot wait to gain something from all of yours as well. Thank you.
While writing about different injustices each week the one I wanted to showcase and is very prevalent in our society today is the discrinmation against girls in school, whether that is in middle school or high school. Thinking back to middle school, I remember a time when girls were not even allowed to enter the building with tight clothing on such as leggings as it would be a distraction to boys in school. This was a struggle for many girls throughout that time wanting to be comfy in school but had the fear of being in trouble because of a clothing choice, another problem was spaghetti straps with tank tops. Boys were constantly allowed to wear whatever they wanted, while us girls were constantly humiliated in front of others and being called out for tight black pants. Schools simply gave girls a dress code so it wouldn’t “distract the boys” but I didn’t think my shoulder would make a guy go insanely crazy, why didn’t the guys wearing shorts be dress coded and why could they wear white beater tank tops? These were questions me and the girls asked daily, they even went as far as bringing a girl up on our middle school auditorium stage while she was wearing leggings to show what not to wear to school. Instead of taking rights away from girls and the freedom of wearing what they want, they should sit the boys down and give them a lesson on how to respect a woman instead of violating what a woman wears and how “guys shouldn’t be too distracted” by a bra strap.
After doing some research from the original diary post I wrote on this topic, I found an article speaking on dress codes including race and gender, “These rules aren’t neutral: many target girls, and especially black girls, by regulating skirt length and headwraps,” a report on school dress codes in the District of Columbia that was compiled by the National Women’s Law Center states. “And the rules aren’t applied equally, either. Students report that black girls, and especially curvier students, are disproportionately targeted.”
Comparing this topic to something we have discussed or read about in class, the first thing to come to mind is the reading of Persepolis and how Marji the main character went through many discriminating factors as a woman, especially with materials such as clothing. Marji was from Iran and later relocated to Austria, while being a woman in Iran you have to cover yourself up quite a bit to not “arouse” men. This is a very similar situation when looking at how they dress code us girls in school.
Here are some images portraying what it is like for girls and the strict dress code they have to follow, one of the pictures show a boy wearing a women’s outfit and it being acceptable while girls have to cover themselves mostly up for it to be okay.
In The Leavers Novel, written by Lisa Ko, it is a story about a young boy by the name of Deming Guo. He is an American/Chinese young boy who was born in American by his undocumented mother Polly, she is an immigrant working at a nail salon in New York. Deming after being born was sent back to China in order for Polly to save enough money to care for her son, he later returned to the United States. Around the time of Deming being eleven years old, his mother disappeared from his life for about two years due to her immigration status not being complete.
When reading The Leavers novel, you get a sense of what immigration centers are like when you’re not a United States citizen. When Polly was gone for two years out of Deming’s life, she later explains to him how she was in a detention camp due to her immigration status. Even though the novel is fiction, you can see details described about detention centers that are clear examples of today. “Two hundred women slept in two person bunks grouped in eight rows of three bunks each. None of us had any money and we couldn’t get any, unless our families knew where we were” (p.295).
You see that detention centers for immigrants look like ones described in the novel, in an article “Conditions in Migrant Detention Centers” you can see that these detention camps “[are] overcrowded [with] children and adults behind metal cages and reports of filth, illness, and untimely deaths.” The novel brings awareness to the issue of these centers that are in the United States, in the novel Polly the mother, was in a Texas detention center by the name of Ardsleyville. She wasn’t able to make calls as an example of what takes place inside these centers.
From the same article “Conditions in Migrant Detention Centers,” in 2019 details came out furthermore on the center’s conditions and how the mental health of these people was very much suffering. “One visiting physician described “extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day” at a CBP facility in Texas. Members of Congress who visited a Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas, reported being told by detained women that they were told to drink from toilet bowls due to a lack of running water.” The novel The Leavers gives a small glimpse of what the typical non-documented immigrant has to go through and what detention centers do to these people when not being documented properly.
References:
“Conditions in Migrant Detention Centers.” American Oversight, 20 Jan. 2021, www.americanoversight.org/investigation/conditions-in-migrant-detention-centers. Accessed 5 Mar. 2021.
Ko, Lisa. The Leavers. Chapel Hill, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2017.
