Rachel Berger

I think that  The Roundhouse is extremely important and topical for what is going on. Louise Erdrich comments on several issues that Indegenous people (indigenous women in particular) through the lens of Geraldine. She was sexually assaulted and it becomes apparent throughout the story that the location of where it happened matters. Apparently this matters because of the jurisdiction of each area. In different areas, there are different rights people have. This completely complicates things. Geraldine had to deal with reliving her trauma attempting to get this situation figured out. Not only is she dealing with the oppression coming from the criminal justice system, she is also facing oppression coming from the fact that she is a woman and indigenous. 

This is a real problem that indegenous women face. They are not fully supported by anyone and many of these women become forgotten instead of getting the justice they deserve. There is a current crisis surrounding missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. It is extremely unfortunate that these women become forgotten. Erdrich does a good job at showing that laws are a huge part of the oppressive problem. Many laws and rights are shaped to benefit one part of the population and not others which becomes apparent in this story. 

Clearly something needs to change. It is not okay for anyone to be forgotten like this because of reasons like legislation, laws, jurisdiction, etc. These are human lives (like our own) and need to be treated as such. The oppressive system of the justice system needs to change in order to support all people, not solely benefit one type of person. 

The states that have legislation and legislated investigations into the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indegenous Women and Girls are Arizona, California, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington.

Goforth-Ward, Meg. “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Legislation.” Urban Indian Health Institute (blog), May 17, 2019. https://www.uihi.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-legislation/ “MMIW Crisis,” September 13, 2019. https://www.doi.gov/ocl/mmiw-crisis

Fourth-wave feminism is extremely interesting because it is all about not having a “central definition”. Even the Wikipedia site had a roundabout way to describe what feminism in the current day means to everyone. Essentially, it said that feminism is becoming individualistic as opposed to the previous forms of it being a political group. It also stated that this current wave is all about the usage of social media and media in general to get the feminist point across. 

The Wikipedia site describes the history of this type of feminism and how it originated in countries outside of the United States. It was extremely interesting to find that fourth-wave feminism began as early as the ‘90s in some areas through the use of news outlets and television.

The Wikipedia article was packed with historical information, but it was lacking in the one area that mattered the most: intersectionality. Intersectionality had its own section, but there were around three small, two sentence paragraphs in the section. Clearly, this section did not matter as much to the authors because it was not pertinent in their minds. 

bell hooks comments on this in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice when they condemn the current usage of the term feminism to describe a non-political white feminist movement. They also demonstrates how the overarching definition that exists now can push people away from the movement. The definition of “being equal to men” does not make sense because it does not include the fact that not all men are equal. The current movement centers around white feminism and needs to adjust according to intersectional issues including race and class. 

I believe that the lack of specificity in the definition of feminism is one of the causes for the knowledge gap on the “Fourth-wave Feminism” Wikipedia page. Many people have access to the internet where some people with a low socioeconomic status may not. This causes for a rift in information because the people who are privileged enough to have access will report on these websites. This leaves room for people’s opinions, thoughts, and perspectives to not be heard.

Through bulking up the “Intersectionality” section in the Wikipedia article, this would add a whole new perspective to current feminism. It speaks to the importance of including all groups to fight together in order to change the system that oppresses them. It will not work just to change one aspect of the system — it has to be confronted at all angles. Through adding to this section, we are introducing the important idea of intersectionality to people who may not have known it existed and why it is so important.

Sources

bell hooks. “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression.” Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, by Maurianne Adams, Routledge, 2018, pp. 359-362.

Fourth-wave feminism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-wave_feminism

Despite what popular culture will tell people, the internet is not always accessible to everyone. This leads to several groups being left out of the digital conversation. The group with the most presence will be the most heard, in turn giving the illusion that this is the full truth. Since there is a lack of this left out voice, there may be many content gaps throughout the entire internet leading to the spread of misinformation. 

The people who seem to be the most heard on the internet are the ones who come from the ‘majority’ group: cis, white people. For example, in The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online Jessie Daniels speaks about a white feminist, Sheryl Sandberg, who became popular after the release of her book and TED talk surrounding what she believes as feminism. (Daniels, 2016). This popularized form of feminism only allowed room for people who were in the ‘majority’ in essentially every other category of their life except for gender. The entire idea of intersectionality was abandoned as well as the populations that believe that intersectionality is an essential part of feminism (which it is). Like it says in the book, Sandberg basically said that it was the woman’s job to change for the system, not the system’s job to change to be equal and equitable for everyone.

In doing this and popularizing this idea of feminism, Sandberg essentially committed lateral violence to every woman who was not mentioned. She taught women that they need to “choose the right man” and speak up at work, but what about those who are not able to find time to date because they have three children at home and a full time job or those who are not able to get a job because they did not go to college. This is a classic example of how those who are able to access the internet may deal damage to populations they are attempting to help because they do not understand nor care about the full picture because it may not be a part of their identity. 

References

Daniels, Jessie . “The Trouble With White Feminism: Whiteness, Digital Feminism, and the Intersectional Internet.” The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online. New edition edition, Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers, 2016.

In the story Identities and Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People?, Kirk and Okazawa-Rey talk about how people’s identities are formed. There are several levels on which people establish their identities, the first being at the individual level.

Internally, people are able to identify who they are. This level is the most easy to attain and understand because this comes directly from the individual. Above all, they are able to say, with confidence, exactly which “category” they feel they fit into. This is not stagnant, though. With every new life event comes a possibility of completely changing who we feel we are inside and out.

Outside of the individual, there are several levels that feed into our identity. The next level up, the meso level, is where people attempt to figure out if they are in the same “group” as you or not. Questions are asked to identify what makes you similar or different to them. This is the first level that makes identifying ourselves so much more difficult. This level is about identifying with certain groups of people that are similar to you.

Similarly, at a macro scale, there are groups that people are identified to be a part of. This time, people do not get to choose if they want to be in the group or not. There is a clear classification system in the world and it pits “us against them”. There are several ways in which this happens including stereotyping and cultural appropriation.

While there is an obvious problem of inequality caused by this, there is an underlying issue: many people have to choose one identity over the other in certain contexts. There may be a person who is a part of the “in group” in certain aspects of their life, but not others. At this point, context is key.

Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W. J., Castaneda, R., Hackman, H. W., Peters, M. L., & Zuniga, X. (2000). Readings for Diversity and Social Justice. Psychology Press.

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