Photo Essay-Giovanna Fattori by Giovanna Fattori

Oppression in Public Restrooms

gfatt001 — 2024-05-20 06:26:15 UTC

Patriarchy prioritizes a “male dominated and male-identified" world. Highlighting how manhood and masculinity is associated with being human and how femininity and womanhood is associated with being a second class citizen or less than human. But in order to analyze patriarchy, we must understand how it affects our daily lives and how this system is not the villainization of men but the subconscious actions of every person, and how these thoughts and actions affect daily life. We can draw these analyzations from the reading, "Patriarchy, The System", by Allan G. Johnson. These photos demonstrate how the patriarchy has affected public restrooms. It is a very common stereotype that women take longer in restrooms. We have also seen that the line in women's restrooms is much longer than in mens. But why is that? As you can see in these photos, men are given 3 times the amount of restrooms than woman have been given. Not only do men have more available spaces to use the restroom but according to the article, “The Everyday Sexism of Woman Waiting in Public Toilet Lines”, “woman are responsible for reproducing the species (which makes us pee more), we continue to have greater responsibility for children(who have to use bathrooms with us), we breastfeed( frequently in grotty bathroom stalls). In totality, public restrooms are not properly accommodated for women, they are created for men and favor experiences and bodies of men.

Femininity

gfatt001 — 2024-05-20 06:27:10 UTC

The Social Construction of Gender decrees the decisons and actions of people based on the way society constructs gender by the human interactions that are created and re-created in social life. According to the reading, “Night to his Day: The Social Construction of Gender”, by Judith Lorber, “Individuals are born sexed but not gendered, and they have to be taught to be masculine or feminine. As Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born, but rather become, a woman...; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature... which is described a feminine. In my photo, I have photographed my sister, who is unconsciously “doing gender”. She has a feminine top on, makeup on for aesthetic reasons, has rollers in her hair so that her hair can be curled, is puckering her lips and posing. These small acts of expression show the social construction of gender. The interactions she has had in her social life that have affected her expression through dress and makeup, that has been built and re-built demonstrates how society has constructed this form of what a woman should portray herself to be. Although she is displaying femininity, she may or may not know how her gender has been formed by what society decides what femininity should look like.

Marie Curie and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

gfatt001 — 2024-05-20 06:28:26 UTC

Marie Curie was a renowned chemist and physicist who made the revolutionary discovery of pollonium and radium. Her discovery and work were pivotal and critical in finding treatments for cancer. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow was a nuclear physicist who developed the radioimunoassay, which was a mechanism that measured the concentrations of substances in our bodies. Although both of these women made incredibly important contributions to their field, only 2 out of 11 framed biographies on this wall are women. According to the reading, “Patriarchy, The System” by Allan G. Johnson, “The problem isn’t society, it isnt us”. It’s the relationship between the two that we have to understand, the nature of the thing we participate in and how we choose to participate in and how both are shaped in the process”. The decision of the people who run this building to only include 2 women out of 11 people on this wall, clearly demonstrates their participation in patriarchy. This act should not villainize the biographies of the men on the wall but scrutinize the people who participated in this display and how the community that walks by this display chooses to remain silent of the participation in patriarchy.

Running Man

gfatt001 — 2024-05-20 06:31:57 UTC

The Social Construction of Gender decides the decisions and privileges that specific humans are given. In my photograph, there is a cis-gendered man, running at night. This system has directly affected the actions and decisions of this man. His privilege is that he does not share the same limitations as women. Women are told not to run at night, in fear that something dangerous or harmful could happen to them at the hands of others. According to the reading, “Night to his Day: The Social Construction of Gender”, by Judith Lorber, “Yet gender, like culture, is a human production that depends on everyone constantly "doing gender" (West and Zimmerman 1987). And everyone "does gender" without thinking about it.” With this, we can understand how this man is unconsciously doing gender by choosing to run late at night and is directly impacted by a system that favors men and limits women. Continuing, Lorber also suggests that, “ Within many social groups, however, men are advantaged over women. The gendered practices of everyday life reproduce a society’s view of how women and men should act”. In totality, men are able to participate in everyday life privileges, while women are expected to refrain from participating in similar actions as men, such as running at night.

Maria Garcia Castillo

gfatt001 — 2024-05-20 06:35:46 UTC

This is a portrait of a close friend’s grandmother, Maria Garcia Castillo. A woman who is originally from Jalisco, Mexico who left her entire family, her children, her brothers and sisters, her mother in order to clean homes in the United States to support her entire family financially. According to the reading, “I’m Here, But I’m There, The Meanings of Latina Transnational Motherhood”, by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Enestine Avila, the concept of Latina Transnational Motherhood is when mothers from Latin America migrate and live in the United States to work but must leave their children in their countries of origin. This act of sacrifice demonstrates the essence of motherhood but is seen as a juxtaposition of what motherhood should look like. According to this same reading, the authors, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Enestine Avila, suggest how motherhood is, “understood as practice that involves the preservation, nurturance, and training of children for adult life.” This idea contrasts what transnational motherhood demonstrates and creates harmful ideas in women that must commit to crossing borders to help their families. Maria Garcia Castillo is a woman that had to remove deeply felt beliefs on what motherhood should reflect. By leaving her family in her country of origin, she creates a new definition of a mother that goes beyond nurture, it is sacrifice at whatever cost.

Oppression in Public Restrooms

gfatt001 — 2024-05-20 07:34:28 UTC