Social Location
SOCIAL LOCATION PAPER
Ever since women were given suffrage and more generally equal rights, there has been a rise of women in the common work places. Unfortunately, much of the business and high power corporations within the United States are under a patriarchy and women don’t get much of the power and pay as men do. Furthermore, women in the workplace just become “eye candy” or even objects of sexual fantasies for the men who hire them or for the men who work with or around them. Though women have fought to be equal along the side men, they continue to struggle in their everyday lives to match the power and pay that their male counterparts receive without any extra effort. However, in some rare cases, women have a subtle yet influential power. Unfortunately, this “power” is a double edged sword. On one side, the women can use their sexuality to gain power or use as a source of power. And on the other side, women who use their sexuality for gain is seen to be disrespectful, unprofessional, and pointless to the struggle of equalizing themselves to men. According to Leslie Salzinger, in her study within a maquiladora shop floor, “Labor control operates within this visually oriented context. The enactment of managerial practices based on men obsessively watching young women creates a sexually charged atmosphere, one in which flirtation and sexual competition become the currency through which shop floor power relations are struggled over and fixed. In this framework, women are constituted as desirable objects and male managers as desiring subjects,” (5). Picturing this scene is sort of a reminder of how men have sexualized women or even how women have sexualized themselves. The adult media industry and pornographic material present this almost same case. You have the men watching the women create something, in this case, act or participate in something, which arouses or causes men to have a certain sexual “gaze.” Furthermore, the question of “why
Ever since women were given suffrage and more generally equal rights, there has been a rise of women in the common work places. Unfortunately, much of the business and high power corporations within the United States are under a patriarchy and women don’t get much of the power and pay as men do. Furthermore, women in the workplace just become “eye candy” or even objects of sexual fantasies for the men who hire them or for the men who work with or around them. Though women have fought to be equal along the side men, they continue to struggle in their everyday lives to match the power and pay that their male counterparts receive without any extra effort. However, in some rare cases, women have a subtle yet influential power. Unfortunately, this “power” is a double edged sword. On one side, the women can use their sexuality to gain power or use as a source of power. And on the other side, women who use their sexuality for gain is seen to be disrespectful, unprofessional, and pointless to the struggle of equalizing themselves to men. According to Leslie Salzinger, in her study within a maquiladora shop floor, “Labor control operates within this visually oriented context. The enactment of managerial practices based on men obsessively watching young women creates a sexually charged atmosphere, one in which flirtation and sexual competition become the currency through which shop floor power relations are struggled over and fixed. In this framework, women are constituted as desirable objects and male managers as desiring subjects,” (5). Picturing this scene is sort of a reminder of how men have sexualized women or even how women have sexualized themselves. The adult media industry and pornographic material present this almost same case. You have the men watching the women create something, in this case, act or participate in something, which arouses or causes men to have a certain sexual “gaze.” Furthermore, the question of “why