So, I decided to tackle a topic that’s made me a bit uncomfortable and analyze it a little bit. I still don’t have my mind entirely made up, but after reading different perspectives, I do think I have identified what I agree with and disagree with.

First, here are the articles I have read to gain some perspective:

In favor:

In Defense Of Alimony, From A Feminist Economist

https://sites.duke.edu/develledish/2011/02/08/is-alimony-unfair-not-so-much-try-feminist/

Against (with some in favor views):

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/25/is-alimony-anti-feminist.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmajohnson/2014/10/29/an-end-to-alimony-is-good-for-women/#46b8b5d42b4f

The main argument for alimony is that women make a lot of sacrifices during a marriage that prevent them from pursuing their own economic stability in the case of divorce, such as raising children and maintaining a household. While alimony laws have experienced a lot of reform to make them more regularized and consistent, people claim (predominantly men, but some women too) that they are unfair.

The current rule of thumb is to provide payments to the ex-spouse so they can keep their standard of living that they had when married. Yet, I have a personal disagreement with this. My mother, before she met my father, was a flight attendant who lived in a very small apartment in an “eh” part of town with a room mate, barely affording to eat more than two meals a day, and had very little money to spend on anything else. After she married my father, she had it made. She promised to pursue a career after I started elementary school, but went back on her word, choosing to be a stay at home mother, willingly giving up career opportunities. She chose to use my father’s economic stability (and surplus) as a crutch, and should he choose to initiate a divorce, she’d be rewarded for doing nothing economically resourceful with her life by earning near half of what he has accumulated all on his own. And she’d take it, too. And that doesn’t sit well with me.

People talk how gender norms coerce women into abandoning their careers to prioritize their husband’s career track, and that it’s more accepted/natural for women to stay home and raise the children.

But I don’t necessarily blame gender norms. I blame expectations of the couple. Both the man and the woman should sit down and discuss the different variables and how to handle them (children, unemployment, moving for work, going back to school, etc etc). I think if a woman wants to focus on her career and wants to have children, but the husband doesn’t want to stay home either, they need to see if they can afford a nanny. There are other solutions besides the woman becoming subjugated by society, but I feel like many couples take the easy way out by not thinking about them.

A female economist makes an important argument, that she depended on her significant other to support her (out of love) while she pursued a higher level of education, quitting her job to focus on her schoolwork. When he divorced her, she literally had no money of her own to depend on, and she needed alimony to survive. And I respect her need, and I think she does deserve a stipend in that case.

Honestly, I think the only way to make this fair is for situations like these to be formalized in contracts. They could have signed an agreement that her spouse will promise to provide x amount of dollars per month for x months during the time she was getting her degree, whether or not they remained married. That would eliminate the need for emergency alimony to be presented to the wife at the crisis of a divorce. Same goes for if the wife needs to stay home and raise the kids out of necessity. The couple should sit down and evaluate how much pay that translates into beforehand, and the husband should promise to maintain this pay in the case of divorce. That way, no couple is disadvantaged by the system – instead, they create their own rules before going into marriage, and both know exactly what to expect in the case of divorce. And if they can’t agree on something like that, maybe they shouldn’t get married in the first place.

It’s a dismal way of looking at marriage by considering the worst case scenarios, but I think the people who don’t even want to consider them are the ones who end up in them. Interestingly enough, Bill and Melinda Gates had an agreement like this. He promised her in the event of getting divorced, she would get compensated what she would have earned if she had continued on her career path (which is why she said no to him the first time he asked her to marry him, because she knew being married to a computer mogul would extinguish her career). And they’re still happily married.

Another female journalist said that the removal of alimony is the necessary push women need to start becoming financially more aware. Women, on average, are less aware of how to manage finances, how to make investments, and manage their cash. By having women know there is no (or perhaps, just a limited) safety net, they will become more proactive in their marriage and their careers, learning skills that will help them whether they remain married or not. It’s a bit of a harsh perspective (a lot like dropping a kid into a pool and hoping they’ll learn how to swim), but I think some of the points she makes are valid. If we want women to be educated and maintain some level of independence, it has to start somewhere, and alimony may be a good starting point.

Here’s what I think (thought it may be subject to change as time progresses):

-Alimony should never be life-long. I think it should be x amount of years, and slowly tapering off, until a woman can either be trained in a new profession by going back to school or other means.

-I personally don’t think it should be at exactly the same amount to mimic the economic conditions the woman enjoyed when married. While she was married, she performed services for the household, but after the divorce, she’s no longer providing any services to the husband. I’m not saying she should get minimum wage in comparison, but I don’t think the payment plan needs to focus on being super “cushy,” a fair amount for her to pay for necessities and perhaps a little extra for her to invest or save for something larger.

-Receiving alimony may also discourage women from re-marrying, and instead keeping their significant other as a boyfriend, so they can continue to receive money. That being said, there are probably many other ways to cheat the system and milk all you can out of your former spouse. Or, women can suffer a certain amount of years before waging a divorce, sticking with a loveless marriage just for the alimony. That’s kind of messed up.

I need to fine-tune these ideas a little more, but as an Accounting Major and a (probably) feminist, I think women definitely do need to take more financial responsibility, and consider separating the love in their marriage from the legality of it. You can have plenty of contracts and still love someone with all your might – the same way you don’t have to be married to be in love. But women shouldn’t use marriage as a scapegoat to avoid taking financial responsibility for themselves (like my mother did).

I was reading an article about how a woman named Alice Hope have developed a great idea for tabs art in which there is a great project because she is using recycle things to make her project art. She grew up in Hong Kong and fell in love with New York art. She told the Keonna Hendrick who is the interviewer that she stumbled upon the tabs when her residency was giving a tour at the recycling center. She was not looking for tabs specifically because she was working on another project, but its aesthetic of encounter stopped her from looking at the tabs. She also explained  to the reporter the significance of the tabs, its shape being radical and personal to everyone since there are fingerprints  from the can of tabs and that people have opened up cans  in their lives.  Her work is very mesmerizing and she chose to work with her  tabs without adding any colors because silver is very reflective of light and in which there is no recognition about of the tab anymore since its transformation is really attractive. Alice Hope is an artist at the residence at the Museum of Art and Design.

In today’s society, social media affects women self image in many ways. Facebook and Instagram are indeed the artifact that most women use to show off their beauty or any other interests they might have without the need of having to give an explanation. Women who want to make a statement about any topic they are interested in just need to post a selfie and there! the entire world can view the picture as they like. My topic is How social media affect a woman self esteem after giving birth. The two social media channels I mentioned, are responsible for postpartum women feeling unattractive and ashamed of their bodies after they have a baby. Many women use social media as a way of a competition to see who looks better, who has the best body and the most likes. And for those women who are lucky to get back into shape right after they have a baby congratulations, but for those who are struggling with weigh issues, postpartum depression and low self esteem, it is a very difficult way for them to deal with their physical appearance. For the most part a lot of people readjust their pictures in order to look a certain way and this includes celebrities. The working mom becomes obsessed with these celebrities and instead of enjoying surfing the internet for useful information, they become frustrated and upset when they see other women achieving their normal wight weeks after they give birth but it is so difficult for them to get results. Social media is an artifact to postpartum women because they do not have to look too hard to find thousands of stories on any celebrity about their weigh journey. Social media can be a woman’s dark shadow its always there available and willing to disclose any information. Social media is the biggest representation of other people’s lives and mostly fashion. So even when people want to stay away from it, this monster is always there. Showing things like: “mother fits back into her size 4 jeans only 4 weeks after having a baby” Mother gets one million likes for losing 50 pounds 6 weeks after having a baby and many other blogs that would drive any new mom insane.

“[Postcolonialist Criticism] is distinguished … by its subject: the examination of postcolonial writings that explore the way in which the colonizers imposed their culture and values on native peoples and thus distorted or suppressed their past.” – (R. Abcarian, 1135)

I read this quote late last night; some reflection today then brought me ask, “Hey… Is Luffy a postcolonialist?”

Now, sure, Luffy is certainly a postcolonialist in the chronological sense, since One Piece was created after colonial times (although real time might hold different implications for fictive works). Yet, I felt the need to know if Luffy (and maybe the whole series) would fit in some postcolonialist narrative, or, the less tasteful choice, not. If a central tenet for postcolonialism is studying the relationship and implications between the oppressor and the oppressed, I feel there might be strong correlation between Japan, where the created of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, is from, and its meaning as related to Luffy (and maybe other cultural objects for discourse too). As many may remember, or at least have some prior knowledge about, Japan is the only country in human history that has had a massive nuclear weapon be sent to explore on its territory (two places). The effects of them were terrible; if you don’t know, please google it. Not strongly arguably, the Japanese people who’s lives rotated closed to that particular event know what it’s like to have someone “power” themselves (in one way or another, here meaning the deployment of a nuclear bomb) over you. Arguably, that bomb could be said to have effected the Japanese people’s lives in some ways similar to how colonialism in other areas around the world in their times may have affected the lives of those involved.

Interestingly, in following the principle of binary value in deconstructive theory, when I conjure the subjects of postcolonialism, I think of “the oppressed/the oppressor” in that order. This is an interesting case where the “more powerful” part of the binary is the one to the right of the slash, and not the first one.

Some of the commentators online have challenged that Luffy is a weak leader, specifically for not being serious enough in his ship and being to child-like, goofy. So, like, in their minds, if they had a hypothetical binary structure to propose for leader and non-leader relationships, they would have “leader/other”. Because, to them, Luffy is not a leader, their binary representation for luffy as related to leadership might then look like this, “Leader/Luffy.” Now, if we suppose that leader is the person who is serious, calls shots, and takes order on the ship (as they suggest this is what a leader might be), BUT if we use the postcolonial binary I think of that I mentioned earlier, the binary structure might look like this “Luffy/the oppressor.” Perhaps this can bring to light the idea that the person that claims or imposes more power over others’ will is not necessarily the most powerful in the relationship (although this might be a latent realization), and, thus, they might not actually be a leader in the sense that the people who don’t oppress others are. Japan has risen again to economic (electronic technology) and cultural prominence (cultural artifacts like One Piece) after the nuclear bomb attacks, could this be because of a beneficial turn from being ones who oppressed back in the days of the Axis powers, to being the ones who been oppressed (perhaps still are?) and risen as “postcolonial” leader? Considering the above quote and much about Luffy and Japan have lead me from my first question mentioned after the quote to this one here….

Source:

Abcarian R., Marvin Klotz. Literature: The Human Experience: Reading and Writing. Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2007. Text. 1135.

The article is written a woman OBGYN-OP and discusses the complaints of a new father, who was charged 40 dollars for himself and his wife to hold their newborn during a C-Section procedure. The article openly explains how costly this procedure could seem, and how the bill reads can often be a PR nightmare. There is also coverage of how the cost of birthing a child has increased exponentially—it is jokingly mentioned that inflation is awful. The article considers the relations between hospitals and those that they serve, and how they are providing a service which is a transaction. She touches on possible need for CT scans, sedatives, staffing and after care, which ultimately adds to the hospital bill. In this specific case, the request for skin to skin contact with the child added the forty dollar fee—and this is for the extra nurse who was there as support staff to ensure the baby was unharmed. The child could have easily been dropped, smothered or handled poorly due to the mother being inebriated because of the drugs that had been used. She contemplates that as a mother and a doctor she has conflicted feelings on the charges that a visit like this can ensue. There is often a tenuous relationship with patients and their medical care, and that both sides often left unsatisfied with the outcome. The article featured a picture of the bill that has gone viral through social media, as an outcry to what has occurred. The man cannot contest the bill since this was a viable cost to the hospital, but it increases awareness to these charges for those who have not had this experience.