Thursday, May 7, 2009
Feminism Applied to the ASUC, a Bureaucratic Organization
At a liberal university, one would think that the relationship between male and female genders would be more egalitarian. However, through Patricia Hill Collins' analysis of gender, race, and class, we see that even in modern bureaucracies issues of gender equality and race can prevail.
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At a liberal university such as the University of California, Berkeley, one would think that gender issues and equality would be more egalitarian. Ironically, however, gender issues still prevail at a school where 54% of the students are women (Collegeboard.com). As a bureaucratic organization that is representative of our university, the Associate Students of the University of California, Berkeley (ASUC), gender stereotypes and differences do not seem to be apparent. However, Patricia Collins’s argument disputes that gender domination in a hierarchal, bureaucratic organization is still prevalent in the ASUC Executive slate. President of the ASUC right now is Roxanne Winston, an African American female. Patricia Collins would claim that Winston is subjected to multiple oppressions (C, 20). Within the wider university and in society, Winston may be subject to the racial category of oppression. Patricia Collins suggests that these categories are stigmatized, that as slaves, African Americans women are considered mules, while the Whites were considered Gods. Even as a slave, women were patted on the heads and allowed to sleep in the house (C, 17). However, unique to her situation at UC Berkeley is that Winston represents a multicultural political party on campus. Specific to this situation, her race is less stigmatized on campus because the majority of the voting constituents voted a political body focused on multicultural representation in the ASUC. Winston is still subjected to gender oppression in our society, having been assigned inferior status as a female (C, 20). Collins would say that Winston’s participation in the world as an African American woman would be to overcome gender and racial domination by “valuing those aspects of Afro-American womanhood that are stereotyped ridiculed, and maligned” (C,17). Becoming a president of the ASUC and representing a multicultural political party, Winston has chosen to fully accept her racial identity, and rejects the stigmatization on her race within the university setting (C, 17). By looking at her situation as an outsider within, Winston's understanding of the world through her own objectification helps her to realize her own position within society through race, class, and gender oppression (C,22), and is fighting by taking action in the student government to change the environment as she sees fit for students at UC Berkeley.
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