Service Activism Log #4

1. This week was uneventful mainly due to the fact that from this point on everything should go along smoothly. The anticipation of the event is absolutely dreadful since I'm looking forward to it so much. I have been telling my friends as well as strangers about the upcoming event and they also seem to look forward to it. Honestly, other than spreading the word there really isn't anything on my to-do list. Patricia invited me to help her make food for the event but she lives really far away from me and I'm not quite sure to get around Orlando yet so we'll see. Still looking forward to tabeling with her outside of Publix to fundraise for Animal Safehouse!

2. This week we read and discussed about women in the workforce, which directly correlates with our service learning project specifically under the topic and reading "The Mommy Tax," by Ann Crittenden. Because this reading was based on an issue that is critical for pregnant women and mothers today, I found this reading especially appealing. I had heard of the concept of the "Mommy Tax" but never really read or looked too much in depth with it, so I feel as though this was a good opportunity to become more knowledgeable about issues our mothers are facing today. In order to support her context, Crittenden writes, "...research reveals that working mothers not only earn less than men, but also less per hour than childless women, even after such differences as education and experience are factored out (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 337). " I found this fact extremely startling as well as unsettling. Furthermore, in reading and a class discussions about feminists' solutions to this obstacle, my classmates and I concurred that by creating an equal wage for comparable work could offer more stability. Aside from the unequality of equal labor, however, I find myself struggling to interpret the hypocrisy of the employers' perceptions of women's worth ethics. In a comic, a boss says to his worker, "This society doesn't value children anymore! You women would rather persue a selfish career than stay home with your kids!" In the next drawing, the woman is seen holding her child in a non-work environment and her boss says, "This society doesn't value work anymore! You welfare mothers would rather stay home with your kids than get a job!" (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 303).  I think this comic depicts the confliction of what mothers are going through in the workplace perfectly.

3. I'm really looking forward to the event because I feel like I will take a lot from it during as well as after, in retrospect. I'm hoping to take a lot away from the event with a more solidified feminist perspective on expecting mothers and hopefully this knowledge will benefit me personally as well.

Okazawa-Rey, Margo, and Gwyn Kirk . Women's Lives - Multicultural Perspectives. Fifth Edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010. 211. Print.