#but the discrimination against eastern european people is prevalent to this day

[vazaha-tya]

Can you elaborate on Stiles’ internalized xenophobia, genuinely curious bc I never noticed that at all in show. Is it only in fics? So curious

it's the way he talks about his first name that bothers me. i think it's less present in the show than in fanfics but there's this whole "my name is an unpronounceable monstrosity" thing that very clearly stems from xenophobia and is pushed over the top + reinforced over the fact that "what the hell is a stiles?" is literally a running gag in the show

it's probably not a huge deal, a lot of kids/teenagers are embarrassed by the names their parents have chosen for them, especially when it makes them stand out. but the emphasis on how horrible his name is doesn't sit well with me. because of how often the joke is repeated it feels like he's been taught to hate it and by extension taught to be ashamed of his foreign origins

don't get me wrong, stiles is perfectly allowed to choose his own name and i actually think that should be normalised

but his parents being of polish descent (no matter how far back) and choosing to name their child a polish name in america implies a strong cultural tie that could have been celebrated instead of making it a shameful thing.

the show could have kept stiles' chosen name without diminishing that for the sake of a joke that grew old really quickly imo

[chalabrun]

why hector’s enslavement is toxic from a historical standpoint

Disclaimer: I am a white person whose background isn’t affected by these very disgusting circumstances European minorities found themselves in for centuries. However, that being said, seeing as Castlevania is a historically-influenced game series and show no matter which way you go, I believe it’s imperative that this is brought into the light and made known. I am someone who believes herself capable of applying the history I do know to inform others in a respectful manner. This isn’t an attack on the fandom so much as a PSA of a point in history that isn’t commonly known to Western audiences. 

To begin, I think it goes without saying that when the topic of slavery is addressed, the other half of Dracula’s Forgemaster duo, Isaac, is a recognizable example of this occurring that the fandom already recognized that how graphic and flagrantly anti-black the treatment of his past slavery was and how deplorably it was demonstrated in the narrative. Seeing as the Trans-Atlantic slavery trade that occurred among black African peoples is the most well-known facet of slavery that Westerners (specifically, Americans that are the bulk of who this post is intended for) can recognize for what it is and how horrendous it was for the peoples involved. 

Given that the CV fandom seems to already have an understanding of this, I feel I don’t need to mention the despicable exposition of isaac’s past slavery and will therefore move on from it. 

However, it’s the other half, Hector, that concerns me today.

TW: S3 spoilers, mentions of Hector’s enslavement and abuse

To begin, as we’ve seen in the show, Hector’s enslavement was something foreshadowed as early on the season two finale. From Carmilla beating & collaring him, many predicted for a while that Hector’s enslavement would likely feature in the next season, and to our worst fears, this was confirmed with the season 3 poster that graphically showcases Hector nude and chained and submissive to a character later revealed as Lenore, one of Carmilla’s ‘sisters’ and a white vampire woman. 

From there, we’re treated with explicit and cruel treatment of the abuse Hector receives while imprisoned. This includes everything from being forced to walk hundreds of miles in the snow without shoes, jailed in a cell in the nude, given rotted scraps of food and splashed with frigid water to ‘bathe’ him. It goes on to include beating, physical abuses, dehumanization (both verbal and physical), and worse.

From there, the vampiress introduced as Lenore (that we can likely and rightly assume is a white woman) demonstrates the real brutality of the dynamic and of Hector’s station. Throughout the show she beats him, coerces and manipulates him, culminating to her ‘giving’ him a ring aptly called the ‘Slave Ring’ that binds him to her will and that of anyone else wearing copies--all after swearing his self to Lenore’s ownership in a dubiously consensual sexual encounter (in itself foreshadowed as an abuse of power due to their power imbalance) that is outright expressed as being a slave submitting himself to his new, white master. 

The reason this is despicable isn’t solely because of what transpires, but by the very real belief that Hector was likely coded as being non-white. While his exact ethnicity isn’t made known, given that his game counterpart was originally from Anatolia (in modern day Turkey that was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time), it’s likely that he was meant to be depicted as Romani, Turkish, or another non-white ethnicity from the region with my personal belief that he was meant to be coded as Romani.

Given that he lives in Romania, it’s very likely that Hector is, at the very least, coded to bear a significant amount of Roma heritage. 

The reason this is problematic and racist is because, since the 1400s during Alexander cel Bun’s reign of Moldova (Wallachia’s neighbor), Romani have been enslaved in Romania for centuries. 

While it is a commonly forgotten page in Europe’s history--especially in Eastern Europe where it’s the most prevalent--is that Roma people were an enslaved people. While Wallachian/Romanian slavery was slightly different from American slavery, it was still the same in the systematic abuse, dehumanization, and estrangement Roma people faced because of their status in European society and how brutally they were discriminated against.

Why this is so toxic is because Warren Ellis, a white British man, cheapens the Romani narrative by reducing a problematic and devastating chapter in Romani peoples’ history into a racist, edgy narrative for a brown (presumably Romani) man that didn’t need to be leveled with such horrific treatment in the first place, fictional or not. 

As many people are aware (especially non-white peoples across the globe), the history of extant minority peoples (like the Romani, Native Americans, African-Americans, etc.) are often treated like fiction to gentrify and apply to fictional stories written by privileged white people to dramatize the suffering of their fictional peoples while completely overlooking and erasing the sources from which they came, an act of aggression in itself against those who don’t have the luxury of escaping from the pages of fiction and into a problem-free life. 

We saw it in James Cameron’s Avatar when he appropriated Native history into his fictional Na’vi. It happened again in Detroit: Become Human when the Civil Rights Movement was appropriated on to androids and their state of enslavement by humans, all while overlooking the events that influenced the whole story in the first place. It happens all the time when ridiculous organizations like PeTA try and liken the meat industry to the Holocaust, something they have no right to co-opt, especially by non-Jewish people. 

All examples of white authors/creators appropriating non-white histories and glamorizing it in fiction, which happens with Ellis and his treatment of Hector--and Isaac.

While I can’t verify whether or not Hector is Romani, given the fact that he’s a brown man enslaved by a white woman in the 15th century when the enslavement of Romani peoples was systematic, it nonetheless is an inappropriate parallel Ellis had no right no co-opt for the sake of making the show have higher shock value (when it’s tasteless at best).

Regardless of how you feel, what you headcanon, or the like--Warren Ellis had no right to appropriate a very real chapter in the history of Romani people all for the sake of a shock value and edginess in a show that will eventually die down from its hype and be nestled deep in Netflix’s archives once again.

Because this doesn’t go away. Romani people are still stigmatized and face heinous amounts of racism in Europe today with their history being forgotten and their brutal past glossed over by people who like to pretend that Europe is faultless compared to the US. They can’t escape this past in the same way someone can just detach themselves from the TV once they finish binge-watching season three.

In conclusion: Warren Ellis doesn’t have any right to appropriate the history of minorities and graft them on to his show for the sake of transient shock value. Especially when so many of the show’s POC are treated as expendable enough as it is.

Important reading:

Article on Romani slavery authored by travellerstimes, a website by and for Romani people. (Warning for G-slur usage, but please note that, in this case, it is a slur being reclaimed.)

Citizenstruth article on continuing stigmatization and racism Romani people still face today.

[therealmanishtana-blog]

There may come a day, when I can comment on what I'm about to comment on, and everyone can hear it without getting all in their feelings, but it is not this day. There may come a time, when I can organize my thoughts in such a way that they are not defanged, but still humor white fragility, but it is NOT THIS DAY. Maybe, it'll be tomorrow. In the meantime, for today, here are my thoughts. Everyone these past few days has been all in a tizzy after Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, once again asking the question that reared its head in a panic after Trump's election: "Are Jews white?" Yes, they are, this one says. No, they're not, that one says. They’re not white, but they’re not people of color either, says a third. It’s complicated, says yet another, doing a great impression of a Talmudic daf. Now, I suppose we can pontificate on how the “whiteness” we’re defining that Jews “aren’t”—and that the Irish and Italians “weren’t”—is ahistorical and refers to a stylized, sociological or anthropological understanding of "whiteness" which means either "fully socially accepted as the equals of Americans of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic stock" or, in the more politicized version, "an accepted part of the dominant ruling class in the United States”, and that simultaneously—despite discrimination and even violence—was emblematic of racist hierarchy within the white group, not evidence that these groups weren’t considered to be white. Consider, for example, that anti-miscegenation laws did not apply to any of those groups. Consider that the first Jew of Color recorded in New England was a “Malata Jue” in 1668 Boston named Solomon, likely of slave descent. “Mulatto”, as we all know, was the legal terminology for someone with one black parent and one white parent. Therefore, if his slave half made him "half-black", and he was classified as a "mulatto", then that means his Jewish half…was considered "white". Again, we could go down this line of argument, but David Bernstein, whom I've liberally plagiarized just now, has a pretty good handle on that already.  So yeah. We’re saying Jews aren’t white? Fine. Then show us. Show us that when you’re arguing “Jews aren’t white” that you mean “Jews”. That you’re envisioning “Jews”, not just the ones who look like you, the ones you insist can only “pass” as white. Because as it stands, only Sarah Tuttle-Singer's piece in this recent discourse has bothered to mention that "Jews are a people–in many colors—from deep ebony all the way to alabaster—who can trace their DNA to a little strip of land no bigger than a fingernail. And we are not 'White.'" And that, is a true statement. Jews aren’t white? Then make sure it’s so apparent, that the rainbow of hues that flow through Jewish identity is so prevalent, that no one can question it. All those “Ten Most Beautiful Jewish Women” articles and “Nice Jewish Boy” calendars and Federation videos about the “Jewish future”? Try including a heaping serving of those Jews who you joke “don’t look Jewish” because their skin is browner and their eyes are thinner and their hair is kinkier than yours. For that matter, stop joking that we “don’t look Jewish”, period. I mean, you don’t seem to be too enthralled about that joke when it’s turned on you, either. You say you don’t have white privilege because you lose it when you’re discovered to be Jewish. Fine. So then before you get outed—if you ever do—firstly, acknowledge that you have privilege. Define it as "white privilege", "passing-white privilege", "conditional white privilege","phenotypical white privilege", "Ben & Jerry's Vanilla White Privilege Scoop Surprise" or whatever semantical construct you'd like, no one even really cares. But acknowledge that you have the privilege. Acknowledge that privilege every time you get the urge to blurt out things like “Do you really experience that much racism?” or “I don’t think it’s that bad”. Acknowledge that privilege every time you feel like telling Jews of Color that they are being too sensitive, and remember what that lack of privilege feels like every time you have to defend that anti-Semitism is still a thing, let alone on the rise. Secondly, while you still have that privilege? Use it. Use it while you're in rooms that people who can't "pass" can't stand in, and stand up for them.Use the shit out of it to change things for the better like you’re someone for whom “tikkun olam” is actually your mission here on this Earth, not a sexy little buzzword to toss around. You say you’re not white because of anti-Semitism endured both historically and today. Great. So you’ve been oppressed. So? Christians were thrown to lions by the Romans. Catholics were massacred whenever their monarch was a Protestant and likewise for Protestant when the monarch was a Catholic. Before they eventually merged, the Angles and the Saxons took turns persecuting each other. What does enduring anti-Semitism and the Holocaust mean to you? Are you using it to be more aware of the persecution of others by “whiteness”? Are you using it to ensure it doesn’t devastate others the way it’s victimized you and yours? Or are you using it as some kind of karmic currency giving you a voucher to say or act however you please (y’know, like how you say black people do)? Are you aware that being and having been persecuted has no bearing on being racist, discriminatory, or any of the other hallmarks of the ideology of “whiteness”? Being a persecuted minority didn’t stop Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim of Charleston, South Carolina from discriminating against people of color in Rule No. 23 of their 1820 Constitution (emphasis mine): "This congregation shall not encourage or interfere with making proselytes under any pretense whatever, nor shall any such be admitted under the jurisdiction of their congregation, until he or she or they produce legal and satisfactory credentials, from some other congregation, where a regular Chief or Rabbi and Hebrew Consistory is established; and, provided, he, she, or they are not people of color." Nor did it prevent Congregation Shaarei Chesed of New Orleans from identifying as white in 1828 in Act No. 84 of the Louisiana State Legislature (emphasis mine): "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, in Gene[r]al Assembly convened, [t]hat Manis Jacobs, Aaron [Daniels], Isaac Philips, Plautz, S.S. Solis, Bernard [J]unior, Souza [S]enior, and all other white Israelit[e]s living in this City, who may desire to form a society, and their successors, are hereby constituted a body corporate under the name and title of "Shananreen Shosset of the Congregation of Israelites of New-Orleans". Surviving the Holocaust didn’t stop European-descended, newly-minted Israelis from kidnapping Mizrahi and Yemenite babies in the 50’s, and it doesn’t stop sabras from discriminating against Yemenites and Ethiopians today . Being victims of anti-Semitism certainly didn’t keep death threats from being issued to Rabbi Alysa Stanton, the first African-American woman ordained as a rabbi, requiring a police escort the day she was installed as rabbi at Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, NC in 2009. And that none of that stops any Jew from claiming every bit of the old racist white guy trope. Except for, apparently, the “white” part. Don't tell us about genetics and really being Levantine, because for every study "proving"Ashkenazi Jews are Middle Eastern descended, there's another equally "proving" that Ashkenazi Jews have 80% European maternal ancestral DNA. Science will "prove" whatever someone's using it to "prove". And regardless of the amount of Levantine DNA in either direction, Ashkenazi Jews identify black Jews with Levantine DNA as "black", Asian Jews with Levantine DNA as "Asian", Indian Jews with Levantine DNA as "Indian", and so on and so forth. Of course, if there were an easy answer to this question it would either be so obvious that it wouldn’t need to be debated or it would be ignored by people who didn’t want to accept it anyway. So let’s just stop debating if Jews are white or not. Show us. Show us. Show us you publishing Jewish children's books where the kids come in a lot more than peach. Show us your synagogues that are so welcoming that your pews look like rainbows. Show us you standing up in country clubs and VIP sections where those off-color jokes get told and discriminatory practices fester, declaring that you are not white, in those words, not the relative cop-out of "I'm Jewish". Show us you rejecting the ideologies of whiteness like colorism, prejudice, discrimination, and racism with the same alacrity and disgust as I hand back an organic kale quiche to Becky. [[White] Ashkenazi] Jews aren't white? Aight bet. Great. Go for it. We (brown Sefardim/Mizrachim/Yemenites, Jews of Color, ethnic Ashkenazim of color, non-Jewish non-white minorities, non-Jewish whites, even self-defined "white" Ashkenazim) are watching. Show us.

[marymosley]

Gender Pay Gap : An Unconscious Discrimination

Britannica defines Discrimination as “the intended or accomplished differential treatment of persons or social groups for reasons of certain generalized traits. The targets of discrimination are often minorities, but they may also be majorities, as black people were under apartheid in South Africa.” 

A number of terms have been coined as the society progressed, so are its methods to discriminate. Terms such as racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, or cissexism (discrimination against transgender persons), classism (discrimination based on social class), lookism (discrimination based on physical appearance), and ableism (discrimination based on disability) have found its very existence among us.

One of the Socio-psychological reason behind Discrimination finds its genesis in Social Identity Theory where an individuals belonging to a more prestigious and powerful group than others finds greater boost in morale and confidence that the rest of the others belonging to less powerful group. Further,  Discrimination that allows debasing and resultant deprivation of individuals belonging to less popular groups, of wealth and other resources by those belonging to powerful and prestigious groups gives them a sense of strengthening their group and indirectly serves as boost to the self-esteem and self-worth of the individuals of the powerful group. 

Although Discrimination contributes only a small part towards the gender pay gaps in India and the World. 

According to latest report of World Economic Forum on Global Gender Pay Gap 2020,  the Global Gender Pay Gap score (based on the population-weighted average) stands at 68.6%. This means that, on average, the gap is narrower, and the remaining gap to close is now 31.4%. While no country has yet managed to achieve full gender pay parity, the top 5 countries managed to close the gender pay gap by 80% with Iceland being the best performer for consecutive 11 years with gender pay gap closing by a score of 82%, while India stands at 112th Rank with an index score of 35.4%.

Among the 10 best performers on this subindex, four are from Sub-Saharan African (Benin has closed so far 84.7% of its Economic Participation and Opportunity gap; Burundi 83.7%; Zambia, 83.1% and Guinea, 80.3%); one is from Western Europe (Iceland, 83.9%); one is from East Asia and the Pacific region (Lao PDR, 83.9%); two are from Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Belarus, 83.7%, and Latvia, 81.0%); and two are from the Latin America and the Caribbean region (the Bahamas, 83.8%, and Barbados 80.8%). At the other end of the spectrum, economic opportunities for women are extremely limited in India (35.4%), Pakistan (32.7%), Yemen (27.3%), Syria (24.9%), and Iraq (22.7%).

In 1950s, the women, whether living in Asia or Europe or the United States, we’re often not educated and had not finished their college degree and not even been in one. Resultantly they come down to employed in menial jobs and grouping in Feminine Industries. 

Many factors responsible for the Gender Pay Gap were: Lower female Education Rate, Lower workforce participation of Women, Grouping in Traditionally Feminine Industries, the practice of Discrimination being completely Legal, and such other cultural norms like Women are less intelligent, Women cant hold power, Women should be HOMEMAKER, Women should raise children. Over the decades, things changed through various liberation and revolutionary movements. Many factors and cultural discrimination factors shrunk except for ONE: Women should raise children and is supposed to be a homemaker. This idea was prevalent in U.S., U.K., and even in progressive European countries. While when it comes to men, the majority of the population, even today, believes that newly become father should work full time. This is the Heart of the Pay Gap: unconscious discrimination.  

It seems Gender Pay Gap isn’t so much for being a woman but for being a ‘Mother’. It is therefore essential to change how we as a society look or perceive of women. The unconscious discrimination directly hits a sharp blow at the participation rates of women in the employment field. As a result, lesser participation due to maternity breaks, sabbatical required for family care, sick parents, etc. decreases leading to lesser promotions and a rise in an average gender pay gap.

According to the ‘Progress of the World’s Women 2019-2020’ report by United Nations Women, there are an estimated 13 million households run by single mothers while single fathers are far less constituting only to a small percentage. There is a lack of any cogent data on single fathers in India as the concept itself is rare.

In the US the number of single mothers is 3 times the number of single fathers, thus the majority of the children of single mother grows up learning that women are the caregivers. The roots of this issue go deep on how we understand FAMILY and mothers and fathers and that’s why the gap is so difficult to close.

While, Women in U.S. who do not wish to have children earns 96% to the men.

TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES: Iceland and Rwanda

Rwanda: 

The two countries almost closed their wage gaps in just a few decades. Rwanda is a poorest country on the globe and few decades ago, women were denied of their basic rights such as Right to vote or even to speak in public or to open a bank account without the authorization of her husband. In 1994, everything changed in Rwanda. The days of carnage and bloodshed in this central African country swept more than half of the male population. In just the span of 3 months 800,000 of people were  dead leaving the country with 70 to 80 percent of female population. Thus in order to rebuilt Rwanda, the participation of women became crucial. What started as a survival technique post genocide became the sole reason for bringing the equality of men and women in society and thus closing of the gender pay gaps. This had not only torned apart the traditional social fabric in totality but changed the very mindsets of the masses to combat the plague of ‘Female are Homemakers’ mentality. Women are later elected and allowed seats in parliament, in Naval and armed forces, in professions like Doctors, Engineers, lawyers, etc. which were earlier traditionally captured by males. Today, Rwanda has almost closed the Gender Pay Gap as each woman in the country makes 96% on a dollar a man makes. A host of new aggressive policies were introduced post genocide, including Monitoring mechanism to ensure gender equality. The new Preamble to the Constitution of Rwanda included commitment to Equal rights for both men and women making atleast a 30% participation of women at all levels of Government. Today, women in Rwanda holds 61% of the total seats in the Parliament, being the highest in the world.

Iceland:

In 1975, Iceland faced a major revolution from women across the country against the existing pay gap despite an adequate participation rate. The entire wave of revolution lead to dire scarcity of workforce in both organised and unorganised sector. This came as a turning point where women made themselves as a visible section of the society putting across demands and objecting to gender disparity. Resultantly, in 1980, Iceland welcomed its first democratically elected female President Ms. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir. In years to follow, a host of policies were introduced to boost both female participation in workforce as well as to establish pay parity. In 1981, Iceland for the first time, introduced to the world and made it mandatory for its corporate sector to provide Maternity Leave of 3 months, which was extended to 6 months in 1988. But this progressive law was rather reversing at its grassroot level as it encouraged more mothers to stay at home, strengthening the stereotypes of women being homemakers and responsible for childcare. To combat this, the country introduced mandatory Paternity Leave for newly become father which made the image of both men and women as caregivers and breadwinners. Today Iceland stands at first rank on Global Gender Pay Gap Index by with pay gap shrunk to 82% between men and women.

However the battle is far from being won worldwide and the fight somehow starts with men willing to share the burden of family equally as any gender pay gap holistically diminish the total family income. Thus it is a slap other way around on men as well. Food for thought.

About Author:

Pallavi Chauhan

A Legal Professional with over 6 years of experience in Corporate Laws and Environment Law. Presently working with National Commission for Protection of Child Rights under Ministry of Women and Child Development as a Legal Consultant.

(Views are Personal)

The post Gender Pay Gap : An Unconscious Discrimination appeared first on Legal Desire.

Gender Pay Gap : An Unconscious Discrimination published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/