Things That Left Me Shook Week Six

       I am going to do something spicy today and start off with my feelings towards this weeks readings and videos we viewed in class. While reading the articles on men and disaster, and the  I realized several chilling and explanatory facts about the behaviors the men in my family show. A lot of the men in my family have been vets, one grandfather served in the Coast Guard during Nam, my other grandfather was in the reserves, two of my uncles are serving/served in the Army during Desert Storm, one uncle was in the Air-force, and my great grandfather served in the Marine Cops during WWII, and the Korean War. Of those six men, only one has ever actually talked about his experience during the war and that was great gramps. Although he never truly talked about it, he always made jokes about when he was shot down and how he loved shooting Japanese planes because they made, "beautiful fireworks." For them being involved with the military was an honor and something they had to do, they praised it so much that it was little wonder why until the age of 16 that I wanted to be the first woman Navy Blue Angels Pilot. I never realized that the reasons why my grandfather never talks about his struggles after Nam, or why Uncle Kevin doesn't like talking about his time in the Army because to do so made them feel weak because the mottos for the branches all work towards supporting the idea that if you don't feel strong 24/7 you are not a military man. All the official and unofficial mottos of the branches and their various divisions speak of strength, loyalty, perseverance, protection, and fighting. Society and the institutions create these barriers where men have to be this way, and these four reading woke up to this fact especially the article on how the masculinity of industries is created and maintained. All of this reminds me why I really like the musical Bandstand because it tackles the idea of how men deal with their emotions after going through a traumatic event like war and their attempts to adjust to life after it. if you've never listened to the soundtrack I highly recommend it, especially the finale song it send tears to my eyes every time I listen to it. 
       Gloria Miller's work "Frontier Masculinity in the Oil Industry: The Experience of Women Engineers" is extremely interesting because it shows us how masculinity is enforced in everyday interactions and how women's interactions in this space help enforce the masculine system. Masculinity can be seen in what at first looks like harmless acts but the philosophy underlying these acts are far more consequential and harmful for all those involved. Rachel Luft's work "Racialized Disaster Patriarchy: An Intersectional Model for Understanding Disaster Ten Years after Hurricane Katrina" looks at how intersectional analysis has to be included when talking about disasters because people are not monolith stereotypes and have depth. 

Key Terms: 
1) Gendered Organizations- 

2) Disaster Patriarchy- How political, institutional, organizational, and cultural practices and how they mingle and meet up to form injustice before, during, and after disaster. 

3) Hegemonic Masculinity- The dominant form of masculinity that represents all men as monolithic beings. Very problematic. 

Bibliography:
Luft, Rachel E. Racialized Disaster Patriarchy: An Intersectional Model for Understanding Disaster Ten Years after Hurricane Katrina. Feminist Formations 28 (2). 1-26

Miller, Gloria E.Frontier Masculinity in the Oil Industry: The Experience of Women Engineers. Gender, Work, and Organization. 11(1)