Final Post!

After completing this project, I have noticed several gender, racial and class inequalities in the small area of Downtown and Olde Town Augusta.


For one, there is a great divide between neighborhoods in Olde Town Augusta. One is walking on Broad and Greene streets which appear to be great neighborhoods and then walks one block over and is now in a shady neighborhood all of sudden. The racial inequalities are in that divide also. It is mostly white people that live on Broad and Greene streets and mostly black people that live on East Boundary and Ellis streets. Inequality is at the child support office. Not all women or men with custody of their children are lucky enough to receive a child support payment. It is mostly the lower class people that struggle with the child support office. There is sex and racial discrimination in the bars and restaurants in Downtown and Olde Town Augusta. Most of the cooks are men. Most of the servers are women. Most of the cooks are black. Most of the servers are white. Most of the bartenders are white. The girls at Heritage Academy have to wear skirts whereas the boys have to wear pants. The bus system is very inefficient and ironic because it is supposed to cater to the lower class, especially those of East Augusta, and yet the buses have a ridiculous schedule. The lower class may have to get to work in fifteen minutes or work until three in the morning, yet it takes the bus two hours to get anywhere in Augusta and it only runs until five in the afternoon. It is there for the poor people but still does not cater to them.


Gendered differences in Olde Town society are certainly evident after completing this project. I believe two changes that can be made in Olde Town Augusta that would do a lot of good in the long run include letting the girls and boys of Heritage Academy wear whatever they want and to teach them about gender and also to improve the discrimination practices of Downtown Augusta in restaurants and bars. Someone must enforce the discrimination to stop Downtown as far as women being able to work in the kitchen and races other than white working in the “front of the house” in restaurants and bars. These are changes that should have happened decades ago, but still have not. Everyone is accustomed to these practices and that is the worst thing of all, just like patriarchy. We are all apart of it, and we have the power to change it, so what are we waiting for? 

Thanks for reading.

Gender Blog

Social Construction in Olde Town Augusta Blog

by Sarah Dawn Veteto

I chose Olde Town Augusta to study for my Gender Blog because it is where I live. Olde Town Augusta is my neighborhood. I am a neighbor, a bus rider, a server, a roommate and a patron in Olde Town Augusta. I created my own map of Olde Town Augusta. Surrounding and overlapping parts of Olde Town Augusta include East Augusta and Downtown Augusta. Plus, it is on the Savannah River so it is near the Carolina-Georgia border.

Bibliography

Bibliography

Johnson, Allan G. "Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us." The Gender Knot (1997): 75-92. Academic Search Complete. Web. May 2014.


Lorber, Judith. "The Social Construction of Gender." Paradoxes of Gender (1994): 276-83.


Martin, Karin A., and Emiy Kazyak. "Hetero-Romantic Love and Heterosexiness in Children's G-Rated Films." Gender & Society 23.3 (2009): 315-36. No Records. Web. May 2014.


McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies.” Gender Basics.

Sexism

Olde Town Augusta

Sky City

A bar on Broad Street in Downtown Augusta.

Mellow Mushroom

A restaurant on Broad Street in Downtown Augusta.

Municipal Building

On Greene Street in Olde Town Augusta

Construction taking place

Construction worker (man) in picture.

Municipal Building

Power Line in Olde Town Augusta

Being worked on by men.

These are pictures of a couple of the many bars and restaurants of Downtown Augusta, which is right beside Olde Town Augusta. Of course downtown is like any other downtown: there is lots of culture represented in the shops, bars and restaurants of the town. Two that I have taken pictures of here are the bar Sky City and the restaurant Mellow Mushroom, both on Broad Street. This is where many people celebrate and eat and where many people work. There are also pictures of the Municipal Building on Greene Street in Olde Town Augusta and a picture of a power line, which are both currently being constructed on. Part of this celebrating and working includes the practice of sexism.

Sexism is the belief that the opposite sex is inferior. Sexism can go on further to be the cause of discrimination and inequality in society. For instance, most of the construction workers that are working on the Municipal Building and power line in Olde Town Augusta are men. Of course, I am not saying that these men are sexist, but the fact that it is only men working as construction workers represents sexism practice in society. There are female construction workers in our society, but most likely, when a woman applies for said job, they are looked down upon as “just women” that perhaps cannot do the job as effectively as a man could. In the restaurants and bars, such as those in my pictures, sexism is practiced also. Women are rarely hired as cooks in restaurants because it is considered a “masculine” position within a restaurant which is ironic considering that women are expected to cook in the home. It is a sexist practice to have “Ladies Night” at a bar because the women get free drinks. Of course, men think this is unfair, but I think it is sexist. Women get free drinks so that they become more drunk, impressionable and vulnerable for the men to take advantage of later on in the night. I do not agree with either sex getting free drinks or not having to pay a cover charge in a bar, because either way it is sexist. Part of these practices of sexism in the workplace and social circle are similar to the idea of patriarchy. In fact, it is a challenge to differentiate sexism from patriarchy. Skip to the last post “Patriarchy.”

Refusing to Take the Path of Least Resistance

Olde Town Augusta

Augusta Public Transit Bus Station

15th Street and Broad

This is a picture of the Augusta Public Transit bus station on 15^th Street, near Olde Town Augusta. The bus system in Augusta is privately owned and it is not a very efficient system. It can take hours of riding the bus to get minutes down the road. Plus, the hours that the bus runs in Augusta are only from six in the morning to five in the afternoon so it is not very accessible either, especially for those of the lower class that work night jobs.

Part of living in a rough neighborhood, being born into a lower class and/or having very little privilege in our society includes not having easy access to transportation. Transportation in itself is a privilege. People that live in East Augusta that ride the bus are refusing to take the path of least resistance. There are lots of college students of the lower class that live in East Augusta that ride the bus to school everyday which takes up hours of their day. These are hours that they could be studying or working a job in order to pay their bills. These students are refusing to take the path of least resistance by riding the bus. If they took the path of least resistance, they wouldn’t even go to school or ride the bus anywhere. They would stay stuck in their class, with low privilege in East Augusta. Even people with jobs that ride the bus refuse to take the path of least resistance. The people on the bus are going places…no pun intended. The jobs that the people on the bus work, probably are very difficult to work, with factors such as sexist co-workers and/or bosses. Skip to “Sexism.”

Patriarchy

Olde Town Augusta

City of Augusta

Sunset

View from 5th Street Bridge

"Railroads" Historic Marker on the River Walk

Written by a Man

Railroad going across the Savannah River

The City Council of Augusta in 1994

Only one or two women on the list of members

Vegas Showgirls

Strip Club on 6th Street

Vegas Showgirls Door

And right around the corner...

Fantasys

Strip Club on Broad Street

(Black Strip Club)

And right across the street...

Discotheque

Strip Club on Broad Street

These are pictures of the city of Augusta at the sunset, the railroad and engineering information and the three strip clubs in Downtown/Olde Town Augusta. In the picture of the city of Augusta, there are tall buildings where both men and women work, however, the buildings themselves, along with the city, were most likely designed and built by men and men only. The architects, the engineers, the construction workers, the contractors and the city planners were probably all men, especially since Augusta was not “built” in this current era. The city of Augusta itself represents patriarchy. The same goes for the railroad tracks on sixth street and the bridge that crosses the Savannah River: designed and built by men. The cliché “It’s a man’s world” is no myth. All the engineering surrounding us in society was created by men. In the strip clubs, it is only female dancers…another representation of patriarchy in practice.

Patriarchy is more than domination. It is acceptance. Johnson writes that, “…we all participate in something larger than ourselves,” (Johnson 77) which is patriarchy. Everyone in society is to blame, so to speak, for patriarchy…not just men. Yes, men created the strip club, own the strip club, go to the strip club, advocate for the strip club, but women are the ones dancing. By no means am I blaming either the male patron or the woman dancer, but they both live in a society that accepts the strip club as normal and they both play their roles in order to keep the practice going. This is patriarchy. Patriarchy completely covers our society: “Patriarchal culture includes ideas about the nature of things, including men, women, and humanity, with manhood and masculinity most closely associated with being human and womanhood and femininity relegated to the marginal position of ‘other,’” (Johnson 84). It is something that everyone is a part of, whether they are aware or not and it is represented much in Olde Town Augusta.

Intersectionality

Olde Town Augusta

Unique Pink House on 4th Street

Child Support Office on Bay Street

This is a picture of a unique pink house in Olde Town Augusta and a picture of the child support office on Bay Street also in Olde Town Augusta. Both of these edifices represent intersectionality, because they are highly unique, provocative and judged.

Intersectionality is based on judgement and how people are seen in one another’s eyes. There are many facets of identity for each individual in society such as ability, family, age, class, sex, race, religion, major, career but a lot of the time, people are only seen through one of these facets. For instance, if a woman does not get a job because the person hiring is racist and sees that she is black, the interviewer may not see anything about the woman other than the fact that she is black. The interviewer looks past that the woman has graduated with a Biology major, volunteers at the local animal shelter, is a wonderful daughter, and many other qualifying facets of her identity. Christine Ngo from the TedX video felt judged about a comment her friend made after they played soccer together. He said something like, “When we are on the soccer field, I think of you as another soccer player, but when we are hanging out, I think of you as a woman.” Ngo knew that what he said was with good intent, but he still struck her as a complexity of intersectionality.

When people look at the pink house in Olde Town, do they think that a girly woman lives there or a fruity man? Is the person that owns that house judged for having a pink house? Is that the only way they are judged? When people drive past the child support office and see a bunch of men standing outside, do they think that they are a bunch of deadbeat dads? Can these men be judged differently because they are standing in front of the child support office? Can we, in society, look past the initial judgement and see many facets of someone’s identity instead of one? Skip to “Social Construction of Gender.”