We Don’t Sleep Around like White Girls Do

The article, “We Don’t Sleep Around Like White Girls Do”: Family, Culture, and Gender in Filipina-American Lives, discussed the morality of Filipina and immigrant women and the restrictions placed on them in order to uphold the culture and tradition of being “good” and “ideal” women. The combination of stress from tradition, the want to show moral superiority over Western culture, and resisting racism, immigrant parents’ restrictions of their daughters’ behavior, particularly their sexuality, oppresses more than just their dating life, but causes deeper, emotional trauma. While nonimmigrant parents also place restrictions on their daughters, the author notes how immigrant families can discipline their daughters as “racial/national subjects as well as gendered ones,” thereby possessing an emotional hold on them. I agree and can relate with the author’s view that immigrant families’ disciplinary actions take a stronger toll on their daughters’. My family is from Thailand, and my grandmother, who is very traditional, constantly pressures culture and tradition and the need to be superior. The oppression of immigrant women is difficult to overcome because it would need to involve reconstructing these cultures and traditions built on strong patriarchal family values, which are ingrained into society.

In The Politics of Housework, Pat Mainardi describes the stereotypical roles assigned to men and women, and promotes equality, especially in the household. She argues how women have always been oppressed into doing tedious chores without much help from men because most men see housework as women’s work. She suggests a change in the way chores are seen and done in the household, stressing that housework should be divided equally among spouses. I agree with the author that women have an unequal responsibility for household labor and an equal division of housework is important because of its relationship to gender equality and women’s quality of life. Many women have double workdays because many employed women often work a shift at their job and another second shift at home before or after work. Women’s unequal responsibility for household labor also affects their participation in the workforce, as well as partly explains the gender pay gap and the glass ceiling. Not only does the unequal division of housework affect women, but also children because seeing a division of housework in the home will have an effect on their attitudes towards gender roles. An important point Mainardi makes is that housework is “trivial.” Women’s unpaid labor, such as housework and childcare, is seen as trivial and insignificant, coming second to paid labor. Although housework is essential to family functioning and should be recognized, because it is “free,” it remains uncounted and unvalued, yet if it were considered of value, men would most likely not see a problem with contributing.

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