Women's issues at centre stage in U.S. presidential race

Women's issues at centre stage in U.S. presidential race View larger image U.S. Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks in Washington, Wednesday, April 4, 2012. (AP / Manuel Balce Ceneta) Updated: Sun Apr. 15 2012 12:45:51 The Canadian Press WASHINGTON — The challenges facing American women have taken centre stage in the national political debate as President Barack Obama and Republican front-runner Mitt Romney do pitched battle for the hearts and minds of the country's all-important female voters. Romney's attempts to stop a growing deluge of women to Obama were met with mockery on Sunday by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who derided him for his claim last week that women accounted for a whopping 92 per cent of the jobs lost since the president took office. "It's misleading and ridiculous," Geithner, making the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows, said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "It's just a political moment." Geithner conceded that the second half of the recession involved more female job losses due to teacher and education-related layoffs precipitated by state budget cutbacks. It was mostly men, however, who found themselves out of work at the start of the recession in 2008 due to construction and manufacturing job losses, he said, meaning the pain was felt equally by men and women over the course of the economic downturn. "The recession ... was already a year in the making before President Obama came into office," Geithner said. "It's a meaningless way to look at the basic contours of the economy in that period of time, again because it starts artificially at a time when the president came into office and the crisis was still building momentum." Politifact, a nonpartisan fact-checking organization, has in fact rated Romney's claim as "mostly false." Nonetheless the so-called "war on women" has become a flashpoint in the 2012 election campaign, even before Romney was all but assured the Republican nomination last week when his only real rival for the crown, Rick Santorum, dropped out of the party's presidential race. Polls suggest that Santorum's controversial stances on birth control and working mothers, in fact, sent women who consider themselves independent voters into Obama's camp. A high-profile brawl earlier this year about access to birth control, resulting from Republican efforts to portray Obama's health-care policies as trouncing on the rights of Catholics, also put women's issues at the forefront of debate. Republicans were hammered in public opinion polls on the issue, especially after conservative icon Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown University law student a "slut" and a "prostitute" for her congressional testimony in support of Obama's policies on access to birth control. Last week, Republicans had their revenge when a relatively obscure Democratic strategist, Hilary Rosen, said on CNN that Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life." Even though both Obama and his chief strategist, David Axelrod, condemned Rosen for her remarks, Republicans said it revealed Democratic contempt for stay-at-home mothers. "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work," Ann Romney tweeted shortly after Rosen's remarks. The Romney campaign has since churned out bumper stickers reading: "Moms drive the economy." It's all part of a full-court press undertaken by the Romney campaign to woo women away from Obama and into the Republican fold given female voters will likely represent almost 53 per cent of the electorate in November. The former Massachusetts governor has repeatedly said during recent campaign stops that the president's policies have waged a "real war on women." And yet a four-month-old video has surfaced that could prove damaging to Romney's efforts to portray himself as a white knight to stay-at-home mothers, in particular those who don't have the benefit of a spouse earning millions. Shot in early January at a town hall event in New Hampshire, Romney spoke of his proposed welfare reform proposals when he was Massachusetts governor that would have required parents with young children to get jobs. "I wanted to increase the work requirement," Romney said. "I said, for instance, that even if you have a child two years of age, you need to go to work. And people said: 'Well that's heartless,' and I said: 'No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving daycare to allow those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work."' Conservatives have long railed against welfare, advocating for policies that would force welfare recipients back into the workforce. During his failed run for the U.S. Senate in 1994, Romney also acknowledged that many women have no choice but to work. "This is a different world than it was in the 1960s when I was growing up, when you used to have Mom at home and Dad at work," he said. "Now Mom and Dad both have to work whether they want to or not, and usually one of them has two jobs."

Chapter 24 (740-747)

What instantly caught my attention was learning about the Islamic world. The part of their world that i found most interesting was their development. Their globalization, religion, and society is extremely interesting to me because it is so much different than what I was taught and learned in my life. I find the Islam people very disciplined because they are able to pray every single day on a regluar basis. Not only do they pray but they also fast every so often, as well as attending mosques. This became an everyday thing in their lives. I believe the Islam women are very strong women because they are able to stay true to their men and they have to follow so many rules, from what they have to wear to how they treat their men. The woman from all ages later began to change their image and physical appearance. They had to wear a veil and dressed very conservative, but it mainly became their choice. Something that really affected me when reading this section was reading and learning that then the government of Sudan changed their punishments, it changed to someone losing an arm, leg, or hand being amputated when they commited a crime. People here think that is it so bad that they have to sit in a jail sell when they commit a crime. I honestly believe it would be worse to lose an arm, leg, or hand because then it becomes a set back for someone being unable to do certain things. This honestly would be a good thing because they had the audacity to even commit the crime, they should be set back and lose one of those things. It is cruil but may lower the number of crimes commited!?

Chapter 24 (734-739)

The main focus in this section of the chapter was feminists movements. I went to an all girls high school and it helped me to learn that "anything that a man can do, a girl can do as well." Women in today's society are trying to come up and make everyone realize that we are capable of helping a community grow. Just because we physically can't do as much as men, we are still capable of making a change in this world! One thing that really caught my attention when I was reading was one of the side notes that I came across, which was women who have lost their children. It is always sad when a parent has to go to a burial service for their children, knowing that it should be the other way around. The side not had mentioned that some of the reasons that they have lost their children was mainly because of illegal adoption, criminal gangs, and child prostitution. It had mentioned the group that was formed due to the many women that have to deal with this and wanted to inform other people of what is going on, the group is called "mother's of the disappeared." These women have become a great big community and don't want other mother's to go through what they have to go through, which is losing their children at a very young age. Mother's are very over protective of their children and they want the best for their children. I know that my mother would get mad at me sometimes for doing something she didn't agree with, but in the end all she wants me to do is accomplish something in life and whatever I choose to do she is ALWAYS right by my side. My mother once told me, "once your a mother, you'll understand how you treat your children like a prey and you won't let anyone do anything wrong to them." The main area that this group has helped out, is in Latin America. Right now they meet every week and they pressure the issue to their government to find their lost children. It is very difficult for them to do anything more than go to the government and demand that they are heard!

Chapter 24 (723-734)

The main focus in this section of chapter 24 is the issue of re-globalization. There is a "wanting" of trying to become "one" and for others to see the world as a whole community. It is a majoy focus of the world at this time. It doesn't mean that everyone is trying to become better people and friends or everyone wanting to like each other. It is the main focus of the whole world growing and expanding together in this huge economy. Instead of different countries trying to be better than countries and fighting to be on top, we want to be one and help each other in aspects that others struggle in. Like I mentioned, everyone isn't trying to become friends because we all know that we are going to have people in our lives that we don't get along with and people that we just can't stand BUT what I believe people need to focus on is that in order for the industries to grow we have to share our knowledge. The main thing that will help modern society grow as one is to mainly focus on globalization.

WAR

The main thing that was stuck in my head when learning about history, in elementary school until now, is world war 1 and world war 2. It is very important to know about the wars and why they started or why there was even a war between to groups due to the fact that "history shouldn't repeat." The world wars were mentioned so often because it is very importatnt to know it like your back hand because people fought in the war to protect the rest of us. The main reason that the world war 1 occured was mainly because the industry, alliance, and empire. Many people use the words "violence isn't the answer," but when you can't get what you want it tends to turn towards violence and fighting. Many people have learned that when fighting in this war we have lost a lot. We have lost many loved ones and mainly lost years and time over fighting. What many people also understand is that instead of fighting, we could have tried to make the country a better place as a whole. Any way of violence, bombing or shooting, we still lost a lot as a whole. It has come to a great understanding that war should be something that can be avoided because there are a lot of people today that are losing money because of it and we are putting our country in debt mainly to keep up with the needs and necesities for those fighting the war. In many people's perspectives world war 2 could have been avoided. To make a long story short, Germany felt that they were cut short on the treaty and they mainly wanted revenge. It is terrible to hear about those that were involved int he Holocaust. In high school, we had a holocaust week where every day you would listen to the story of a Holocaust survivor. It was very inspiring and there were some stories that were sweet and cute, and others that were just terrible. One lady had mentioned that she had to leave her fiance and he promised her that he would come back and they were separated for years, and one day they found each other and stayed true to each other and were still until this day are married. The sad stories that I heard were about those that were the only survivors of their families. It was a great experience to be able to listen to the survivors! This experience allowed me to have a greater experience of life and how blessed I am

CHAPTER 16

(p.461-477)
The globalization of Christianity started in Europe. It all began in small countries like Egypt, southern India, ect. Around the time of 1517, the protestant reformation occured. Then leading to shattering the unity of the churches. A main critic of the Roman church was Martin Luther and he later stated his 95 Theses. This debated the views and ethics of what the church brought to its people of Europe. It then became an arguement that it was a new understanding of salvation through faith alone rather than good works. His beliefs preached that it was more about the preachings of the Bible, not the church having its ultimate authority. The Bible also was seen to be interpreted differently between the Catholic and the Protestants. The Catholic priests could only interpret, people couldn't even understand the other languages. On the other hand, protestant were the ones who preached or when the individual read the bible, they believed that anyone would and could be able to interpret what was being preached and read. As Christianity motivated and benefited during the European expansion, the many different countries took a big part in what they saw as a continuation of a crusading tradition. Thanks to the growth of imperialism, globalization of Christianity was made possible.
I am a very religious catholic and it is very interesting to me that only priests can preach, including the fact that the other people that followed the priests could be able to understand the other languages. Now a days, catholic masses are interpreted in other languages for those who don't understand english. I also find it intersting that the protestants were able to just read as a group and anyone that wanted to preach and interpret how they felt about the reading then they were able to. The protestants were able to speak their minds and preach anything they thought.

(p.477-488)
The scientific revolution was a very big transformation that occured between the 16th and 18th century. This revolution was based on what science is always known for; observations, experiments, and general formulations to explain the wonders of the world. During this time, human existence was questioned within the cosmos, the teachings and authority of the church and the political system were severely challenged and questioned. As Europe expanded favorably in the field of science, but so did other countries: the Islamic world was the most scientifically advanced, China was technologically accomplished. The growth of a legal system for independence occured  and the idea of the "corporation" was being declared. Universities started to emerge during this time as well. This institute of intelligence gave people a place to study and question the natural order like the separation between philosophy and theology. the scientific revolution gradually reached a wider European audience while developing Smith's laws of economics. People believed that scientific development would bring enlightenment to humankind. Unfortunately, much elightenment thoughts started to attack established religions. Some even started to even question if what was being preached in the bible was real.

CHAPTER 14

In the beginning of chapter 14, it becomes confusing because my whole life I have celebrated "Columbus day" and considered it a holiday. The book considers people celebrating that the fact that Columbus went through a process of invasion. I find it odd that many people would use it as a celebration day and have many people around the world think that it should be a holiday when it really isn't looked at as one. It is similar in the Unites States, Russia and China that they consider it a legacy of the early modern empire that the building had continued to provoke the new millenium. Within the many different empires, they were all able to transform rapidly. They were able to destroy their old societies and their new societies were able rise up. I didn't like the European advatages that they were able to gain. European Atlantic states were well positioned for  involvement in the Americas. In order to have advantage they needed the Chinese and Indians to have such rich markets in the Indian Ocean  that there wasn’t much incentive to go beyond. The Europeans were aware of their marginal position in Eurasian commerce and wanted to change it. There then became a rivalry, the interstate rivalry drove rulers to compete. What caught my attention was the rise of the Asian empire, which were regional and not global. During this time there was a creation of Asian empires did not include massive epidemics and did not fundamentally transform their homelands like interaction  with the Americas and Siberia did for European powers. While expanding there were various things that occured such as Qing dynasty (1644–1912) launched the imperial expansion to the north and west, nomads of the north and west were familiar to the Chinese, China evolved to Central Asian empire, conquered territory was ruled separately from the rest of China through the Court of Colonial Affairs. The whole chapter mainly consisted of European, Russian and Chinese view of the early modern world.