Week Two-Second

Last weeks discussion has brought up a few different things for me; the concept of agency and discourse mainly caught my attention.
So agency is a way of thinking about power, and having the ability or option to choose and act for yourself? I think, and obviously gender plays a huge part in that. With that we talked about careers and the discussion on maternity leave, and the lack thereof in America really gets me. I think its absolutely ridiculous that women are forced to chose between kids and a career and our workplace condones this forced choice by the constraints on maternity leave and the negative consequences many women face when having children. Many people have the notion that America is the most advanced nation but compared to the Nordic and other European countries we are still way behind on our views on the private/public sector. I think its really pathetic actually that people can deem being a mother or housewife to be any less demanding, useful, difficult, stressful and equally rewarding as a full-time white collar career. Anyone who has ever even babsysat recognizes how difficult it is to raise a child, let alone many, and to still have a career on top of that? Award-worthy. Yet women do it all the time without recognition and all the additional setbacks with regards to less pay, glass ceiling, all that.
In regards to discourse and the narratives we tell about ourselves, I think language is such an interesting concept that I never even really consider. Simply the words that we use to describe everyday common practices are so gendered that it becomes ingrained and hard to even realize until you sit down and really pick it apart. The feminist article made a good point that the worst insult most of the time is feminine related. I dont really know much about the whole language concept, but i think its a really interesting topic that I want to look into more.