FEMINISM and MEXICAN migrant worker? Are they alike...

“In Western societies, one can trace the record of critical feminist writing back almost about 500 years ago” (Ritzer 220). Feminists look at world from the eye view of ‘the other’ giving society an alternative insight. They challenge sociological theory and especially the classical statement from early research. Feminist believe that ones socio-demographic characteristics influence how you do sociological research. In translation what gender you are, racial and ethnic background, how and where you grew up will have impact on your viewpoint. Feminist believe that previous research that were performed were influence because of socio-demographics. A strong argument that illustrates this is Marx focus on social inequality and class status. Marx demonstrated oppression of the working class man but never gave the insight of the women. Women for Marx and other early sociological researcher were not even considered. But due to feminist strong devotion for movement their writings are now some of the critical mass in sociology.


What exactly do feminist argue for and against? Feminist believe in the discovering the viewpoint of the unacknowledged. The unacknowledged consist of ‘minorities,’ which is anyone who is oppressed by the White ‘majority’ of men. In today’s society oppression, stigmatizing, and discrimination still exist. Women have come far and have almost created an egalitarian society for women. Now the 2008 and in the past years, ‘the other’ is no longer women but immigrants that migrate to the United States. Unfortunately the majority who migrate are concentrated from Mexico. The US has tried to find methods of controlling this Latino wave. Immigrant, illegal immigrants have come to the US in pursuit of a better life and living standard but instead are antagonized. Illegal Mexicans have been stereotyped as “wetback,” “beaners” and “lazy.” The continuous arguments against illegal immigrants are that they are affecting the economy, taking away jobs, increasing crime rate and population, and taking advantage of health care. We as society are well aware of these statement and ‘facts’ due to media.


Though our daily new, television programs and radio broadcast we are informed of how immigration is taking a toll in the United States. An example of this can be seen in the T.V. hit show the O’Reily Factor. In the episode The Trouble with Mexico O’ Reily interviewed the former President of Mexico Vicente Fox and discussed the issues of illegal immigration. He begins his program by letting the audience be aware of the situation mentioning that “poverty is the root cause of illegal immigration. The average income of a poor Mexican is $4 a day. ” He mentions that poverty is driven by poor education. 60% of Mexican citizens do not graduate from high school as well mentions that17% of Mexican nationals serving time in our federal prisons. Statements like this influence the public’s opinion. Referring this back to feminist theory and using Dorothy Smith standpoint theory we can better understand this situation from a sociological viewpoint. Standpoint theory is knowledge is socially located and biased. Knowledge is always partial and self interest for the fact that nobody looks at world the same way thus everyone looks at the world through self interest and partial views. When Vicente Fox spoke and answered back O’ Reily’s statistics he was presenting the ‘others’ point of view. He stated that it is not true that 60% of Mexicans do not graduate high school, actually 94% do graduate. This an example of viewing the “others” perspective.


If we actually take time and see the others viewpoint then we would have a better understanding and less of a standpoint opinion. According the National Academy of Sciences argue that immigration has an overall positive effect. On average immigrants are found to provide a monetary net benefit as they contributed an estimated $10 billion to the US economy. Therefore we must not always believe the majority ‘white male researcher reporting statistic’ rather generate our own opinion about the issue of immigration


down below is the video I analysed