Color Me Non-Toxic

It was actually unsurprising to me to read about how dangerous working in a nail salon can be. All you have to do is open the door to a nail salon to smell the toxic chemical smell that emits. It can be difficult to be a customer and smell that acetone smell for the hour it takes to get a manicure, but to work in a salon and breathe in those fumes all day is not only unpleasant but harmful to health. Uyen Nguyen's sister had a miscarriage in her eighth month of pregnancy after working in a salon and breathing in the carcinogenic chemicals all day, every day.
Why are these unsafe practices allowed to continue? Why is no one advocating for these women, mostly immigrants, who are risking their good health in order to give me a manicure? These women are afraid that speaking up about these harmful effects will cause them to lose their jobs, so we must speak for them. We must demand safer practices and the removal of formaldehyde chemicals from our salons. No manicure is worth someone else's life.

Color Me Non Toxic by Momo Chang

When people think of dangerous jobs, manicurist isn't usually what comes to mind. Momo Chang, in her article "Color Me Non Toxic", speaks out for the nail salon workers who are exposed to chemicals throughout the work day. Chang wrote that workers breathe in chemicals from the different nail products all day long, and without protection! Her article caused me to think back on my past few trips to get my nails done and think about the atmosphere and the people working there. The second one opens the door to a nail salon, there is a powerful wave of air that smells like nail polish and chemicals. I am very conscious of chemicals and sprays; I don't like to expose myself to lysol or febreeze because they are not healthy to breathe in. I could not imagine working in an environment where the air is mixed with formaldehyde, toluene, and dibutyl phthalate (I don't even know what these chemicals are, but they are obviously not natural and do not belong in the human body!). Many of these workers are foreign and do not speak english or have much other work experience, so they don't have the option of leaving their job because of the air. Also, a lot of them probably do not realize how awful the chemicals are for their body. One woman at my local salon worked throughout her pregnancy, as did the owner. The owner's daughter was then basically raised in the salon, and now at eight years old, all of the customers know her and love to play with her. She does her homework, plays with dolls, and watches movies from her own spot in the corner of the nail salon. Her mother probably has either no idea or no other choice but to expose her child to these chemicals. I agree with Chang that salons need to move towards eco friendly practices, especially for the health of the manicurists.

The Way It Was by Eleanor Cooney

Reading Eleanor Cooney's article, The Way It Was, gave me a first-hand account of what it was like to get an abortion before 1973. I could not imagine being pregnant and trapped, with only few dangerous and expensive options. 

Before this article, I didn't really know anything about abortion history in the United States. I honestly did not even remember what Roe v. Wade was, but I did some research after reading this article because I was actually embarrassed by my lack of knowledge. While the internet gave me many facts, statistics, laws, and important people, Conney provided me with an in depth account of her personal experience. It was much more interesting and important for me to read her story because it illustrated how truly horrible it was for women trying to get an illegal abortion. She recalls going to dirty offices with creepy doctors and attempting to get a dangerous procedure because she simply had no other options. That scared me. I would never want my friends or sisters to feel trapped between two equally awful decisions: giving birth to an unwanted child or paying tons of money for a dangerous procedure that would put them in the hospital. 

After reading Cooney's article, I don't understand how anyone could say that abortion is completely awful and should be illegal. It saves lives and protects women who otherwise would be doomed to awful consequences. 

The Way it Was

In "The Way it Was", Eleanor Cooney explains the difficulties a young girl experiences in order to get an abortion. Unfortunately many of these procedures are done in unkempt places that may not be sanitary because they are inexpensive and low key. People try to keep the procedure a secret for fear of judgement.

Although I have been raised Catholic, I have always been very pro-choice. I believe in a woman's right to choose what she does with her body. If she wishes to abort a fetus, I only hope that it is done in a proper way, rather than tripping or falling down a flight of stairs. Even though I do not agree with using abortion as a form of birth control, I do believe that the procedures should be safe and not cause judgment from others.  

Health and Reproductive Rights

This week I read all of the readings about health and reproductive rights because it is a topic that I've always been very interested in. Being raised devoutly catholic, I was always taught that abortion is wrong no matter what. Throughout my college career, I have begun to educate myself on abortion and reproductive rights and although I'm still trying to find my opinion, I now know that abortions being legal is saving lives.
In "The Way it Was" by Eleanor Cooney, she discusses the way things were before Roe v. Wade. Women had no other options and were forced to get basement abortions that left them sterile or dead. These practices are unsafe and cannot come back into practice. If abortion were to become illegal, abortions wouldn't stop, they would just become unsafe again. I don't know where exactly I stand on abortion, but I do know that women don't deserve to die if they choose to terminate their pregnancies.

Rape Culture 101

Melissa McEwan does a great job pointing out what rape culture is, even though there is no concrete definition. Most people associate rape as an act of violence in which sex is forced. For some reason, however, our culture creates a certain criteria that one must meet in order to claim that they were actually raped. According to our rape culture , you can only count rape as rape if you are a woman, if you are a virgin, if protection was not used, etc. There also tends to be a lot of victim blaming involved, where the victims are considered at fault for maybe dressing too provocatively or being intoxicated. Regardless of how many sexual partners a person has had or whether or not they are in a committed relationship, rape is rape. If consent was not given, it is rape, and it should not be taken as lightly as it is in today's society.

Textual Harassment

The invention of text messaging has had some of the biggest impact on our generation than any technological advance in the last twenty years. Texting has made it easier to contact friends, send quick messages without the obligation of a phone call and to harass and bully other individuals. I think every teenager or twenty-something can recall a time where a person texted them constantly either saying mean or inappropriate things or just simply bothering them. In Donna St. George’s article, she examines what happens when these harassing texts are not just annoying or uncomfortable, but they are abusive.

St. George discusses cases where young women have been killed by there abusive boyfriends and only after this violence, are hundreds of harassing text messages are found. This type of abusive is a largely psychological one because of the controlling aspect of texts. If a boy sends a girl a text and she doesn’t answer, usually he will wait around until she answers. In these abusive situations, these men are sending text after text demanding to know where the woman is, who she is with and proof of all of these things.

Textual abusive is a huge issue because it is a largely private one. Most people don’t share their texts to a significant other with anyone else, so if there is this kind of controlling behavior, it is largely kept private. Also, a lot of young women aren’t reading these controlling behaviors as warning signs, especially young, high school girls who may be in a first-time relationship. Some women will normalize this behavior by saying that their boyfriend is just worried, or that he just wants her to be safe. But the truth is, relationships are about trust and when this trust is impeded on through textual harassment, that relationship becomes an abusive one.