Unit III Blog Assignment

     I found three of the readings used the Census as a basis for their research.  Unfortunately, my experience with the US Census leaves me discouraged with the readings and their findings.  Case in point, I have a daughter that is half Hispanic and two grandsons that are tri-racial.  When I filled out the census back in the early 90s as noted in "The Economic Consequences of Widowhood for Older Minority Women," I was only given one choice to make for my daughter.  I chose white since she lived with me.  That in turn caused a census worker to arrive at my door, verify that I was white, noted my daughter looked Hispanic, and changed my information in front of me.  I protested, but her response was that the city gets more money based on the number of minorities it holds.  It didn't matter that my daughter would never receive a dime of that money.
     This past census I was happy to note that I would be able to annotate all my children and grand children's races.  What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that the white race was only one box, and European Spaniards and Arabic people were also to consider themselves "white."  The next block was Hispanic, where I was amazed to see about 25 choices.  I selected Puerto Rican for my daughter and decided to go back to the white box and write Italian/English next to it.  Then for my grandsons, I was given 3 choices as to what "black" they considered themselves.  I'm not sure how they came up with the choices of "black," "African-American," or "Negro/Negroid."  I wrote Liberian next to the black box.  Just because it intrigued me, I looked over the Asian block.  Yep, sub-categorized.  This led me to believe the Census was skewed. Not even our bi-racial president is considered half black, half white, but instead seen only as a black man.  The issue of race in a country that can only see skin deep leaves me hard pressed to give credibility to any race related research that doesn't properly consider the demographics of its' people.  Starting at the top, our president.
     In the reading, "Two Steps Back" the author doesn't discuss any entitlements the poor received throughout their child rearing years.  I agree that these women, regardless of race, were unable to pay into the system the same, but how much money did they receive in entitlements as a result of not making a better wage, or less hours, if any? None of this information was incorporated into the research, but one could argue that they received their social security benefits in the form of welfare, child care assistance, section 8, food stamps, wic, etc.  Many of these women have been in these programs through generations, and know how to play the system.  The fact that they will earn less social security when they get older doesn't reflect that they may have earned far more from years of assistance.
     "Late Life Widowhood, Selfishness and New Partnership Choices: A Gendered Perspective"  was an article that I could relate to, with regard to selfishness.  I'm not surprised to find that women that are widowed chose not to remarry, while men were more inclined to take another wife.  The article noted, "The words 'selfish' and 'freedom' were often used by the widows when describing their present existence, which was associated with not having to look after someone all the time."  Most of these women had been married for so long and in a subservient role, that knowing any freedom was foreign to them.  I would hardly consider focusing on themselves, instead of having to continually give of themselves, as being selfish.
     Of the readings, I found "Social Security and Older Women: A Feminist Political Economy Perspective" to be one I found more enjoyable, accurate, unbiased and thought provoking.  I agreed with Carroll Estes' assessment that women stand to lose more should Social Security become privatized.  Her reasoning's appeared more accurate to me, having never considered the time lost when I had my children.  This forced me to think about those times I struggled out of work, didn't pay in through those years, and as a result, earned less income towards my retirement.  On the other hand, I've always considered that Social Security would never be there for me anyway.  The way the government has mismanaged it, and increased the age requirement to "fix" the problem, has affected a lot of future retiree's negatively.  I personally consider it another tax, and one I'll never live long enough to see a return on.  For this reason, I feel that I'll be working long into my retirement years just to support myself.  I posted an earlier blog from a woman in Wyoming to her senator.  Her angry response said it all!