Gender and Security

I thought that this discussion was pretty interesting. When I think of protection and security, I automatically think of men. I think a large part of that is due to the fact that my dad and several of my uncles are in law enforcement. It's been that way for my entire life, so I have always associated my dad with the law and protection. Also, I think that I do not associate my mother with strength and protection, because when I was growing up she went through periods of being sick (anemia...spelling?). I grew up with my dad talking about his work, what he was doing, hearing about his co-workers (some of them with names like 'Spike'). This just gave me a very masculinized view of security. When it came to emotional security though, I went to my mother. My father is a very quite man, and I think that he would be hard to talk to about something if I were very upset. My mother on the other hand always could make me feel better of worry less about something. This is akin to what we were talking about in class, how women are more responsible for emotional security.

In terms of security and politics, I think that the notion of security and safety is used to each politicians advantage. When bush wanted to get more support for his war, he emphasized that there were threats to our security and safety abroad. I recently went to the Barack Obama speech at Penn State and in his speech he was saying that he was tired of politics using 9/11 as an excuse and as a fear generator, but another part of his speech he was emphasizing that for our safety we need a president who will not alientate other potentially harmful countries. Hence, he is using the notion of our security as a incentive to vote for him. (don't get me wrong, I still think he's great!).