MODERN IFIGENIA

In reference to the Aziz Ansari situation THEM: "They are angry at her for not being the kind of woman we are, the women who own our sexuality, the women who are assertive in our boundaries, the women who enjoy sex so we communicate our needs, pleasures and distastes very clearly; but we are the bad girls, the women men don't marry, the women who teach men how to be good lovers to their wives and "good girl" partners, the women who accepted the second choice of womanhood: Choice 1. Be Madonna, motherly nurturer and free of sexuality and in exchange you will have someone obligated to care for you for the rest of your life or Choice 2: Be the Whore, own your sexuality and all the life it brings with it, but forgo respectability and life partners" ME: This is the best semester to teach the chapter on the Madonna/Whore dichotomy.

I have been fortunate to have traveled several parts of the world. While on my trips, magazines aimed at tourists would indicate that most people in that country lived on less than $5.00 a day.  I saw that number many times and eventually learned that about 2.1 billion people on earth live on less than $3.10 cents a day. In the U.S. most people living on Food Stamps live on less than $5.00 per day. For 2017 I tried to stand in solidarity with the people in the world who lived on less than $5.00 per day. For three days of each week, I would make sure that my electricity and food would not add up to more than $5.00 per day. Electricity was the only utility for which I could measure daily usage; including things like mortgage or car payment would burst that $5.00 per day goal immediately so I did not include them The year started strongly. It turned out that to live on $5.00 or less per day, it helps to prepare your food, and preparing your food requires three things, transpor...