Salt of the Earth

This week we watched the movie Salt of the Earth:

http://www.archive.org/details/salt_of_the_earth

I thought it was a great movie that illustrated social issues, like inequality, and how community organizing can make immense strides by uniting towards common goals. In the film, Esperanza and the women in the community are fighting for equality by requesting improvements in sanitation, like running water. On the other hand, the men are fighting for equality of working conditions. The film begins by focusing on the women because while the men emphasize the “solidarity of the working men” towards their struggle for equality, they fail to see that they are doing to the women, exactly what the mining company is doing to them. They are treating the women unequally by seeing their demands as less important and refusing their joining in the struggles because women are expected to fulfill certain gender roles. These roles usually consist of women keeping silent and remaining at home to take care of the house and kids.

Although many deem housework, such as cooking, cleaning, and child rearing, as unworthy because it does not provide an income, this work can require more effort than an official job that provides income. Only through firsthand experience, did Ramon realize how difficult it was to stay home and take care of the household chores, as well as the children. Women have to do a lot to prove their value, such as when violence broke out at the picket line. While some men, like Ramon, were fearful and ready to jump in when the women picketing were encountered by the police, they soon realized that the women were more than capable of defending themselves.

Women continue to face these challenges today. Women are still undervalued, whether they stay at home to take care of the children and housekeeping duties or go out into the workforce. Even though we know that the cost of child care is high, parents who stay at home to take care of the children tend to be undervalued because they do not bring in an income, even when they save the child care costs. On top of that, women who do enter the workforce are continued to be treated unequally, which is shown through wage gaps. The U.S. Department of Labor compared women's earnings to men's earnings from 1979 to 2008, which showed that women earned about 62% as much as men in 1979 and 80% as much as men in 2008 (http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2008.pdf).

We just have to keep fighting for justice....