Blog #10
This chapter was a little bit harder to think of something to write my blog over. Usually I try to discuss something that has been relatable to something in classes, media, or in my life. Recently nothing has come up related to domestic violence, rape, or in general women abuse. Although, I do want to discuss something that happened years ago that I did not understand then, but today I think I grasp the situation a little better. When I was younger my mom’s sister came to stay with us a little while because my aunt’s husband had emotionally and physically attacked her. My aunt was fine and decided not to report the situation to the police. After a few days she returned home. I never understood how other family members would just let her move back in and why they were okay with her not reporting it. The thing that I did not understand then, that I understand now, is that my aunt had convinced everyone that it was a onetime incident, that it would never happen again, and that she loved her husband, she also did not want her children to have to go through a divorce. Recently my best friend was in an emotionally abusive relationship that was not dangerous but I still could tell that it was affecting my best friend’s life. We often talked about the situations and I told her that I did not like what he was doing, but she always told me she loved him, so I never felt like the situation was in my hands to take care of. Luckily my best friend is a strong woman and is now not with him, but for my aunt things got a little worse, until the day she walked out on him. The crazy part about my aunts situation, that although she was the one tormented, because she walked out on him and never reported any of the incidents, he got to keep the house and have custody over their kids.
Add a comment November 12, 2009
Blog #9
Not only can we analyze the role of women in media entertainment like television, movies, and music, but also I think it is interesting to look at the effect media has on these entertaining women. I think women get criticized and looked at more often then men, and from that come negative thoughts about themselves. I have researched many times the effect media has on women, but I have found that the most interesting aspect of this research is not the effect it has on everyday women (all though this is still very important), but the effect it has on actresses, supermodels, and musicians.
Although women get mad at the fact that in magazines they show slim beautiful women, it is still very interesting to know that average women are attracted to these images. Average women criticize body and facial changes in women entertainers, not only men. As women we should also blame ourselves for creating a heightened desire for these beautiful perfect entertainers. As soon as an actress gains weight, average women as consumers of media thrive off of this gossip. The effect of this then puts pressure on that actress to look slim again, as she was before. Such pressure to look a certain way cause not only unhealthy eating habits, but also negative emotional stability. There are very few movies and television shows that revolve around larger women, and when they do, their weight and appearance becomes the subject of the story or plot. I just recently watched the new version of the movie “Hairspray,” and the new television sitcom “Drop Dead Diva,” were this idea came to me for this blog. Women, start paying attention to this gossip and please do not jump on the bandwagon and spread it. You could be that women, and think of how you would feel if these things were being said about you.
Add a comment November 5, 2009
Blog #8
As a communications major with an emphasis in Media and Public, we often talk about the effect of commercials. A subject that comes up often is the emphasis of cleaning products during the day, and who is the target audience for these commercials?…Women! Soap Operas actually began because “soap” commercials helped sponsor these daytime melodramas for women. The idea is if the women are drawn to watching TV, they will notice the cleaning products and be persuaded to be them. The humorous thing about these commercials, are the way they are made. Of course intended for women, because that’s who does the housework; these women are happy, dressed very casually, and sometimes there are even sexual characteristics that come up. How can we relate these things to cleaning? Sarah Haskins is a feminist that has done many humorous videos that poke fun at women issues. In 2008 she made the short video “Target Women: Cleaning” you can find this video on youtube.com and feministing.com. The video pokes fun at the idiotic aspects of cleaning commercials intended for women. Some things mentioned are, cleaning equals sexual activity, how you can dress like you’re about to go out while cleaning, how not having a clean home can before harmful to your family, how everyone is an idiot when it comes to cleaning, but the women, and how cleaning products can be your friend or even date. She ends the clip saying cleaning products, seduce you, romance you, and even protect you from sexual diseases. Please check out the clip, is one you have to see just to get a laugh.
Add a comment October 29, 2009
Blog #7
I love that when writing these Blogs, I have realized something from my own life that relates to every chapter so far. Families are different all across the world and everyone should try to be understanding of these different lifestyles. It becomes more difficult when family members break apart from their family’s traditions. Due to families usually being accepting of each other, these issues can become settled, but there are some families that shame family members when they break traditions. I am currently in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,’ and this musical shows the difficulty for a mother and father when their daughters break normal Jewish traditions. I play Chava a young girl that falls in love with a Russian. This relationship is wrong on so many levels in the eyes of everyone else in the village. First of all finding a match for yourself was unheard of. There were matchmakers in which would arrange the matches for young girls in Jewish families. The family’s financial situation would also be a factor when deciding who the young girl would marry. There were occasions that young girls would be matched up with older men just because he had more money. The other reason Chava’s relationship with a Russian is unheard of, is because she would then be marrying outside of the religion, something that is saw to be worse than finding a match for yourself. In the production, Chava’s father even disowns her saying that because she married a Russian, she is dead to him and does not want to talk about her anymore. At the very end of the show there is a little re-kinder between her father and her, but the relationship between them will never be the same. Chava stays in Cracow with her Russian husband, while the rest of her family moves to America.
Add a comment October 22, 2009
Blog #6
I just recently watched the movie “Revolutionary Road” with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet a movie in which shows an age when women would try self-abort on planned pregnancies. The movies is based on the novel written in 1960’s by Richard Yates. The movie makes you truly feel the depression of a woman in 1955. Frank (Leo) and April (Kate) Wheeler are married but in a rut with their lives and marriage. April wanted to be an actress but now is a housewife with two children. April tries to find a way in which they can live their lives happier and decides that they should move to Paris, she hopes this will rejuvenate their lives. April ends up getting pregnant which puts a stop it their plans moving to Paris. April is so unhappy, very depressed, and truly believes her pregnancy is wrong. She obtains the objects needed to self-abort but he husband disapproves. It makes me so uneasy to watch her life because she is truly unhappy and sees abortion as her only option. Women should not have to go through these circumstances alone and in the 50’s there was not much education on other ways of not getting pregnant and once pregnant not really options. April has to abort the child within the first twelve weeks, but goes past this time period. After an argument with her husband in which he states that he wishes she would have had the abortion, April then runs off. After her return she acts like everything is fine until Frank leaves and then she tries the abortion. Due to unclean circumstances, lack of knowledge, and going past the time period April dies from the abortion. Movies like this make individuals look at the situations in which women are unhappy and cannot fathom the idea of another child, the man does not have to have the child or stay home with the children so he does not understand. Abortion also shows the inequality between men and women, the women is the one truly going through the situation when pregnant. Yet, men can have sex with no consequences if they truly do not want the child.
Add a comment October 15, 2009
Blog #5
In GLAMOUR magazine, September 2009, there was an article called “What Everyone But You Sees About You Body.’ It is an amazing article that makes you think about the way you look at yourself. It talks about how we focus on our body flaws when we look in the mirror and I would have to admit that I do this. In the article Gyasi Atkins writes “Your body doesn’t deserve to be bashed,” and Madame Athena Chang writes “When you focus on the body parts you love, your flaws fade away!” It also explains how “fat days” are in our heads. A young women named Norell Giancana participates in an experiment were she takes a picture for herself in a bathing suit everyday and explains her feeling about the way so looks also. Ironically, over a thirty day time span in each picture her body looks the same, but it shows that on some of the days she felt fatter than others. Day 7 “The skinny jeans I wore on the flight home from my vacation were so tight they left seam imprints on my legs…I feel fat.” Day 20 “I actually felt lighter today. I think it’s because the pair of jeans I wore today fit. They looked great, so I felt great.” Yet her body looked exactly the same. The best part about this article is picture on page 194, a picture of a young beautiful women laughing. What makes this picture different then other pictures usually in magazines, is this women looks NORMAL. Please check out GLAMOUR online and search for the September article, it is worth your time to check out the picture.
Add a comment October 6, 2009
Blog #4
My sophomore year of college I took Communications 212, “Interpersonal Relationships.” In the class we had a discussion of men and women relationships, and from this discussion a group of us wrote a paper about it. I just recently reread it, and it was interesting how this class has changed my views in the paper. I am going to share with you a few parts of the paper and my response to the sections now. Myself and few other students wrote the paper “Men and Women Can it Just Be A Friendship?” I have changed the names, other then mine, to secure the identification of the other students.
Written by myself, “Remember when you were little, and the same aged girl next to you and the same aged boy next to you, out on the playground were your friends. Both of them were equal in how you viewed them as a friend. It did not matter that one was a boy and other was a girl. You may have not had common interest because the girl played with dolls and the boy played with trucks, but still they were just friends to you. Not until a certain age did that begin to change. You started to view that boy friend as a “boy” or that girl friend as a “girl.” You may have become attracted to that opposite sex or you went through a stage when you stopped hanging out with the opposite sex. I, Alex Maxwell, know that when I was in elementary school there was a shift about how I felt about boys. In about third grade, “boys” became a whole new idea to friends and myself. All of my girl friends and I would stand around watching the boys play sports, deciding which ones we thought were cuter.” I find it very interesting now, that I only thought about the attraction on a heterosexual level. Not until this class did I really think about, or understand the relationships other then heterosexual. After the recent chapter and also the chapter about transgender, I now understand that at early age there can be different attractions, and even feelings of being the wrong gender.
Now I would like to share from the paper and class some other topics about men and women relationships that were brought up. I think these are interesting to read and apply to our recent readings in chapter four. Tyler “The way we view men and woman relationships is simply how we were brought up. Starting out as a child we have learned a great deal with relationships, their roles, and ways of dealing with them. This is part of our family script, a key identity script. Our family script defines our roles and how we play them, or our first known influences (Interpersonal Communication, 2007). “ This idea was also brought up in the women studies book, but I find it interesting that instead of explaining as a whole society, there are scripts that individuals learn to follow, he explains family scripts. Truthfully it does begin in the home, but usually that home is shaped by society.
Jenny writes, “I believe that human beings are commonly sexually attracted to one another but the problem comes when you act on that desire to soon and give the other person the wrong perception of who you are. In some cases the goal is to come off, as a very sexual person and again, I personally don’t have a problem with that. It is that person’s choice to go along with or shy away from. When it comes down to it the emotional closeness you build with the opposite sex is going to determine if it stays a friendship or romance.” Ironically this also was discussed in Chapter four, the difference between erotic attraction and the true concept of “love.”
The last thing I would like to share with you from the paper was the ending quote I found for the conclusion, “The belief that men and women can’t be friends comes from another era in which women were at home and men were in the workplace, and the only way they could get together was for romance,” explains Linda Sapadin, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in Valley Stream, New York. “Now they work together and have sports interests together and socialize together.” (Can men and women just be friends, 2001) This quote and this class signify times are changing between men and women, and this even affects their romantic relationships, relationships in general. This class really has helped further my understandings from this original paper.
Add a comment September 23, 2009
Blog 3
Ironically in my World History in the Twentieth Century class we discussed the inequality of women to men in the early nineteenth century to the twentieth century, and the first steps in feminism. We studied three articles in which illustrated the mistreatment and inequality to women. An Address to Two Hundred Million Fellow Countrywomen restated how Qui Jin addressed the women of China explaining the issues facing them. She enlightened the crowd that their husbands and even fathers, due to the mere fact that they were female, mistreated girls in China. They would bind young girls feet so that they could not grow. This would leave the female semi crippled, demonstrating that women do not have to work. She than declared to the women in which she addressed, “why is there no justice for women?”
One document, Present Addresses at the Conventions of National American Women Suffrage Association 1905 by Anna Howard Shaw, provides a statement from the President at the time Theodore Roosevelt. Although he was a supporter of equal rights, he favored “equality in difference.” “Men should run for the government, manage a businesses, and earn a living; women should marry, become mothers, and raise children.” Also stated in one of his many speeches, Shaw provides us with his exact words, “women who out of viciousness, coldness, shallow heartedness, or self-indulgence; neglected their duty to raise a family. The existence of women of this type was one of the most unpleasant and unwholesome features in modern life.”
Reading these documents only reinforced my appreciation for all the women and men who fought and fight in the women rights movements. All though it may not be perfect, I still can say that I as a woman I am much more privileged. Although we are still fighting for equality in the United States, due to the first document stated, I believe we should be fighting harder of equality of all women across the world.
Add a comment September 13, 2009
Blog #2
I began this semester with my eyes and ears open for something that I could write my first blog about. Ironically my blog is going to be a comic book that my boyfriend has been trying to get me to read for months. I ran out of books to read this last week, so my boyfriend placed the comic in my hands. I began the first book two days ago and finished it wanting to read the next ten as soon as possible. I am going to give a brief summary about the book and explain how ironic it was to start reading this comic book after beginning this class. “Y: the Last Man,” by Brian K. Vaughan is about a story in which any mammal that contained a Y chromosome dies from some kind of plague. There are two males that survive, a young male (Yorick) and his pet monkey. After the death of all males the world begins to become chaotic, with the understanding that the world could become extinct. There are women in grievance and women that are thrilled and ready to move on without the men. The women in which are ready to move on are the feminist. They describe themselves as the “Daughters of the Amazon,” and believe that Mother Earth has demolished the men for a reason. These feminist are described as zealous women, that cut off one breast in order to show their commitment, that annihilate sperm banks to guarantee the genercide (made up term), is total, and that will do anything (kill) in order to keep men from returning. If I would have started this book a month earlier I would have believed that all feminist would react this way if the comic was true. Now that I have begun this class, I now understand that not all feminist are extremely radical. The feminist in this book are portrayed as anti-male, sometimes Lesbian, and fairly wild. I recommend reading this comic, at least the first volume, for a good laugh at how they depict a feminist. I will keep you updated on the rest of the volumes. If this how the first volume started out, I can only imagine how the next few will be.
1 comment September 3, 2009
Blog 1
Hello! I am very new at this. I have never had a blog before, but so far it’s been easy and fun! I would like to say hello to everyone in the class, I wish the best of luck to you all this semester! I can not wait to learn more about all of you and this class!
Add a comment August 25, 2009
