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