Talking Post #7 (Bittersweet moment)

Teaching the Conflicts: (Re)Engaging Students with Feminism in a Postfeminist World
Meredith A. Love and Brenda M. Helmbrecht
Extended Comments from Mike

Can't believe this is the last blog! I did every type of post except for the extended comments topic so I picked Mike's post to do this post for.

Mike started off his post saying that he didn't feel that this reading really went along with everything we read during this short "semester." But I think I'll have to disagree with him. What Love and Helmbrecht were saying throughout this reading is what we want to get out to the kids. They're basically saying that women need to be empowered and feel like they can be on the top of the totem pole for once. They argue that media although may be trying to set a good example to girls and women to be themselves, they end up contradicting themselves and in the long run they are just trying to get these girls and young women to buy things. They argue "do young women still dream of being world leaders, or have their ambitions been curtailed in lieu of the smaller achievements they can make with their buying power?"
Mike then goes on to discuss the 3 major people and things from media that Love and Helmbrecht use to show the effect media has on girls and young women: female pop culture icon, Pink, Dove's campaign for "Real Beauty", and the film The Devil Wears Prada. 
"We want women to understand that they do have power and agency and that they are strong and capable... we want students to see a difference between feeling empowered because the media says they are, and actually being empowered..."
This quote really explained how Love and Helmbrecht felt about Pink, Dove's Campaign and the film.

Discussing Pink, Love and Helmbrecht say that although Pink has this song about women not feeling like they have to dumb down to be considered beautiful and not being a "stupid girl", they felt like she herself was being exactly who she told the girls not to be. Pink is telling the young women not to worry about image but she's presenting herself "exploitatively and commercially." Love and Helmbrecht said it was a form of resistance to the second wave of feminism
Then they talked about how Dove contradicts themselves. The aim that Dove had through their Campaign for Real Beauty was "to change the status quo and offer in its place a broader, healthier, more democratic view of beauty. Dove has the "real" women as their models and they supposedly don't airbrush or alter the image of any of the models on any commercials, magazines or billboards. Everything is fine and dandy up until now, real women show real beauty, right? The WHOLE campaign becomes contradictory now: the products they sell include "firming lotion, moisturizers, and self-tanning lotion, each of which presumably helps the wrinkled, flawed, and oversized..." If you are going to talk about how these "real" women have true beauty and basically tell us that they are beautiful just the way they are, why try to have products that change that? That's the argument Love and Helmbrecht are trying to bring up.
I must admit, The Devil Wears Prada, is probably one of my FAVORITE movies. It's about fashion and I love fashion but I never took it for what Love and Helmbrecht made me see it as. (Talk about pleasure vs. critique.) What Love and Helmbrecht tries to get us to understand is what the movie is actually saying. Andy, a journalist with no fashion sense accepts a job at Runway, THE BIGGEST FASHION MAGAZINE, although she KNOWS she can do better and deserves better. Miranda, her rude yet fashionable editor. Basically long story short, Andy transforms into this very fashionable women, who loses her friends and boyfriend. Andy becomes the bitch she always told herself she'd never be and Miranda ends up loving her. After looking in the mirror and seeing Miranda in herself, Andy quits the job, gets a low paying job at a local newspaper and gets her boyfriend back. It's kind of a message behind a message. What I had got out of this movie when the numerous times I seen it was that Andy realizes what truly makes her happy and does just that. But what Love and Helmbrect has pointed out is that it's saying that "women can be financially successful only by paying the hefty price of personal unhappiness." Which makes perfect sense. But it SHOULDN'T be like that, and as much as I'd like to think it's not, it is.


Mike did a reflective piece on this post so he didn't go much into those 3 things from media but he ended his post strong and it relates to this reading as well:

"One day Cindy was watching Ellen DeGeneres with her daughter and her daughter said something like "Mom, doesn't Ellen like other women?" Cindy said yes and then her daughter asked her "Could I like another women?" Cindy said to her daughter "If that's who you fall in love with." I think that is the perfect answer to give a little child. It lets them know they have the freedom to choose who they love and they don't have to fear backlash from their parents. That answer can be applied to different situations too. Girls should be told they can be scholars or doctors, while boys should be told they can be gymnasts or dancers. They can be whatever they want to be "if that is what they love.""

At a young age, we tell woman to become cheerleaders, dancers, or whatever girly thing they tell them to do now and we tell our sons to become fireman, athletes, businessmen and all these positions that hold high value. If we can teach girls from a young age that they can do whatever they want and help them to be the best person they can be, maybe it won't be such a surprising thing when we have women in high position jobs or women earning the same or maybe even more then men.

I found this article about women being leaders, thought you guys would enjoy it! 

Question for class:

".. they learned that fewer women hold powerful, decision-making positions in higher education than men and that women tend to earn more bachelor's and master's degrees than men, but hold fewer PhDs. And they were shocked to learn that women who work full-time still earn only 77% annually as much as full-time male workers."

We hear stuff like this all the time! We're given stats after stats after stats about women not earning the same as men in the same position jobs where the women is more educated than he is, but what are we as women doing? We can't forever make excuses for everything in our lives. What can we do as women to change this? This is when an individual change won't be enough but it might just be a start. Would the world be different if women were the dominant sex in the workplace or anywhere for that matter?

Occupy Providence

Okay so I was freaking out to go downtown to Burnside Park, but let me say it was definitely an experience to remember forever. I went with Kayla, Ethan, Stephanie and Annisia. I don't know about them, but I enjoyed meeting everyone that I did.
BTW, I sooo didn't get anyone's name but I did meet the same guy from North Carolina that Ariel met, Mike. We only talked to two guys really, well 3 but the 3rd one was a bit weird and I didn't understand much he was saying.

So when we first got there, it was definitely an interesting set up. There were tents everywhere. We saw a bunch of guys just standing around in a circle. They had just finished a meeting and some of them were heading out.
The first guy, who was our main "speaker" so to say, he asked us if we knew much about Occupy Providence.
"Occupy Wallstreet was the first, it started off as a call to oppose the gross economic injustice, massive foreclosure , the banks robbing people, the government giving millions and millions of dollars to banks that have mismanaged their funds."
He told us how there were about 1500 locations around US. Ethan asked if they were willing to stay here as long as it takes and he said that they're willing to stay there as long as it takes, that they might not necessarily there but they'll be in different places taking action.
They started tenting out in Burnside on October 15th after they started Occupy on October 1st. Four times a week they have meetings, which is kind of like their town hall meeting where people are able to voice their opinions, proposals, vote on things and basically talk about issues on site.
Although alot of people aren't always physically there because they do have families or school but they do support the movement.

LET ME JUST SAY HOW FREEZING I GOT THIS POINT!! OMGGGG, MY FINGERS WERE ABOUT TO FALL OFF!!!

He said we looked cold and tried to move us towards the sun to talk to us lol, and Ethan called him a warrior for standing through this kind of weather. He said everyone just bundles up really warm and the cold isn't too bad. I for one hate the cold! Idk how they do it.

They had this big box in the middle of Burnside, they called it an info booth. It's kind of like a chill spot, he said they listen to beats there sometimes. I noticed they had brochures for visitors and snacks and stuff for the people staying there.

"Welcome!! The Occupation Belongs to Everyone! We are the 99% Occupy Providence is a 24 Hr a Day Protest of Corporate Irresponsibility, Mass Economic Injustice, & Wall St. Crime"

"The richest people pay the least percentage of taxes, but if anything they should be paying the highest percentage." I know a lot of the stuff he was saying is things that are pretty obvious, but just like this class, it's things we dismiss, we just say "well that's what it is" but it shouldn't be like that. 

"There's jobs now but can you raise your family working at Walmart? It's all about getting a dignified job that pays a living wage...Nothing wrong with working at Walmart but if you have 3 kids and a $1500 mortgage, how are you supposed to raise a family getting $9/hr?"

He told us a fact that I didn't even know. With women accounting for more than half of the population, only 1% of the land in the world, which boggled my mind completely!! 

He asked us what we learned in class and after we told him, we basically summed it up that everything we discuss in class, is exactly what they are fighting for. Equality for everyone, women being recognized as powerful and knowledgeable human beings, and realizing that we have to be the change we want to see.

Ethan asked him for one last thing to leave us with, to bring back to class:

"The fight for economic and social injustice is everyone's fight and I believe it's something MLK Jr. said, "An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'

I don't know if Occupy Providence is working, I don't know where they started and how much of a change has already occured, but what I do know is that these people are sticking together in a place that is there home right now to fight for something they all believe it. They're TRYING, which is better then a whole lot of us. So why knock their hustle, ambition and motivation to make a change?

The N word; Tim Wise

Talking post #6

Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression: The Role of Allies as Agents of Change
Connection with Allan G. Johnson: Privilege, Power, and Difference

First I'd like to say how this was my favorite read! Probably because it was the only single digit reading I had the  whole "semester." But to what the post is actually about lol....

• "An ally is a member of a dominant group in our society who works to dismantle any form of oppression from which she or he receives the benefit."

• "All of us are part of the problem.... a way of thinking about the trouble that has the potential to help us become part of the solution by getting us unstuck."

In a way Ayvazian and Johnson want us to do the same thing; they want us to be the solution to a problem that we are part of. Johnson says that if people don't feel the power of oppression then they won't feel the need or ambition to try to change the system. In order for change to occur they must first change the way they think, which he says the first step is admitting that their is a such privilege. This is similar to allied behavior i believe, Ayvazian says that allied behavior is a behavior that "challenges prevailing patterns of opression, makes privileges that are so often invisible visible. and facilitates the empowerment of persons targeted by oppression. 
Ayvazian and Johnson both talk about the privileged group, which is the "one that receives the unearned advantage, benefit, or privilege." The group that isn't privileged, which Johnson describes as not being white or  male or heterosexual or of a privileged class and Ayvazian calls the group that isn't privilege, the targeted group who is denied the advantage, benefit, or privilege that the privileged group receives.


She talks about the dominant group being "whit people, males, christian, heterosexuals, able- bodied people, those in their middle years, and those who are middle or upper class." This reminded me a lot of Leslie Grinner and SCWAAMP: Straightness, Christianity, Whiteness, Americaness, Able-bodiedness, Maleness and Property Ownership. 


She also talks about an African-American named Kenneth Jones who was an anti-racism trainer. It's funny that he called being an ally, being at someone's back. Which is exactly how we defined it in class. Thought that was interesting.


I found this website called Lipstick and Politics which is women addressing issues in society that limit women in our society and they had a post about allies, so check it out here, I found it very interesting! Intelligence is Sexy.




Point for class:
I found this following quote really strong, it summed up a lot of points we made in class so I want to discuss it in class:

"I believe that it is difficult for young people to grow up and become something that they have never heard of. It is hard for a girl to grow up and become a commercial airline pilot if it has never occured to her that women can fly jet planes. Similarly, it is hard for younger people to grow up and fight racism if they have never met anyone who does."

This quote talks about privilege and how we don't try to change it. It talks about sexism through jobs. If we don't step up and show kids how to make a change, they won't try to make a change. You can't tell the younger generation to fight for something they believe in if you don't fight for things you believe in. Especially younger girls, we can't let them fall into these "women" jobs. How do we as adults change this for the younger kids?

Bob Marley

“Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned... Everything is war. Me say war. That until the're no longer 1st class and 2nd class citizens of any nation... Until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes, me say war. That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race me say war!”
― Bob Marley

Occupy Providence: does anyone want to go together?

Ummmm I might be late, but does anyone want to go to occupy with me? I have a feeling of I go myself, I'll get a bit scared, chicken out, turn around and go home lol

CHECK THIS OUT GUYS!

AHHHH! THIS SONG IS OLD BUT I WAS LISTENING TO PANDORA AND IT CAME ON AND I WAS LIKE THIS IS SOOO CRAZY BECAUSE IT ADDRESSES SO MANY ISSUES WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT IN CLASS!!


It starts off with Christina talking about woman not being able to have opinion and how when woman voice their opinion we're called bitches. She also talks about how men think women are just something to look at, to just look pretty. She then talks about the double standard that women have to deal with when it comes to the partners they have; a men can have multiple partners and be called the man but f a girl does the same she gets labeled a whore. 


Next female rapper Lil' Kim comes in and talks about the whole double standard thing. After she talks about how she'll have an idea and then a guy will take it and try to take the fame for it. That happens everywhere, school and in the workplace. Just listen to the song and the lyrics on the song!! :) 

So, what am I not supposed to have an opinion
Should I keep quiet just because I'm a woman
Call me a bitch 'cause I speak what's on my mind
Guess it's easier for you to swallow if I sat and smiled

When a female fires back
Suddenly big talker don't know how to act
So he does what any little boy would do
Making up a few false rumors or two

That for sure is not a man to me
Slandering names for popularity
It's sad you only get your fame through controversy, so sad
But now it's time for me to come and give you more to say
......

So, what am I not supposed to say, what I'm saying
Are you offended with the message I'm bringing
Call me whatever 'cause your words don't mean a thing
'Cause you ain't even a man enough to handle what I sing

If you look back in history
It's a common double standard of society
The guy gets all the glory, the more he can score
While the girl can do the same and yet you call her a whore

I don't understand why it's okay
The guy can get away with it, the girl gets named
All my ladies come together and make a change
And start a new beginning for us, everybody sing
..........

Check it
Here's something I just can't understand
If a guy have three girls then he's the man
He can even give us some head and sex her raw
If the girl do the same, then she's a whore

But the table's about to turn
I'll bet my fame on it
Cats take my ideas and put they name on it
It's aight though, you can't hold me down
I got to keep on moving

To all my girls with a man who be trying to mack
Do it right back to him and let that be that
You need to let him know that his game is whack
And Lil' Kim and Christina Aguilera got your back

You're just a little boy
Think you're so cute so coy
You must talk so big
To make up for smaller things

Said you're just a little boy
All you do is annoy
You must talk so big
To make up for smaller things

Talking Post #5

PBS, People Like Us & CWCS; Social Inequality, A Feminist Issue?

"Class can be harder to spot than racial or ethnic differences, 

yet in many ways it's the most important predictor of what kind 

of financial and educational opportunities someone will have in life."

This quote I found on the People Like Us background really stood out to me throughout my reading. It is very deep and very true! 

     While on the PBS, People Like Us website, I started by just reading about everybody and checking out the short videos they had of everyone. The video I wanted to see most was of Tammy Crabtree who was Ginny in the stories section, but they didn't have a short film about him. Tammy lives in a trailer with 4 teenage kids. Every day she has to walk 10 miles to and from Burger King where she works. She has a 16-year old son that hates being seeing around her because of what others say. He wants to become a lawyer when he grows up but he knows of the things that will be in the way of him getting that.

     The next person I read about was Dana Felty's "Don't Get Above Your Raisin." The phrase "Getting Above Your Raisin" means wanting to change your social class. Dana is a young woman who moves to DC from Kentucky to become a journalist but she has to deal with the thought that her family and everyone in her small hometown thinks she's rejecting her roots. Even though she probably just wants better for herself. 
     Another person I read about was Ginie Sayles, a woman who after dealing with life being poor marries a millionaire. She then comes to writing books about how to deal with rich people and marrying rich people. She goes across the country teaching lessons to young women about these such matters as well.
    Reading these stories made me think about how economic inequality is a feminist issue. All these women are dealing with different social classes. Social class has a grand effect on women. Ginie was once poor and now by marriage, she's rich, had it not been for her husband she probably wouldn't be as successful as she is now because she wouldn't have been able to write books about marrying rich people or dealing with rich people because she wouldn't have had that experience. Dana has to deal with people saying she's rejecting her roots because she's trying to moving to DC to better herself, can we say that had she been a male, "he" probably would've been praised for doing the same thing? Maybe they could've even said that he's trying to bring his small hometown to the top in a way? We won't know but we can't dismiss it. Tammy was the female dealing with the hardest time. You don't make much of an income at Burger King as is, now having to deal with that income with 4 teenage kids makes it 100 times harder. On top of that, a son who doesn't want to be seen around her and wants to be a lawyer, which is the 17th most high paying job according to AskMen.com (SMH AT THE WEBSITE NAME, THEIR SLOGAN BTW IS "BECOME A BETTER MAN", BUT WE WON'T GET TO THAT). Economic inequality is definitely a feminist issue. 


     Next I checked out CWCS, the Center for Working Class Studies, and I won't lie I was a little lost, I didn't know where to start. So I started by reading their Why & How and the first paragraph basically summed up to me the entire website: 

"Even as traditional blue-collar jobs seem to be disappearing, 
the working class remains a vital part of America's culture and economy.  
It includes everyone from an autoworker to the waitress who serves you lunch.  
Yet the experiences and views of working-class people are often ignored.  
At the Center for Wroking-Class Studies (CWCS), 
we challenge myths about the working class, 
sponsor arts and education projects that honor workers, 
and engage local, national, and international communities in 
conversations that take working-class experience and concerns seriously."

I then decided to check out other links on their websites. I went to their resources and went to links and found a Social Inequality and Classes Section. When I got their I found a couple of websites labeled inequalities and found  Forbes 400 Richest People in America.  I found it interesting so I decided to check it out. After going through the first 100 people, something became apparent, not too many women are on this list. I went through 100 people and there were only 5 girls on the list. Out of the 5 girls, 1 was famous for Walmart,along with her family, 1 was famous for candy, another was famous because of media,  1 because of Fidelity, and the last one was famous because of pipelines. It's interesting because when I looked at the mens reasons for becoming rich, it was stuff like investments, CEO's of big companies, casinos, construction of other big "manly" things. It's funny that most of these women were rich off of stores, food and media, other then the Walmart girl. It's funny because even though they were BILLIONAIRES, they were still rich for being "women." I hope what you get what I'm saying lol. Either way, economic inequality is an feminist issue here as well even when the people are of a higher social class. 

I found this video of rapper Tupac Shakur talking about social inequality and I thought it was extremely interesting! I loved seeing him, someone who meant so much to the African American culture speaking about something so important and meaningful: PLEASE WATCH THE WHOLE THING!! 

 

This song was really deep because Tupac addresses race and social class and goes very much with the video above, even though the song came out way after.. Tupac- Changes

 
"We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive."

Point for Class: 

When I read Ginie Sayles' story I was like damn it's very golddigger-ish of her, then I stepped back and thought twice about what she's doing. She's taking the situation she was handed, whether or not she's truly in love with this millionaire or not, and writing about it to make her own income out of it. One could say she's doing her own thing and making money for herself. But she wouldn't have the perspective that she has  now if she didn't marry this man. So is it gold digging? Would this situation had been different if she wasn't born poor and she came from a upper class family and she was writing this book?

Talking Post #4

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence: Adrienne Rich

ARGUMENT

So, I won't lie Professor Bogad scared the crap out of me in class when she told us that this reading was extremely hard, so I did exactly what she suggested. I read some summaries online and got a better idea of what was to come before I actually started doing the reading, so it wasn't really that bad!

Adrienne Rich's main arguments are that women are afraid to be who they truly are because of society; compulsory heterosexuality is the idea that women are supposed to be heterosexual without a preference just because they are a woman. The other main argument she had was about lesbian existence.

Compulsory heterosexuality is when men command and force women's sexuality. "..women have been convinced that marriage and sexual orientation toward men are inevitable- even if unsatisfying or oppressive- components of their lives (p. 86)." When women resisted compulsory heterosexuality, things like rape, prostitution, pornography and genital mutilation occurs. Rich feels like women shouldn't have to depend on men as any type of support. She has a framework that she got from Kathleen Gough's 8 characteristics of male power in societies that include the power of men:

1. to deny women sexuality: ex. removal of the clitoris like FGM

2. or to force it upon them: ex. rape or wife beating

3. to command or exploit their labor to control their produce: ex. pimping

4. to control or rob them of their children: ex. legal kidnapping

5. to confine them physically and prevent their movement: ex. keeping them confined in the home

6. to use them as objects in male transactions: pimping or arranged marriage

7. to cramp their creativeness: ex. not allowing them to be creative

8. to withhold from them large areas of the society's knowledge and cultural attainments: ex. pretty self explanatory

Because of compulsory heterosexuality, women allow sexual harassment in the workplace because they feel that's the only way they can get a job and keep a job regardless of the job description (p. 86). In the workplace, a woman can be a closeted lesbian and it's okay as long as she can play and dress the part of a heterosexual woman. Which brings up Rich's next main argument. She argues about lesbian existence or lack thereof because lesbianism is socially unacceptable because all the proof from historical lesbian experiences were destroyed. Rich wants to expand lesbianism to an experience that brings women together because it is something that we can only experience with one another. The next quote she got from the poet H.D. which I felt sums up the experience women share: 

"I know that this experience, this writing-on-the-wall

before me, could not be shared with anyone expect the

firl who stood so bravely there beside me. This girl said

without hesitation, "Go on." It was she really who had

the detachment and integrity of the Pythoness of Delphi.

But it was I, battered and dissociated. . . who was seeing

the pictures, and who was reading the writing or

granted the inner vision. Or perhaps, in some sense, we

were "seeing" it together, for without her, admittedly, I

could not have gone on."

Throughtout history, lesbians were thought of female versions of male homosexuality, but Rich said if you are to compare lesbian existence to male homosexulaity would be to completely ignore the existence of lesbians. 

The last of Rich's argument was about lesbian continuum, that we are all in this continuum whether we are or arent lesbian, "-from the infant suckling at his mother's breast, to the grown woman experiencing orgasmin sensations while suckling her own child, perhaps recalling her mother's milk smell in her own, to two women, like Virginia Woolf's Chloe and Olivia, who share a laboratory, to the woman dying at ninety, touched and handled by women (p. 91)."

Sexual harrassment - A funny video I found about sexual harrassment

Comment for class: 

"I do not assume that mothering by women is a "sufficient cause" of lesbian existence. But the issue of mothering by women has been much in the air of late, usually accompanied by the view that increased parenting by men would minimize antagonism between the sexes and equalize the sexual imbalance of power and males over females." 

I wanted to discuss this in class with everyone whether or not people agreed about this. Would parenting by mean really decrease the hostility between men and women later on in life, or is it something that you need a balance from both parents to achieve. Or can just the parenting from a mother be enough to find the balance of power between both sexes?

Talking Post #3

Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

HYPERLINKS

According to Wikipedia, gender neutrality "describes the idea that language and other social institutions should avoid distinguishing people by their gender, in order to avoid discrimination arising from the impression that there are social roles for which one gender is more suited than the other."

Peggy Orenstein argues that our society has used toys as a way to separate girls and boys and in a way teach them gender roles and she also discusses the impact that Barbie dolls and other toys for girls have on body image for these young girls and the message that it is sending out to them.

Orenstein's main arguement was how gender roles is so deeply enforced in children toys, lifestyles and just about anything. A girl can be praised by telling her "You look so pretty, you look beautiful." while we tell a boy "you're so smart." It's as if we are telling the young girls that appearance is what is most important. At a young age, kids develop gender roles because it's all around them since they're born; girls have pink rooms filled with dolls, pretend homes and are generally clean while a boy's room is blue filled with cars, video games, sports paraphernalia and is usually messy. This video is an interview with 4 kids where they are asked questions like who cleans the house, who takes care of the baby and who works. The kids said that the mom cleans and takes care of the children while the dad works, the whole breadwinner idea is already implanted into their heads at such a young age because that is what they see at home and in the media. Orenstein argues that the stories that children read promotes that man are supposed to take care of you while you stay at home and be a "princess" which is wrong because Orenstein doesn't want the girls to depend on anyone. 

   

Orenstein then goes on to talk about her experience at the Toy Fair when she went to the Fisher- Price showroom where she seen first hand how divided the toys were, the girls section was decorated with a banner saying "BEAUTIFUL, PRETTY, COLORFUL" while the boy's section had a banner saying "ENERGY, HEROES, POWER." It encourages boys to create things while girl toys do doll's hair, style dolls, bake, and play with doll babies. This video goes over ads on tv for children's toys and how "gender role-ized" it is (I know that's not a word, lol just sounded right). The video like Orenstein talks about how toys tell kids the different roles that boys and girls have to fulfill.

     

Another one of Orenstein's arguement was that Barbie and the Disney princesses give young girls the impression that they need to be perfect and when they are perfect their lives will be perfect. 

  

In this video the narrator discusses how Barbie was always a very sexy doll how she was unrealistic. With so many young girls looking up to Barbie, how could you have something that isn't even possible. Orenstein doesn't deny that Barbie does connect parents to their children because it was something that was passed down from generation to generation. But then parents introduced Barbies to their kids before they reached the demographic age required for a Barbie. Orenstein talks about the Princesses also and how they send out a message to girls to be perfect which adds alot of pressure to young girls. The plot line of the princesses and how they're all beautiful and they find their perfect man and live happily ever after is something Orenstein wants to protect her daughter from.

Check this video out of subliminals in Disney movies, this particular one about Beauty and the Beast. 

Comment for class:

What I wanted to talk about in class is about Disney movies like the one I posted a video about. I read that alot of Disney movies do this where there insert the word sex into random locations of the movie or they have little dirty moments like in the Little Mermaid when she was getting married and the priest had a boner! Disney movies are what we all grew up watching and it'll probably be something passed to the next generation whether it be our kids or grandkids. But if there are all these little subliminals, it is something we'd watch our future kids to watch? Or even now, would we want our brothers and sisters watching it?

Talking post #2

Gloria Anzaldua: La conciencia de la mestiza: 
                                    Towards a New Consciousness 
REFLECTION


 It was a good read. She spent a lot of time talking about just getting together with everyone and to "transfer ideas and information from one culture to another." Overall what I got from this reading is that in order to create change we must change first.


Some parts of the reading really hit home; I am a woman born in a different country coming to America at a very young age finding it extremely hard to fit in. I was stuck being Cape Verdean in America. Just like la mestiza, we were both stuck and basically torn in between the two. At home, my grandparents would take care of all the kids before and after school and speak to us in our dialect of creole and she would expect us to speak back to her in the same dialect, but in school I was placed in ESL and taught how to speak english. I was so confused on which side to be on.
The Cape Verdean culture has very strict gender roles, which are basically set in stone, there isn't really a way of changing the "rules." At a young age, women are taught to cook, clean and become the best woman they can be for their future husbands. "For men like my father, being "macho" meant being strong enough to protect and support my mother and us, yet being able to show love." It's crazy how similar this is to our culture. While women are taught to be "women," men are taught to be "men." They hang out with their fathers all day whether it is learning to have the ultimate vegetable garden to have all the things women need to cook, going to work with them, or playing soccer which is the main sport in Cape Verde. 
 When I first came to America, I always felt like I had to choose between being American or being Cape Verdean and I realized as did la mestiza that you don't have to let go off your culture but just understand and accept your surroundings. It might not be easy but it can be done if you're open. It was hard for la mestiza and it will be hard for anyone but you just have to be willing to accept it all.




POINT FOR CLASS
I thought it was extremely interesting how in Johnson's reading it was helping us open our eyes to white privilege: accepting it and trying to take the right steps to become part of the solution while in Anzaldua's reading it was saying that we, as minorities, have to stop waiting for everyone else to make a change. "We need to allow whites to be our allies." It sounds so good and it should be easy, but is it possible? 

LINK

"They'd like to think I have melted in the pot. but I haven't, we haven't" -This quote made me remember this video I seen in another one of my classes about how language brings generations together.

Speaking In Tongues Short Film

Racism videos

On my first post I had put a link called Racism In The Elevator and the dude in it has a few videos about racism in different locations, so I decided to post up a couple more from his youtube page! Hope y'all enjoy it! ^_^ 


P.S. It's okay to laugh, I laughed too...


"911 emergency, I'd like to report a stolen car"


"It's not black to be in a suit, or to be well-spoken"

Talking Point #1

Privilege, Power and Difference- Allan G. Johnson 

QUOTES.

"But all these indignities that my whiteness protects me from are part of her everyday existence. And it doesn't matter how she dresses or behaves or that she's an executive in a larger corporation. Her being black and the realtors' and bankers' and clerks' being white in a racist society is all it takes."

This quote in the reading was very deep to me. It's so true everything he says because she will always be in a lose lose situation. She could come in a suit to a store or any location and just because the color of her skin, she will be followed around and asked if she can be "helped" throughout her entire time there. Johnson states in the beginning of the reading that trouble in race is an issue of difference in our society. This african american women who happens to be a coworker of his has so many disadvantages when it comes to being a woman and an african american one at that. Unlike him, race and gender play  a huge role in her life that she can't control.

"An adolescent boy who appears too willing to defer to his mother risks being called a "mama's boy" in the same way that a husband who appears in any way subordinate to his wife is often labeled "henpecked" ... The counterpart for girls carries no such stigma. "Daddy's girl" isn't considered an insult in this culture, and.. contains no specific insulting terms for a wife who is under the control of her husband."

Soooo, I think I smell a double standard. Johnson uses this example to describe another form of privilege called conferred dominance according to McIntosh. Conferred dominance is when one group has power over the other group. In this case, it's the men having more power then the women. WHICH I find ridiculous, so basically I felt like it was saying that women can't be in control of their husbands without men feeling some type of way but it's cool when men are in control and women aren't insulted by it. Anyways  .. Johnson states that in culture it's acceptable when women are under control of their husbands.

"It's relatively easy for people to be unaware of how privilege affects them."

Sometimes people are blinded by something that is right in front of their faces. They don't see something that is so obvious because they don't realize how much it pertains to their lives because that privilege has been attached to them for as long as they been on this very earth. Johnson goes on to say that he can be just as talented, aspired and motivated as the next person, but because he is a white , male, heterosexual, middle-class professional , he is more likely to get praised for awarded for it. It's not like he uses  it to his advantage, but the next person isn't awarded and praised, because their race, gender, social class and other categories don't fit all together like his. 

MCFN's Intuition For Thought: Comment/ Point to Share

"We look to other people to tell us that we measure up, that we matter, that we're okay"

The way this society has become, we turn to others' opinions and society's opinion about what's acceptable and not acceptable, cool and not cool. This quote can be read by anyone and it would make them think. We have to be leaders instead of followers always going to other people. And this goes back to the conferred dominance with women always going to their significant others to see if what they're doing is okay. 


"Stupid white b*tch"

MCFN.

My name is Merylda N. Over break I just relaxed and hung out with family and friends preparing myself for the tough semester I have coming up in the Spring. I'm taking this class to fulfill my 120 credits I need to graduate. When I'm not in class, I watch movies, read books, use my phone and write. 

Feminist