holidays

Thanksgivng and holidays in general are one of those times where gender stereotypes seem to be extra-super heavily reinforced. Every movie, commercial, story, song and tradition seems to have the underlying message that the women should cook, clean, take care of the kids, and if dad isn't home-its simply not going to be the 'same'-implying it wont be as fun, important, or memorable. based on commercials we can imply that all men/dads are loyal, young, white and crave golf clubs, power tools or razors. whereas women are all loving, skinny, perfectly dressed, generally cooking/cleaning/putting the kids to bed and reallllly want diamonds, clothing, or a lexus with a red bow. its the man's obligation to dazzle the woman with glitz and glamour, whereas the man wants a sensible gift thats worth the hefty pricetag. Although marketing towards adults is annoying and repetitive, i hope that most of us are sensible to base our gifts and choices on indivuals instead of commercials-however, the marketing towards kids with relation to gender is a little scary. I have a 2 yr old nephew and shopping for him makes it blatantly obvious gender stereotypes are in little kids toys and clothes. There aren't really any gender neutral products. For example before we knew the sex of my nephew we tried shopping just for baby clothes in general and found that it was nearly impossible because every article of clothing seemed to have some implied gender. I have also found that this applies to toys. With the exception of some musical instruments or stuffed animals everything seems to be marketed specifically to boys or girls. Id like to think that we're getting more progressive and becoming more aware that boys do liek to play with dolls and girls do like action figures and dinosaurs, but a simple stroll through target proves that most people are still stuck in the boy/girl distinct differences. This seems small, but it shapes the way kids play and therefore has huge impacts on what they learn about their world and themselves. Overall i think its really frustrating that we're still so wholly stuck in and williningly buy into gender stereotypes that are so ghastly exagerated yet widely accepted.

oppression

I thoght our inclass discussion on oppression last tuesday was very interesting, especially becuase it was somewhat complicated for us to come up with a definition of a word that we're all pretty familiar with. i find this happens a lot with words that we throw around loosely and think we know the meanings of until we actually sit down and begin to pick it apart. The definition we came up with was broad and complex, but seemed to revolve around the notion of one group taking away or limiting another groups agency, independence, freedoms and opportunities. We said the oppression was generally legitimized at a structural level, but subsequently reinforced down throughout the social pyramid at many levels. Our group kicked around the idea of a housewife being oppressed by her overly controlling husband who took away all her freedoms and agency-is this oppression or abuse? We seemed to agree that this was isolated abuse becuase the injustice wasnt being reinforced on a larger scale-not ALL husbands take away their wives independence or freedoms. This narrowed our definition in that oppression pertains to an inherent quality-such as race. But then we also brought up the issue of poverty and innercity schools. If children in those schools don't have good tests grades, simply because they were'nt given the OPPORTUNITY to get good grades, then they won't make the grade for colleges-hence affirmatie action. we also talked about that when those students who didnt necessarily have good grades in bad highschools went to good colleges,. they excelled just as well as students who got good grades in highschools. so affirmative action in a sense tries to combat the oppression by creating quotas. But is it oppression really? granted kids don't have the same opportunities, but is it  oppression because its based on socioeconomic status and location instead of a matter of identity? or is the definition of oppression based more on the structural component-which means that this is a perfect example of oppression ebcause the system limits and inhibits their opportunities.

women in war

I thought today's presentation on women in war was really interesting. I've been fascinated by this subject ever since reading the book called S., which colleen talked about. It details the stories of women in rape camps in the balkans. I forget the exact details but i know that i read the book last year for a class and it has haunted me ever since. The notion of raping women to ruin a culture and kill a blood line i think is absolutely disgusting and yet chillingly effective. The scars of rape are unrepairable and last a lifetime, both for victim and perpetrator. Like we said in class i dont beleive that rape is the result of some 'biological drive'-i think thats a bullshit excuse for men to stand behind and blame their genes instead of their own lack of control or desire for power. Like we also said in class i think rape is one of the most blatant displays of power that humans can exert. Yes physical violence shows a power dynamic, but rape takes it one step farther. The other article that we read about the villagers who were mass raped was extremely disturbing on many levels. it was disturbing not only because of the pure hell that the villagers were put through at the time, but also the side affects that are still being felt today. For example the numerous women in the same family who were all raped but refused to confide in each other and instead were forced to suffer in silence at the risk of being completely ostracized and isolated. Its no wonder that they cannot speak out when the one women's own husband said that if she had been raped he simply would not 'keep' her. This explicity implies that she is HIS property and would be cast aside like trash should she be tainted. This not only destroys her self-worth but it also places the blame on her. she is being punished for being raped. Like amidia said rape is the only crime in which the victim is prosecuted. i think thats horribly sad yet undeniably true. it also is shown in the article about sexual assualt in the military that we read. women are ashamed/afraid to report assaults because they first of all may not be beleived, and if they are, stand to lose the ranking that they've worked so hard for. not only that but what's the point of reporting something when chances are the perp. will simply get a slap on the wrist? its simply not worth the hell of reporting it. I think that is one of the biggest problems with the military. They see themselves as the most powerful force on earth and therefore do not subjugate themselves to societal/moral norms. They seem to have the mentality that if 'were out here risking our lives and defending our country, we get a few get out of jail free cards when we get a little rowdy with the natives or our female soldiers.' i came across this same problem last year when looking at the issue of UN troops raping girls in cambodia. the charges were swept under the rug or ignored all together simply because the assailants were UN peacekeeping troops. whether it was to protect the UN reputation, the UN mission in cambodia, or the soldiers themselves, this behavior is still unacceptable. How can we ever gain the trust and respect of those we 'protect' when we cannot even protect  them from ourselves? Overall the whole system of coming forward with charges of rape being seen as a 'weakness' or something to keep to yourself is disgusting. I think thats also one of the main factors behind women in the military hiding their sexual assualts. If they come forward and say they were assaulted that totally contradicts their whole image of being a tough military women. 'obviously she's not as tough as the male soldiers because they can still dominate her'. i think thats also a reason why men in the military dont come forward. im sure there is unrecorded abuse simply because being abused is a sign of weakness. we blame the victim for not defending themselves instead of holding the perp. accountable which is 100% backwards and probably contributing to the problem itself.

human trafficking

So in doing our project, i obviously learned a lot about human trafficking but the presentation brought up some good questions that i hadn't really thought about on my own. The legalization of prostitution was not something that i considered that much because i didn't take it that seriously. Why would legalizing prostituion help in anyway with human trafficking? However numerous people in the class made good arguments- if it was legalized we could regulate it more strictly-define age limits, prices, who gets the money, mandatory health check-ups--things that would benefit the girls not their pimps. We could also tax it heavily and stand to make quite a killing of legal money instead of blackmarket underground money in the hands of 'bad' people. In an ideal world i think this would be the obvious solution. Clearly there is already a market for prostitutes so why not bring it into the open and regulate the hell out of it to hopefully improve standards for the girls and their customers? However, we do not live in an ideal world and i don't really think this is a viable solution. The only point that i really agree with about legalizing it would be that because its illegal we write it off all together, and if it were to be legalized maybe we could address issues of age and who gets paid what. In developed countries i think possibly that might work. however, we focused on trafficking being an issue in eastern europe and asia. In those countries i think its pretty ridiculous to assume that legalizing prostitution would help only because legalizing it requires subsequent regulations. Who in those countries would enforce those regulations? If they are already in such dire situations where selling your own children is a viable means of income, clearly there is not a reliable enough structure in place to ensure such regulations. If a structure like that was already in place, simply cracking down on trafficking would probably be easier. Also i dont think tihs would address the issue of forced prostitution or children at all because traffickers and brothel owners already have means of faking ages and coercing women to stay. Overall i think legalizing prostitution in a developed country might not be such a bad idea, but in developing countries i think it would simply fuel the problem of sex trafficking

For me one of the most intriguing concepts so far this semester has been the idea of language. I guess becuase its something that i take it for granted so whole-heartedly and never think about how powerful it is. This year however i'm taking communication classes and this class which have really drilled the concept home. My comm classes have made me realize how much of a powerful and dangerous tool it can be, whereas this class has made me realize how fully gendered it is. I had an interesting experience with this when I went home for fall break. I have a 22 yr old brother who is autistic and very high functioning in some aspects but extremely delayed in others. He was staying with a 'babysitter' over night and when my mother and I went to pick him up the next day we ran into the issue of is Jacob a 'boy' or a 'man'? Since i have been away for most of the past years i havent really heard this happen but apparently my mom refuses to call him a man because she says it eliminates many of the other aspects associated with being a man. For instance, Jacob always says hes going to 'be a man and be a doctor' or 'be a man and drink beer' 'be a man and drive the schoolbus'. Obviously he will never be able to do any of these things, so to eliminate these options my mom says, 'you're not a man you're a boy'. However, when Jacob went to the babysitter, they have a 9 yr old son, so by comparison when Jake would say that he was a 'boy' the babysitter said 'no you're 22, you're a man'. This obviously made his world spin the wrong direction, but also brought up what we discussed in class. What separates the 'boys' from the 'men'? In my mom's mind, manhood clearly constitutes some level of career, education, or maybe the ability to be independent? Whereas in the mind of the babysitter, Jake is a man simply because he is 22. At first i was a bit taken aback by how harsh it seemed for my mom to call jake a boy, since he is 22, but i do get where she is coming from. Its easier to explain to jake that, no you cant drive the bus or drink beer or get married because youre a boy and boys dont do that. But why can't boys do that? Again whats the difference between boys and men? Age, intelligence, salary, size, strength? I don't have the answers but it still seemed degrading for her to call him a boy. I don't think she meant it as an insult, but thats how it sounded on the outside. However when he was younger it didn't seem mean at all to respond to his questions of why he couldnt drink beer or drive the car by telling him that he was too young, or only men do that. After all if she does call him a man, then whats the reason behind his not being able to do all the things other 'men' do. Should we just say, youre not a man youre jake? or you have to go to a special school for that? I mean it brings up very touchy subjects that obviously have to be handled on a personal level but i just thought it was very interesting that she could eliminate a whole range of possibilities just by calling him a boy and not a man.

Well, with this past weekend being halloween, there were obviously many gender stereotypes at play. First of all, for many girls halloween is a contest for who can look the 'sexiest' generally this is acheived by lack of clothing. Now some may thoroughly enjoy this opportunity to go outside of their normal comfort range and rock something skanky, which is completely fine. I think the sad part is girls who felt pressured to dress slutty simply because it was halloween. I know a lot of girls who weren't at all comfortable with what they wore and got overly drunk to compensate for how awkward they felt. Obviously not a good combination, but it is an understandable response to the situation. Not saying these girls are stupid or slutty and not putting them down in anyway, i think its more sad that halloween has become a competition for 'sexiness' and lost some of the creativity that it used to have. On the same hand though, i think halloween is awesome for those girls who don't usually express that side of themselves and enjoy the opportunity to break the norm. Although some girls did seem to cater to the male desire for sexy halloween costumes, there was also a suprisingly high number of girls in funny and fully clothed costumes. For me, these girls stuck out as the confident and secure girls, not to mention warm.

Well the last few classes have kind of been all-over the place, bringing the concepts that we learned about toegether and connecting all the loose strings. Some of the things that I found to be the most interesting were 1. sociologically speaking married men are the happiest and married women are the unhappiest. This again completely contradicts what society pushes on us-based on stereotypes and 'norms' you would think that all married women are happy because they have a 'protector' and someone to look after, whereas men would be unhappy with their 'ball and chain' lifestyle. This statistic alone shows how completely unreal media portrayals are. This class combined with my message analysis and mass media class have all worked really well together to make me absolutely disgusted with the media, hah i mean all they show us are unrealistic portrayals of the 'ideal' in an attempt to make us so insecure with who we are that we base our sense of worth on materialistic things. Without the media's influence I think gender issues would be much less prevalent-especially in younger generations. I mean in everyday life i doubt kids would learn even a quarter of what they learn about gender stereotypes in a 1/2 hr of disney channel tv. the notions are so ingrained that children learn and practice them without question. Like "what a girl wants' showed, these media messages are affecting kids at younger and younger ages. Since when is it ok for 10-12 yr olds to be worried about what they look like or godforbid feel pressured to have sex? I think that's absolutely sick and makes me terrified to ever have children, because like we said I don't think there's anyway to shelter them from that and its only getting worse. i know this is pretty unrealistic but i really wish more people would just start living their own lives and basing success or happiness on their own standards instead of constantly comparing themselves to people on tv or in magazines. Granted this is probably just my own personal experience but I know that without the media i wouldnt even know half of the gender stereotypes that are out there, just because they simply don't really exist. For example, i wouldn't feel pressured to be a size 2, becuase in realife girls that skinny generally look unhealthy. The roles of people in relationships is also dictacted by the media- relationships don't work the way they do on TV but where else do we learn how they work? Unless you have good personal role-models people base their standards on TV instead of navigating the world for themselves and figuring out how it actually works. I know i don't have any answers and am just reiderating what we discussed in class, but i just cant get over how much people base their lives on, and trust the media with things that are so wholly personal.