"In another study, three weeks of Saturday morning toy commercials were analyzed. Results found that:
50% of the commercials aimed at girls spoke about physical attractiveness, while none of the commercials aimed at boys referenced appearance.
Boys acted aggressively in 50% of the commercials aimed at them, while none of the girls behaved aggressively.
With regard to work roles, no boys had unpaid labor roles, and girls were mainly shown in traditional female jobs or roles of unpaid labor (Sobieraj, 1996). "

I found these statistics at: http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_mediaeffect.shtml.

I just posted these statistics, though the article had many interesting facts, so I would suggest looking at it, because it related to the research project I was doing. It was interesting to me because it soley deals with saturday morning cartoons, so the advertisements are targeted towards younger children. It is crazy how early these gender stereotypes and roles start! Who are making these? Are they thinking about their sons/daughters while they are? I guess it benefits them in some way, but still, I think it is crazy. I also do not know how they are showing little girls in domestic roles. Oh wait, I as I was writing that I remembered the presentation with the girl commercial where she was singing about how she loved to bake and do laundry. I think that I will definately be more aware of these things from now on (and I already am...my friends are always dealing with me pointing out these things to them...i.e. at our physics officer elections the only people nominated for secretary were females...and I pointed it out to a few ppl.).

Double Standards

So I was eating dinner today when the subject of mariah carey's new song 'touch my body' came up. I had never heard it, but my friends were saying that it was fairly disturbing. I went and looked up the lyrics they were talking about and was struck by the chorus:

"Cause if you run your mouth and brag
About this secret rendezvous
I will hunt you down"

It's mainly that, I will hunt you down part that struck me. The premise of the song is mariah singing to an unmentioned man about how he needs to touch her body (hence the name of the song) and how. It is very demanding, and, as shown above, she threatens that if he talks about their encounter, she will hunt him down. This part of the song is audibly very clear. It just made me think about what the reaction to this song would be if it were a man singing it. I think it would be a really negative reaction and it would be related to rape. I mean, if some man was demanding to be touched and threatening the girl to not talk about it, people would be really mad. This is a double standard. I think people are not upset or offended about it because people don't often think of rape in the context of the female doing the forcing. Is this because of the antiquated view of women being weak and subservient? I would definitely argue that that view is outdated (just look at the lyrics to this, or practically any other, popular female song). This just circles back in my mind to this 'invisible war against boys.' It would be so hard for a male to come out and say that he has been raped because it would threaten his masculinity, and who knows how his friends would treat him.

A lot of this class, and my blogs, are about this war against boys. I think that this is because I went into this class expecting to focus on girls/femininity. I guess when I thought of gender, I thought of women. That circles back to the whole idea that when you are in the majority, you are not associated with the title (i.e. when you think of race, you think black/African American, sexual orientation you think homosexual, etc). I had never really considered the male gender and any sort of pressure they felt.

PS--I have nothing against this song--just sparked some thoughts for me

Our Racist, Sexist Selves

This article talks about how ingrained some racist/sexist attitudes are in us. He claims that we can be more sexist than racist (categorize somebody's gender before race and athletes-remembering jersey/team association and gender more so than race). He talks a lot about how if we meet somebody who does not fit a stereotype to their demographic, we just file them as 'the exception.' If we meet and are exposed to a lot of a minority in "higher" positions (professors, doctors, etc) we think of them as an anomaly. People exposed to a higher number of female professors tend to have less gender stereotypes. I would imagine the same would go for being exposed to more African Americans. I think if you don't know many you are more apt to listen to stereotypes and buy into media representations. If you are friends with or know many, you will see that not everybody fits the stereotypes; you are more likely to see people as individual people. This relates to our discussion on oppression; you know that you are not the one being oppressed if you do not have to always speak for your entire minority.

honor killings/fgm

I feel so lucky to have a supportive family. This was my overriding thought during Sammar's presentation. I was horrified to actually read the accounts of the honor killings. They were so brutal, and many of them involved young children, either as victims or spectators. I cannot imagine living in fear of my own father or brother hurting or killing me because I had a boyfriend they did not approve of or they thought I was flirting with somebody inappropriately. I also cannot imagine how a parent can kill their own child so brutally. It must be so ingrained in them at young ages; it is brainwashing. In the families that do this it is clear that the women are treated like second class family members. Males can have affairs or pre-marital sex, but women are killed if they are, or even if they are suspected to have had sex outside of marriage. They would even kill females if they were raped--that is crazy; nobody goes out with the intent of getting raped, and it is not the victims fault. Women in those lives must feel so contrained by a lack of choice; they cannot choose their husband or speak their mind. They also have to teach their daughters to be this way too for fear they will be pariahs and not supported if not.

The same thing goes for fgm. I was so upset when we were hearing what that actually is in class. I had heard about them before, but never in that much detail or hearing about the consequences. I don't know how anybody would find that to be a good idea. The most upseting part is that it is females doing this to other females. I was shocked when that lady that said it had to be done to dissipate any sexual desire, because she was a woman in support of woman mutilation. It upsets me so much. I also don't really see why the males in these societies would like this. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I feel like if I were a male and I wanted to have sex with a woman, it would not be as pleasurable if she had undergone genital mutilation. Also, if sex is so painful for the woman with fgm, I would imagine it would be hard to find a woman who was willing to have sex with you. Fgm also has negative effects in reproduction and fertility, so that makes it harder to procreate and give birth; one of the main points of sex. It just baffles me. It just seems like an embarrassment of sorts to the female.

Oppression and the Bird Cage

In this article by Marilyn Frye, she relates female oppression to a bird cage. One of her main points is the macroscopic picture. If you look really close at female oppression or at the bird cage, you might only see one bar in the woman's/bird's way, but if you step back and take in the whole picture, there is a whole cage.

She talks a lot about the double standards that woman have to live with. One of them, the most common one in my mind, is that she has to be sexually active, but not too much. I think that one is pretty easy to understand. One that really surprised me was the one about rape: "If a woman is raped, then if she has been heterosexually active she is subject to the presumption that she liked it (since her activity is presumed to show that she likes sex), and if she has not been heterosexually active, she is subject to the presumption that she liked it (since she is supposedly "repressed and frustrated")." I had never heard of any justification to rape of a woman who was not sexually active like this before. I have heard excuses for raping a sexually active woman similar to the one given in addition to blaming the girls outfit or flirting. I was just surpised to see that there was any sort of justification to raping someone who was not sexually active; if you were a virgin, who the hell would want their first time to be a rape?

One other thing that she talks about is the chivalry of men. The specific example she uses is a male holding a door open for a female no matter the amount of things he is holding vs. the amount she is. These same men, though, do not help with daily chores and dinner etc. The opening of the door is symbolic for men thinking that women are incapable: "The message of the false helpfulness of male gallantry is female dependence, the invisibility or insignificance of women, and contempt for women." To me, it is just holding the door. I do not expect it from any man, and after coming to Juniata, I see that people (males and females) hold doors open all of the time for others regardless of their sex. But I do agree that woman are often treated as incapable, and the man needs to save the day. I think some of this steams from a lot of chick flicks. If you look at them, most of the story lines involve the woman needing some sort of saving from the man. This perpetuates the myth, and I think some males see these and want to be that man for a woman they know. The prevalence of superhero movies also does not help.

Goldstein and War

For the analysis of are men more violent than women, I used Goldstein's chaper five about men and war. It was scary to read how so much of the upbringing of boys is to prepare them for war. It reminded me of that 'tough guise' movie we watched and how this upbringing can be so detrimental to males. Males are told to suppress their emotions and distance themselves from feeling. This is to help them in a war situation where they have to be killing the enemy men; distancing themselves from them makes it easier to justify it to themselves. Males are taught to idolize Rambo and other military figures. The video games and shows targeted towards boys are violent (the Transformers show averages an attempted murder ever 30seconds). Boys are put in a 'gender straightjacket' Boys are teased if they do not fit the stereotype and they feel shame if they show feeling. It is sick that all of this suppression of emotion is for war. This shut down of emotion also, according to Goldstein, contributes to violence against women.

This article just proved even more to me that boys have just as small as a box as girls do. I did not really realize that previously. It connects to everything we've been talking about in class with the whole tough exterior and unsure on the inside.

Sex, Women, and the Media

Inspired by today's presentation, I found this very interesting article:
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_sex.cfm

"The pressure put on women through ads, television, film and new media to be sexually attractive—and sexually active—is profound. " The article explores how sex is so apparent in the media. She argues that all of this sex in the media makes sex more trivial and uniform. "We are offered a pseudo-sexuality that makes it far more difficult to discover our own unique and authentic sexuality." The article talks about how women are objectified in advertisements and children's media outlits. Women in video games/cartoons: 38% wearing sparse clothes, 23% showing cleavage, 31% showing thighs, 31% exposing midriffs, and 15% showing their butts. Women in t.v. shows are less often shown at work, and most often their story lines revolve around relationships and talking about men. The article also talks about how some advertisements show women saying no, but clearly meaning yes.

I thought this related a lot to what we've been discussing in class.

Aggression and Females in the Media

Prior to this presentation I did not think a large amount about the rise of female aggression. I had heard of this new 'phenomenon' but I did not give it much thought. I thought it was interesting that female aggression was okay as long as it was for male enjoyment and nobody was really getting hurt (i.e. the advertisement for ky wrestling and the WWE match). Female aggression was just for entertainment. Now, though, more girls in school are becoming aggressors and people are starting to pay attention to female aggression in more than in just an entertainment manner. I think it is ridiculous to treat female and male aggression differently. To me, aggression is aggression, and it probably feels similar for everybody. They encourage males to play sports while they have 'friend circles' or group meetings for girls. If I were still in high school, and was feeling a lot of frustration and needed to let out some aggression, I would much rather punch a punching bag or play a sport than sit around and talk. I don't think I am an aggressive person by nature, but being told to sit and talk rather than to work frustration out would make me angrier. The quote that Aly read from a female administrator made me mad too. It was about how girls need to be taught that being aggressive is not natural for them and that is not how they work things out. That's perpetuating gender stereotypes. While I think the need for aggression to be looked at is imperative, exemplified by the beating of a fellow classmate to get famous, I believe that similar actions should be taken for boys and girls. Teaching all students about how to handle their aggression and giving them positive outlits makes the most sense to me. This may even relieve some violence in schools. I thought this presentation was interesting, and that it really related back to some of our original discussions of nature vs. nuture. Are females innately aggressive like men, or is it learned? What I got out of it was that women are aggressive, but they are socialized to handle it differently. They are taught (not necessarily formally) growing up how to handle themselves in a conflict with a boy or with a girl. The trailor from Mean Girls said it all (about handling female aggression at least), when they showed Lindsay Lohan's character saying like "i knew how this would be handled in the animal world, but this was girl world, where everything had to be handled differently...more subtle" you have to know how to play the game to survive in girl world.

"five sexes" by Anne Fausto-Sterling

This article is a basic summary of intersexuals.

The author argues that there are five main sexes: the traditional male and female, hermaphrodites (one testis and one ovary), the male pseudohermaphrodites (testes and some aspects of the female genitalia but no ovaries), and the female pseudohermaphrodites (ovaries and some aspects of the male genitalia but lack testes).

The main purposes of this article is to point out how continually binary our Western society is. At birth most intersexuals go through surgery and hormonal management. This is to help alleviate future bullying of the child and awkward gym shower scenarios. This program that is meant to help these children actually helps perpetuate the binary sex world. Being told they have to be one or the other, or making the decision for them at a young age, gives the message that these children are biologically wrong; the only right way is being strictly female and strictly male.

We talked a lot in class about how many categories are polarized: sex being male or female, gender being male or female, and personality traits being masculine or feminine. Where would these intersexed individuals fall? What bathroom would they use? Would they be ridiculed for having both masculine and feminine traits? The article gives an example of the Jewish texts about hermaphrodites and the rules associated. They basically get treated poorly and are not able to claim any of the benefits associated with being male.

One other thing about this article that jumped out at me was an recap of an interview with an intersexed individual. S/he said that they were married to a man, had several girlfriends on the side. S/he often expressed wanting to be a man, but not wanting to give up the comfort of being a woman and being able to rely on her husband for food/money/etc. This just sort of upset me because rather than putting their happiness in marriage first they choose to perpetuate the male supporter stereotype.

Women/Peace and Men/Pacifism

Going back over this article a few things jumped out to me. The first of these being "The source of the problem lies not at the institutional level of analysis where decisions are made, but at the societal level where decisions are supported and implemented." This reminds me of the debate we had in class (stemming from the affirmative action discussion) about whether institutional changes or societal changes are better. I had argued that institutionally enforced changes (like Women's right to vote) can cause societal changes. This article is emphasizing the need of society to support the implemented changes from institutions (which I think, over time, they can, on the whole at least).

The other thing that struck me was in the discussion of women in goverment and how it would change how decisions are made. Gilman had said that if there were more women in government, the government would have a more caring attitude with a larger focus on education, etc). In that same paragraph Carroll argues that "more assertive or militant images of women need to be revived, in order for women to ocmpete with men in individualistic, aggressive, and competitive societal systems..." Both of these views, I think, affect women negatively. If you believe the first one, a woman in politics or higher up in institutions will probably not be taken as seriously because you wouldn't believe them to be as capable. If you believe the second one, it is devaluing some of the feminine characteristics. It is like we were discussing in class, how the traits you valued where the typically masculine traits. There needs to be a balance. All of these conflicting views gives me that much more respect for what Hilary Clinton is doing.

One thing in the men and pacifism section that I learned was that Leo Tolstoy was one of the three men to exemplify pacifism. Gandhi and MLK were apparant, but I didn't know that Tolstoy was a front leader of pacifism; I only associated him with Anna Karenina, but I'm sure if I read War and Peace it would convince me.

The article defines pacifism as "the principled rejection of physical force in resolution of conflict and of war." Relating this to the articles about the 'war against boys' and the box that boys are put into, it seems like it would be more difficult for a man to be a pacifist than a woman. Men are always taught that fighting is okay and emotions are not to be shown etc 9for more, see next post from Goldstein). This seems diametrically opposite to what pacifism promotes.

Disney/Minorities and the White Privelege Article

While doing research for our presentation/paper, I came across a great article relating Disney and racism and sexism. Since we've talked about the link so often in class, I thought I would blog about it.

The citation (from Proquest is): Seeing White: Children of Color and the Disney Fairy Tale Princess Dorothy L Hurley. The Journal of Negro Education. Washington: Summer 2005. Vol. 74, Iss. 3; pg. 221, 12 pgs.

The article examines six Disney movies: Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, and Aladdin. They examine these films because movies and other visual images teach children cultural lessons about themselves and others; in order to have a positive self-image from these, children need to be able to see themselves. There are not a lot of minorities in Disney movies, especially not any African American, or other darker skinned characters. Aladdin does take place in an Arab culture, but, the article argues, that they are still represented in a 'euro-american' way. Also, the movies does not show the Arab culture in the best light (i.e. the trouble in the market place and threatening to kill Jasmine for giving an apple to a child).

In all of the movies analyzed it was found that white was overwhelmingly used to symbolize good and beauty while black was used to signify evil and danger. There are so many specific examples from each movie, it would be hard to go into them all. An overriding example to all of the movies is how the good characters have something white associated with them (white birds, white outfit, skin as white as snow, white horses, white coach, etc). while the 'evil' characters have black associated (clothes, darker skin in comparison with the heroine, black birds/crows/eels, etc). They also argue that Ursula is depicted as black because of speech and movements (I have not seen this movie in years, so I don't really remember).

When I was reading this article, I was reminded of our discussion of oppression and privelege and the "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies" article. In the article, she has a long list of components of white privelege. After reading the Disney article, I would add "having positive role models in children's films that look like you." to her list. When I was growing up, and even now, Belle was always my favorite Disney character, one because she had brown hair like me, and two because she loved to read like I did (although when they show what Belle is reading, it was a romance story and very whimsical, but that's another story). The point is I liked Belle because I saw myself in her. If I was a child of color, who would I see myself in? I think that is one more invisible part of privelege and oppression. When children of color do not see themselves as princesses, they internalize that. In the Disney article I read, they refer to an experiment where they asked minority children to draw a princess, and they overwhelmingly drew a white girl with blonde hair. A quote from one of the children: "I drew her yellow [haired]...because...she was good, so I wanted to make her pretty." This is getting into internalized oppression.

Overall, this was a great article, and I encourage anybody reading this blog to look this article up.

Disney Men

Okay, so for our presentation we are doing gender stereotypes in Disney movies. Going into this project I really thought that we would be focusing on the female portrayal and femininity. Trying to find some you-tube videos, I stumbled across a video about masculinity in Disney movies, and I was really surprised about how blind I was to the box they put males in.

Here's the link (although I think we are showing it in our presentation): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CWMCt35oFY&feature=related

It is crazy the amount of muscles the Disney male protagonists (and even antagonists) have. Take Gasten for example. He is just ridiculously proportioned. How is any male going to live up to that (the muscles or eating five dozen eggs)? And he's supposed to be the most handsome man in town? If I were a villager in that town, I'd be terrified of him; he'd be able to overtake me in a second. All of the other males have similarly proportioned bodies: really wide shoulders, narrow hips, and very defined muscles. This reminds me of the 'tough guise' video we watched in class when they compared the growth of the GI Joe muscles. With that in mind, I thought back to the earlier Disney movies like the princes from Cinderella/Snow White/etc, and they were less muscled and large. I have also noticed that the males have taken on a more significant role in recent Disney movies. For example, in Snow White, the prince does not really have any character development; all he does is save Snow White. In more recent movies, like the Lion King, the male characters and the relationships between them (father-son, etc) are explored more.

Gender and Security

I thought that this discussion was pretty interesting. When I think of protection and security, I automatically think of men. I think a large part of that is due to the fact that my dad and several of my uncles are in law enforcement. It's been that way for my entire life, so I have always associated my dad with the law and protection. Also, I think that I do not associate my mother with strength and protection, because when I was growing up she went through periods of being sick (anemia...spelling?). I grew up with my dad talking about his work, what he was doing, hearing about his co-workers (some of them with names like 'Spike'). This just gave me a very masculinized view of security. When it came to emotional security though, I went to my mother. My father is a very quite man, and I think that he would be hard to talk to about something if I were very upset. My mother on the other hand always could make me feel better of worry less about something. This is akin to what we were talking about in class, how women are more responsible for emotional security.

In terms of security and politics, I think that the notion of security and safety is used to each politicians advantage. When bush wanted to get more support for his war, he emphasized that there were threats to our security and safety abroad. I recently went to the Barack Obama speech at Penn State and in his speech he was saying that he was tired of politics using 9/11 as an excuse and as a fear generator, but another part of his speech he was emphasizing that for our safety we need a president who will not alientate other potentially harmful countries. Hence, he is using the notion of our security as a incentive to vote for him. (don't get me wrong, I still think he's great!).

All-Women's schools

I went to visit my best friend at Smith College over spring break. It was really interesting and different to be at an all women's school. I don't think I would enjoy being in an all-women environment, but I do understand why some people would like it. My friend had transferred to Smith after attending a coed school. She was frustrated about a lot of the things in the school, but what prompted her to go to an all girls schools was the interaction of girls and guys in class. She felt she would thrive in a different environment. I feel that women's schools are trying to have women get ahead but by alientating half of the population.
When I was there, everybody was very nice, but the subject of boys still came up a lot. The fact that there weren't boys there seemed to foster more conversation about boys themselves. Here, my friends and I talk about boys, but a lot of times it is just about mutual friends or classmates. I felt like boys were sort of idolized because of their absence. It was always a big event when they saw a male their age; my friend told me that on an average day, she sees about ten males her age.

I found that the lesbian community was much more out at the school. According to my friend there are a lot of campus debates about letting people who have come to identify as female to male stay/go to Smith, since they don't identify as female, at an all girls school.

I went to a 'psychology of gender' class with my friend, and it made me appreciate the male input in our class. The class was really interesting; the topic was the fluidity of gender. There was some discussion about males, but there was no male there to share their experiences. I think it is important to have both sides of a story, and I value the opportunity we have in this class.

Gender and Politics

I was excited about the timing of the gender and politics presentation. I had gone to the Barack Obama rally/speech at Penn State a few days prior to the presentation, so I was definately in the politcal state-of-mind. I also really appreciated this presentation because I don't find a lot of time to watch a lot of tv, so I was able to catch up on some of the new issues in the primaries. I loved seeing the Hilary Clinton "crying" scene. That was not what it was made out to be. The reports that I had heard made it sound like she started bawling about something completely different. It was interesting to see the provoking question.

It was also interesting to see all of the pictures of 'stand by your man.' I don't know what I would do if I were in that situation...well, I hope to never be married to a political figure...., but I don't know if I would be comfortable standing by my man if he was caught having affairs with men. I think people in politics have to make too many sacrifices in their personal life. Their personal life is on display and up for judgement for the rest of America. I especially think that political wives suffer from making sacrifices (ex.-- Michelle Obama giving up career).

I thought this presentation was great!

Gender Roles and Expectations presentation

I thought this presentation was really interesting. My favorite part was when we saw the you-tube videos of the commercials targeted at kids. It was so drastically different. The girls commercial was super pink--everything in the commercial was pink--the room, the house the girl was in, her clothes (?). There was this cutesy song with a little girl singing. The song was about how she just loves to cook and do laundry. Can we say gender stereotypes? This girl was about six years old. She doesn't know what doing laundry and cooking really is or what it can symbolize. It makes me remember when I was younger and loved using my little girl broom and fake vacuum. I wanted to be like my mother I suppose (although my parents shared a lot of the domestic responsibilities), but to me, playing with these chore-items was a grand time. That did not stick with me, to say the least.

The other part that I found interesting was the picture of the same crib-set-up for a baby boy and a baby girl. There were different colors and patterns for the boy and girl. This is before they can make their own decisions, but they already have gender expectations. I also noticed that in addition to the colors and patterns, both set-ups had a stuffed animal, but (if I wrote this down right in my notebook) the boy's room had a lion and the girls had a teddy bear. I guess boy babies are more aggressive and manly than girl babies.

Our drawings of the ideal man/woman and not ideal man/women were funny. I noticed that the un-ideal man had a lot more personality traits while the un ideal woman had more physical characteristics.

Birth Control facebook group

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22223130631

Here's a link to the facebook group: "You think gas prices are high... talk to us about the cost of Birth Control"

This group came up on my news feed (because a male friend of mine joined it!) and I read all about it, and it shocked me. It also angered me. I encourage everybody reading this to check this link out. It is about how Congress increased the cost of birth control 900% last year. This makes me so angry because people use birth control for more than just preventing pregnancy. Women use it for reducing cramps, regulating their periods, regulating their hormones, and even as acne medicine. People need to use it for serious health reasons, and it should be a part of healthcare. Ignorance about this issue and birth control in general makes me angry. There have also been cases were pharmacies won't fill birth control. If you won't fill birth control and you are against abortion, what are people going to do, not have sex? In this highly sexized culture, it is ridiculous to think that people will only have sex for procreation. That is an antiquated belief.

updating...starting with Walker: Coming Apart

Ok...I haven't officially blogged in awhile, so now it's time to update from my notes/journals/etc.

I'll start with the most recent reading by Walker.

This reading caused a lot of different reactions in me. At first I just felt uncomfortable hearing about this man's porn viewing habits and reading about the city visit with the prostitutes and porn/doll shop. I was upset about how his porn habits were affecting her and her own body image. It surprised me to read about an older woman worrying about the man loving her body/thinking she was attractive; this felt like something a teenager would do. It was scary to think that that behavior in women lasts a lifetime. It's sad. It was interesting to see how the wife tried to open her husband's mind to her point-of-view and feminism. I was sad to read at the end that when they reunited he was still only 60% focusing on her and her body. I don't know...it is a lot to think about.

Now about the descriptions of porn. It was so weird to read about how there are major differences in porn of white women and porn of black women. I never really gave it much thought, but I would have just assumed there were similar poses in the magazines regardless of the race of the model. It just makes me think (and continuing my thinking) that porn is about power and dominance, not only in male vs. female but now race too.

This article gives me a lot to think about...I don't think I can even digest it all now. I'd imagine I will be posting about this subject later too.