Course 3401 Blog

After watching the move I can't do anything but believe what she was saying. I have dated several women in the past and no matter how cute, pretty, or beautiful I told them they were they never fully felt like they were fine. The main problem was their weight. Many women feel like their fat because of how the media portrays how women should look. Women are striving to have the skinny model look, but in reality all that should matter is if they are healthy or not. In some cases the every day common woman for lack of better terms, is healthier than the models they want to look like due to poor eating and dieting habits to keep their slim appearance up. The make-up industries thrive off of the medias portrayal of women by making them have insecurities about their facial appearance. I'd take a natural beauty over artificial beauty any day.

I am a young Arcican American woman. Who gets to define who I am. The media has a lot to say about who I am or rather who I should be. I'm suppose to use my looks and body to get anything out of life. But that's not who I am. Some people are afraid of women especially women of color who are considered intelligent. My brain is what has gotten me this far in life. And it will continue to be the key to my success.

I must say when I first walked into the class I had my own theory of what the class would be about, but did not think it would be as in depth as it was. I am so glad it was. This class has really opened my eyes to a lot. I always thought race class and gender were equal, as far as discrimination goes. I always thought that the African American were at the bottom of the totem pole. But I now know that it is Native American. I had learned about the mistreatment of the Native Americans in other classes, but did not know it was still going on today. When I think about the Native American and How they were treated and how they are still being treated it angers me. I know I blogged about the Native Americans before but nothing anger me more than this subject, except for the enslavement of African Americans.
The class as a whole, well let me say, I got the truth out of this class and I am glad I had the opportunity to take it. Mrs. Warren will be missed on the campus of the UofM and although her season here is over, I hope her replacemnt is half as passionate about the subject as she is. Mrs. Warren I wish you nothing but the very best and once again congratulations on you retirement.

The discussion about heterosexism and racism based on Patricia Hill's article got very heated yet entertaing in class yesterday. Patricia Hill talks about how ministers in the church are always preaching about loving one another, etc. yet they are always bashing and judging homosexuals. The topic went beyond homosexuals, but this issue was discussed the most in class because some got a little offended. Professor Warren touched on Patricia Hill's views with a little of her own saying how some preachers preach about how homosexuality will send you to hell, or your soul will be lost if you're gay. She asked why can't be loving to homosexuals as well. Even though I was raised in the church and taught that homosexuality is a sin, I do not judge homosexuals. I have friends who are gay, and I love them just as much as I do others. They are human beings as well and who are we to say that they are not good enough in God's eyes. If we just stopped judging and crucifying people for being who they are, the world would be a much better place.

Men are raised in this society to be tough and aggressiveâ??â??manlyâ??. They are taunted and ridiculed for showing any form of emotion. The problem is human beings are supposed to show emotions (itâ??s a natural process). I was raised in a house full of women and when I look back I think that is what helped my father become the man he is today. My father has two older brothers and one younger sister and I am pretty sure as a child the boys were told to man up if any problems arose. So just like any other man, my father put on the tough guise â??maskâ?? and became held back his emotions. Things changed when my older brother died at the age of four. At this time of his life it was obviously okay for my father to cry (in fact it was expected of him to show his feelings). After that tragic event, my father had three more girls (including me) and his entire world changed.
Society still demanded my father to demonstrate his masculine side only, but like I said things changed once he had his three daughters. My father is a loving and caring husband as well as father. He is not like a lot of men (especially black men) who think that if they helped bring a child in this world that automatically makes them a father. My father is a feminist because he exhibits both masculine and feminine qualities. This man will do anything to protect his wife and children but will cry at his daughterâ??s graduations and not feel ashamed. My father has illustrated to me the type of man I should want to marry.

The way Iam looking at what's wrong with the world is that we have gotten off course from the way we all started off. A Man and a Woman were married and had children if they could. The Man would go out and work and the Woman would work from their home. We are no longer in our right role. I think maybe that's because society has change. The Man has lost his love for a woman and no longer want to take care of the woman and now the woman is forced to go outside of the home and work. Women now adays want to be admired. They are cutting on themselves, and losing weight and showing them selves naked in viedos and on social network sites. Most Women do not want to be admired as being a good mother or a good wive or the world does not make a big deal about being a mother or wife therefore, women put most of their attention on their bodies . Women come to believe that if they are perfect in all possible areas, then they will be admired and then they will be happy if they have accomplised their professionally goals and financial goals and are independent then they are successful and happy. Men loves pleasure ! Women just like to look really good to them.

â??No one asks how or what I am doing. They could not care less. Weâ??re all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as theyâ??d like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance.
A fissure forms in the vessel. Iâ??m cracking open.â??

-A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

I have seen one of the versions of killing me softly before but i believe this one is the most powerful and moving because it shows that although media and poltics want to say that the opression on women is no longer as bad, she shows that its more like they just are throwing a small blanket over it but it is very much still present. I do believe it will someday be completly gone but we do have a long way.

A culture of envy is necessary for the ads in Killing Us Softly to be fully effective. If women weren't constantly told to compare themselves to other women, we wouldn't be in this crisis of self-esteem. The magazines talk about getting someone else's super-thin legs or making your breasts bigger or flattening your belly, as if a one-size-fits-all approach can work when human variety is so amazingly broad. Not every body can look like any other body.

Too often, women turn against each other. Overweight women bad-mouth thinner women behind their backs. Thin women make fat jokes about heavier women. Women with large breasts talk about being a "real woman," and women with smaller breasts often repeat the "Anything more than a handful is a waste" line, as if anyone can control breast size without a surgeon. Beauty and healthiness exist in a large range of weights, proportions, colors, and shapes. Women are docilely playing into the separation created by the media. As the old saying goes, a house divided cannot stand, and we can't afford to be divided, not when things like birth control and equal pay are up for discussion and under threat.

Pitting one body type against another (recently, the worst has been this image: http://heartymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/when-did-this-become-hotter-than-this.jpg ) only makes us all uglier, and as women, that's the greatest sin we can commit.

I knew that women in ads were displayed in some kind of a negative view, but I never really realized how degrading some of the ads are until I watched the movie. The thing that disturbed me the most was how the people air brushed the models. These women are already good looking and I thought it was shocking that they would sometimes compile an image out of three or four different women. It is messed up how they think that they are able to tell us what is beautiful.

It was kinda crazy watching those movies in class simply because it is some truth to it. We as women need to do better and not feed into the hype and just try to be the best we can be.

The videos we watched really made me think about how we as a society view the 2 sexes but also how I view them. I am very hard on myself because of what our society thinks women should look like and how they should act. And I find myself sometimes pushing those sterotypes on my son. I often tell him to not cry and that big boys dont cry simply because I dont like for him to whine over simple things like when he doesnt get his way but I see that he is learning that behavior and will eventually begin to live his life that way. Its tough trying to figure out what we think a man or a woman should be like especially when raising our own children because we dont want them to have a hard time with the world but you also dont want them to fall into the typical stereotypes.

Watching the film made me realize how magazines, television shows and society wants women to become a certain size, wear certain clothes and become so thin that they can almost disappear. Society is only telling young children to eat and throw up your food because it is always better to be thin and trim instead of a little weight on you.

Recently in class we watched killing me softly 8. I have seen a previous version of this in my Gender class. It shows how the media is controlling what we see as beauty. The images that we see in the magazines are hurting young women and girls everywhere. There is such strive to look like what we see in the magazines that it is literally killing us. http://www.mirasol.net/eating-disorders/information/eating-disorder-statistics.php states that 5-10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease and 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years. Young girls, women, boys, and men are all striving to see what they see in the magazines but it is a distorted reality. No one can look that perfect, not even the people in the magazines. Even the models are dying themselves because they are pushed to be skinny and not show an ounce of fat. They have to fit in a size 00. How ridiculous is that. The majority of people are not even built like that. It is not a representative of the population. But it does not stop people from trying to look like a size 00. I am a pretty petite woman and I would be called fat from fashion directors and fashion designers. Even standing next to a model I would look huge. Women and men come in all different sizes and we should harass them to look like one certain type. Especially it is a made up type. http://www.styleite.com/tag/photoshop-disasters/ shows celebrity Photoshop disasters. Most of the celebrities themselves say they do not look like that and that they wish they did. In styleite.com it shows the body parts that are getting extended, cut off, or exaggerated. The only way to do this is to mutilate our bodies from surgery, not eating, and etc. We are allowing a few people dictate how we should look. We should like ourselves and feel good about ourselves but today so many people are having problems with this. They are feeling insecure about themselves because society puts the pressure on them. We will keep having this problem if we allow the media to dictate what beauty is, not stand up for ourselves, and not exaggerate the problem ourselves by making fun of other peopleâ??s looks.

can be found here http://mymechanicalimagination.tumblr.com/post/21440127660/whileyoureinschoolidothisallday-iandsharman

Goes as the following:

Hi, there.
Iâ??m wearing a shirt that reads â??Kill Meâ??.
If you saw me at a party or on the street would you promptly murder me?
What about if I had a few drinks? What if I was walking alone at night?
Iâ??m guessing that you wouldnâ??t if youâ??re a sane individual.
The cops wouldnâ??t overlook your crime because of what Iâ??m wearing because thatâ??s silly. I wasnâ??t literally asking for you to kill me based on my choice of clothing. Who would take that defense seriously?
My friends wouldnâ??t blame me for being murdered and my killer would be behind bars almost instantly.
So, why is it okay to rape someone because theyâ??re wearing promiscuous clothes? Why does THEIR choice of clothing excuse THEIR attacker?
It doesnâ??t. Youâ??re silly if you think otherwise.
The less guilt on the attacker. The more guilt on victim.
Stop. Victim. Blaming.

I hate the suggestion that thereâ??s some mysterious amount of flesh which once displays causes a man to lose control of his ability to not rape someone. What I find particularly disturbing about that idea is that it implies that men are constantly fighting the urge to rape. That men are naturally and instinctively rapists and that women covering themselves up is the only thing that can possibly keep their urges under control. That is just plain bullshitâ?¦if youâ??re a man and you ever find yourself struggling with the urge to rape then you are mentally ill and you need to seek help.

This film has given me insights into masculinity which I never could image. I would say that the film should be shown in the public schools becuase you think by the time we have arrived to college there would be no need to duke it out on campus. I must say that the media is still mostly the direct cause of violence in males since we are more prone to watching hours on hours of tv. Since,the media influences the idea of violence is masculine and this film really proved that to me and confirmed that to be the truth. Masculinity, I feel has given new life to the destructive ideas that men are supposed to be cold and unforgiving. Simply put, if you are like Superman, Spiderman, or Batman you are a real man. However, if you are like Pope John Paul , you are not a real man.

It is sad how the media defines masculinity in these rocky and violence terms. Do we refuse to admit that violence is built into our mainstream culture by the media ?

Do you think that the real problem lies with the fact that many men feel that they have no identity as a man? I hope there will be more positive images of masculinity arising now in movies which are be shown through the media â?? with film makers like Tyler Perry showing compassion and courage as part of the new masculinity.

I was outraged of how advertisers used female bodies but mostly how the women allow themselves to be used for money. I think the people that are in charge of these ads believe they are adding value to a prouct. "OMG" The part where Cindy Crawford said she wished she look liked Cindy Crawford was scary. Her own image was so beautifully reconstructed she wish she was her. I need to learn Photoshop and add it to my computer. LOL ! The unrealistic expectations can be summed up as horrible and they should be banned from television. One thing for sure nothing has changed. This has been going on for years. The only difference is they are taking their clothes off or showing more skin. These ads make you feel you should look like this or look like that. These external forces need to get out of our heads and leave us in our biological bodies to be our self. I do understand that these ad agencies and their clients need to make money but do they really have to go that far. Why do they always have to used a women ? This is why we go and get cut on to be as beautiful as what we see on television. Or, when I use to work in the salon, people would bring pictures of how they want their hair to look and you would have to explain to them, It may not look exactly like that because of all the reconstruction done to the photo but I would try my best. Sad and heart breaking the whole thing is .

It was amazing to see in the film how they digitally enhanced and in some cases recreated women for magazines. I knew the ladies were being air brushed and touched up, but it is ridiculous the way they are adding to and taking away from these already beautiful women. I am killing myself in the gym to lose 30-40 pounds. I tell myself it is because I want to be more healthy and to some degree I do. However, secretly I want to lose the weight so that I can have a body like the stars we see in the media. Every women wants to feel attractive, but the media is giving a false perception of what is beautiful and people are literally dying to acheive it. It just seems like a never ending cycle. Once I lose the weight then I will have to whiten my teeth, bleach my hair and skin, tan, buy new clothes that the media considers hot and on and on. I have to ask myself is it worth it? After all of that will I really feel beautiful? probably not!

That was my first time watching the film Killing Me Softly. Unfortunately, I had never taken the time to think about the (hidden) messages advertisements give. They really downgrade women in a terrible way. Advertisements do complete their jobs, jobs of making women feel as though they are not beautiful in a society that expresses to women the way they are shaped and look in this world isn't good enough.

I really enjoyed the class participation in this class I truly learned a lot in this class whether I agree or not it was still enjoyable. Thank you Ms Warren for making it an interesting class, never a dull moment for me. Enjoy your grand baby and be safe in Ga.

The conversation we had in class on last Tue about Tough Guise, was very interesting. I understand what the young man was saying about men and women understanding their roles. We all have learned in the past week or even throughout life that men are focused on themselves and women are focused on others. If we would understand that I don't think the divorce rate would be nearly as high simply because the women would understand why the man want to go golfing or watch a football game instead of taking the family out to the park. On the other hand, the man would understand why the woman wants to take the family to the park instead of sitting home watching a football game. We not only have to understand our role, we have to understand each others role....and I use the term role for lack of a better word.

But I ofter wonder if we will ever get it. Will men start to show their sensitive side and except the fact that women can be strong and run a household or a fortune five hundred without being called a "B@#$H". Men need to realize that women can do everything they can do and they do not have to feel intimidated at all.

I found this artical on Masculinity in America and I felt it was interesting.

Interesting, from The Point: Masculinity in America (part 1).

Here is a key passage from what is a very astute post:
The most infuriating thing about men who act from their ego is the shaky self assurance that they are MEN. I have always thought that misogynistic or chauvinistic cultures are actually cultures filled with disempowered men. Because if a man was truly in his own power, why would he have to belittle or be afraid of women? What purpose does it serve except to reinforce the ego? Feeding the desire for domination and power which is essentially unfulfilling and unending in both its destructiveness and its uselessness. I have learned that whenever I see inequality, to look to the leader of the power dynamic, and see the true weakness masquerading in the trappings of power. Because true power is subtle until it is called upon.
As far as I can tell, the egoâ??s desire for domination comes from insecurity. One thing about true power, is that it bestows upon its wielder a security and a confidence that do not need to show off. I define true power as serving the whole self; physically, mentally, spiritually. There are many ways to convince the ego that it is powerful, to only fuel the ego, and these can be intoxicating, though unfulfilling. If one does not know their true power however, ego-power will seemingly be enough.
â??When the ego has become split off or separate from other parts of the personality, we do not experience the world correctly. We become selfish and untrusting, have difficulty in relating to others-and often cannot accept anything except our own viewpoint. The proper balance necessary between the inner and the outer, between logic and intuition, or reason and imagination means that the ego must be brought under control, although it can never be given up altogether.â?? (P.Ball, 1996)
Another key quote:
After all this preamble, here is my thesis: (white) Men in America have no definition of masculinity, have no image to compare themselves to as men, and so give themselves over to ego power, nihilism, or depression.

The discussion that we had last thursday really touched home for me. I was raised around men who were taught to be tough and to never cry unless its a really extreme situation. Now, my brothers are raising their boys to be the same way. It makes me wonder if this cycle will ever end. What about women who were raised around mostly men who were taught to be strong, such as myself. I was not taught to not show emotion, but being raised around mostly boys I picked up a few things. People rarely see me cry or show emotion. Growing up in a single-parent home, I rarely saw my mom cry. I agree to a certain extent that men should be able to show emotion for SOME things, but not all. It's kind of a catch 20/20. In relationships I get frustrated when a guy doesnt share how he is feeling, but it would turn me off if Im at the movies Im crying from a scene, and I lean over for comfort and he is crying too. I do believe that men should be able to show emotion, just not so much.

On Friday, April 6, 2012 I had the privilege to participate in an extra credit opportunity. Dr. Zandria F. Robinson. She gave a presentation on Urban Hustles and Southern Flows: Regional Identity in the Past-Soul South. I absorbed informative information about Black Culture. I was unaware that Black Culture even existed. Here are a few things that are considered to be a part of Black Culture being loud, cooking and or eating soul food, participating in Religion (Christianity), and attending Church on Sunday. Black Cultural can vary from state to state. For example, Georgia, New York, and Tennessee may differ in Black Culture. In my opinion it seems like American Culture has become a part of Black Culture.

I really enjoyed the lecture given by Professor Robinson on "Urban Hustles and Southern Flows." Dr. Robinson is a very interesting speaker and has views on how to implement southern studies into sociology. She has written a book called "This Ain't Chicago."

Here is the link to the youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow

I have always known that women make less than men even in a first world country, such as the U.S., however, I have never really understood why other than it labor market discrimination. Prof. Steve Horwitz, points, out that it has more to do with the choices that women make because of cultural expectations and sexism that leads to the gap in earnings. For example, if more women wanted to be engineers and if more women made their husbands do chores the gap would become smaller, according to Prof. Steve Horwitz. I think that it is a compelling statement because it gives some hope to women in the U.S. to make choices that will benefit them and their families in the long run.

Read both links. Interesting.

I found this really interesting. Here's the link to the article. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123050/Look-The-black-white-twins-turn-seven.html