So what now

So what do I do now. Now that I've learned all about women repression, now that I have learned that the small gestures, the worlds we use, the work place, our media, my day to day interaction are all chock full of gender. In an article by Frye she writes that even a man opening a door for a woman is a symbol of oppression. She really gets at the heart of it when she writes that elderly or weak men will open a door for a perfectly able bodied woman. This is not chivalry or courtesy it is the show that women are so weak that men have to do this small task for them. But in the end when it comes to helping women in the laundry, the dishes, or more important things such as rights to equal pay they will not. I feel for the boys in our class because we always genderalize. Yes that was on purpose. Genderalize. Men are......Women are......  I feel like this class is about realizing that we cant say that. Well, we can say that but it is not correct to. We are people, even if we are male or if we are female we should not have such specific niches that we fit into. This takes me back to the discussion on transgender. In the perfect world we would not about people as male or female, we would use their names. Characteristics other than gender would identify a person. But the truth is, is that gender is an easy to way to identify someone. A clean fifty-fifty swipe of people to choose from. We know that this fifty-fifty is not clear cut because it includes transgender people as well. Just from writing this last blog I can see that gender and conflict class has got me to think about what I have assumed to be "just how things are". thank goodness.

We have choices to make

After doing the readings on oppression the biggest factor that I am seeing is institutions. Insitutions that we have already set up is probably the biggest reasons for oppression. In her articl Oppression by Choice Anne E. Cudd makes the claim that oppression is the porduct of individual choices. She focuses on women, saying that because women make choices to stay and home and be house wives rather than challenging their husbands and going out to work their choices are oppresing themselves. In her artle Cudd also eximens what cooersion means. She states that most examples should be looked at from the viewpoint of moral coersion which means that there is more to the picture than A is pushed to P  because the other options that A has arnt acceptable. It means that we cannot look at if A is coeerced by P unless we look at the background factors. The main idea of morally coercion  is if "whether the agent is denied some choice that she ought to morally have." In another article by Lorde, Teish and Gardner there is a story about a black couple that are going through married issues. The black wife is realizing that her husband has let go of his identity to become what he sees as better, which is the white man. He has left his oppressive state to go be someone better. I like the story because the wife realizes what is going on and starts to analyze their situation and in a way embrace it. It shows that the only way for them to accept themselves was to realize the truth about their situations which was that they are still oppressed. One of the hardest things for oppressed groups to do is to realize what is going on to them, for example woman that stay home rather than go out and work.

Women in Religion

Women aren't equal. When did this start? When did religion incorporate the idea that women are not equal to men? Was it culture that effected religion or the actual religious happenings? Islam was the religion that was most extreme in its control of women. Many women in Islamic countries are beaten legally because the law is so in line with the religion. In a clip that was shown in class one of the clerics states that beating women actually gives them respect. The burkah was also another way that people said that women in Islam are oppressed. The discussion in class moved to discussing weather wearing a burkah is actually oppressive. In my opinion anything that you must do that is not a choice is oppression. If Islamic woman are given a true choice and choose the burkah that would not be oppression but it is not by their own choice that they wear it. I think that this is the case with other religions as well. If orthodox women could go past the alter but chose not to that would be different than being banned from going past the alter. Women are accepted as oppressed in their own religion because they are not used to having it be any other way. However some women are exposed to life outside the confines their religion puts on them yet they decide to stay with their religion because of the history. Because the rules of the religion are what they are used to.

Boxes are a comfortable shape.

Who are we kidding? We want to be in a box. We dont want to be floating around without a name, we want to be categorized. Even the kids that walk around bare foot, ripped and dirty t-shirt want to be boxed. The kids that walk around in the plainest clothes, head down want to be boxed. Weather we are categorized as "out there" or "part of the norm" is not up to us thought, it is up to the people that view us. When it comes to gender we have two boxes in our minds, male and female. One girl in class stated that even when we do not say that person is a "boy" or that person is a "girl" we still say that a person is a girly-girl or just a girl and we say that a boy is a manly-man. The place that I am trying to go with this is discussing one of the very interesting points that Andy brought up in his part of the presentation. During his presentation Andie said something that made me think about what it meant to be trans gender differently. We were talking about acceptance when Andie stated that he did not want to come out of the closet when he came out as a girl, his end goal as with other trans gender people is not be put into the correct box. This statement made me realize that trans gender people want to be seen as "normally" the other gender. They are not really fighting against boxes but rather they are fighting to be accepted in a a box.

Rainbows

Rainbows, marshmallows, fairies and buttercups. The idea of love being free and easy is like a fairy tale. Gays and Lesbians still have difficulty in the U.S, the land of the free, being accepted for their sexual orientation. We always think of Gays and Lesbians when we see the rainbow sign on the bumper stick of a car or on the window of a house, but the truth is that the rainbow represents more than just the Gay and Lesbians it also represents the inclusion of trans gender people as well. This is what I found in researching for the presentation on transgenders people. There is little information on them. There has been such a little amount of research, there isnt very much literature on the topic of transgenders as a whole. The information that I found was very specific to certain arenas such as male to female transgender people or a specific sect of trans people in a culture. This lack of "broadness" may be because of the vast array of different kinds of transgendered people. There can be male to female, female to male, lesbian trans women, straight trans women, gay trans men and straight trans men. There can be people who feel asexual and are not attracted to either men or women or feel like they do not fit into either male or female gender boxes. Because of this spectrum it is difficult to talk about a group of people that we already dismiss.

Man of the house

Who is the Man of the house? Yes, traditionally men bring home the bacon. But who decides where the bacon goes? Traditionally women to the dishes, they take care of the kids and the house but they are not as powerless as we say. In one of my favorite quotes from "My big fat Greek Wedding"..."The man is the head of the family but the women are the neck and they can turn the head any way they want". After the presentation in class today we discussed our fathers and mothers roles in our own households quite extensively. It seemed, looking back on the discussions that every house is different in terms of who is allotted the work. In some it is more the mother than the father, in some the children do it, and in some households that isnt an issue because of maids. I did not hear anyone say that their mother or their father did all the work, 100 percent of it. Like the presentation stated, attitudes towards women working is becoming more accepting. In one of the videos we were shown in class the man and woman were sharing responsibilities of taking care of their children. The woman even stated that working gave her a fulfillment that contributed to her happiness. Unlike in the past when it was assumed that the only way to make a woman happy was for her to be working as a full time mother we are seeing woman expressing the need to fulfill themselves in other ways as well.  Another part of the discussion that I found very interesting was when we talked about what happens to relationships when a person supports their spouse while their spouse gets an education and then they split up. We also discussed how men who have girlfriends or wives that earn more them justify themselves by stating that they supported their wives while they were going to school in order to get this high paying job.

So children...Sex.

How do we teach a topic that we hardly talk about in our daily conversations. We already feel like it is a taboo topic. Sex means different things to different people, different religions, family cultures, regions, everything. This is one issue that the article entitled "Sex Ed in Washington" was talking about. It argued that the argument between whether we should teach sex education in terms of abstinence or contraception should not be brought to Washington because it needs to be fought over locally rather than nationally.  If sex education is going to be effective decisions about how to allocated money need to be made. A program that focuses on abstinence will work in some places and not in others. It cannot be said that teaching sex education in terms of abstinence hasn't worked because the amount of teenage pregnancy has improved during the implementation and use of this sex education however change is needed in locations in which it is known that simply saying that one should wait till marriage is not enough because most students will have sex before they are married.  A good point was brought up in the article entitled "How to End The War Over Sex Ed." In this article it is said that no matter what kind of education system is implemented social and cultural pressures outside of the classroom are what is going to be the deciding factor in if teenagers have sex or not, the show "teen mom" may dissuade kids from abstaining from sex or using a condom as well as sex education in school.

Woman as suicide bombers

Today the presentation was about women and conflict. In preparation for the class we were told to pick two articles out of three to read. The one that I am going to discuss is the one that talked about suicide bombers in Chechnya. The article stated that even though women blew themselves and others as a political statement women were still treated as different from a "male suicide bomber". Women suicide bombers stories are covered more extensively. For example when a woman suicide bomber attacks the media asks questions like "What happened to this woman's husband for her to have done this?" or "What happened to this ladies children?" The media does not see woman as being able to fight for a purpose larger than family and home. As there are more and more woman suicide bombers I think it will help show that woman can fight for more than what others say they can. Women fight for their country, women fight for an ideal or politicians. Women do not need to be fought for. Another sad way to look at this article is to say that maybe the women in such war torn areas do not have anything else to live for apart from what they have been told and believe is imortant. Maybe their husband is dead and their children too. To quote from Dr.Widman "the most dangerous animal in the world is a mother with young". I think that this is defiantly true but I do not think that the only way for a woman to be dangerous is if her young were harmed in any way. Women as much as men suicide bombers are brainwashed into killing themselves for a cause that is bigger than them.  I think that although suicide bombings are terrible and should not happen it is empowering women for them to be part of the violence rather than on the side lines.

Sex Trafficing

Today's presentation was about sex trafficking. A sad topic affecting women, children, men and transgendered people all over the world.  It is horrible to think of sex and human bodies being bought and sold like a commodity and treated as if they are nothing less than animals. The issues that make up why sex trafficking occurs are complex. Mostly, women are sold because they live in impoverished countries. Their families may have had a bad year in terms of crops or are in other ways financially desperate. They may sell their daughter in order to keep feeding the rest of their family. This issue needs to be addressed on the supply side through development of impoverished countries. On the other side of the supply and demand of humans there will always be a supply of humans when there is a demand for humans.  When we were going more in depth on how we might go about ending trafficking of humans in class it became obvious that any real solution would be very long term and would probably not directly help the lives of people being trafficked currently.  I think that if we legalize prostitution it would mean that the government could better regulate how women were treated as well as brought to the country. This would mean better living conditions for people in the business, this may also help regulate who is brought into the trade and if they had been brought it legally or not. However, I do not think that a government can condone such prostitution acts such as rape, child prostitution or any other harmful sexual practice in the same way it would not be right for the government to legalize hard drugs such as cocaine or heroin. The think is, is that people will always want to use this drugs and there will be people who will always have horrible sexual fantasies that they want to play out. Another way to help stop human trafficking is to punish those who use services rather than punishing those who provide it.

Security

Today in class we discussed what security is and what it means to be secure. At first I had brain freeze when I looked at the piece of paper asking me. "What is security?" I am always secure and feel protected so I never think about security that much. Yes, we talk about security in terms of country security, food security, airport security but day to day security? The fact that I don't think about weather I am secure or not every time I wake up in the morning is real security. But what makes me feel this way? I do have a sense of protection, I also do not think that anyone would target me. I liked when someone in class brought up the idea that the feeling that one was respected aided in feeling secure. I agree with this, I think that the feeling that you cannot or would not be harmed because your presence is wanted or needed where you are is a big part of security. We also talked about security on a larger scale. Z brought up the point that just because the law says that you are secure does not mean that you are.There are many examples of when the law can bypass its legislation and harm those it says are protected underneath it.  Security is peace, and peace is the absence of conflict. Conflict occurs because two groups have opposing interest that both cannot meet without harming the other. I think that security is found in feeling like even if you don't get exactly what you want you will be compensated. For example, in the work space. If people knew that they would be protected and sustained even if they lost their jobs they would feel secure. Security is the feeling that you will be protected in good times as well as time when you are threatened be it physically, financially, or socially

The power in the words we choose to use.

In one of the readings that we had to do under the heading of "security" there was a discussion of the language used in the office, and area of the people who make weapons and nuclear war heads. This article called "Slick'ems, Click'ems, Christmas trees, and Cookie cutters: Nuclear Language and how we learn to pat the bomb" by Carol Cohn is about her observations of how people working at these weapon making sights deal with creating a object that will in the end result in the death of millions of people. The largest answer I got from her was language. These people use language that distances themselves from the realities of what the warhead will do, for example instead of saying people dead they say collateral damage. What I though was interesting was that Carol Cohn, a educated woman herself found that while using these words it became harder to think the thoughts that she had previously, before she learned to use this new language thought. This reminds me of our use of language in the work place and other, non-weapon related areas of life. We have discussed this issue before in class. That when girls are tough they are referred to as "having balls" etc. Basically to compliment a girl on being tough or smart is to say that a girl has masculine characteristics and the opposite it true for men. If language had enough power to hinder an educated persons view on making and using weapons then using it daily, without scrutinizing it obviously leads to supporting the notion that men are better than women.

Children in war

We cant claim that the sex trade is bad, that child pornography is wrong and that using women as a commodity is sick and think that because of our views and our views alone it will stop happening. In his article called Visible Wars and Invisible Girls: Shadow industries and the politics of not knowing Nordstrom writes about Shadow industries. Prostitution and Porn are included in these types of mulit-billion dollar industries that lie beneath the surface of our society, lurking in the shadows.  Laws against these activities may help cut down on the activities but without cutting the demand we cannot cut the supply.The use of child pornography and prostitution is prevalent in war but the fact is, is that it does not only occur in war.  Nordstrom states that children are abused as a terror tactic, as a "social political" method as well as just because they can be.  Just because we have the power to abuse them we do.  War occurs for the same reason, one country will attack another because the other by nature isn't equal in power.  This would mean that conflict doesn't arise because two countries are competing for scarce resources, like conflict theory teaches us.

War

This weeks readings were sad. Yes, the others were sad too but reading about the discrepancy between men and woman is less painful when it does not involve murder, sex, rape, and abuse of women. In the article by Goldstein on Sex, Rape and Exploitation in war time he states that during war the amount of prostitution rises, there is more rape, women are used as basically a commodity. One large reason for this is because during war people feel that they can do whatever they want to. When you are killing masses of people everyday, something that normally you would go to prison for prostitution and exploiting woman does not look like a crime that would carry much weight. Because woman are seen as a symbol of the home country, the "mother land" raping the opponents women is usually done in war fare. Men raping other men is also common. During war a common weapon for degrading the opponent is to womanize or emasculation them which leads to sodomy.  The phallic symbol of weaponry is something that we have talked about in class as well as being mentioned in this article. I do not agree with the idea that men like to use guns and sword because it reminds them of their penis, but i do think that the power of using guns and weapons contributes to soldiers boost in feeling powerful. Power infiltrates to woman during war because when men are at war women must do the jobs that have previously done, taking women out of the home and into factories. 

That mans a slut, that girls a pimp.

So, Snow white is ruined for me now as well as a lot of other movies I have been watching lately. Over all Glee is still a show that I watch and think does a good job of not getting too caught up in what every other t.v show does.  So many shows buy into the stereotypes, I guess the reason for this is because we buy into them as well. Rich professional woman are seen as bitchy, young defenseless woman are sexy, it is sexy to not be able to protect yourself. I think of the origins of why we think like this. Is it really because men in our society are threatened by woman. Do we really start wars because men and women roles in a society are equalizing. May bee to a certain point, but definitely not completely.  I don't know why we think like this, why have we accepted that boys can sleep around and be fine and girls when they sleep around are called sluts.  I don't think it is completely innate for guys to want to "spread there seeds" and girls want to stick to one person. I know girls and guys who want to sleep around and girls and guys who want relationships. So I do not think that this is the reason for the Virgin vs.Slut debate. In class we came to the conclusion that virginity is a commodity. This is painfully true. Why isn't virginity a commodity for boys? When did girls start to get traded like goods? Its not fair.

Feminity

The Feminity reading assighned in the Femninity sector of this weeks reading was by Sojournors truth. Sojournor was a black lady who made a speech on woman's rights at a venue where people did not want to hear what she said. Sojournor spoke about a man who said that women must be helped over ditches and treated like there were petite things that couldnt take care of themselves. Sojournor refuted this and talked about how strong she was and how much like a man she was, but ended it "Aint I woman". This leads to the conversation of what femininity has to do with being a woman. What is being feminine? Is it related to all woman. In an article writen by Johnetta B.Cole called commonalities and differences she states that we woman should not view themselves as all the same just because we are all woman. Woman are all meant to be feminine, what does that mean. Is a woman from America more feminine that a woman from Gambia. Femininity has different meanings in both these countries, this makes woman work towards different ideals showing that they are indeed different.

Protect Girls, but dont forget about boys

There is a definite discrepancy and unfairness in the way that men and woman are valued in the work place, in socially groups, and at home. In the work place women are given less promotions, in groups people listen to men more than women and at home women still do most of the house work. The view that women are at a disadvantage because of a system that needs to be changed is also present in school. People complain that girls in school are valued less than boys. In the article called "What About Boys?" by Michelle Kimmel he talks about how the protection of girls from bias towards boys is not helpful in schools because girls are actually excelling compared to boys.  This is true and I can relate it to what happened in my high school where the girls were doing much better than the boys at studies. It wasnt just one or two of the girls who were doing better, it was a real trend.  I wasn't surprised when I found this out about my twelfth grade male comrades. They hardly worked, they hung out after school while us girls would be in the library doing work. I attributed them doing worse than us to them being lazy but Kimmel brings up points that I didn't think about. Boys do not do as well in school as girl because they are faced with much more violence. Boys are three times as likely as boys to be victims of violence.  Homophobia is also another thing that Kimmel states suppresses boys in school. Women have less of a problem fitting into the box in school than guys do. The article basically says that we shouldn't forget that guys as well as girls do not have it easy in school for different reasons

Sex, its everywhere

I dont like to watch t.v with my parents late at night because I do not know what we are going to see.  I don't know what to do with myself when the "girls gone wild" advertisements come on like an add for shoes or shampoo. Sex on t.v has become normal. In her article "Pop Culture Gone Wild" Valenti talks about the amount of girls in magazines and on t.v being sexual. It is sad, and thankfully she does not support the views of young feminists that argue that this kind of behavior is empowering to women. In her article Valenti talks about the conundrum that women face in terms of how we are meant to act. We are told to be a Virgin, but be sexy. We are told to like sex, but don't come. We are told be available, yet unattainable and have the sexy image of a lesbian, who likes men. It tells women who are of color that that is only acceptable in stereotypes. Her argument of how women cannot possibly fit into everything that society tells them they should be without splitting into an array of different people

Violence

The other week my the group I was in had to read a chapter about care-focused feminism. According to care-focused feminists women are innately more caring than men are. Because we have babies, because we care for the elderly and sick more women have more care in them than men do. In Bell Hooks chapter titles "feminist movement to end violence" she talks about how this kind of thinking is detrimental to working towards peace.  Bell states that when women claim that women are "inherently non-violent or life affirming" they are harming themselves.  Not all women are peaceful, women must accept that they as well as men condone the use of violence. Women need to see that although we talk about suppression all our choices are still our own. In Bells example " Even the woman who votes according to her husband's example is making a political choice. We need to see women as political beings." The acceptance that violence is a male trait is not only harmful when it comes to war but also the issue of domestic abuse. In her discussion of domestic abuse Bell brings up the point that domestic violence is not only perpetrated by men but also women against men and women in lesbian relationships.  Although women are violent as well violence is cultured as male and thus "working men are fed daily a fantasy diet of male supremacy and power." The one place that abusive men feel they can show their power and release pent up anger is at home on their wives and children. This article brought up points that were sad to face but true, I think the most important point that Bell made is to understand that women cannot label themselves as innately non-violent without showing themselves to be unequal to men. We must take responsibility for violence just as much as men do.

Who cares?

Women care.  There is something, weather biological or socially constructed that dictates that women, not men are the mroe caring gender.  Not only in western societies but around the globe women are the people that take care of the young, the elderly, the disabled. In the chapter on Care-Focused Feminism in Womens Thought one theory on why women care is because they develop morals differently than men. While men view what is right and wrong in terms of justice and the law women have a larger view, one that is more focused on relationships and interconnectedness. Another theory on why woman care stated that woman care as a defense mechanism.  According to this theory women think that by helping others they give others a reason to like them and thus protect themselves. No-matter how caring became an assumed part of women the fact that women are the care givers can be harmful. Today I was looking for articles for a different class and came across one about women caring for family members effected by Alzheimer.  Because of a woman's "innate" sense of caring they must care for whoever has Alzheimers but also care for their family. Women more than men are likely to be trapped between caring for their family and caring for the person with Alzheimer.  It was interesting to see how what we studied in class fits in with the real world.

We cant do it all

This blog is mainly a reaction to the reading about pop culture gone wild.  It brings up a point that I have thought about since the beginning of gender and conflict class. This point is the contradiction of what boys are looking for in the ideal woman. They want a girl who's available but unattainable, a lesbian who likes men. be a virgin but sexy. If a girl is both of these contradictions then she is obviously acting on one front. I was thinking about weather This made me ask myself if I though most girls are naturally party animal sex maniacs or conservative girls that like to read a book with some hot milk on Friday nights. I cant answer this question but it leads me back to the class discussion that we had two classes ago with Dr.Widman. In this class he was talking about the hook up culture. According to study's that he sighted woman do not actually like hookups and that this culture will eventually die. This means that either woman do not know what they want, or women know they don't like hooking up but do it anyway because of a sense of competition.   The article talks about how movies, porn and shows like Girls Gone Wild make it hard to "develop an authentic sexuality" but i can be done. The author suggest girls stop getting so drunk, ask themselves if they are having fun, if it feels goo and if they want it in every situation they are in.

Some things you would rather not know

The class that Dr.Widman was invited to was very informative, almost too much so. I do believe that our gender is at least somewhat defined by biology but the findings of studies that try to track biology's influence on our behavior is not what I wanted to hear. For example, Dr.Widman talked about how we are serial monogamists, men really only care that a woman has his child and then wants to find another woman. He told us about a study which was investigating how involved men were with their children finding that less good looking men were more involved. Dr.Widman said that basically men that could not attract other women were more involved in their family because they did not have the choice to find others. This made me think about social constructions such as marriage and their use. If we are meant to be with multiple people why do we get married? When did that start?

Gosh Darn Gender Roles

The readings this week talked a lot about the origins of gender roles.  In Chapter 5 of  Gender Stereotypes and Roles Susan A.Bosaw came to the conclusion that it was the difference in labor that created gender roles.  The fact that men were more suited for hunting and women gathering and working on horticulture started placing the importance of men above women.  I find it sad that even though in some cultures woman are equal than men, in no culture were woman dominant and men submissive. I don't believe that anyone should be submissive but the fact that woman are currently dominated makes me wish that at one point women had the power to be the "bigger man".  The shaping, sustaining, and changing of gender roles is all about power. In line with the postmodernist view I belive that gender is ever changing. The writers of the articles we read this week seem to have the same view. They believe that the way to change this power difference is through women having more economic power in the household, women no letting themselves buy into exploiting their bodies, and empowering themselves in times of war.  This idea as war as a catalyst for good is a hard one. War kills, it causes rifts through societies and is usually not carried out for the benifit of the collective. However, as Bridget Byrne says, war one of the opportune times for women to change their role in society.  I wish we, as collective women didn.t have to wait for times as catastrophic as war to change what is so obviously wrong. Being submissive and being the entertainment for men is so ingrained in us that we don't think to revlot.

Third or Fourth I forget

The readings for this week talked about violent abuse of women.  Rape, beatings by husbands, molestations, all of these things go on in the thousands every day but we do no seemed shocked at how sexist these crimes are. Crimes that target a certain race or ethnicity seem to be a bigger deal and less accepted (not that domestic violence is accepted everywhere) than crimes that are gender related. In the article about defining how feminists define peace by Brigit Brock-Utne she makes a point that while we usually look at a domestic violence case on its own as one event we need to look at the bigger picture. There are thousands of women who get raped, are the target of domestic violence or are in some other gender related crime that is not just a problem between individuals but a structural problem as well. Sexism is a way for men to keep power, crime and violence is about power and crime against women is no acceptation.  In the readings for this week I also found the way that women and men view conflict or violence to be particularly interesting. In the reading titled Bodily Harm by Suzanne E.Hatty she states that men view violence as a "means to assert or maintain control over others" while women view it as "a failure of self-control". In her article Brock-Utne also brings up the point that women more than men are against the idea of going to war.  I am not saying that if women had more say in government and war making decisions that this world would be 100% peaceful but I think we would be closer.

Gender and Identity

Going through these readings I am realizing that rather than accepting gender as a word that has no history I am being forced to look into what it means. Gender is another word we use to identify ourselves. Now we have the issue of coming up with a meaning for Identity. Is our identity our own individual foundation that we must find? Is our identity completely constructed by the social world? A mix of both? These questions also come up when looking at what gender is. Is our gender a product of biology, or completely formed by social practices? In the article by R.W Connell titled Making Gendered People he argues that it is a mix of both. In his words femininity and masculinity "constitute a world that has a bodily dimension, but is not biologically determined." In the other reading called Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti she discuses how feminism has been made into something unattractive. Its true, I think that it is more or an insult than a compliment to call someone a feminist but I don't think that it is as dramatic as Valenti portrayed.  I liked her point that all women who did not agree with the pay difference between men and women, childcare, women s health care...etc. then you are feminist. Then, in her eyes I am.  In my mind a feminist is an activist for feminist issues and at the moment I am not speaking out against anything feminists do.  This is mostly because I do not feel the inequity personally at the moment.

The very first one

The reading was confusing but out of all the new vocabulary and complicated sentence structure I pulled out a couple ideas that interested me.  The idea that identity is not something that you "find" but rather something that society constructs is one that I agree with. Because gender is a part of our identity it too is not something we have from the get go but rather something that has been constructed for us. Our gender and the gender roles we are supposed to fill are constructed through our history, culture, religion, language and many more factors. In class we looked at how media portrays the perfect man or woman and how we portray what we think is the perfect man or women.  These roles were not chosen by us but rather we were born into them.  I also found it interesting how in class the perfect man or woman as portrayed by the media was not always what we personally believed. Since the media reflects what we think is the perfect man or woman I wonder who's idea of a perfect man or woman influenced what was shown on t.v and how that may change with our changing views of perfection.