Staying True to my Childhood

Barbie.....
That one name is known by young girls all over the world, even some young boys. I grew up with Barbies. Owning almost everything Barbie, name it and I had it. From the Barbie dream house, to the perfect outfit combinations that would make any girl jealous. I remember even forcing my little brother to play Barbies with me (although I remember not having to beg much). Before we talked about my favorite childhood toy in class I never thought negatively of Barbies. I was very surprised to see how many people believed those dolls created an unreachable image for girls. Personally, I never felt like I had to match up to my pretty dolls nor did I feel inferior of them. They were, and still are just toys to me and this upset against them being too 'perfect' for girls to see is just silly to me. Barbies were meant, in my opinion, simply for fun for young kids. I refuse that they were created for unrealistic expectations of girls. Truthfully, many know that there children would not enjoy playing with a doll that was unattractive looking. The good looks and stylish outfits of Barbie are the reason that this doll became so popular among little girls.

Even though some rather convincing arguments are made on why Barbie gives girls, as well as women, an unrealistic expectation, I'm still staying loyal to Barbie. In my eyes, she is my childhood, and I refused to believe she was meant to make me feel I have to look just like her. I guess once a Barbie fan, always a Barbie fan.

In Defense of the Princesses

I found the princess culture discussion to be interesting. I enjoyed it because I love the Disney princesses. From a young age, I have adored them. My favorite princess is belle.  I have a few disagreements with the article claiming that girls are not learning from the princesses and that the attitudes of the princesses will cause them to act a certain way. I feel that the princesses also have good qualities that people can learn from. I did a project last year in tcom 204 over how the princesses were becoming more diverse and feminist. Over the decades the princesses started to reflect the changing times. They were no longer the stereotypical princess of fairy tales. The princesses have come a long way since the days of snow white. Belle’s love of reading reflects the rising number of women entering college in the early 90s. Tiana's dream to own a restaurant reflects how women have moved up in the workforce. The princesses are teaching that if you want something, you won’t be handed it. You have to work hard in order to achieve all your dreams. I feel that liking the princesses and acting like a princess won’t negatively affect the child as they grow up. They will realize that they can’t have everything that they want. I live in the residence hall known as “the castle” and I am referred to as the princess. I know I’m not really a princess and don’t expect everyone to bow down to me even though they do anyways. The article just focuses on extreme cases that aren’t the norm. Little girls are going to turn out fine if they like princesses. They are not going to grow up disillusioned if they don’t achieve that. The parenting should be looked at and not the messages in the films.

The Princess Culture made me a Tomboy

Barbies, American Girl Doll clothes and our own clothes is what covered most of my floor that I shared with two sisters. I remember trips to the American Girl Store in Chicago and drooling over everything I just had to have for my doll. My mom got the holiday Barbie every year from our dad, which also turned into our gift. Disney movies were also watched during our special picnics. We would lay out a blanket in the living room and our mom would go to extra measures to make the least sloppiest meal she could for us while we sat at our picnic while watching princess movie after princess movie.

Considering there were three of us girls, we were bound to grow up in the princess culture. Surrounded by pink, love, fashion, dolls, fantasy, playing home and more. We had all the typical toys you would expect to find in a house of three female children. From the word cloud in the article called, "Word Cloud: How Toy Ad Vocabulary Reinforces Gender Stereotypes," the main words that popped up were love, magic, fun, girl, party, hair and mommy. And I completely 100 percent believe this. I remember keeping the boxes that my Barbie's came in because they were so pretty, pink and had a lot of sparkle on them.

When I was little, I didn't understand how different my parents were, but I certainly do not. They went through a terrible and destructive divorce and four years later, they still find every excuse to harp on the other or to say their two cents no matter what the subject is. The best thing about the huge differences is that while my sisters and I did grow up in a princess culture, our dad was there to bring our little feet down from the clouds of Barbie Wonderland onto the concrete of a basketball court, grass of a soccer field and into gyms.

My dad would spend countless hours of his time encouraging us to get outside, play a sport and to stay active and in shape. He even built us a soccer net, two balance beams, two sets of bars and bought us a trampoline for our backyard. He did everything he could to provide us with the resources we needed to get outside and play. He also always encouraged us to play with the children in our neighborhood. I have loved sports and have always been competitive my whole life, so I tended to veer towards the boys of the neighborhoods.

Around the fourth grade, I went through an interesting phase. I remembering spending hours just drop kicking a football across the street while hanging out with my three boy friends from down the street. I day dreamed about trying out for the middle school football team and I wanted the boys to treat me as one of them. I started to reject the everyday girly activities and I really wanted to be Batman for Halloween that year. I think I remember this stage in my life so clearly because I felt like I went in the complete opposite direction of what I was supposed to be doing. Although I kept most of these feelings to myself, I really wanted to be more like a boy than a girl at that time.

I think the princess culture overload and the fact that my dad was such a pusher to get us to be active made me reject the princess culture for a period of time. I did go through a little tomboy phase, but once I was in the sixth grade, I learned a little more about myself and grew into my skin.

Miss Representation

Before we came to this presentation, I was already interested in Jennifer and her Miss Representation campaign so I was immediately drawn into her presentation. At first, she comes off heavily favorite towards females, but if you kept listening, she did say how the gender inequality is hurting males empathy and emotion. While females are expected to be beautiful, at a males side and a mother, males are hurting too because they are now expected to be and do so much. I think after making this point, if the males felt discriminated against or that Jennifer was here to put them down, they came back and understood that this gender equality issue is about them too.

The film definitely resonated with me because the video had examples of how females are downplayed and the examples of the male being interviewed said the comment about a female president PMSing and the headline reading Bitch and Slut. This made an impact on me because I was shocked how everyone seems that saying these comments or writing these headline is perfectly ok. I felt personally hurt by the PMS comment and I would have been irate if that was specifically about me. After seeing all the famous females speak about their opinions on the media hurting females, I was really intrigued and felt empowered as a female to break the stereotype. But after the film, I also felt against males. I have never been personally or directly discriminated against for being a female in the working world (yet) but seeing those women that were hurt also hurt me. The point that she makes about how the media is hurting males too also resonated with me because she brings her point full circle, the media hurts females AND males. When we first learned the definition of the feministic perspective in class, I thought, "Ha yea, right." I didn't think that there was a way that being a true feminist was to examine both sides, but after this, I definitely believe this definition and the feministic perspective.

I think her best idea was how the media affects both females and males negatively. Although she spends much more time on the effect of females, she does mention that is it important for males to understand as well. I really think to solve a problem, you can’t just look at, examine and analyze one side, there are always two sides and Jennifer is trying to bring both to light.

Desperate Housewives Aren't Really All That Desperate

When we were discussing examples of other, more recent, television shows that are examples of featuring a strong, independent, and thus a feminist-perspective-supporting female lead, one of the shows that I thought of was the example of Desperate Housewives.  I feel as though this example is a perfect example of our discussion in class.  The story line is a perfect example of Girl Power! in my opinion.  Some may not support me in this feeling.  Some may see the show Desperate Housewives as a show that yes features women as the lead, but is not one that portrays Girl Power!, nor the feminist perspective.  I can understand why others may think this.  Much of the plot is concerned with the women finding a romantic partner, them experiencing the trials and tribulations of being in a relationship, and them making messes in their lives and then scrambling around to try to clean up the messes they make.  However, even though they do spend a lot of the show and plot line concerned with these issues, I feel as though they do it in a way that is the essence of the Third Wave of feminism.  The Third Wave of feminism is concerned with feminists being very feminist but at the same time still being very feminine simultaneously. 

 

All of the women go through extreme circumstances on the show, being a dramatic prime time evening show.  How the women handle themselves during and through those circumstances, no matter how “girly” those circumstances may seem to be, are still in a way that can be seen as independent, strong, and feminist based.  To me it seems as though the women may want to be with a man, they do not absolutely have to be with a man in order to be happy and in order to be okay to get through though times.  I will admit that the women all may not have started out like this.  But quickly past the first season of the show, the women all became independent and strong.  Bree Van De Kamp did this when her husband died and she became a widow, forcing her to be a single parent.  She also became an entrepreneur by starting her own catering business.  Lynette Scavo always seemed to be this way in that while she was a mother of five kids she was also a top-dog in the business world and portrayed as even better than her husband and other men at times.  Susan Mayer became a portrayal of the feminist perspective by also becoming a widow and living a life on her own without a man to take care of her.  Finally, Gaby Solis was the a perfect example of Third Wave feminism in that she had a career as a fashion model, an extremely feminine career, but also never let any man take advantage of her, and also became the primary caregiver and provider for her family when her husband became blind, thus showing a flip-flop of roles for males and females on a television show.

"Better Late than Never" Djesus: Uncrossed - Culture Jam

Djesus: Uncrossed 

 While most may view this skit from last week's SNL as nothing more than a harmless or perhaps even moderately offensive representation of the Christian messiah.  I believe the overall message is extremely overlooked.  Masked in all of the fake gore, and cheap laughs is a culture jam in itself of which most fail to realize.  However when looking at this text through a rhetorical scope, the many purposes of this skit become clear.

The most obvious theme would be that of violence.  Have we become so desensitized to a culture of violence that we only become aware of the overbearing sights when they are portrayed with humor, and feel nothing when they are in a situation of severity?  Furthermore, what does this say about the concept of revenge portrayed in many Quinton Tarantino movies?

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Second Wave Feminism

The discussion about Second Wave Feminism and Third Wave Feminism got me thinking about my mom and how I was raised. My mom is a Second Wave Feminist and raising a daughter meant raising another Second Wave Feminist.

The concept of Third Wave Feminism wasn't around for my mom. She is an activist. She is invited to speak at conventions, and is always calling and emailing her representatives in congress about her favorite issues. Her very favorite issue is equal pay for women. She works in the health care industry and that is where unequal pay is the most prevalent.

Because of growing up seeing her go out and do these things to make a difference I have to agree with Malcolm Gladwell that activism is more about leaving our comfort zone. Even though I use the Internet as a tool, it is not the end all be all for accomplishing tasks. In my experiences of creating online communities there absolutely has to be a real-world connection otherwise the online community fails.  That's why even gaming communities that start online will eventually plan get-togethers outside of their community to actually get involved with each other.

As a sidebar, we've gone over a lot of television texts in class. I did not grow up watching TV and I still don't really watch TV. Books are a lot more relatable when thinking about texts as early feminism. There are tons of examples of girls and women featured as the heroine such as Little House on the Praire and Nancy Drew. I was personally a big fan of the Junie B. Jones and Clifford the Big Red Dog series.