Porn

I totally agree with the message of Price of Pleasure, because I am really against pornography. I hate the way women are portrayed being the submissive person and the men as being the powerful person. I truly believe that pornography contributes to way men see women and also to the way men see women sexually. I remember at one point in the movie this guy was talking about buying a sex doll instead of being with a real woman. He listed all these negative things like “nagging, buying too much stuff, wanting food”, but he never mentioned anything positive like “someone to talk to, someone who loves you, someone who supports you”.

I was really disturbed by the ideas of violence in pornography because I think it furthers the ideas of misogyny and sexism. I really do not understand the idea of having sex with a woman and then putting her head in the toilet. What the hell is that? I am outraged that someone would even think about this idea let alone direct this “movie”! I do not think that any woman would like to experience that. Furthermore, I do not think many women in the pornography business actually like what they are doing. Pornography probably presents women in very degrading manners because of male privilege and the fact that our society views men as superior to females. The documentary mentioned the fact that pornography gives men power while women have to be submissive.

Young men who view this type of pornography or any pornography will get really twisted ideas about females and female sexuality. There is no way that people who watch porn will not be influenced by it in one way, shape, or form. This documentary mentioned some examples of break downs in relationships due to pornography. For example, a couple will divorce because he watches too much pornography, a couple will break up because he wants to re-enact the scene he saw from pornography, but she does not want to, a couple will break up because he is forcing her to watch porn with him when she does not want to. 

Transgender Women

Many people believe that transgender women are not real women because they were born with a male body instead of a female one. These people are creating a false hierarchy of “authentic” versus “fake” that only perpetuates cissexism and transphobia. In Trans Woman Manifesto, Julia Serano makes a great point when she brought up the fact that “we make assumptions every day about other people’s genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socialization, or their legal sex” (442). 

Another harmful stereotype of transgender women is that they reject their maleness and masculinity when, in fact, they usually never had a male/masculine personality.  In Beautiful Daughters, the author of The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler, came to the realization after interviewing a lot of transgender women that they never knew what it was like to live as men because they have always lived as women. Because males are supposed to be better than females and masculinity is seen as being superior to femininity, transgender women are seen as a threat because they opted to be female instead of male and to embrace their femininity instead of their masculinity. Because of this, transgender women are faced with violence and “dismissal” of who they are.

Transgender people and non-transgender people can all act as allies in order to fight transphobia by fighting for all women’s rights regardless of what gender each woman was born into. Another thing would be to regard women and men as being more similar then different. According to Serano, “we must also stop pretending that there are essential differences between women and men”. 

Queer Streets

According to Queer Streets, 25 to 50 percent of 20,000 homeless people in New York City are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and/or Transgender (LGBT). Because of heterosexist oppression throughout the United States, many people who are LGBT move out to New York City because they here it is a tolerant place. What they do not hear is that it is a hard place to live and it is a hard place to make it. They have no other choice but to go to homeless shelters until they can survive on their own. There is only one homeless shelter named Sylvia’s Place that focuses on the LGBT community. People go there to get stabilized (get food, get medical care), and are allowed to stay there up to ninety days. Many times it takes so many years until they can fully escape the circle of homeless shelters. For one lesbian named J.D. it took her seven years until she bought her own apartment!

What was really interesting was the fact that the LGBT homeless are more likely to suffer from violence, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, sex work, and mental illness than the straight homeless. The only reason I can see for this is because of heterosexist oppression. In the United States, the LGBT community does not have very many civil rights. In practically every state, the LGBT community is still prohibited from legal marriages! One transgender named Isyss could not get a proper job because her legal sex is male even though she identifies as a female. Because of this set back and the fact that she desperately needed money, she became a prostitute. I do not believe this would have happened if she was given a fair chance at a job and not automatically disqualified because of her sexual identity.

What I noticed in this video and other LGBT-related material is that the LGBT community seems to focus more on the G part and not so much on the LBT part. This short film was a little different because it focused on three transgender, but only male to female transgender. There was not a single female to male in the whole short film! Another thing that stuck out to me was the fact that there was only one lesbian and no bisexuals (male or female). I just wish that the LGBT community was more represented in this video. I mean, what happened to the Q (questioning) part of LGBT? In my opinion, instead of LGBT it should be LGBTQ! I think Q should be included as well because they go through a lot of emotional turmoil as well. Also, I think they are discriminated against because they do not go along with the status qua. Even if they eventually decided that they are not lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender they still questioned their sexual identity. Because of heterosexist oppression that shows they are somehow not “normal” and will be looked at differently. 

Classism

1. Describe an experience where you were privileged or advantaged due to your class/socio-economic status.

         I’ve been thinking about this a lot, but I can’t really come up with an idea. I haven’t really found any instances where I was privileged because of my socio-economic status. I know that one time my family had to use the Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program (WIC) when I was younger. I do not know if this would be considered a privilege because my family was a low-income one, but it allowed my family to buy food.

2. Describe an experience where you were oppressed or disadvantaged due to your class/socio-economic status.

         One time during the summer my family and I were driving around Rhode Island. We went to Providence for the day, but as we don’t know the area very well we couldn’t really find a good restaurant. We passed by a couple of them, but they were very fancy ones. We didn’t try to go in since we didn’t think we could afford the food. Plus, we weren’t dressed in any nice clothes and we noticed that everyone going inside the restaurant were wearing formal clothes.

3. Write about an experience where you witnessed an incident of classism (remark, behavior, attitude) and your reaction to it.

         When I was in high school we had some other students from a neighboring town, but this town had a very bad reputation for being a poor one. I know that a lot of students talked about how “ghetto” these students were or how trashy the town was. Even other students from that town would talk about how trashy it was or how the people were ghetto. I would usually join in as well even though I had friends from the town, and I knew not everyone was like that. 

Whip My Hair

I first heard this song on the radio a couple of weeks ago, and I thought this was the most annoying song in the world! I whip my hair back and worth....seriously? I can't believe someone decided to produce this!


Anyway, I think the lyrics aren't so bad....I didn't see anything so concerning except perhaps kids could grow up with ideas like "pay no attention to them haters cuz we whip em off/and we ain't doing nothing wrong/so don't tell me nothing/i'm just tryna have fun/so keep the party jumping". Perhaps children will think that they can do whatever they like since it isn't "so" bad. Thus, they won't listen to their parents or older people unless they feel like it. I tried to find some sexual undertones in the lyrics, but I didn't see anything that really stuck out for me. Hmmm, actually, perhaps when she says "I wish my hair back and forth" she is talking about dancing in a sexy way. I figured it was dancing, but like innocent dancing, but now I'm not so sure. 


I liked her lyrics: "don't let haters keep me off my grind/keep my head up i know I'll be fine/keep fighting until i get there/when i'm down and i feel like giving up i think again" because it shows that you shouldn't give up on things that you believe in and that perhaps you will have to fight for what you want. 


I noticed in the video that Willow Smith is acting a little older than what she really is. I think she is just like 10 or 12 years old, but it seems like she is somewhat older. Actually, her lyrics like "haters" and "swagger" -- what 10 year old has serious "haters" and a "swagger". I don't even think I have those things and I'm way older than she is!


I also noticed that Willow Smith does some things during the video where she looks like an idiot. Like she would have her hand to her face and look up.....perhaps that is suggesting that little girls aren't too smart. Willow Smith and some other women (they were dancers) also danced in some provocative ways....like with their legs open and wearing tight clothes (like that one dancer in red). 


To be honest, I'm not sure how race intersects with this. If you guys have an idea I would love to hear it. Do you think that African-American women are sexualized more than other women? That's sorta the only idea I could come up with.....

Killing Us Softly 3

In the words of Jean Kilbourne’s Killing Us Softly 3, “to a great extent advertising tells us who we are and who we should be”. Advertising shows an ideal feminine body that is flawless, and it is also unattainable because it does not really exist. But ads are not only selling the products they advertize, they are also selling ideas and perceptions about what is truly beautiful. According to Kilbourne, there is an American belief that all women can look like the models in magazines if they try hard enough. If they do not look like these fictional women then they just are not trying hard enough and they need to try harder. Women put all their time, energy, and money into “trying harder” when they will never reach these outrageous expectations because the model body type is very rare. According to Kilbourne, advertising tells us, just like 10 and 20 and 30 years ago, that “what is most important about women is how we look”.

Advertising not only lowers the self-esteem of women but of men as well. Ads put pressure on women to be “perfect”, and they put pressure on men to be with the “perfect” woman. Many times women’s bodies are objectified which sends the idea that women are not fully human. In addition, women of color are often portrayed as being half-animal, half-human which also furthers the idea that women are not fully human. Because women are being dehumanized, men are more likely to feel justified when they resort to violence in order to get their way. After all, they did not really hit a person, only half a person, right?

The relationships between females and males in ads are all about power. Usually the males have power over the females but, when it is about race, the white people have power over people of color. When women do have power it is always masculine power – for example, “women with balls” will buy this product. In pretty much every ad, the women are always passive and the males are always active. The body language of women in ads is one of vulnerability and passiveness – women are told to say things with their body and not with their mouth or they have their hand over their mouths so they cannot even talk.

While thinking about any recent examples of media images that portray a more realistic idea about women I could not think of anything for a few minutes. Eventually, I came up with the Dove commercials I remember seeing a while ago that show regular women. Dove also has these self-esteem workshops that work towards helping you girls feel about who they are. While looking up some Dove commercials to include in this blog I found some Lane Bryant commercials which focuses on plus size clothing. Furthermore, I found some commercials by Playtex that also show regular women. Although, I did not come across that many commercials that used regular-looking women unless the product the companies were advertising was specifically targeted for plus sizes.

Dove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbb8D-u8ues

Dove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Mn6g7bC4c

LB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMxyZQfMmM4

CBS News about this LB commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_i-RIQnuhk

LB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4n7xxvBfrE&feature=related

Bravissimo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygjLqheHiDQ

Playtex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-QCNT_qUcc

Playtex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8-wO-npSq0

Playtex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mMq9Vk4hio&feature=related

Christian Privilege or Christian Oppression?

My own spiritual/religious identity is a bit complicated. I am not really too sure where I stand in regards to religion and God. At one time, I used to be non-religious then I became a Christian, and then I switched back to non-religious. I was actually leaning more towards Atheism/Agnosticism, but I never really delved into that area too much. Right now, I am leaning more towards Christianity again (I still have some doubts though), but I am also open to learning about other religions like Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. I have been on this spiritual path for a little over six months, but I would say that I still have a long way to go before I fully commit to one. Then again, I might not become religious and instead just be non-religious. I am sort of wrestling with the idea that God does not even exist so all religions are false. Anyway, regardless of what my personal opinions are about religion I understand that some people believe in God/Gods and some people do not. Because of this, I think we should be tolerant of all types of ideas – regardless if they fit with our own. I know that ideas about our spiritual selves is a hard one to be tolerant about (since everyone thinks their religion is the “true” religion), but I think that might be the only way to find true peace (it seems that a lot of wars are started for religious reasons and/or have some kind of religious connection).

I am not so sure if I agree with number 7 [I can be sure that when my children make holiday crafts, they will bring home artistic symbols of the Christian religion (e.g. Easter bunny, Christmas tree)] from Lewis Z. Schlosser’s article Christian Privilege: Breaking a Sacred Taboo because I do not think that the Easter bunny nor a Christmas tree really represent Christianity anymore. Maybe at one time they did, but I do not see that connection anymore. I do not think that the Easter bunny and the Christmas tree are really Christian symbols anymore because I think they have changed into “holiday” symbols. I see Easter and Christmas as being more commercial holidays than religious ones. Sure, there are people out there that want Christ put back in Christmas, but for the majority of people it is all about the presents and Santa Claus. That is the same with Easter. Instead of being about the Resurrection of Jesus, it is more about the bunnies and chocolate. Because these holidays have somehow lost some of their religious connection I think it should be fine for everyone to celebrate them and not feel oppressed by Christianity. 

Since I suppose I am more confused than I am Christian, I do not know if I really experience privilege or oppression. I suppose it is privilege since I am leaning more towards Christianity, but it could quickly turn the other way based on a quick change of ideas. Because the United States has a lot of Christian followers I suppose I have just grown up thinking the way Christians do. Things like Sundays are the days when places close earlier (although, I think this might be changing…Wal-Mart is open until midnight on Sundays…just like every other day of the week) than the rest of the days of the week, saying things like Merry Christmas when it is Christmas time, not needing to worry about what Christians eat (I think they can eat anything…so…), and not wondering what God people are talking about when they say God.