Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Blog 9
"Keep on dreaming of a better world." - a world where your milkman is a woman who wears revealing clothing and comes to your home every day.
The text for the above ad reads:
"What would you do? How would you manage? Caring for a child or elderly parent, cleaning the house, driving the kids to soccer practice, cooking meals.
"A recent study concluded that the value of the things she does can be as much as $43,461 per year, not including overtime."
This ad implies, not only that women are only good for caring for children and aging parents, cleaning house and running errands, but it also implies that men do not do these things. It should be offensive to every father who chooses to be a stay at home parent. While it does add value to these tasks, it shows that even in 2005 (when the ad ran) people considered women to be the homemakers. Marriage and family care should be a partnership, not a gender focused issue.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Paper 2
Several weeks ago, I sat in the break room at my job, and I was reading the novel, The Bluest Eye before finishing my lunch break. One of my coworkers, Paige, walked in and sat down with a Subway sandwich. She looked over at me and, noticing the book in my hands, asked what I was reading. Her ears perked and her eyes brightened when I told her the title and author. As a young black woman and student at Langston University, Paige was familiar with Toni Morrison and her other works, but had not heard of The Bluest Eye. I have known Paige for four years, and that day we had a conversation I had never shared with her before. Paige told me about the feelings she had toward white girls when she was younger. She told me that until she was about 15 years old, she wanted to be white, because she saw it as beautiful. “We all do, but eventually you grow out of it and accept yourself,” she said. She said it wasn’t until she became a student at Langston that those feelings completely disappeared. Although Paige is now happy and comfortable with her black features, she said she still feels animosity towards couples of black men and white women. “It’s like he didn’t even give a black girl a chance,” she said. Paige and I both learned something about each other that day and our relationship changed. She looks at me in a different way now, maybe because I listened and I tried to understand. I found it shocking, even after reading the novel and watching Precious that black girls actually felt that way about their features. I don’t know if I will ever fully understand that feeling, and I probably won’t, but now I feel like I have taken a step in the right direction.
My experience was only a real-life example of the issues addressed in the novel and the movie. Precious and Pecola are two very complex young girls with some very complex problems. Although I’m sure the case is similar with both girls, Pecola’s situation seems to be the result of generations of problems in the black community that all affect each other. “This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live.” (Morrison, 206) In this particular quote, Morrison was referring to the soil of the earth, and why flowers did not grow. This is instead a comment on society, and why the flowers of Pecola and even Precious could not grow. Society does not nurture all life, some life is destroyed by it. Generations of black women have questioned their own beauty, not because their petals were not beautiful and colorful, but because society told them to believe that they were not. Society has taken it upon itself to murder the self-esteems of millions of young women every day and instead of changing, does not even take the blame. Pecola and Precious lived inside my friend, Paige, but Paige outgrew them or maybe stopped listening. The question is, do they still live inside her, waiting to infect the minds of Paige’s children? Without changes in society, girls like Pecola and Precious will still exist. We must learn to put pressure on our media to be responsible and give strength to young girls instead of taking it away from them.
To Pecola and Precious, the white features they coveted represented beautiful, successful, never to be teased again. To be white on the outside, meant to live a differently life, separate from their own. Lee Damsky wrote of her ugliness in her essay, “In the interim, part of me still believed that my appearance was a visible manifestation of my deeper internal ugliness - isn’t this the logical extension of our culture’s assumption that physical beauty symbolizes everything good and desirable?” Damsky’s assumption of her own beauty mirrors that of Pecola and Precious. Their white images of themselves represented everything good they wanted, their black features represented everything negative that came their way. The mother of one black boy in the novel did everything she could to set herself - a colored person - apart from the lower class “niggers,” who were “dirty and loud.” Within this culture, she tried to be as close to white as she could be without actually being white.
The titles of the two girls’ stories are significant, each in their own way. The Bluest Eye represents Pecola’s struggle to become the most beautiful girl. Even after she achieved her goal of having blue eyes - the perfect ideal of beautiful, she was still worried that they were not the bluest eyes on the earth. She has anxiety about this and asks her “friend” to look at the eyes of everyone they pass, just so she can be sure they are the bluest of blue eyes. It appears that Pecola will never be truly happy with herself. In the case of Precious, the girl of the same name seems to feel anything but precious. She is despised. Perhaps, it is representative of the fact that all life is precious, no matter what color the skin is that holds it.
Neither girls’ story ends on a high note, although Precious leaves us with a slightly more hopeful example. To start, as Precious walked past a mirror near the end of the movie, she saw herself in the mirror: a large leap from where she was at the beginning, seeing a white girl brushing her blond hair instead of her own reflection. Precious confronts her mother and finally takes a stand for herself. So much of the movie is spent by Precious biting her tongue and speaking under her breath. After hearing the story of her own molestation at three years old, she took control of her life and took her children vowing to not let that happen to them. The film leaves the audience hanging, but images of Precious walking proudly through the streets of New York City with her head held high fill the screen. Of course, once the audience remembers Precious’s fatal illness, the small victories seem almost insignificant, yet still monumental for Precious. Pecola, on the other hand, never had her own epiphany. Mesmerized by her own “blue eyes,” she drove herself mad. Perhaps the only way she knew how to deal with her situation was to retreat inside her own head, where life could be lived the way she wanted it to be. I think each woman went on to live a continuous struggle with their body image, but none of us ever truly get over our insecurities.
Not all images in our society are negative toward black women. Proctor and Gamble recently launched its “My Black is Beautiful” campaign, encouraging black women to embrace their black features and see them as beautiful rather than ugly. This kind of positive message is one that we need to see more of. Not just for black women, but for all minorities.
In the above advertisement, two black women are depicted in an airplane. I take no issue (necessarily) with the actual content of the advertisement, but rather the styling. Both black women have blond hair, which we all know is not a natural hair color for black women. The woman in front appears to have a great deal of status, while the stewardess appears to want that status, she even totes the same blond locks. Perhaps even more damaging to black women is not necessarily ads depicting them in a negative light, rather the ads that leave black women out all together. With little to no example of beauty within their own culture, where are black women going to look for what is beautiful? In the pages of magazines, where the black female is almost nonexistent unless she is depicted as a wild animal. In order for black women to move up in our society and to stop believing that the only beautiful is white, we must show them what beautiful black women look like, and that they do exist.
My experience was only a real-life example of the issues addressed in the novel and the movie. Precious and Pecola are two very complex young girls with some very complex problems. Although I’m sure the case is similar with both girls, Pecola’s situation seems to be the result of generations of problems in the black community that all affect each other. “This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live.” (Morrison, 206) In this particular quote, Morrison was referring to the soil of the earth, and why flowers did not grow. This is instead a comment on society, and why the flowers of Pecola and even Precious could not grow. Society does not nurture all life, some life is destroyed by it. Generations of black women have questioned their own beauty, not because their petals were not beautiful and colorful, but because society told them to believe that they were not. Society has taken it upon itself to murder the self-esteems of millions of young women every day and instead of changing, does not even take the blame. Pecola and Precious lived inside my friend, Paige, but Paige outgrew them or maybe stopped listening. The question is, do they still live inside her, waiting to infect the minds of Paige’s children? Without changes in society, girls like Pecola and Precious will still exist. We must learn to put pressure on our media to be responsible and give strength to young girls instead of taking it away from them.
To Pecola and Precious, the white features they coveted represented beautiful, successful, never to be teased again. To be white on the outside, meant to live a differently life, separate from their own. Lee Damsky wrote of her ugliness in her essay, “In the interim, part of me still believed that my appearance was a visible manifestation of my deeper internal ugliness - isn’t this the logical extension of our culture’s assumption that physical beauty symbolizes everything good and desirable?” Damsky’s assumption of her own beauty mirrors that of Pecola and Precious. Their white images of themselves represented everything good they wanted, their black features represented everything negative that came their way. The mother of one black boy in the novel did everything she could to set herself - a colored person - apart from the lower class “niggers,” who were “dirty and loud.” Within this culture, she tried to be as close to white as she could be without actually being white.
The titles of the two girls’ stories are significant, each in their own way. The Bluest Eye represents Pecola’s struggle to become the most beautiful girl. Even after she achieved her goal of having blue eyes - the perfect ideal of beautiful, she was still worried that they were not the bluest eyes on the earth. She has anxiety about this and asks her “friend” to look at the eyes of everyone they pass, just so she can be sure they are the bluest of blue eyes. It appears that Pecola will never be truly happy with herself. In the case of Precious, the girl of the same name seems to feel anything but precious. She is despised. Perhaps, it is representative of the fact that all life is precious, no matter what color the skin is that holds it.
Neither girls’ story ends on a high note, although Precious leaves us with a slightly more hopeful example. To start, as Precious walked past a mirror near the end of the movie, she saw herself in the mirror: a large leap from where she was at the beginning, seeing a white girl brushing her blond hair instead of her own reflection. Precious confronts her mother and finally takes a stand for herself. So much of the movie is spent by Precious biting her tongue and speaking under her breath. After hearing the story of her own molestation at three years old, she took control of her life and took her children vowing to not let that happen to them. The film leaves the audience hanging, but images of Precious walking proudly through the streets of New York City with her head held high fill the screen. Of course, once the audience remembers Precious’s fatal illness, the small victories seem almost insignificant, yet still monumental for Precious. Pecola, on the other hand, never had her own epiphany. Mesmerized by her own “blue eyes,” she drove herself mad. Perhaps the only way she knew how to deal with her situation was to retreat inside her own head, where life could be lived the way she wanted it to be. I think each woman went on to live a continuous struggle with their body image, but none of us ever truly get over our insecurities.
Not all images in our society are negative toward black women. Proctor and Gamble recently launched its “My Black is Beautiful” campaign, encouraging black women to embrace their black features and see them as beautiful rather than ugly. This kind of positive message is one that we need to see more of. Not just for black women, but for all minorities.
In the above advertisement, two black women are depicted in an airplane. I take no issue (necessarily) with the actual content of the advertisement, but rather the styling. Both black women have blond hair, which we all know is not a natural hair color for black women. The woman in front appears to have a great deal of status, while the stewardess appears to want that status, she even totes the same blond locks. Perhaps even more damaging to black women is not necessarily ads depicting them in a negative light, rather the ads that leave black women out all together. With little to no example of beauty within their own culture, where are black women going to look for what is beautiful? In the pages of magazines, where the black female is almost nonexistent unless she is depicted as a wild animal. In order for black women to move up in our society and to stop believing that the only beautiful is white, we must show them what beautiful black women look like, and that they do exist.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Blog #7
An eating disorder is defined by "any of several psychological disorders (as anorexia nervosa or bulimia) characterized by serious disturbances of eating behavior" (Merriam Webster) But an eating disorder can be more than anorexia or bulimia. Any disordered eating habits including binge eating (over eating)
Friday, March 5, 2010
Paper #1
1. The beauty myth is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a culture and defines what beauty is. Wolf says about it, “The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behavior, not appearance.” In some ways, the beauty myth exists as a way to maintain control over women (and increasingly men). Wolf cites this in her book by saying that every time women loosen their restraints in society, the beauty myth takes an ever firming grasp on their lives - the bra, the razor, the girdle. All of the previous examples were created for sale to women as they were trying to gain freedoms in society, such as the right to vote or the right to own property. As women gained sexual freedom, the ideas that shaped women’s sexuality became another false goal that actually suppressed their sexual identity.
The beauty myth tells women they are not beautiful because of (fill in the blank). As cultures change, the beauty myth changes and evolves to continue oppression of women. Wolf also recognizes that men are affected by the beauty myth as well. Increasingly, homosexual men have images of beauty they must fit, and some men feel pressure to look like body builders with the use of steroids. It affects every one of us. Whether our opinions of our own bodies change, or our ideals of what makes others beautiful changes.
Reality shows on VH1 and MTV consistently show women with tan skin, large breasts and fake hair competing for one man’s love. Celebrities fill our TV screens and magazines with recently altered faces to fit the “ideal” image of beauty. Fashion repeatedly exploits women for their bodies. Recently, American Apparel held the “Best Bottom in the World” competition. They asked women from around the globe to submit pictures of their behinds to their website to see who had the best butt. Feminist blogs all over the Web exploded with comments. AA moved beyond objectifying models’ bodies, now they are objectifying their customers’ bodies.
2. The Internet pornography revolution brought porn into every household whether you want it there or not. With an alarming amount of porn at their fingertips, many men become desensitized and need more unusual styles of sex to get them aroused. In the documentary style MTV show, “True Life,” three men who are addicted to porn tell their stories. One man revealed that he had to watch the weird stuff, violent sex, because normal porn did not do anything for him after years of daily pornography use. Wolf also cites the same subject of women’s vulnerability in her book. She said, “If the women depicted in mass culture are “beautiful” and abused, abuse is a mark of desirability. For young men, “beauty” is defined as that which never says no, and that which is not really human.” She goes on to illustrate the results of a study that showed 61% of college aged men said it would be exciting to use force to subdue a woman.
The advertisement I chose that offends me depicts a young woman in sexy clothing and high heels being held down by a shirtless man. She appears to be resisting , albeit in a sexy manner, while he holds her down by her wrists. Gathered around are four men, one shirtless and one almost shirtless, all looking at the scene before them. They appear to be waiting their turn. The scene illustrates a rape/gang rape situation with one women and five men. The ad is for Dolce and Gabbana, a fashion clothing company. It appeared in Esquire, a men’s magazine whose slogan is “Man at his best.” I must argue, that men using violent sex and depicting gang rapes is hardly illustrating the so-called man at his best. The ad is using violent sex as a way to sell men’s clothes, although I’m not sure how that works. I suppose it implies that if you wear Dolce and Gabbana (but not too much because you want your oily muscles to shine in the sun), you can use your manliness to overpower defenseless women with your friends - not a very strong or socially acceptable message if you ask me. I digress.
Ads like this pose a dangerous threat to women in society. They normalize violence in sex and make it acceptable for men to treat women as sexual objects. The same can be said for violent pornography. In the book, Wolf cites a study that showed that 1 in 4 women had an experience that qualified as rape. Many of those women do not even associate their situations with rape. Wolf says images like this encourage violence toward women and rape among young men in our society. The issue arises with repeated exposure to the objectification of women in ads like this and shows on television stations such as MTV.
Companies like Dolce and Gabbana use ads like this for their shock value. They know that negative publicity brings positive revenue, so the consequences mean nothing to them. Dollar signs are increasingly posing a risk to women’s safety and health. This is seen not only in the fashion industry, but the makeup industry and the cosmetic surgery industry to name a few. If society will ever move beyond violence toward women, we must move beyond images like this:
3. The ad I chose as my “like” is unusual. I chose to avoid the Dove ads and the anti-ED ads and search for something a little more subtle. It is less something that sends a positive message, and more something that empowers women. The ad could be seen as innocent or could be seen as overtly sexual. It was highly offensive to Catholics around the world. The ad shows a reasonably fit, naked man (facing away from the camera of course) posing as a nude model. Two nuns sit, sketching the man’s body and two are simply watching the man with lustful eyes. The nuns sit with their habits pulled up to thigh height, revealing a garter. The advertisement, though it is not as apparent as some ads, is selling gym memberships. Equinox fitness sells fitness as a healthy life goal, and I agree with them. The ad is portraying a man with a very nice body. The lighting highlights his muscles while the shadows create flattering illusions. I find it interesting that the ad is targeting men, while showing the body of only a naked man. Of course, the argument could be reversed that the ad is implying, “come work out with us and women who don’t have sex will throw themselves at you.” However, that was not my initial reaction to the ad and I realize that ads can all be interpreted in multiple ways.
When I view this ad, I see women, religious women even, showing sexuality without taking off their clothes. The lustful looks imply that the nuns want the man. Yes, women who have given their bodies to God have sexual feelings for Adam’s descendants. Wolf states in her book that, “religious guilt suppresses women’s sexuality.” And I tend to agree with her. She goes on, “the female sexual organs are what the older religions feared as ‘the insatiable cunt.’” I see this as an interesting point. Many religions hide their women. Catholic women become nuns and hide their bodies and save their virginity for God. Muslim women hide behind veils and are separate from their men during religious ceremonies. While I believe in every person’s right to choose their own religion, it appears that these cultures are suppressing their women’s sexuality. This ad shows that the epitome of unsexy has sexual feelings as well. I would imagine that these ‘untouchable’ women of God are also often subjects of pornography, but that is a different discussion for a different time. I appreciate this ad for its ability to objectify a man and to give sexual identities to women who aren’t often described as having sexual identities. The ad goes beyond the stereotypes of women in religion and gives them a new power: to be sexual.
The beauty myth tells women they are not beautiful because of (fill in the blank). As cultures change, the beauty myth changes and evolves to continue oppression of women. Wolf also recognizes that men are affected by the beauty myth as well. Increasingly, homosexual men have images of beauty they must fit, and some men feel pressure to look like body builders with the use of steroids. It affects every one of us. Whether our opinions of our own bodies change, or our ideals of what makes others beautiful changes.
Reality shows on VH1 and MTV consistently show women with tan skin, large breasts and fake hair competing for one man’s love. Celebrities fill our TV screens and magazines with recently altered faces to fit the “ideal” image of beauty. Fashion repeatedly exploits women for their bodies. Recently, American Apparel held the “Best Bottom in the World” competition. They asked women from around the globe to submit pictures of their behinds to their website to see who had the best butt. Feminist blogs all over the Web exploded with comments. AA moved beyond objectifying models’ bodies, now they are objectifying their customers’ bodies.
2. The Internet pornography revolution brought porn into every household whether you want it there or not. With an alarming amount of porn at their fingertips, many men become desensitized and need more unusual styles of sex to get them aroused. In the documentary style MTV show, “True Life,” three men who are addicted to porn tell their stories. One man revealed that he had to watch the weird stuff, violent sex, because normal porn did not do anything for him after years of daily pornography use. Wolf also cites the same subject of women’s vulnerability in her book. She said, “If the women depicted in mass culture are “beautiful” and abused, abuse is a mark of desirability. For young men, “beauty” is defined as that which never says no, and that which is not really human.” She goes on to illustrate the results of a study that showed 61% of college aged men said it would be exciting to use force to subdue a woman.
The advertisement I chose that offends me depicts a young woman in sexy clothing and high heels being held down by a shirtless man. She appears to be resisting , albeit in a sexy manner, while he holds her down by her wrists. Gathered around are four men, one shirtless and one almost shirtless, all looking at the scene before them. They appear to be waiting their turn. The scene illustrates a rape/gang rape situation with one women and five men. The ad is for Dolce and Gabbana, a fashion clothing company. It appeared in Esquire, a men’s magazine whose slogan is “Man at his best.” I must argue, that men using violent sex and depicting gang rapes is hardly illustrating the so-called man at his best. The ad is using violent sex as a way to sell men’s clothes, although I’m not sure how that works. I suppose it implies that if you wear Dolce and Gabbana (but not too much because you want your oily muscles to shine in the sun), you can use your manliness to overpower defenseless women with your friends - not a very strong or socially acceptable message if you ask me. I digress.
Ads like this pose a dangerous threat to women in society. They normalize violence in sex and make it acceptable for men to treat women as sexual objects. The same can be said for violent pornography. In the book, Wolf cites a study that showed that 1 in 4 women had an experience that qualified as rape. Many of those women do not even associate their situations with rape. Wolf says images like this encourage violence toward women and rape among young men in our society. The issue arises with repeated exposure to the objectification of women in ads like this and shows on television stations such as MTV.
Companies like Dolce and Gabbana use ads like this for their shock value. They know that negative publicity brings positive revenue, so the consequences mean nothing to them. Dollar signs are increasingly posing a risk to women’s safety and health. This is seen not only in the fashion industry, but the makeup industry and the cosmetic surgery industry to name a few. If society will ever move beyond violence toward women, we must move beyond images like this:
3. The ad I chose as my “like” is unusual. I chose to avoid the Dove ads and the anti-ED ads and search for something a little more subtle. It is less something that sends a positive message, and more something that empowers women. The ad could be seen as innocent or could be seen as overtly sexual. It was highly offensive to Catholics around the world. The ad shows a reasonably fit, naked man (facing away from the camera of course) posing as a nude model. Two nuns sit, sketching the man’s body and two are simply watching the man with lustful eyes. The nuns sit with their habits pulled up to thigh height, revealing a garter. The advertisement, though it is not as apparent as some ads, is selling gym memberships. Equinox fitness sells fitness as a healthy life goal, and I agree with them. The ad is portraying a man with a very nice body. The lighting highlights his muscles while the shadows create flattering illusions. I find it interesting that the ad is targeting men, while showing the body of only a naked man. Of course, the argument could be reversed that the ad is implying, “come work out with us and women who don’t have sex will throw themselves at you.” However, that was not my initial reaction to the ad and I realize that ads can all be interpreted in multiple ways.
When I view this ad, I see women, religious women even, showing sexuality without taking off their clothes. The lustful looks imply that the nuns want the man. Yes, women who have given their bodies to God have sexual feelings for Adam’s descendants. Wolf states in her book that, “religious guilt suppresses women’s sexuality.” And I tend to agree with her. She goes on, “the female sexual organs are what the older religions feared as ‘the insatiable cunt.’” I see this as an interesting point. Many religions hide their women. Catholic women become nuns and hide their bodies and save their virginity for God. Muslim women hide behind veils and are separate from their men during religious ceremonies. While I believe in every person’s right to choose their own religion, it appears that these cultures are suppressing their women’s sexuality. This ad shows that the epitome of unsexy has sexual feelings as well. I would imagine that these ‘untouchable’ women of God are also often subjects of pornography, but that is a different discussion for a different time. I appreciate this ad for its ability to objectify a man and to give sexual identities to women who aren’t often described as having sexual identities. The ad goes beyond the stereotypes of women in religion and gives them a new power: to be sexual.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
