Religion and Gender

I though it was interesting looking at different religion and how they have oppressed women. Especially Christianity because they had a history of oppressing women . We are so hypcritical on what other societies do. I just think it is such a double standard.

We have no where to judge what other countries to or what women were. If they want to wear veils or cover themselves it is there prerogative. I just think we can't complain about what other people do. I don't know it just annoying to me. I just though the presentation was interesting. Maybe I will have something else to say later this weekend.

Class presentation

I am going to make a disclaimer i might offend people with what I have to say. It not that I am trying to be insensitive it is just how I feel about the issue. I feel like this is a really personal issue. One speech want change my opinion and try to be understanding and accepting but at the same time I have my limits.

First off I enjoyed the model that was introduced. However I have one issue with it I understand the I and E and how it can be represented with and O. That is fine be I understand it i think that it can change. But I don't thing the A can change from a day to day basis; here is my reasoning. It is how other perceive you. My perception of some one is noting going to change. I am always going to see them as male or female. Has a drag queen I am going to identify them as a male or a transgendered as their born sex. Just because they act or dressed like a different gender it does change how I see there sex. Appearance to me does not go into how I label them. I only look at behaviors and attributed when seeing how they are gendered. Even there I don't understand how they can be and O. I might call them the perfect blend of male and female, not that there is a perfect blend but that they have an equal share of both qualities.
After writing this I think the model should be thrown out the window. By calling certain traits or thinks female and male aren't we just recreating the box. Is that not what people want to get rid of. This just recreating the box and saying that there certain quality are male or female. Don't we want to get rid of these labels and consider them equal and that no traits should be gendered. I am just so confused and lost when it comes to this and feel like there is not answer. It is just frustrating. I think that gender is a conflict in itself because you have something things that don't have words for them. I just think that is why I don't like this gender in the filled of conflict because it is not black and white and rules are still being created.

I just don't understand and at the sametime things like this annoy the heck out of me. First I am all for transgendered, gays, lesbians and all the other different type of people to have their rights.
I feel like I am open and accepting to them but at the same time I don't think they should force their opinions and needs on me. I am personally uncomfortable using the same bather with male who is a female because he is transgendered. Yea like Amida said we are doing the same things but seperate bathrooms were created for a reason. I don't mind them using it if it a one stall private bathroom. I am sorry I come conservative family. I think I have branched out some and become more liberal.

I know that was just a bunch of rambling but I don't know how to structure that it is just how I feel.

Presentation Nov 18th

I enjoyed the presentation very much. I think it is common that their will always be a a divide in gender roles. That is what I took away from it. It is so embedded in our society that it is hard to break that norm. I know from some people that they want to stay home with their kids and consider it a luxury. I think they reason behind why people are stay at home mom is much different. Mom have the choice to go out and work and for the most they need to because we live in a society were duel incomes are need. most family need two parents working. I think many stay at home mother see it has a luxury if they only have to work part time or not at all.
Personally I know my mother wanted to be a stay at home mom. She was able to do because we were fortunate to make enough money off my Dad's income. Then even we she got jobs she only worked at jobs that were flexible with hours and gave her lots of vacation time. It wasn't until I graduated high school did she re entered the work force with a typical 9-5 job.
If when her being a stay at home mom she didn't do all the work around the house. My dad worked for the family business and would come home during lunch cook for us or he would pick up dinner. Both he and mom would clean the house. But at the same time we had a housekeeper who came twice a week. When it came to yard work my mom did some put also we had a service they came every few weeks. I just think that the questions they ask did not lead for other options rather than mom,dad, or both.

I have to step parents, my life from when I was under 7 then until 14 (when my dad got remarried), When I turned 17 (When my mom's boyfriends moved) the duties that they formed have changed and been different. I have never had one steady way of seeing the division of labor in the house.

Because family are do different and transforming I think they have to take the new modern family into account.

Teenage Pregnancy

For the project I was watching alot of Teen Mom and Sixteen and Pregnant. By watching the show I was picking up an gender conflict. Just watching the dialogue between the young parents you could see the difference in what the gave up. In many cases the guys are the ones who loose the least. Many of episodes show the father still going out with friends or staying in school. They are not missing classes because of sickness or medical issues. While the Mother seems to be the ones having trouble keeping up with school and friends.

However this is not to say that father don't have consequences because they do have to work and support the child. Or I times they have to have to give up College or their old lives at times have to be changed. After watching the show you start to see trends in how gender roles confirm. Men think how hard is it really take care of a child. While the mother are complaining about they need help and feel alone. It is just easy to see the lack of communication and difference in needs. It like that people go into the gender roles if they don't discuss what they want.

I guess my question and point is that they so easily fall into this stereotypical roles. While their is a twist because they are young it is always the same things happening.

Sex trafficing project

I am not going to lie when I first heard the commercial that they decided to play I was not looking forwarded to the presentation. To me those are some of the most stereotypical images or commercial that come to mind when talking about serious isseus facing the world. I absolute dread listening to that Sarah Mclachlan. I just wish that would have done there own slide show of images of the U.S sex slave industry. I think everyone is focusing on what is happening in Europe and Asia which is a huge problem don't get me wrong. I think that is played up in the U.S more than it should be. Espically since we have high satistic when it comes to human trafficking. I don't think we can go out and tell other how to solve their problems and comment on it when we have issues like that in our own country.

My perspective on the gender issues is that there is a huge conflict. If we look at the U.S who get in trouble when a brothel is hit or raided. If it the men who go to it and use the services they offer no. It is the women and maybe the pimp if he can be found.

The services are offered because there is a market for it. How the people who use the business of prostitution just get a slap on the wrist. Idefinetly think in the U.S harsser punishment are needed for the men or women who use the service of prostitution because it is still illegal.
It not fair for us just to blame the women when it is busted.

This can't be used abroad in poorer country. the point was brought up to day in class. They are selling their daughter because of financial hardship. To get this to stop you have to make an insensitive for why they should keep their children or wives. You have to educate and help make this women valuable and seen as a resource to stay with the family. While that sucks that we have to help people realize women are important or give them a pig so they will keep their daughters. If it means that a girl wouldn't be put in to the industry. I think it is worth.

Chapter six

This chapter of Valenti book talks about the pay different exprenced between men and women. I knew that women made less than men around 30 cents less. However I never understood reason other than we were being discriminated against. It is unfair that we have to take pay cuts just because of sex and gender. We work just has hard as men yet we don't rep the same benefits that they do.
It almost makes me frustrated that just because I am young and might have kids I am going to looked at differently then a man or an older women who is past the age of having kids. There is something wrong about society when we don't value that the work women contribute not only in the labor force but also at home. The work women do at home is not paid for but it would be interesting to see how much their work would be valued at. I think I am going to google that right now.
""If you're a stay-at-home wife and mother, you're worth a whopping $125,900 a
year! That's because your mate would have to pay $2,325 a week to hire people to
perform all the jobs you do, according to U.S. government statistics."
http://www.coeinc.org/Articles/HousewifeWorth.pdf

It's a little dated but I think it a good estimate. I don't know about you but over 100 k sounds like a pretty good salary to me. However it still doesn't factor in that a mother/wife is working 24/7 they are never getting a break or vacation time. Even if they go on vacation they could bring the kids. If the leave the kids at home they will be worrying about them. There is not winning either way. If you like or not once have child and decide to raise them you are the clock 24/7. But why isn't that the same with dads. Who do schools call first when the child is sick or is in trouble and needs to be pick up.

I think that we are still stuck in the 1950's mind frame even though the dynamics of the family have changed. Family are not longer mom and dad and two kids. We do not account for how the family make up is changing so we can no longer have vision that mom will stay at home why dad works.

We leave in a two income family. Families can only survive a lot of times if two adults are bringing in incomes. It is considered more of a luxury if only one parents has to work.

Questions from class

How are our notions of peace gendered? When we think about Conflict resolution or transformation how does gender become important?

First I think it is hard to describe some so cookie cutter for this. There are lot of factor about the conflict that need to be considered. However the biggest thing I see looking a certain cases is that women a lot of times push for peace. They are effect a lot by war and violence in ways that are not portrayed. A lot of times you just hear about Soldiers dieing in battle. Those soldiers has a family back at home. They might have been married or a least have a mother. They are effected by that loss. If we look at the traditional gender roles when their son or husband dies who is going to take care and provide for them. They have then just lost their families source of income.

I think that plays into how peace is gendered of who wants and how. My case study behind this Liberal.
Where it was the men behind the close door coming up with some way to solve the conflict and help the county. but pardon my language the truth of the matter was they were just dicking around. Not getting anything accomplished in the way of helping the country. they saw this more as an opportunity to get away from their daily lives and responsibility. With this the women had to step in a force them to be productive at the meeting. I just think that that is quick interesting. How it was the women who need to make the men be serious and make change happen.

Questions from class

What roles do men and woman play - how do gender roles limit or enable men and woman to act in conflict?

If we look at words to describe them we get a clear vision of how men and women are suppose to act. Men are the aggressive, violent, brutal, animal like instinct, dangerous, wild.
They are going to be going out and downing the killing because it what they have to do. They have to protect the females and children back in the village or country. Men are seen as the strong ones who lead us to worry.
I think part of it is that they feel that they have ownership to women. They need to protect them. Women are their responsibility. It is like they are comparing us to house or a car some material object. They own us so it it there job to protect us from danger. That is way men go out and fight. At the same time when they go out to fight they are not realize the affect it is having back at home. They are either going to be killed or kill. War effect both men and women in terrible ways. For men they have witness horrible things and first hand killings. It mess up their mind. Just think about all the men who have come back form Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. Some of them come back and don't know how to cope with their family and every day life. It going to get worst with these drone killing.

Now men or possible women can set at a computer and just killed a few hundred of people a day. Just think about the damage that is going to have on people.

Back to the issue.
Women have a different experience with warfare and conflict. Where men are more direct in the everyday fights or conflict women tend to hold back and do a lot of back handed aggression. Just look at the movie Mean Girls. There was so much fight among them but it was not violent. Lindsey Lohan character says if she was in the animal kingdom it would be easy to solve the fights. Sense they are in girl world they had to go about things differently.

In war women are left back in the village to make sure things back at the home front are running smoothly. It also shows how women are limited by the reproductive roles. Physical they can not go fight wars for month is they are caring a child or have children that still breast feed. There are some biological factors that play into it.

Pop Culture gone Wild

I know that this article is a bit dated with reading but I just enjoy what Valenti has to say most of the time. It goes into some of the media aspect of conflict we have been discussing. Lets face it Media helps reconstruct the ideas we have about men and women. They are the ones that encourage the so called "box". On side I hate the box I am tired of hearing about the box. No one fits into the box so I thing it is unimportant and should just be thrown out. The only thing about humans and other animals is that no two are the same. We are different weather it be looks, personality, or biological make up. Everybody has some different compared to the next person. That my little ramble about it.

Anyways on to the article.
Lets face the fact sex is no incorporated into every life. Weather it be through conversations, tv, or music. It is some how going to come up. It is no longer something that is frowned upon as before. While there are still negative connotation around sex it have involved since the early twentieth century.
She focuses a lot of Girls Gone Wild. First off I have them credit for running a solid empire that has branched out past videos. In some respect Playboy and GGW are both well runned and managed business.
I don't support any of what they sell or promote. They are making money by objectify women. This is why I think playboy is a little bit more legitimate then GGW. The girls audience to be in the magazine. GGW finds drunk girls on spring breaks and takes advantage of them one could argue.
Some are argue that act of flash your boobs to people are good things. This is a new generation of feminist arriving. It saying that stripping or working at Hoosier is empowering for women. We have a choice to participate. Maybe they do choice to partake in these careers or activities because the money good. At the same time men don't careers like this they don't have to take off their clothes to the same magnitude that women have to. I just think that when women premote things like this they are continuing women stereotypes.

We are not moving forwards for equality with Playgirl, GGW, and Hoosier. If anything we are taking steps back.

What a girl wants

The movie we watched in class was interesting and thought provoking. The most interesting thing was that I was around that same age when Britney, Christine, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore came out. The thing that stuck out most to me was how different gender perceived them. They are taking the same song or music video and getting to different interpretations of it. The young were walking away with a sense of empowerment. While guys see it has very sexual.

I thought it was so true as soon as I heard it. Many people interpret things to fit their beliefs. This is what the girls were doing when they see these videos. They are ignore the skimpy clothings and provoking dancing that these women are doing.

Even with the lyric which most of the time are filled with sexual messages, these girls just disregard them. They are more focused on who they are promoting "girl power". It is like we make excuse to way they can look that way but still be great role models to us.
Why is that excepted for us to do or society in the matter. I think part of it is the Media but overall I think to much blame is put on the media. The media wouldn't portray this idea if they did not have fan base.
I just thing that we need to take some of the blame for allowing this to be shown. While parents can't monitor everything their children do. They can still prepare them and talk to them.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed this music to as young teen. I too probably was unaware of what they were wearing or saying. I just knew that they represented girl power to me that is all that was important.

More thoughts on the Movie

The movie we watched in class was interesting and it got me to think a lot about the violence we see in movies and at school. I never really notice that many if not all the major school shooting were committed by men. I knew about that but I never thought about the how odd or strange it was the most of them where males. I was looking more at psychological makeup rather than their gender. I also feel that is what the press focusing on to: where the bullied at school or what was their home life like. They play how the boys are nurtured rather than their nature. Which leads me to assume that people don’t play into the claims that boys are more violate.

However that isn’t support by saying like “boys will be boys”. When litter kids are rough housing or playing with pretend guns a lot of people accept it. Then we are playing into the stereotypes about how boy are supposedly more violent.

I just think there are so many other factors that play into to violent cases that deal with child shooting or even adults killing. I just think it is hard to incorporate the gender factor into these because you have to look at other aspect of the situation.

Chapter four

Freud based his theory upon the story of Oedipus. In my personal opinion I feel like he stretches it too far with the theory when apply it to women. That mostly likes has to deal the time he was conducting his research. He did take in conduct for other psychological disorder one might have or what past experience had on people. We saw this with the case of Dora, his diagnosis was hysteria just because she didn’t want to get married. There are some valid points to Freud it does not play into biologic factors. It really looks at how the child was raised. The only biological factor is whether or not you are male or female. Depending on what sex you are is how you are supposed to grow up. I have to side with the feminist on this one more. We have to look more at how the children are reared; rather than their biology. We also can’t have “normal standard” for how men and women are suppose to be. If they don’t fix a certain box they were expected in society. This is still an issue today. We have ideal ways in which people are suppose to behave. The other thing that frustrated me with this chapter was how Freud and other men also claim that women were inferior because they did not have a penis. I understand that it was part of the times however it such a ridiculous claim. That claim helps Freud to infer why young girls and boys separated from their mothers eventually.

Tough Guise

I had mix emotions about the movie today. I thought that the author brought up some good points but at the same time it really attack American cultural. It did not really leave with a positive out look on life. That could be because we did not end watching all the movie. Or maybe it was because the director wanted to leave you with the sense that this was the way are society worked.

I also really get annoyed when documentary have a lot of statistics in them. That is what this guy did. He read us form so many finding and did let us know where they were form or what kinds of samples where they. It made with question weather that information was valid. It was surprising to me just how high it was actually. I knew that the percentage of rape and Domestic violence were going to be higher for men that women. It was just shocking to actually see the numbers. Especially for other studies like road rage and alcohol related injuries.

It just caught me off guard the number of women who are going to get raped. I think it is difficult for me to believe that because I have not had a personally experience where I knew some one who was hurt or raped by a man. I look at my lifestyle and where I live I really don't have to worry about issues like that on a daily basis.

It makes it harder for me to believe how violent men are because I don't experience it to leave which the guy is arguing.

I did really like how it talk about the how the dominate group is never said. After thinking about that I see how true it is. If a man does something you never see there gender. It the same with race. I found his work on the that to be fascinating. I want to explore that more in a later blog and hopefully some of the writing talks about that so. Next time I want to connect more of literature pieces on masculinity to the movie.

Terry Williams

I got the opportunity to hear Terry Williams speak twice. Once during class and the other Tuesday night. After reading his book The Cocaine Kids the class at many burning question for. One of them was very gendered oriented. At of the main kids who were dealers only one was female. Of my own knowledge I understood that many of the people involved in the drug business are men. What I don't why. Is it because the drug business is seen as to aggressive for them or does it still play into gender stereotypes. If some one is involved with the drug trade that takes away from the domestic duties.

In the book, Kitty (the female involved in the drug trade) is not seen as a domestic caretaker. While she has a kid, it is left with her mother most of the time. This place into my claim that men don't want women to be involved because it goes against traditional values of how men and women are viewed.

He did not directly talk about gender in the lecture he gave but the studies he does must have lots of good observations on how gender plays into the everyday life. I enjoyed is talking but I can't find any article to link his speech up with.

Maybe if Meghan McCain came I could have been talking about men and women involved in the republican party. I think that would have been really interesting to hear or perspective on Gender plays in to politics epically with the younger generations.

Class on Thursday

Overall I enjoyed Professor Widman lecture on the biological aspect of gender. In my war and religion class we have been discuss some of the difference too. Why I do thing cultural plays into why men and women are different and we we have stereotypes. Biology in my opinion does have a major role in why Men and Women have different roles. Because it is Females who bear the children that but them out of commission to work, it is less so then know. If you look back at early societies, the women could not just get up and leave to go on 3 day hunting expeditions. I would have like to hear him discuss this more than just have to hear him defend his position for an hour and a half.

For the most I enjoyed hearing about the studies and was glad to know that some of them have been across cultures. That helps me to believe that it just not cultural that tells men and women what is pretty or their roles in society.

I look at it this way Cultural and ideology has changed so much since humankind was created. There has always been gender, race, and class divide. It can't just be because of cultural. There has to be more to it.

The Basow article does a nice job of laying out the historical perspectives of gender divide happens throughout different societies.

A puzzle: Consistency of gender roles in war

The thing that caught my eye most in this article was on page 44.
" Other writers see in war not so much an extension of men's sexuality but an attempt to compensate for men's innate inability to bear children."

I don't know how true that is because I have heard that war is also a bonding experience for me. I feel like that might be more the reason they fight.

Men are going through the same emotional as their fellow platoon or squad. I just can't agree with the Feminists on this one. There notations just seem a little to far fetched for me.

I do like that the article calls us peace makers even if it is through man's imagination.

However again it not true. Women sometimes has worst fights then men. They might not be gory but the cruel.
At the same time history does show us cases where women have been able to help bring peace to the country. The first would be in Liberia. They had strategies which helped them to gain power and leverage.
Even in our own country with had the Women's Peace Party. They were active with Vietnam and nuclear war. Not to mention the work they did in Britian with the Greenham Common protest.

Who names conflict

I really enjoyed the conversation on who names conflict. Who decides if someone is in a conflict. Are there any are arching themes of conflict. The dictionary gives a vague meaning of the word, to fight disagree, opposition. People made have different ideas of what it means to disagree. For some there might need to be violent aspect for them to label it as conflict. For other just having a different opinion might be enough to call it a conflict.

If in class we were have trouble deciding weather some was a conflict or not. I think it is clear that there is a bunch of politic between labeling things has conflict or not. But after that it is hard to differentiate what is a conflict and what is not. Or who is in conflict. A lot of time outsider make up the conflict that surrounds men and women. Women or work and have children are they really in a struggle. Why can a women be both an employee and mother and be good at both. T.V always make it seem that there is such a struggle between choice to do one over the other.
One could argue that conflict could be built up around men to. I am drawling blank on an example. I feel like there are something that people just expect us to be in conflict about and others they ignore.

Dr. James Skelly

Over I enjoyed Dr. Skelly's talk. I thought he brought up valid points. However when listening to him I had a hard time applying what he was saying to things we had discussed in class already. I was not apply to make the connection about some of his remarks to gender conflict.

I was able to pull a few concept or topics that he discussed and apply them to topics that might be brought up in class. The first was the idea of consumerism. He was talking about who used to smoke cigarettes and there has been a shift in who buys them. Before there were stereotypes for women if the smoke. They were lose women or they we seen in an unflattering light.

Just thinking about it I feel that in the early twentieth century women were this untapped market place. Correct me if I am wrong I feel like once they expanded the marketing of items to different people, it made us more and more of a consumer nations.

Go back to commercials I think that people in the marketing or advertising field need to have an idea of what sells. Especially to what is appealing to women, men, or both. There is such a struggle in the field looking into. When design an ad you have to figure at what gender it is appealing to and what type of person. Media has a lot of influence on gender and divides. Media keep enforcing certain ideas. If you look at commercial aimed at children products. The girls are always playing with dolls or stuffed animals while the boys have the trucks or building blocks.

Media has a huge influence on how men and women are perceived cultural. The shows were women are not stay at home mom, they deal with the struggle of are they being good moms. You never have a show with successful women or are moms not have a internal or outside conflict.

Full Frontal Feminism

Overall I really like this article. The author's style is very informal, which I enjoyed. It was easy read that had eye catching remarks. It has to be good when the author starts off saying every word that I find offensive to women.

She makes a valid point. The worst thing men and women can say about each other is that they are a girl. It does infuriate me that this true. However I never considered myself a feminists. I was believed that that there should be some equality among men and women but there are differences. Like personally I am glad that they have never fixed the draft law. If there is another drafted I am not part of it.

I don't think I would still ever label myself as a feminist. Part of the reason might be because they still have negative stereotype with them. If guys who say that they are feminist, if there are any, get ridiculed for this choice.

Nobody ones wants to omit that they are something that everyone in society does not like. When reading this all the stuff that is said about feminism is true in my eyes.

The women suffrage in the early 1920's, that was filled with a lot of wealthy women at the top. Like the author said in the 60's and 70's it was more privileged women we were hearing about.

I think there is a lot of truth to this article and the author tries to leave you inspired. There is a lot you can do with out being a die-hard member to the cause. I think that is important for people to understand and walk away with that. You don't have to be on the front lines defend or changing the laws. You can take that more behind the scenes role.

On a side not, my favorite quote from this article is "Got that girls? Without a husband to depend on, you'll be selling crack in no time!"

I thought it was the most ridiculous claim every. Feminism is responsible for increase number of crimes. I don't see how the attributes people assign with women could led to a life crime. It goes against what are called gender qualities are. It just really made me laugh and question the people behind a claim like that.

First day week

Overall I enjoyed the first week of class. I think that they early discussion we had was good and showed a wide range of opinion.

I really enjoyed the Glen reading. I thought that the race and gender part was very interesting. The idea of how Blacks women are usually ones left out when. I had never really put much thought into it before. After reading it, It was on of the moment. When you know that it is so true once it has been brought to your attention.

The other article was interesting. It had a lot of new vocabulary that I see will be playing an important role later in the course. It was a good opportunity to see some of the concepts that we will be taking about as the semester unfolds.

In addition I loved the activity we did in class. When trying to see how women should be or how we see them.

I know personally when I was making the list for media or society. I was taking my ideas from what to famous people look like, what is on TV, or even how women are treated in other countries. I think that when doing an assignment like people to retreat back the "leave to beaver stereo types". While they do exist somewhat in today's cultural, things have changed. Women have evolved out of the housewife role. They have more choices. They are still persecuted at times for choosing work or the house, or having or not having an abortion.
It was so clear when looking at the different posters that how we think the media views people and we view ourselves is so different.

On another note, I think that cultural the role of women and men are different I hope that we dive into that as the semester continues.