Movie Event Post

"Wrestling with Manhood: Boys, Bullying and Battering"

I attended the movie shown by Gender studies film series.  This movie was about men and wrestling and how woman are portrayed to be mistreated.  I attended this event with Jessica and she say "the world of professional wrestling creates a culture of men being dominant. It’s about violence and power and more. Young men watch these shows and are influenced by it. Shows like WWF, RAW and Smackdown are some of the most popular shows on cable TV."  This clearly explains that young men look up to mistreating one another and are growing up violent.  The film explained that the wrestling was fake and is just for entertainment that men enjoy seeing.  This film was very disturbing to watch first of all I don't like to see people get hurt and "entertainment" really that's just a stupid way of showing inspiration.  This film was broken down into several parts: Divas, Gender violence,   and "Its only entertainment".  
I have taken some notes and here is what was being taught to me through this film:

• If they decide to be a man than they should be treated a man.  This quote all shows the scenario of what is expected to happen in the film.  
• The toys of WWE- they have action figures for little boys that shows that WWE is showing a strong and tough man figure in a child's life as kids own the figures and look up to them.  
• "Is it real or fake" they sated that its all FAKE and their just putting on a show.  I think that its crazy to know that their creating a violent atmosphere for viewers and young men.
• They had described WWE to be like a soap opera for guys.
• Its a conversion of masculinity, and resembles a bullying behavior.
• Resembles in school how boys bully and get intimidated.  Also how real men show being bullied/s.
• It was a fact that a child is bullied every 7 minutes on the playground.  Those facts were hard to believe as a viewer but it happens and its hard to prevent.

Divas:

• It shows women getting implants to look better and it compares them with looking good on the WWE show as they are "fighting".  

Gender Violence:

• Men killing domestic partners which then leads to media news.
• The violence is between both men and women.
• Another fact was brought up in the film it stated " a woman is raped every 90 seconds in the U.S." Also "a woman is battered every 15 seconds.
• The audiences reactions is the most important part to the WWE wrestlers. 
• There was a lot of trash talking also in the film and it was said that " woman deserved it because shes a slut" and its only for entertainment.
• The viewers just laugh and look at the images of people like women being abused too.

This movie relates to "What Little Boys are Made of" it shows the characteristics of young boys being involved in bullying and violence.  They are in violence already and the wrestling just provokes it for the boys as they are inspired by it then they start acting tough and they ruin their image of being a nice guy.  The wrestling show is just shows the kids how to be more violent.  In the film it was stated that its like a mans cartoon just like women have their soap operas, wrestling is like their cartoon and even though its a fake fighting act they make it seem real, which is the weird part.  So do they really get hurt, do the injuries happen accidently, is a question to ask? This film also relates to Cinderella Ate my Daughter, that story had pinks involved and how it is to be a girl well its the opposite for boys.  Wrestling and violence is the opposite of the short read.  The films shows the resemblance of how boys are into violence and girls are into being polite and respectful.  That is how I see both sides of the spectrum for this situation.  

"Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression" - Ayvazian, Combatting Intentional Bigotry and Inadvertently Racist Acts"- Blanchard

Quotes
Ayvazian- "Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression"
So to start off I noticed that the author is or must be Armenian because of his "ian" name ending, so this is something to relate too.  As I was reading I came across  three quotes.

1. An ally is a member of a dominant group in our society who works to dismantle any form of oppression from which she or he receives the benefit. 
• So its saying in order to be an ally you have to be apart of a "dominant group" to make a difference in something. So its basically saying to support someones ideas and be apart of the group promoting/supporting the fact?
2.  In the second quote I chose its mentioned that "it is difficult for young people to grow up and become something they have never heard of.  It is hard for a girl to grow up and become a commercial airline pilot if it has never occurred to her that women can and do fly jet planes.  Similarly, it is hard for young people to grow up and fight racism if they have never met anyone it describe who does".  
• WOW that was a powerful quote. It is really true that if you don't grow up around something specific for instance like mentioned being a pilot, one may not know the choices out in the real world.  Also that if you learn something you grow up and know your expectations more that way because your goal may be to succeed in something that you have been taught.  
3. Lastly, "the best we can hope for is to strive each day to be our strongest and clearest selves, transforming the world one individual at a time, one family at a time, one community at a time.  May we summon the wisdom to be devoted allies today.  May we walk the walk, living as though equality, justice and freedom for all have already arrived".
• I chose this quote because it describes everything clearly.  That everything is willing to change if there is power and knowledge involved, everything or anyone can be strengthened by learning. Everyday holds something different occurring in society whether its rights or equality there are many ways to sort things out and learn how to overcome any obstacles.

So after reading the article I thought that Ayvazian had a lot to say about everything.  I learned what an ally is by reading this article which was a big help for class and I learned to question myself to see if I am an ally.  All of my questions were answered whether it was clarifying something or just struggling to have background information.  But overall this article was a good read. 
http://www.uakron.edu/groups/lgbtu/allies.php

Random post

This is just a random post I wanted to put up after seeing it on aol.  This connects back to the topics that we were raising in class about raising a boy or a girl and choosing whether you want to raise the child as a different gender.  This mother in the video raised her daughter as a male and refused to show the female characteristics of her.  Heres the video.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/daughter-raised-as-boy_n_2204575.html?1354127019&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing5%7Cdl26%7Csec1_lnk1%26pLid%3D239158

Ellen- Cars for Girls

http://www.ellentv.com/2012/11/15/cars-for-girls/

"Media and Ideology"- Croteau

Hyperlink/ Quotes
To begin this blog post I had to complete more google searching in what ideology means.  This article created confusion for me as I felt like there was no real definition for what this word means.  Although I had read this article I'm still confused as to what the whole meaning and sense of this article is.  I did some researching and I found out that ideology means a set of ideas, goals and actions. "Ideologies are systems of abstract thought applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics.  Every political or economic tendencey entails an ideology whether or not it is an explicit system of thought". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology
So basically ideology revovles around the media and politics.  While reading the article I found a few quotes that some what clarifies the meaning.
1. "Virtually all forms of mass media- radio, television, movies, music, and the internet are standard targets, attacked by politicians from different political perspectives who have t=little doubt that the media are ideological, selling certain messages and worldviews" (161).
2. " Media sell both products and ideas both personalities and worldviews" (161).
3. " The ideological work lies in the patterns within the media texts.  Ideas and attitudes that are routinely included in media become part of the legitimate public debate about issues". (163).
These quotes somewhat clarify my confusion.

After reading the whole article I'm still confused as what ideology means.  I would like to learn more about it and how it comes in place in the media and politically.

Event Post

Just wanted to say that Friday I was working and I was in the BabyGap section and a mother and her probably 5 year old daughter were looking at the toddler clothes and I was walking around offering customer service.  When I overheard this mother and daughter talking and the daughter said "Mommy there's no princess like clothes here" just with that comment I was hooked to see what the mother would say and I was shocked thinking oh good is this really happening.  So the mom turned around to the daughter looking at me saying "yeah there is no princess clothes here, lets go to the other section (kids) to see if we can find something for you to wear that's more Princessy"  I just was shocked that the little girl was saying that and the mother just went along with it.  We do sell pink clothes and we have pink tutus but I'm so confused as for why that would happen.  In my head I was thinking about this class as this was taking place in my work place.  Really!??!! Just another day at work with little kids categorizing themselves already from a young age.
This event relates to the article we read in class called Cinderella Ate my Daughter.   As it talks about girls and how society is revolving certain colors for genders.  It mentions pink and then I connected this to my day at work as it was unbelievable of how this girl was acting and how her mother was promoting it.  This article has made a difference of how I look at things.  Although when I gift wrap the customers bought gift I use the baby blue string to go around the box and then we have three types of sticker; a green owl, a blue whale and a pink elephant.  Its ironic that the company sends us just those certain types of colors for supply.  Usually I ask the customer what color sticker they would like and sometimes people say its fine anything is good so normally I put the gender color of what gender there buying for.  I question myself now should I give them a choice or should I just supply it on the box?  This situation also refers to "What about the Boys" as it shows what is occurring for the boys point of view and how society is categorizing .

"And the winner is....."-Election 2012

Reflection, Connection
So this was the first time I actually got involved in this Election Year.  I usually watch the election on TV when I'm flipping through the channels just to see whos in the lead.  But I never really "Watched it". I think I was more involved in this year election because it was a project and I wanted to see who would be leading the rest of the four years as I am going to be in college.  So the good news is that question three was passed yeah to a new Fogarty Life Science Building.  Besides watching the election on TV, I didn't vote this year but I am still glad to see the end results.  I am a supporter of Obama, (Sorry) but I don't think that Mitt Romney is real he sounds fake and I just don't think he would have been a good president.  (Sorry to offend anybody otherwise).  I was still involved in the election day because at my work place we had 30%off an entire purchase when you present your "I Voted" sticker, which I thought that was a nice thing to offer to the customers.  So I watched the election on Abc6 and Nbc10 too, the results were neck to neck, I took a couple notes, and here's what I found: (Obama =78  Romney = 76) And Romney won in Tennessee, this was @ 8:30p.m.  Channel 10s results (Obama = 57% Romney = 41%) at 8:42.  Then at 8:50 (Obama = 78   Romney=82).  At 9:12 (Obama = 123  Romney = 153).  Then at 9:48 (Obama = 153  Romney = 153) it was a tie and they need 270.  When I was watching the election I kept an eye out for Jill Stein which was the third opponent that my group chose to look at in this 2012 election year.  I had seen that at 8:42, Jill had 1% vote.  I connected this election to the group project as I watched the election.  This election was connected to the two readings that we had read in class regarding Obama and Romneys speeches of their wives explaining their husband.  We analyzed the aspects of their speech to the language and word choice that they were saying towards one another.  We had wrote on the board the comparisons about the first lady speeches.  This election relates to my academic stance as we analyzed both political parties as they gave their speeches.
Along with the election project I felt as though I was involved more in this years election than others as we looked at every aspect made t-charts in comparison and how we were assigned to watch the election.  I never would watch the election but this year this class made me feel more involved in the political sense and what is going to be going on in the next four years.  Hopefully Obama keeps his word and helps the economy and the crisis that we are having.