What a girl wants

The movie we watched in class today was very interesting. It was about younger females (10-14) and what they thought of role models in the year 2000, such as Brittany Spears, Mandy Moore, and Christina Aguilera. It was interesting to see how much they wanted to be like these girls and how they have effected their way of thinking. There were instances where the girls did not agree with what they were doing as well. I could not believe some of the things that they were thinking of at that age, it really showed how much the media can effect the mind of a young person. MTV's largest audience is between 9 and 14? That is also interesting to learn. A lot of people in reality shows, in music videos, in basically all shows are young mature adults. At the age of 9-14, this group is very curious as to what it is like to be an adult and this is where they're learning these things.

Manning up

After reading the article by Ruth Marcus about "manning up" and not being the problem in the election my eyes were opened up to how slang really affects the image of the politicians. The author of this article takes these sentences such as "man up," "get your man-pants on," and "man enough" very seriously and it is offensive to the female race. She even covered the fact that Sara Palin told politicians to "man up" when asking for capital to support Tea Party candidates. She also covered the word "whore" as an attack word used in a recording of Jerry Brown. Brown did not see a large issue with this when asked about it. Marcus offers some advice at the end of her article about not equating certain things with gender, such as toughness and weakness. Don't use sexist or raciest words, and "manning up" is not the issue, growing up is.
I personally agree with most of this article, most of it. I think the points at the end of it hit the nail on the head, but doesn't quite cover what she is arguing completely.  She spent the whole article arguing how offensive that was, only to finish without saying why. I can understand why though. My personal opinion on the phrase "man up" is that it is a term that is not taken literally by many people now, note I said many. I think it is like a lot of old sayings that have lost their meaning and we say them out of habit. I am sure that many people still take this literally, but when it is said it is not meant to be offensive most of the time, it is just said out of habit. Words like whore, or the n-word, are offensive words that need to be treated with caution.

How equity is creating more work for families

I was reading an article on the internet about how the roles in relationships after marriage are becoming more equal, yes more difficult for families. The roles in the house hold are evening out with a male doing approximately an hours more worth of work at the house in a week, while the woman's fell approximately a half hour. With this being said, we are coming closer and closer to equity in the work place every day. Women are working in the field a lot more than they were in the 50's. This is causing them to spend less time together, and creating a bit more stress in relationships. The woman still spends more time doing "house work" than the man, but again it is equaling out.
I believe that this is a good thing depending on the relationship and the career field. Minor details matter when dealing with a statistic like this. I believe with equity comes a better understanding of each others roles in the relationship and can lead to a healthy relationship. I'm not saying it would be less stressful, but  an understanding relationship is important to success.

Different Types of Feminism

We just met in our group after reading chapter 8 about the different types of feminism. I did not know that there were separate types of feminism. What really boggled my mind was how, for example, third wave feminists challenged second wave feminists in many different ways. I always just thought of it as an all for one, one for all thing. The chapter was very difficult to understand and put in context but after our group meeting, and talking about the different types of feminism, I believe I have a general understanding of the types. 

Axe commercial

It was very interesting to write the paper about my advertisement. The axe commercial about cleaning balls was the perfect commercial to point out how a company uses gender roles to promote a product. There were many different portions in the commercial that were perfect in proving my thesis. I have taken classes to analyze media before, but this time I broke it apart to look into the gender and conflict side of it and to see how gender roles played a big part in selling a male product.