Reflections

I have learned a lot this quarter about gender and sexuality and the media that I had never thought about before. It has really opened my eyes to the world of media literacy and the way the media affects us without us even realizing it. Sometimes I don't even know if the people behind the media know the effect they have on the population. I am now more critical of how the media portrays things and how it makes me feel. I have learned that not all representations we see in the media are correct and that we cannot judge a person upon the stereotypes we see in the media. All of our readings and the essays we have done so far have helped me see this and in doing the essays i have been able to put my thoughts down on paper and organize them so they make more sense. I feel like more people should lean about the affects of the media and by taking this class and having a better understanding I feel that I can help people come to the same understanding. I do not feel like I will continue blogging after this class is over because of my busy schedule but have enjoyed the experience. I had never blogged before this quarter.

Final Paper Proposal

I will be looking at how the media represents pregnant teens. I will take a look at the TV series on ABC family, the secret life of the American teenager, and the TV series on MTV,16 and pregnant. I want to take a look at how teen moms are represented on TV. I feel that the representations on 16 and pregnant and teen mom are correct but the representation on the secret life are not. I want to look at a situation where all teen moms could have their baby, stay in school, and still live a normal teen life, much like in secret life. but as we see in 16 and pregnant, this isn't always possible.
The audience for the paper is young people who watch and enjoy these shows. People that may be interested in my information are people who watch these shows, or possibly young pregnant girls wondering what their life will realistically be like with a baby. I want my readers to understand which representation is correct. to do this is will need to gather real life statistics about teen pregnancies and compare them to the shows.
I will have to draw from many sources on the Internet about the shows as well as from the things we have read in class.
I will need to have all of my research collected by the middle of week 10 in order to compile and create my essay by the thursday of exam week.
I hope to discover some new information of the shows i enjoys to give me some more insight into the real life context they contain.

Thomson and Disabilities

I wanted to discuss farther what we talked about in class last Thursday. In my small group we discussed how when we see people with disabilities we don't want to be rude and stare, but we also have a curiosity towards them. Then we started talking about shows we see on television that involve people with disabilities and the different ways they are portrayed.There are shows on discovery health that I would consider spectral shows. These are usually one hour specials that talk about and show people with very rare and unusual disabilities. Some examples of these shows are "The Half Ton Teen" and "Mermaid Girl" and "The Tree Man". These shows give a short glimpse into the life of someone with disabilities that people can stare at in the privacy of their own homes. They do not feel as guilty looking at these people when they know that no one can see them or judge their thoughts. Then their are also shows on TV like "The Little Couple". This show is about a newly marries couple of little people and their struggles to make it in a big world. This show, even though the people are disabled is not the same because, besides being little, they look the same as everyone else. They do not have a type of dwarfism that causes their bodies and limbs to be disproportionate. They couple also lead very normal lives. The woman is a doctor and the male is a business man.
These shows would not be on TV if people did not enjoy watching them. Thomson is right when he discusses people feeling uncomfortable looking at people with disabilities but with modern technology and television people can now stare without actually staring at the person. They can stare in the comfort of their living room and then go on with their day without anyone every knowing.

Essay 2 proposal

For the second essay in woman and writing we are suppose to select a television show, advertising campaign, or a web page. Then we are suppose to critique how gender and sexuality are represented. For this essay I would like to write about The Secret Life of the American Teenager. I watch this show religiously! I think it is also an excellent TV show to critique because it touches on numerous sexual topics, such as teens having sex, masturbation, homosexuality, marriage, teen pregnancy, and peer pressure to date and have sex. I also think this would be a great topic for my research paper. Even though it is still a relatively new show, only on its second season there is a lot of information about it and many people with different opinions and view points on many different aspects of the show.

Evolution and Attraction

Last week while looking through peoples blogs I was intrigued by the discussion of the Ads on genderads.com and wanted to check it out. While on the website I started to think about why we view a certain body type as attractive. The first thing that came to my mind was evolution. I found a website that says "curves in women have also evolved as attractive because women needed a layer of fat to keep themselves and their babies alive during times of famine", "A round buttock is another sexual “turn-on”", and doe-like eyes, and lack of body hair remind men of children and men feel the need to protect children from harm. This also got me thinking. If men value a healthy body type how are the models we are shown all the time attractive to people? They certainly cannot be healthy... These women do not have curves and they have very little body fat. How is it that every girl wants to look just like them? According to evolution it is not possible for men to find these women attractive. Is it possible that the media has had a large enough affect on us to effect evolution? Is so what does this mean for our future? Will the human race die out because the social norm is to be to skinny to bear children? As humans we are all vulnerable to be pulled into the web of lies the media spins for us every day to sell us products. We should take a stand and stand up against the media to tell them not to manipulate us any longer.

http://socyberty.com/sexuality/sexual-attraction-evolution-and-biology/

Body Image and Psychology

As we are learning, the media plays a large part in how we view our bodies and how we think others view out bodies. Because of the Violence of Normativity, girls form a young age are taught that they need to have control over their body size. They are taught what is social normal, attractive and necessary to fit in, find a man, and have friends. This all reminded me of a study we learned about in my Social Psychology class. This study was conducted by Lawrence D. Cohn and Nancy E. Adler. Cohn and Adler went to a college campus and brought with them a picture of body types of men and women. They then took this picture up to girls and asked them a series of questions. The first is what number best describes your body type right now. On average girls answered they were currently between a 4 and 5. The next question was what number would you like to be? Most girls answered they would rather be closer to a 3. Finally they were asked what number do you think your peers want think is most attractive?Most answered that that thought their peers think under a 3 is the most attractive. The same was done for boys. Currently boys thought they were a 4. They wanted to be less then a 4 and thought that their peers wanted then to be closer to a 5. 

This Study shows that we all feel that we need to improve our body types, what to be thinner then we are and think that our peers want us to be even thinner then we want to be. All of this adds pressure and stress to us to try to conform to an idea of what we think our peers what us to look like. 

In actuality, our peers do not want us to be as thin as the models we see all the time trying to tell us that to be pretty, successful and popular we need to look just like them. So why then are these women still the model of perfection? If most people do not think their friend or girl friend or boy friend needs to look just like a model to be attractive successful and popular, shouldn't these models portray a more normal image? But then also, if all the models people strive to look like, just look average, what will people have to motivate themselves to look good? 

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119986371/PDFSTART?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Dolce and Gabbana sells Watches, Britneys new single, and Hilary Duff on Gossip Girl

Dolce and Gabbana sells Watches, Britney's new single, and Hilary Duff on Gossip Girl. What do these three things have in common? 

Sexuality is becoming less and less taboo as the years go by. The converse is also true; open sexuality is becoming more normal. While discussing Yeps article we as a class defined normalization as deciding what is socially correct and incorrect. We also defined sexuality as a privileged site of social organization, knowledge, identity, and experience that overall lead you to knowing your "true self."

This year alone there are many examples of sexuality become more normal in the media, but the example I am going to discuss is the threesome. This year there has been three major examples of threesome in the media. First is the newly popular song by Britney Spears titled Three. This song is about having a threesome. Some of the lyrics include "1, 2, 3, Not only you and me Got one eighty degrees And I'm caught in between Countin' 1, 2, 3 Peter, Paul & Mary Gettin' down with 3P" and " Livin' in sin is the new thing (yeah) Are - you in" The next example is an episode of the popular television series Gossip Girl. In this episode, Hilary Duff had a threeway kiss with two other castmates and they later end up in bed together. The third example is a TV commercial by Dolce and Gabbana selling watches. In this commercial, a young girl and boy are getting steamy on the way to the girls room when another male enters and is invited to join. You see scenes of them on a couch together when another woman enters and screams. A hand covers her mouth with a D&G watch on the wrist. 

These examples show that extremes in sexuality are becoming social correct and as such they are considered normal. It is becoming normal to be your own individual sexual " true self". By knowing and experiencing your sexuality, and by having society accept your sexuality you are able to be your true self. And of course this progression into accepting sexuality is not finished. Who knows what aspects of sexuality will be considered socially correct next year, or ten years from now. The affects of this can have positive affects on society. In the future will homosexuality soon be considered socially correct? Will homosexuals be able to get married? or It could have negative consequences. With the over acceptance of all different types of sexuality could the institution of heterosexual marriage fall apart? We are already seeing the divorce rate on the rise. Is this because as a society and in the media all types of sexuality are becoming normal and the idea of a monogamous relationship is taking the back burner? As we described sexuality as a social organization, society affects our sexuality.People strive to be normal, to fit in, because being normal reduces stress. If society does not accept their sexual urges as normal, they may choose not to act upon them. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0Frs73-CV0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvrLmE7FQoY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i84afivwfhk