Dove Evolution Commercial

I always thought that the media portrayed unrealistic women as heroins and people for everyday women to look up to.  I love to bring attention to the dove commercial which shows exactly what goes into making a woman a "television ready woman."  Myself as a woman in this society I applaud this campaign, however I am extremely upset with how little it was actually shown on television.  I had not heard of it until I had seen it in a few of my classes here at Ithaca College.  This is a shame, because for once people were brave enough to show the truth, but it didn't get to be showcased the way it should have.  How does this make you feel?

"Housewivisation"

So I am taking a class called "Gender, the Environment, and Social Change" and we read something that really struck me as an interesting topic to talk about here on this blog.  We always talk about how being a housewife has been an American Ideal and shows women in the perfect suburban families and how everyone should want to be like them, but we never really talk about where the idea truly originated.  I was reading about how housewives were introduced into different cultures, and one of them was extremely interesting and shows how "housewivisation" stemmed from racism.  This piece that I read was an excerpt from "Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale" by, Maria Mies.  She talks a lot about how Africa in particular had many white male settlers come in and marry these African women, but then when the royals of their colonies heard word of this and thought about procreation and mixing of races, the felt that they had to do something to ensure that they would not lose their power over the native African people, so they made it illegal for these men to marry African women, and those who had already married African women had to have their marriages voided.  The colonies even took it one step further and imported white women to become wives for these men while they were living in Africa.  These wives became property and stereotypical housewives for these men while they were working.  And not only that but it perpetuated this idea the African women were good enough to be prostitutes (because that is what they ended up taking on as professions after they lost their husbands) but not good enough to be wives.  Any thoughts on this subject??

Wrestling....can it really be a co-ed sport??

So I was watching the news yesterday and I saw a story on a male wrestler in some high school state finals who refused to wrestle another girl in the tournament who was in his weight class.  I know in many movies we have seen that this happened because the guy is afraid he will lose to a girl, but this boy claimed that it was against his religious beliefs to wrestle a girl.  I'm not quite sure if I believe his story, but I guess who could argue with that politically correct statement.  The thing that bothered me most was the people who were commenting on the story.  There was a male commenting on the story who was talking about how he didn't think it was right for him to deny his opponent no matter if she was male or female, and he thought it was because he was scared that a girl might beat him which would be a huge blow to his ego.  There was also a woman who was debating with this idea saying she didn't feel it was fair fight and that the girl had the advantage because  the guy was going to have to think about how he was "putting a girl in a head lock" and how society thinks we shouldn't do that to "pristine" women who are "dainty" and "lady like."  I just don't understand why this woman was not sticking up for the girl to be a part of the sport.  The girl chose to put herself in the position to be put in a head lock, and clearly she is pretty good at it to get to the state finals.  She worked so hard and its almost like she took one step forward for girls all over, and this woman is not sticking up for her pursuing her dreams because she is wrapped up in these social norms.  What do you guys think about any of this...is if fair for her to compete?....is it fair for her to be denied due to religious beliefs?....were any of the broad casters in the wrong?...

What message are children really getting?

A discussion in class the other day sparked an idea in my mind.  This rose when we were discussing the chapter called "Feminist Education for Critical Consciousness" in Bell Hooks' book "Feminism is for Everybody."  Hooks has stated that "Children's literature is one of the most crucial sites for feminist education for critical consciousness precisely because beliefs and identities are still being formed."  I definitely agree with this statement.  There are not many children's books which have moms are the ones going to the office making a lot of money and the fathers are staying home and cooking breakfast.  But we could talk about all of the stereotypes that women face in children's literature forever, but instead I wanted to mention a specific character that we all know and love, Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh.  I always thought that because rabbit was a male, becuase she didn't have a high pitched "feminine voice" and because she was much more "strong," "confident," "confrontational," and possessed other "non-feminine" or non-stereotypically female traits.  Then I saw an episode of the show where she took in a childlike figure and the characters were referring to her as a girl and it was then that I realized that there are female figures out there who are different from the stereotype.  Although it took her having a "child" for me to realize she was female, it was so strange to me that she was so different because I was so young.  I was wondering if anyone else could think of similar experiences that challenged gender/sexuality from their childhood like I did.