Feminism
This is my first livejournal. I hate journals online since I once got in a huge mess once before, but MySpace sucked so I ended up here. So, that means nothing too personal will be posted here, but still interesting things. I'll start it out by transferring my last few posts from MySpace over to this account.
*The blog to which this is a reponse to can be found through the following link*
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=15547852&blogID=29611423&Mytoken=20050605194805
I think there is a misconception among the general public of what feminism actually is. Feminists are often imagined to be men-hating, activists promoting the female sex as an oppressed group of victimized women, un-able to reach their potential due to a gender biased society. It's true that some women who call themselves feminists do take on this sort of attitude, but they are doing a disfavor to their service. Productive and successful feminists are people (yes, men CAN be feminists, surprise!) who support the ideas and do work to promote equality between the sexes. Feminists do not try to boost female value beyond that of their male counterbeings, but to bring the opportunities available to both genders to an equlibrium.
Men are oppressed as well as females in our American society. There are adds and displays that promote either gender as the dominator, or the superior. For some companies the goal of their product is to bond together their target consumers. The best example for this that Woolard has mentioned is the growing popularity of shirts that don slogans such as "Boys suck", "Boys are my toys", "Boys are smelly," that are marketed to young elementary and junior high age girls. These shirts have ambiguous messages, one saying "hooray for girls! We are great! Recognize us for our courage, power, and individualism!" The other message is that boys are smelly, dirty, and deserve to be overpowered and controlled.
It's also interesting to look at where these ideas of gender-superiority are being advertised. Clothing with gender-bashing slogans are more common if not completely limited to girl's clothing. You won't often see a little boy running around with a shirt saying "Girls have cooties," it just isn't... 'boy like.' Men's clothing do have nonverbal clothing though. Take time to consider how many shirts you've seen with cartoons of beautiful women wearing bikinis (most real women would feel uncomfortable in) and sitting, standing, squatting, in some suggestive pose; depicted as the sexual predator. American consumers grab at this stuff, spending $40 or more for shirts that increase tensions between the genders.
There's no escaping it, both genders are doing their part in defining each other by generalizations. Some of the rediculous biases can be dealt with if the right people put effort into changing the traditional ways our society thinks. Judges have it in their power to look carefully into cases to make sure the right parent gets custody of their children. Just because one parent spent nine months carrying a child does not give her the automatic right to 'ownership' of her children. Both parents should be accessed and the appropriate parent should gain custody. There are some fathers out there who are FAR BETTER choices as their child(ren)'s guardian than the mother who the child(ren) has been granted to.
I see two, possible, obvious ways whic this issue of gender oppression can be handled. The first option is that corporations cease to make clothing, depict "type" characters, direct tv shows or movies, advertise, or write magazine articles that demean either gender and "cause" tension and oppression. (Remember, correlation doesn't mean causation). The other option I see on the other end of the spectrum is that society lightens up and takes the chance to laugh at itself. Everything in this world is offensive to someone, it's impossible to avoid it, but we can choose not to take things so seriously. Think of the example of a small child poking the babysitter to annoy him/her, if the babysitter doesn't react the child often loses interest and stops. An attitude of non-offensiveness may only be possible in a utopian world since society doesn't seem to be getting anywhere very quickly.
I know these two outcomes are extremes, being really uptight and banning everything, or being extremely loose and care-free, and I know there are other options out there. Please voice your opinion and ideas that the others can read.
Thanks goes to Woolard for inspiring me to write this small, very small, extremely small action toward changing a view. And Thanks to you for taking the time to read this, I know it's long. :)
*The blog to which this is a reponse to can be found through the following link*
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=15547852&blogID=29611423&Mytoken=20050605194805
I think there is a misconception among the general public of what feminism actually is. Feminists are often imagined to be men-hating, activists promoting the female sex as an oppressed group of victimized women, un-able to reach their potential due to a gender biased society. It's true that some women who call themselves feminists do take on this sort of attitude, but they are doing a disfavor to their service. Productive and successful feminists are people (yes, men CAN be feminists, surprise!) who support the ideas and do work to promote equality between the sexes. Feminists do not try to boost female value beyond that of their male counterbeings, but to bring the opportunities available to both genders to an equlibrium.
Men are oppressed as well as females in our American society. There are adds and displays that promote either gender as the dominator, or the superior. For some companies the goal of their product is to bond together their target consumers. The best example for this that Woolard has mentioned is the growing popularity of shirts that don slogans such as "Boys suck", "Boys are my toys", "Boys are smelly," that are marketed to young elementary and junior high age girls. These shirts have ambiguous messages, one saying "hooray for girls! We are great! Recognize us for our courage, power, and individualism!" The other message is that boys are smelly, dirty, and deserve to be overpowered and controlled.
It's also interesting to look at where these ideas of gender-superiority are being advertised. Clothing with gender-bashing slogans are more common if not completely limited to girl's clothing. You won't often see a little boy running around with a shirt saying "Girls have cooties," it just isn't... 'boy like.' Men's clothing do have nonverbal clothing though. Take time to consider how many shirts you've seen with cartoons of beautiful women wearing bikinis (most real women would feel uncomfortable in) and sitting, standing, squatting, in some suggestive pose; depicted as the sexual predator. American consumers grab at this stuff, spending $40 or more for shirts that increase tensions between the genders.
There's no escaping it, both genders are doing their part in defining each other by generalizations. Some of the rediculous biases can be dealt with if the right people put effort into changing the traditional ways our society thinks. Judges have it in their power to look carefully into cases to make sure the right parent gets custody of their children. Just because one parent spent nine months carrying a child does not give her the automatic right to 'ownership' of her children. Both parents should be accessed and the appropriate parent should gain custody. There are some fathers out there who are FAR BETTER choices as their child(ren)'s guardian than the mother who the child(ren) has been granted to.
I see two, possible, obvious ways whic this issue of gender oppression can be handled. The first option is that corporations cease to make clothing, depict "type" characters, direct tv shows or movies, advertise, or write magazine articles that demean either gender and "cause" tension and oppression. (Remember, correlation doesn't mean causation). The other option I see on the other end of the spectrum is that society lightens up and takes the chance to laugh at itself. Everything in this world is offensive to someone, it's impossible to avoid it, but we can choose not to take things so seriously. Think of the example of a small child poking the babysitter to annoy him/her, if the babysitter doesn't react the child often loses interest and stops. An attitude of non-offensiveness may only be possible in a utopian world since society doesn't seem to be getting anywhere very quickly.
I know these two outcomes are extremes, being really uptight and banning everything, or being extremely loose and care-free, and I know there are other options out there. Please voice your opinion and ideas that the others can read.
Thanks goes to Woolard for inspiring me to write this small, very small, extremely small action toward changing a view. And Thanks to you for taking the time to read this, I know it's long. :)