Economic Inequity link*

I felt this article was interesting and helps delve into how much inequality for females there are across the world. He talks about Ireland and the UK. One interesting point I read was that in 1968 women provided 11 percent of household income while men provided 70 percent and that in 2009 women provided 24 percent of household income and men provided 40 percent. I actually thought the percentage would be higher for women when you think about how many women work now that in itself should show just how much inequality there is.

What are little boys made of link*

This article was actually written by the author of What are Little Boys Made of  a few months after she wrote it. She had written a summer reading list and made a "boys" and "girls" list and the feedback she received was that she was sexist because she grouped certain books for each gender. She also talks about how she doesn't believe its a bad thing because boys and girls ARE different. I found her perspective very interesting.

Cinderella ate my daughter video*

These two dads talk about princesses in the media and culture and just how much they buy into it as well.

Thoughts after reading/discussion of "Fear of Feminism"

 I honestly at the beginning of this class was very uncomfortable, I guess, with feminism in general. The media casts feminism in a bad light the majority of the time which made me think that feminists were these crazy people who hate and criticize everything. Seems a little crazy but when no one is their to shed light on what feminism really means and stands for you don't question what the media is feeding you. I didn't even realize some of the very things I don't agree with are feminist issues such as job employment discrimination against women and sexual reproduction rights. I just never thought of it like that because feminism isn't brought up. I've dealt with job discrimination many times as I'm sure many others have too I've always just let it roll off my shoulders and go on with my life. Instead of saying something and standing up for myself. When you finally open your eyes you realize just how screwed up some things really are and at the same time you now feel so helpless and hopeless. When feminism is kept hush hush you never fully understand what it is which I think is the biggest problem. How can you be for or against feminism when you don't know what it's about?

The "F-word"

For this blog on "Fear of Feminism; why young women get the willies" and "A Tsunami in History" from the book The F Word. I decided to take three quotes from the text and analyze them.

In Fear of Feminism Hogeland says so little but so much at the same time when she said "Our public culture in the U.S. presents myriad opportunities for women to take pleasure in being women--most often, however, that pleasure is used as an advertising or marketing strategy". The things that deem us "women" that distinctly make us different from men are the things being exploited. I think Dove maybe one of the biggest contenders in that arena but in a different way they put out ads such as this one

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vilUhBhNnQc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

why? Not because they truly care, I believe, about the issues at hand such as body image but because women will see these ads and believe Dove cares about them which in turn boosts their sales! The people that put these ads out know exactly what they're doing and what will garner the highest sales possible. 

The second quote is again from Fear of Feminism "Our culture allows women so little scope for development, for exploration, for testing the boundaries of what they can do and who they can be, that romantic and sexual relationships become the primary, too often the only, arena for selfhood" this makes me think about what was talked about in Cinderella Ate My Daughter how these Disney movies we watch as children shape our beliefs and ideas. The movies all have the same underlying ideas the "princess" has some type of conflict arise meets a man who they fall in love with and for the most part the man solves all the problems. We grow up thinking the most important goal is to fall in love with someone, get married, and have children I know when I was young that was the center of my attention more than what I was going to pursue as a career. It wasn't until about two years ago I had this realization I was genuinely happy as an independent person I didn't need to rely on anyone else to be happy. That was the same time I started taking my studies seriously and really buckling down because I wanted to make sure I would never need another person to get through life. 

The last quote comes from A Tsunami in History "What makes defining the third wave challenging is that not only is the shared label (feminism) missing, also missing is a shared movement that connects the factions of modern feminism and moves shared issues into the broad arena of popular concern." The first wave and second wave had a very united front they knew exactly what they were fighting for and why. The third wave is very divided there isn't a collective group that is fighting for something specific. There are many women who fight for many things until I read this I really didn't even know there was a third wave fighting for something. As much as we want to be independent we cant be just that until we band together and fight for what is right, whether it be equal pay, sexual reproduction, or any other issue but there has to be unity for this to be achieved. Until that happens we won't see the change we need and want. 

"Cinderella ate my daughter"

As soon as I started reading this excerpt from Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein I was having flashbacks to when I was young thinking about the toys I grew up with, the way they were marketed and how it effected my peers. The constant barrage of gender segregated toys had me choosing the barbies and baby dolls yet when I was home I would steal all of my brothers cars and trucks but I felt I wasn't supposed to play with them because "those are for boys" the lines are even more clear today thanks to the toy companies. In this article written by Emanuella Grinberg she talks about a toy store who changed the store completely and got rid of the gender segregated aisles and floors. She states "when stores separate toys into aisles for girls and boys, however, they learn that anyone who deviates from their designated shelves deserves to be ridiculed" this is all too true. Anytime I bring my nephew to the toy store and he grabs for toys that are geared toward girls I feel compelled to tell him thats a girls toy not because I don't want him playing with it but the fear that he will be judged because of it. Now, this may be a step in the right direction and I would love to see all toy stores do this but, it will not, by any means cure this issue. Even if marketing and packaging was changed to be gender neutral we already have these deeply imbedded beliefs that will not go away all that easily. 

"What are little boys made of"

The author Michael Kimmel argues that boys are becoming more depressed, suicidal and emotionally shut down and that there needs to be a change. Feminism hasn't caused boys to grow up more violent by focusing on girls and making girls and boys follow girl standards but rather feminism helps boys to become more emotionally open and able to express themselves in a better manner. As he writes "Feminism encourages men-and their sons-to be more emotionally open and expressive, to develop empathic skills, and to channel emotional outbursts away from violence". Our society has made boys more aggressive by making them conform to what they believe all boys should be like such as keeping emotions bottled up, solving problems violently, and being obedient at home as well as in school he says "we must contend with the "culture of cruelty" that forces boys to deny emotional neediness, "routinely disguise his feelings" and end up emotionally isolated". Instead boys should be acknowledged as just that, boys, by allowing them to embrace the changes testosterone naturally creates and feel free to express themselves. Kimmel also talks about how all of the therapists that talk about this issue neglect the fact that boys are not all the same instead generalize and focus mainly on middle-class suburban white boys, "...the authors ignore large numbers of boys whose pain and low self-esteem may have to do with insecurities and anxieties that are more economically and politically rooted". To solve the issue at hand he believes "feminism offers the possibility of a new boyhood and a new masculinity based on a passion for justice, a love of equality, and the expression of a full range of feelings".