Can Women Really Have It All?

In class we have been talking about what it means for women to “have it all”.  My definition of this is based off of a wide variety of people’s opinions. Who limits what women can or cannot have? The definition to me ranges from women having the high position job title in a competitive work field or having just enough to be able to have a job and support her family. Having it all can mean different things to different people. It really comes down to a women’s position in life and the opportunities that she is given. In the article, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All mentions that women are still looked upon by society to keep up with the “work- family balance” (Slaughter). With this being said, some of society may see that women needed to provide a second shift for the family. A second shift is when “women employed outside the home still carry household responsibilities” (Kirk 313). A second shift has the women or home taker provide the responsibilities of having a job while providing support at home for the family. This can be a more difficult task for some women. Though, if the husband were to have this role or be a “stay at home dad”, then some of society may look down upon that. How can society break some of these norms? Would things change if we had more women leaders in the world? These are questions that pop into my head and I wonder if society is thinking the same. People need to become more familiar with the ability for women to succeed in jobs or in “difficult, manly” positions.

Link to the article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/

Link to a image:

http://www.marmalade.hu/images/image/busy-mom-2.jpg

Missrepresentational Instagram

   This week in class we talked about beauty, media, politics, and sexism. We watched the documentary MissRepresentation and it truly spoke out about all of the dangers our society is putting on younger generations. Well after coming back from class, I got onto Instagram and started looking at the pictures that were uploaded. I came across a lot of pictures that reminded me of how media is portraying beauty. As we saw in the documentary, it is a beauty that a lot of people try to go after but do so in a dangerous way. I saw a picture uploaded with two models from a spanish tv reality show. They are wearing a lot of makeup and the caption says "mirror mirror, who is the prettiest." I was shocked to see how my perception of this picture had changed after viewing the documentary. Before seeing Misrepresentation, I would of liked the picture and just moved on thinking in my head, "Wow, how I wish I looked like those girls." But after seeing this documentary, I became conscious of how wrong it is to be putting images like these with questions like these where young girls can see this. 

     After analyzing that picture, I continued to scroll down and then found another picture of what media portrays women to be. In this picture, we can see Kate Middleton described as flawless even though she is playing cricket but with high heels. This just shows us how our entire life we have been influenced by this media that tells us what we are supposed to look like. And as they mentioned in the documentary, if we don't look like this then we are not accepted. I just found this very sad because even though we think that we are going towards the right direction, we still see that we have a long way to go. Young girls are getting very involved in these social media and this is what they are seeing every time. They then start to hate themselves because they don't look like this. But who does? Not even these models or public figures look like this. They are photoshopped and are directed to stand and pose in specific ways. 

    If we do not act now and take a stand against these social media and these news outlets, our younger generation will be more affected than my generation is. We are putting beauty as a priority over intelligence and success. I believe that we must use what is causing the problem to solve the problem. We should not only regulate these media but we should use this media to show what real women look like. To shine light on what really matters. To show young girls what a successful women looks like. Because as one of the quotes from the documentary said, "you can't be what you can't see," and if these girls are not seeing what real women are and are exposed to photoshopped pictures, then they will aim to be this way. It will great an even bigger mess because who knows what other things beside eating disorders will need to happen before we take a stand. 

How can we save our girls?

"Wait until you get into the real world?" said Hannah. I have to agree. My parents still tell me that and I am 25 years old. This illusion that girls and boys are not aware of their surroundings. I see my little cousins, nephew and baby sister and they show me in every way how they pick up on societies gender roles and the awareness around them. 

"Ignorance is bliss." But was it ever? In the article, Beauty Whitewashed: How White Ideals Exclude Women of Color, stated thatV exposure significantly influenced the belief that their classmates expected them to be larger. In other words, the larger girls in the group assumed their classmates thought they were too fat, while the smaller girls assumed their classmates thought they were too skinny. 

Also, girls of color are fighting amongst themselves to be lighter. We have seen that whitewashing is destroying cultures and making people become "colorblind" or as I put, culturally ignorant. If you don't see color its a way of saying I don't see your history, I don't see what molded you as a person. 

If we don't educate our girls to know their bodies, teach them who they are and what they can become, and create this environment for them to say,"I have a question." "Your the only person I can go too." And not shun them away. We are only killing ourselves and our future generation will drown. So please figure out a way you can save our girls? 

Intent or Innocence

What Dorothy Roberts refers to in Killing the Black Body as “the myths about immoral, neglectful, and domineering Black mothers” have been reinforced through social media.  For example, comical videos of people embodying the stereotypical assumptions of Black mothers have been posted on common sources like Vine and YouTube. In the video I linked to, we see one young man depicting a white mother and a black mother and fully iterating what are commonly assumed to be the differences between the two.  To some, this video may seem like a critique of existing stereotypes; however, others may see this embodiment as a reinforcement of the myths of what Black mothers are like.  So what do you think: is this seemingly innocent depiction of mothers of different races harmful or helpful? 

“Truth in Advertising Act” bill

Many modern advertisements dehumanize women and photoshop them to look an 
unachievable level of skinny and flawless. As we watched in "Miss Representation", this is leaving many young girls with serious self-image issues. However, a bill called the "Truth in Advertising Act" bill is finally being proposed, that "would mandate the Federal Trade Commission to report on any 'materially change [in] the physical characteristics of the faces and bodies of the individuals depicted,' and would also require the regulatory body to work with health and business experts to establish a set of standardized, safe practices when it comes to altering images" (Gonzalez). It is time that a stand be taken against photoshopping models so drastically to create an ideal that is unattainable even by the models themselves, let alone the everyday Jane woman. Advertisements pull people into a "desirable image", however these images distort womens' views of what a person should in fact look like, and therefore need desperately to be changed, to allow young women growing up in our society to be proud of themselves and love themselves and realize the reality of what a human being looks like. 

http://elitedaily.com/women/new-bill-looks-to-drastically-reduce-how-much-fashion-ads-are-photoshopped/

Women in Power

My roommate recently gave me a book that I think is a great second chapter to the movie that we watched in class this past week. The book is called "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead," by Sheryl Sandberg. It is all about women in power and how to represent yourself in a way that people will respect you. She talks about how women can have it all and have a successful working life and family life with the correct balance. She is the kind of feminist who paves the way for younger generations to become successful in their work of choice. She acknowledges that while men still run this country that women, like her, are beginning to make a dent in those statistics. I just feel this book is encouraging and supportive of all the things we have learned in this course of the past semester. Being a feminist comes in many forms and seeing positive role models is essential for young women around the country. As a woman, we can either live with the barrier of being a woman or we can learn to use this to our advantage.

What sells better than sex?

http://osocio.org/category/womens_issues/P30/

   I saw this ad on the Internet today and I didn't even blink an eye.  Not one eye. The worst part is that for many people in our current society, they too do not even think twice when viewing an advertisement for a fast food restaurant featuring overly-sexualized women.  Last time I checked, women's butts had nothing to do with going to buy a burger and fries. Why has this become acceptable in our society? Why is sex used to sell everything from a burger to deodorant? Unfortunately, ads such as this one give some viewers the belief that since beautiful women are portrayed eating Carls Jr. then it must be "cool" or "more acceptable".  This made me think of the documentary we viewed in class, "Miss Representation".  One of the main quotes that stuck out to me in the film was from the director Jennifer Newsom who stated, "We need to challenge the media conglomerates to value women for more than their youth, beauty, and sexuality, and we must hold these companies accountable,".  This idea of objectifying women to make money needs to be changed to avoid younger generations feeling like this is the only way they will gain respect from society is by using their body.  Women should be valued for their intelligence and personalities instead of who has the better body. This can only be fixed through time and support from the masses.