Meghanpowell14's Blog

Week 6

meghanpowell14 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:42:08 +0000

This week we read Aging Bodies. Its about two female icons Jane Fonda and Barbara Bush. More importantly it is about their aging bodies. I didn’t know really anything much about Fonda other than she was an exercise queen. She started out claiming that women needed to be in control of their bodies and that is what she does, she empowers them to be spiritually physically and mentally sound. She was thought of as a revolutionary. I think it rather comical.

The funny thing I realized is that Fonda is thought of as a feminist which is something I really didn’t know. I have to wonder, especially after taking a woman’s study class, how is she a feminist. What she is doing really is reinforcing a patriarchal view and transforming it into a “safe” message that says “hey, we are dong this for us, not them” but really we are. Even when I work out it is only partly for me to look good but it is also because I want to look good for my husband. This is horrible I know but it just makes me see that we are playing into the system that tricks us into thinking working out and looking good is just for ourselves which it isn’t. I wish it were.

In class this week we saw some different types of advertisements which were solely aimed at making women feel like they need to mold their bodies for all of the wrong reasons. It has to be sad to any women with a functioning brain that we are made to feel like we need to look a certain way. Why in 2009 do we place so much worth on a woman’s appearance and why is an aging woman’s body viewed in a binary way. You are either a grandma or a sex object. That is if you are post menopausal. Why is this? It is so frustrating to me that we can’t get past this thinking.

Society has to make a woman feel physically inadequate. It isn’t enough that we are persecuted in so many other ways but that we have to be made to feel like our worth is based on our physical endowment and it is EVERYWHERE! On the side of the road on billboards, on TV, on the radio, magazines, newspapers, buses, and the list goes on. I am tired of seeing it. After reading the readings for this week every time I see a cover girl or maybeline ad on TV it really bothers me and I cant help but think of all of the poor souls that fall for this crap!

Final Post

meghanpowell14 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:49:01 +0000

A common and very troublesome dilemma that woman of all ages face is this idea that there are two different types of girl. One is good, the other bad. Thus presents the binary problem that you are either one or the other and that each has its own categorical guidelines to be followed and none is more true than in the Disney scene. Let me just say that Disney is especially dangerous to this dualism because it perpetrates nearly every American home, myself included. The affects of this harmful dualism of good girl/bad girl is prevalent all of our lives. The idea that the good girl is the weak and soft spoken princess that must be saved and the bad girl that wants to corrupt heterosexual relationships which she herself is of sexual significance which is portrayed as evil of course. This causes low self-esteem, preconceived gender roles, and most importantly stereotypes in the form of so called role models that women must adhere to if they are to be on the right side.
This only puts more pressure on women by categorizing them into good or bad girls. What adds to this strain is that the associations tied with good girl are associated with the myth of needing a man to make you whole, or even not openly competing with a male if a woman is interested. That’s right I said it, how many times have we heard a woman say “oh I let him win” “after all he is the man, and I did not want to make him feel bad if he lost to a girl”. This is a clear example of women conforming themselves into these patriarchal constructed ideas. A good girl would let her boyfriend, husbands win a friendly game of basketball, because good girls rely on the boy to dominate conquer and win. A bad girl may be seen as aggressive and confrontational to men, and by being strong independently it implies that she is not a “real good girl” and also that a man is not needed.
First of all girls, I am not trying to deface the reputation of Disney, as a matter of fact even after all I have learned I still LOVE Disney movies and maybe that was part of their evil plan but I do want to make a recognition with the patriarchal heteronormative message it so strongly sends. While it is ok to enjoy these playful fairytales lets not forget about the underlying and somewhat damaging message it sends. They are fake and not to be taken literally hence why they are called fairytales. Too many woman see notions of what it is to be a “woman” and these movies if emulated are adding too the idea that woman should only be quiet, beautiful, obedient, and kind to maintain the title of good girl. At the other end of the spectrum if you dabble in confrontation, are for any relationship other than a heterosexual one, fight for your rights, or express your sexuality you are a bad girl. This must be eliminated; all of you girls have to know the truth!
It is important for us as women to be proactive and let our voice be heard. Its okay for a women to be in a position of authority, to be unique and fall into her own meaning of who she is. We have choices and are strong as individuals, and even stronger as a group. By educating ourselves and being aware of the influence that our society has over the normative roles and gender expectations of what is defined as good or bad we can make a difference by helping break the chain. Women need to be viewed in a different light, a light created by women that is not afraid to shine bright and reveal her inner uniqueness. The following is a poem to inspire the women with in you, to be set free from the patriarchal society, and allow her true self be accurately seen and portrayed.

Disney Can You See Me?

Disney can you see me?
I use time and space
Can you see the story my eyes tell?
Can you see the wisdom of my mind?

Make me Disney
Tell my story to the world
With the stroke of a pen
I can affect women from within

Disney can you see me?
I use time and space
Can you see the story my eyes tell?
Can you see the wisdom of my mind?

I am not your princess
For I don’t need saving
I am not your villain
I don’t want the world

Disney can you see me?
I use time and space
Can you see the story my eyes tell?
Can you see the wisdom of my mind?

I am a 21st century women
I am educated and Independent
I am a mother and a business partner
I am a 21st century women

Disney can you see me?
I use time and space
Can you see the story my eyes tell?
Can you see the wisdom of my mind?

By Natalie Hernandez, Sophia Herman, and Megan Powell

Week 5

meghanpowell14 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:30:00 +0000

Medicalization was the topic for the week and what a topic it was. Let me just say that I never new the history behind women having babies in the hospital vs. the home. In reading Women and Medicalization, I learned about a topic that I never knew about and quite frankly am glad that I have been exposed to it. I am floored by what I read. Although it is not surprising that men have once again found a way to capitalize and control another aspect of women’s life. Women didn’t need hospitals in fact it was and is quite the contrary. It is reported that 90% of births go uninterrupted. The hospitals just make things worse with their high infection rates, high costs, and lack of bonding between mother and child.

Another astonishing little fact I did not know was that abortion was acceptable 100 years ago. In he late 1800s 1 in 5 births was intentionally aborted. Women were more in control of their reproductive systems before abortion was made illegal. Medicalization has gone too far, women’s bodies are being controlled in every way and they are being violated. I found this sort of blog today and it touches on medicalization and home child birth. It talks about women being raped by doctors or “medical rape.” Doctors, according to this blog do their will with out regard to the women’s feelings. Here it is below.

Medical Rape

This link sort of ties in to a video we watched called The Business of Being Born, by Riki Lake. This documentary on home births vs. hospital ones has not only completely altered my view of home births but has also made me decide to have a home birth myself so long as there aren’t any pre existing medical conditions that require me to be in a hospital. Between the Medicalization article and video on being born my view and opinion on the issue have done a 180. I really enjoyed the video although, the thought of having a child creeps me out however, I feel a lot better and feel as though I have options and I refuse as a women to accept one kind of unwritten mandate that says women should have their babies in a hospital.

Medicalization of childbirth has scared women into thinking they need a hospital. I am one of them, they beat it in to your head that childbirth is a dangerous and painful process that must be dealt with by “professionals” and the truth is is that these people are not professionals when it comes to childbirth, only when it comes to surgeries. This is why there is an influx in cesarean births. It is easier for the doctor, for his schedule for a women to come in, get it cut out and its home in time for dinner. This is a disgrace! It really makes me mad and I never used to give a flying hoot about the topic of childbirth and just thought it natural to go to a doctor. Well not anymore, I’m glad I watched this video and read the article on Women and Medicalization. I’m one more women in the world that has knowledge in the horrible truth of this subject and has decided to take her reproduction matters in to her own hands!

Week 4

meghanpowell14 — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:34:41 +0000

woman assumed that all women played kind of the same traditional back seat role to men in our society. This has been encouraged since the slave trading days. The interest with the buttocks. I mean Jennifer Lopez is mostly famous due to her rather voluptuous backside. You don’t see the same focus with white women and some have butts too. In our reading this week Why Black Sexual Politics the way women of color are portrayed is startling. The fact that they need to be depicted as physically valuable to gain attention, ie. Destiny’s Child CD cover of them in animal print bikinis showing their animalistic nature, thus alleviating some human regard.

We also watched a movie that I felt, was the foundation of what added to this stigma we have today. The film of the famous “Hottentot Venus” whom was a young lady ripped from her family in South Africa to England to be a side show. Her name was Sarah Bartmann and I believe this is one of the first inclinations as to how women of color are viewed today. They viewed the Venus as a freak because of her large buttocks but yet they were intrigued by her none the less. The white travelers were enchanted by the mysteries of Sarah Bartmann’s people the Khoi tribe. The fascination with these women I believe, had a hand in leading to the hypersexulization associated with women of color today.

Black women in the media

I thought what we talked about in class with Halle Berry being the first African American women to win an Academy Award for “Best Actress” held bearing in this article. That sounds great and all but this came with a price, she did a very raunchy sex scene in which she was fully naked to win this award. In this article the author compares the TV screen to that of a slave auction block when slave women were made to show themselves to prospective buyers. She claims that the scene played by Halle Berry is essentially the same thing. The author maintains that this raping and controlling of black women in past times for sexual use has led to the sexualizaion in the media today.

There is this stigma of the black women as a animalistic wild sexual being. I don’t understand this, I mean I suppose I get it but this kind of thinking to me is old school and ignorant as hell. The view coming from a long time ago that black people are less than civilized and that they are pretty much “wild” has laid the foundation today. At least that is what I got from the reading on Black Sexual Politics. I thought that this article covered what we talked about in class fairly well and the whole week has just really opened my eyes more to this most horrible and untrue stigma.

Week 3

meghanpowell14 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:29:31 +0000

I knew that image based advertising was big and that millions fall prey to it everyday but the extent to which it gravitates is remarkable. In reading Image-Based Culture this could not hold more truth. Sut Jhally explains that this consumer culture has been infused in to us our entire lives. She says that “everyone knows a diamond is forever.” It really makes me sick to see how much validity these ridiculous efforts to sell us back our dreams hold. That was a line from the text by the way, that our emotions are being sold back to us by seeing people acting out our dreams. How is this possible that the wool is pulled over our eyes so easily? Well that is the answer to my other question.

This is something I didn’t know because I am not an advertising executive. I just always wondered how people can be so easily fooled and buy into this crap. Well it’s simple, advertisers take our most precious vales like good relationships and leisure time and exploit them and use them against us. The end result is none other than a dependence on these false material values as representations of the “good life.” Its really a sad state of affairs and an extremely clever strategy on the part of the advertisers that promote this culture.

I found this video and I thought it was interesting especially after reading Fantasies of Femininity. Fantasies of Femininity addresses the stock that women put into image through the purchase of cosmetics, plastic surgery and fashionable clothes. In the video posted this man talks about the “oppression of beauty.” This relates to Ussher’s reading in that women are oppressed by beauty through the social construction of women’s bodies. We watch these models and other celebrities with impossible features and we perceive those features to be attainable by everyone if you just buy the right products. Its really sad the extremes women go through to be “beautiful,” to be accepted by men.

These women want to look like the supermodels that portray perfection in an effort to be more confident but what they don’t realize is that these perfect women are to dissatisfied with themselves. This is one of the things from Ussher that this video touches on. He says that he watched videos of women whom were perfect, dumbing themselves down with severe comments of insecurity while he watched in amazement. Its interesting that this is so noticeable that an ordinary male observer feels compelled to reach out to people through a You Tube video. This is quite a problem in our country, I wish there was a way to reach out to those impressionable young girls and tell them its ok to be normal and that their worth is not in their appearance and above all to get them believe it.

Week 2

meghanpowell14 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:08:14 +0000

I never realized that being called a lesbian was considered to be a bad thing. In 2009 not everyone might agree with homosexuality but I just thought it was due to religious beliefs or that it was offensive to some homophobes. In the reading this week entitled “Homophobia,” the full extent of the word lesbian was brought to my attention. Society conforms to heterosexualality and children from a very young age learn to call each other sexist names like “fag” so basically it is ingrained since youth to behave this way and to be unaccepting of others whom are different.

In the reading it reads, “A lesbian is perceived as someone who can live with out a man an who is therefore (however illogically) against men.” I really never considered the ramifications of being a lesbian until I read this reading. I did not know that it could be used to scare other women or “lesbian baiting” as it is coined, to keep us in line so to speak. This makes me want to be a lesbian just to spite all of those people that want to out lesbians from society and treat them as though they are less, just because they step over the line of absurdity.

After reading Fausto-Sterling this week and doing my paper on it I became intrigued and I started to look for stories from hermaphrodites because I have never meant anyone like this and I wanted to hear what its like from the horses mouth rather than from a medical or psychological stand point. I read online that 65,000 intersex people are born each year just in the United States alone! That is crazy to me, and yet we never hear of these people partly because they are afraid and ashamed to be different. This is preposterous, that our society even in 2009 can not wrap their heads around the idea that there is more than two genders.

I read a story on a intersex person named Rachel. Its just a short little introduction into her life but it was cool to see an actual story from a real person that experiences being of two sexes. She had a labia and a penis and no uterus or ovaries. She was obviously raised female and said that she had been on hormonal treatments her whole life and that it has greatly affected her mental state. She also says that she is neither more attracted to men or women. I think it is so sad what intersex people have to experience just because people are ignorant. I can’t imagine what they must go through. I have to say that I am grateful to be exposed to this subject because it has made me more aware of these kinds of people and their struggle.

Week 1

meghanpowell14 — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:57:14 +0000

I have previously known how much women have been disdained and how the male ego has been threatened by women since the beginning of “man” however, I never realized how imperatively severe it was. I previously held that belief but after the readings this week I see how much more in depth it really is. One of the brightest and most open-minded men in history I now consider to be just as close-minded as the rest (as far as women are concerned). I’m referring to the article entitled A History of Women’s Bodies. Aristotle depicted women to be, basically freaks of nature, a mistake, a “monstrosity” as he put it.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading! Women is a “misbegotten man”? Didn’t these neanderthawls ever contemplate for a second that they themselves were able to live and breathe through the mercy of a woman? It really pisses me off that women have gotton the shaft through out history. Another thing that I was not aware of is the alleged stigma that women were these sexual deviants that put spells on men. Am I sounding ridiculous yet, because that is how it sounded to me. I’m pretty sure that a woman’s sex drive is far less than that of a man (I’m speak in generalities of course).

I was on my way to Las Vegas this past weekend and I was in the pasenger seat and reading the assignments. I was reading Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Will Not. I started to get fascinated by the statistics of women in sports and how close they are to men in some circumstances. So I decided to read to my husband whom was driving, keep in my that my husband is a typical American male but he trys to understand and respects women because his wife is a femminist. So I read him some different parts of the text, some ideas blah blah blah. Then as soon as I read information to him that might challenge the comfertable breach between men and women’s athletic capabilities he doesn’t believe me and has to google it for himself. I told him that according to the reading, in elite levels a women could out run a man if it were over 100 miles and outswim him over 22 miles. Of course his American male machoness kicked in and he had to testify against that.

I just thought it interesting because even my husband whom is usually respectful of women as people felt challenged by this statement. In the reading a psychiatrist is quoted “It is small wonder that the American male has a strong affinity for sports. He has learned that this is one area where there is no doubt about sexual differences and where his biology is not obsolete. Athletics help assure his difference from women in a world where his functions have come to resemble theirs.” I loved that, and it’s true. I see it in my own life all of the time with men. I like that this reading addressed that fact on point.