- In today’s society it seems as though rapes are becoming more common and every time there is a story on the news or in the paper the alleged rapist is always a man that is described be not very muscular. Rape for men seems to be a way for them to have the power that they may not have in their everyday life and this is the only way that they see will achieve it.
- Sex looked at today as a sacred moment between a couple when a man can have dominance over the women however, for those men who are not given the chance to express their dominance do whatever they deem necessary. Many men that want to demonstrate their dominance will either rape women while they are sleep or drug them and then rape them. Whatever their tactic is it is all for that sole purpose of having dominance over another person.
- In the DMV there have been many reports of rape and when the men who are committing crimes are caught their reason for committing these rapes is because women in their past have laughed at them or they just never felt as though they were respected as men and therefore by becoming a man they rape so that the women are able to see and feel who is “in charge”. Having dominance should not be that important to a man but because of the way society has painted it to be men will go through drastic measures just to feel what that dominance feels like.
“I’m Having Their Baby”
The Oxygen Network will be presenting a show entitled “I’m Having Their Baby” on July 23rd, 2012. The show highlights women who will be giving their children up for adoption. The adoptive parents include gay couples, infertile couples, etc. The interesting part is that we see the story from both sides. Oxygen shows us what the birth mother experiences along with the adoptive parents. I believe that it will be interesting to see how the families of both side
s feel regarding the adoptions.
I believe that this is a show unlike any other on television at this time. Adoption is rarely discussed, especially from both points of view. Since abortion is such a charged topic, adoption seems to follow. Women who chose to give up their children are looked down upon at times, depending on their situations. Sometimes, society feels better about a woman choosing to give their child up for adoption that abort the pregnancy, but sometimes the situation is reversed. It is even more interesting that adopting a child is seen as a noble cause or creating a family, but giving a child up is looked down upon. Isn’t what a woman does with what is inside her body up to her?
I definitely see birthing a baby to give to someone else as an interesting body project. Anyway, I’m looking forward to this show! Will anyone else watch with me?
Fan Fiction and the Tourist Approach
Because a bunch of people have asked, here is a link to my final paper on mpreg, or male pregnancy fan fiction. Please be gentle- it’s not a prefect paper, and only scratches the surface on this subject, theoretically and otherwise. In the end, fan fiction represents a fascinating place for intersectional theories to do their thing- I wish I had more time to dig deeper on it.
“Boobs Don’t Work That Way”…No really, they don’t!!!
Images such as these pervade comic book character art. Women are normally in sexy, revealing outfits; and, their bodies are often doing some pretty impossible things. A blog called Boobs Don’t Work That Way brings awareness to how ridiculously women are portrayed in comic books. The picture of Wonder Woman displayed here is not unique. Attempting to make her sexier, she is drawn into this impossible pose where her breasts and behind are shown at the same time. Also, her breasts are extremely large, and there is no way that her costume could logically support them. The commentary on the blog regarding this picture is as follows:
“It always freaks me out when boobs are drawn as almost a separate entity. This one looks like it’s about to pop off and and start a solo career.”
Other interesting points the blogger makes include the way fabric unrealistically stretches over breasts in some costumes, suctioning itself to each breast individually, the fact that nipples rarely have areolas in comics, and that breasts are not always perky and perfectly spherical.
I find it interesting that beauty for women in comic books is literally impossible for us as humans. The beauty standard is completely unrealistic. Do comic book artists feel that women will not be sexy without their impossible breasts? Or do they enjoy creating a fantasy woman? I’m not personally sure which reason correctly demonstrate how artists feel, or if there are other reasons. The blog is not being updated, but the pictures and commentary are excellent. Check it out!
Club Affairs
typical club attire
The media consistently portrays an image to women that they must be sexy in order to attract men. Magazines and television shows depicts images of women wearing short skirts, high heels, heavy makeup, and shirts that show their naval in order to be sexy. The media and popular culture alike encourage women to flaunt their cleavage, silky legs, buttocks, and etc. Normal and acceptable club attire requires women to wear a tight short dress or skirt with high heels. These women are constantly being bombarded by sexual advances from men who assume these women are inviting this attention because of the way they are dressed.
When I started going to clubs at the age of eighteen, I wore the expected scandalous clothing and thought nothing of it because it was normalized. I would have felt out of place if I covered my body, while everyone else was showing off their assets. One night at the club, I was wearing a short and tight zebra print dress. The dress hugged my tightly and I was wearing very tall black high heels. I received a lot of attention in that dress from men mainly and I began to feel confident (not that it should have). One man in particular was originally conducting himself in the appropriate manner by asking me to dance and inquiring if I wanted water. As the night drew on, we still continued to hang out at the club. Once the night was over he offered to walk with me and my group of friends to my car. Before I approached my car, this guy held my hand tightly and forcefully tried to kiss me. Scared I started yelling and one of my close guy friends rushed to my aid. When my guy friend asked what he was doing he stated that “it looked like she wanted to do than just dance with at the club”( because of the way I was dressed). At that moment I realized the very message that I thought I had to uphold of being sexy due to the media almost cost me my safety.
In this country women are under a great deal of pressure to be feminine and one of the ways to achieve that femininity is to have a sexy appeal. Many women get blamed when they are rapped in this country because people claim if “she hadn’t been wearing that outfit, no guy would have assaulted her” yet the media claims in order to attract a mate one must appear sexy. That statement directly correlates to blame the victim phenomena. No woman invites rape because the act is nonconsensual in nature. The effect of being perceived as sexy in this country has both negative and positive connotations.
Club Affairs
The media consistently portrays an image to women that they must be sexy in order to attract men. Magazines and television shows depicts images of women wearing short skirts, high heels, heavy makeup, and shirts that show their naval in order to be sexy. The media and popular culture alike encourage women to flaunt their cleavage, silky legs, buttocks, and etc. Normal and acceptable club attire requires women to wear a tight short dress or skirt with high heels. These women are constantly being bombarded by sexual advances from men who assume these women are inviting this attention because of the way they are dressed.
When I started going to clubs at the age of eighteen, I wore the expected scandalous clothing and thought nothing of it because it was normalized. I would have felt out of place if I covered my body, while everyone else was showing off their assets. One night at the club, I was wearing a short and tight zebra print dress. The dress hugged my tightly and I was wearing very tall black high heels. I received a lot of attention in that dress from men mainly and I began to feel confident (not that it should have). One man in particular was originally conducting himself in the appropriate manner by asking me to dance and inquiring if I wanted water. As the night drew on, we still continued to hang out at the club. Once the night was over he offered to walk with me and my group of friends to my car. Before I approached my car, this guy held my hand tightly and forcefully tried to kiss me. Scared I started yelling and one of my close guy friends rushed to my aid. When my guy friend asked what he was doing he stated that “it looked like she wanted to do than just dance with at the club”( because of the way I was dressed). At that moment I realized the very message that I thought I had to uphold of being sexy due to the media almost cost me my safety.
In this country women are under a great deal of pressure to be feminine and one of the ways to achieve that femininity is to have a sexy appeal. Many women get blamed when they are rapped in this country because people claim if “she hadn’t been wearing that outfit, no guy would have assaulted her” yet the media claims in order to attract a mate one must appear sexy. That statement directly correlates to blame the victim phenomena. No woman invites rape because the act is nonconsensual in nature. The effect of being perceived as sexy in this country has both negative and positive connotations.
http://performativediscipline.tumblr.com/
http://performativediscipline.tumblr.com/
This is a link to the tumblr I made for my research project, as Kate requested!
A Mother’s Love
While doing my normal “news checkup” on CNN I came across this article that made me think.
The article is about mother’s with overweight toddlers who see it as normal, meaning they don’t realize that their child is overweight/obese. As mothers we want to see our children healthy and happy. But what does that translate to visually. What makes us know or believe our child is healthy and happy. Is it noticing some sort of growth and development as they transition through the phases of life? Is it noticing that their shoes don’t fit and they’re growing out of their shirts and attributing it to them growing up?
Whatever the reasoning behind a mother’s sometimes flawed view of their child, it is becoming a concern. A lot of these women don’t realize that their child is overweight which causes problems in and of itself. It isn’t just cute little baby fat. What can we do to correct these parents’ skewed views of their children in order to promote a healthier society? Because obesity rates are skyrocketing in our society. And we all know that children are vulnerable in many ways. How we raise them is important because it’s usually an indicator of how life will turn out for them. If they are obese as toddlers then it will not necessarily be something they grow out of. And this could be extremely dangerous with our already ridiculous obesity rates.
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/07/9-in-10-moms-see-overweight-toddlers-as-normal/?hpt=he_c2
Dysmorphic Friends
One of my closest friends is a fashion stylist. She chooses outfits, hair, makeup, and general looks or moods for photoshoots for natural makeup companies and independent designers. I have modelled for her in the past even though I am not a model and don’t look like a magazine model. I also model for my own Etsy store, selling vintage clothing. My friend has had eating disorders since puberty and I have not. I feel that her eating disorders are a sign of privilege and she feels that my “poverty genes” and post thyroid cancer synthetic metabolism are a sign of privilege. The arguments are frequent and comical.
I feel that it would be insulting to her profession and life’s path to say that her involvement with fashion feeds her disorder, so I often try to tell her eating disorders are a result of a sexist, competitive capitalism, a first world problem, and that if she stops aestheticizng the super young and super thin, wheat colored waify girls with vacant expressions, she won’t hold herself up for comparison to them. I tell her to keep her job but change her aesthetic, make it weirder, and I tell her she’s a misogynist. Then I go on like a hypocrite and smooth out my hair, put makeup on, and have my boyfriend shoot photos of me for Etsy, to make money. And I do make money. But recently, editing and cropping photos of myself, I feel like I look OOLLDD. So I call my friend and ask her for a disorder that will make me less old, less short, less frizzy, less dark, less tired. And there isn’t one. I’m really not sure what I’m aestheticising, but even though I’m perfectly happy with my weight I still feel the need to critically tear apart whatever I can about my own image, down to my assymetrical smile or uneven hair texture or slightly more almond shaped right eye than left one. Little little minute stupid details. All while knowing that I’m making this image public by my own free will, by my need to pay the bills and put gas in my car to get to school. Because those waify wheat colored girls are out there, and my tiny little capitalist enterprise is knowingly in competition with them, and growing up in the 80s and 90s, between Debbie Gibson and Kate Moss, I never felt that my features were pure or innocent, only exotic and “olive olive olive”, and now getting older.
Can a woman be this self-critical and also be a feminist?
Fed Up With Facebook
“Does she seriously think that she looks good???? Yuck”
“It’s like those ladies at the beach or pool who wear bikini’s and their fat it bulging out and yet they think they look good! Good enough to appear day after day like that! Ladies, think of how many eyes you are hurting!!! Lol.”
“She looks so ridiculous…cowhide, leather, beef jerkey, lost at sea…exactly. Attractive…NOT!!! She truly looks like she is in her sixties. Whether she actually brought the child into the tanning bed or not, she is a terrible role model. She needs some psychiatric help to get over that obsession with tanning.”
Although I am not the biggest fan of perpetuating harmful ideas in order to make a point, I am just about to do that. Even though I find the above comments repulsive and upsetting, I think it is important to pull them away from the Facebook context and to put them on here so that our blog readers can consider what they have been seeing on Facebook.
The above comments are in regards to the recent story about the mother who had her young daughter use a tanning bed even though it is against the law. I will be honest, I do not know a lot about this story, perhaps I would have read more about it if I hadn’t seen these comments on Facebook bashing her. I am not defending her actions, but I also want nothing to do with condemning her either, I don’t know her.
However….
If I were to take the route of acting like I know something about this woman, I would say that it does appear that she has some sort of disorder, maybe an addiction. If we look at the story through this perspective I wonder if these people who made the above comments would be saying the same kind of things. Let’s replace the addiction of tanning with alcohol. Would this public speculation even make sense anymore? Because of the physical marker of this disorder, people feel that they are able to openly comment of the “unsightly” nature of it. Then again, maybe these same people think alcoholics are disgusting too. The physical aspect of this disorder mixed with the chance to criticism a woman in her role of being a mother has created a Facebook freak show frenzy. How about we all do ourselves a favor and think before we post?
Unruly Bodies 