Please this post talks about rape so if that upsets you please do not read! I want to start this post off with what rape culture is. according to Wikipedia Rape culture is a concept that examines a culture in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Rape culture is a serious problem in America. Now those new to this concept might find it a bit outrageous that I'm saying that America considers rape to be a norm, but rape culture is so much more complicated then that. It's not necessarily a thing that is right in your face it is a lot of subtitle things. Honestly rape culture is such a big topic this post in no way is going to hit all what rape culture is in America. If I can though I want to focus mainly on the type of rape culture young adults face.
A lot of the problem comes from victim blaming. Saying that because of what they wore they deserve it. Or school's not letting women wear tank tops and shorts or skirts because "It will distract the male students" because "boys will be boys". Or just assuming that the victim is wrong. That is why a lot of victims don't say a word because they fear no one will believe them.
We as a society need also start teaching that rape is not okay instead of just teaching people mostly women how to avoid being raped. It reinforces the idea that rapists can keep doing what they have been doing and puts the blame back on the victim.
Another big problem that promotes rape culture is rape jokes. No they aren't actually funny and they can be triggering to those who have been raped. You don't know who is a victim and who isn't because it can be anyone close to you but fears telling people. Yeah and the soap in the prison bit isn't funny or cute. It is a rape joke and it is upsetting When you laugh at these kinds of jokes it teaches people that it's a okay topic. It can reinforce Don't do it and if you know someone who makes these kinds of jokes make sure they know that it's not funny and not okay.
Then I want to leave with this video of a Columbia University student Emma Sulkoicz who if famous for carrying her mattress everywhere she went as a project and a way to protest what happened to her and how the school didn't give her justice
This week I feel that I should write about something a bit more positive. What better of a topic then Wonder Women. This post will focus mainly on the original version of Wonder Women and not the reboot. Wonder Women was created in 1941 by a man named William Marston who was also helped in the creation of the polygraph. Wonder Women's lasso of truth is a nod to his invention. Wonder Women was the first and longest female super hero created and has since her beginning been a symbol of feminism. I feel it is best to give a small back story to Wonder Women. She comes from the Amazons warriors who left Greece to escape the tyranny of men to this place called Paradise Island (or Themyscira) where the are no men just the Amazon women. Wonder Women in the original story was born of clay by the Amazon leader Hippolyta. She is then named Princess Diana. Then one day some American military planes crash outside the Island and Princess Diana saves the men. She falls in love with the captain Steve Trevor. She then leaves the Island following behind Steve and decides to use her powers to help fight the evils in the world. I now briefly want to talk about Steve Trevor. I think in the original comics he was great because he literally became a typical super hero love interest. He was there to help out but he was prone to being kidnapped and incapable of seeing through Wonder Woman's disguise.
Another great achievement for Wonder Women was that when the Justice League was being formed DC Comics let the readers vote who was allowed to vote in who they wanted and Wonder Women was voted in. Unfortunately though she was at first given the job of secretary of the Justice League. She eventually gets her own spot at the table and she actually appeared in more covers then Superman and Batman
Outside of the comics Wonder Women was a cultural icon. From being on the cover of the first Ms. Magazine (and being on the cover two other times since then) to being a light to the women of the time that were just starting to become part of the work force because of the war. I want to leave off with a quote from Gloria Steinem the founder of Ms. Magazine:
"Wonder Woman's family of Amazons on Paradise Island, her band of college girls in America, and her efforts to save individual women are all welcome examples of women working together and caring about each other's welfare. The idea of such cooperation may not seem particularly revolutionary to the male reader. Men are routinely depicted as working well together, but women know how rare and therefore exhilarating the idea of sisterhood is. Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyte, offers yet another welcome example to young girls in search of a strong identity. Queen Hippolyte founds nations, wages war to protect Paradise Island, and sends her daughter off to fight the forces of evil in the world ... Wonder Woman symbolizes many of the values of the women's culture that feminists are now trying to introduce into the mainstream: strength and self-reliance for women, sisterhood and mutual support among women, peacefulness and esteem for human life: a diminishing both of "masculine" aggression and of the belief that violence is the only way of solving conflicts."
I have honestly wanted to do this post for a while, but I didn't know how to go about it. Now in light of recent news I think I can. This week a video went viral of a lady walking around New York City for ten hours, and in that ten hour period she was harassed over ONE HUNDRED times.
It doesnt' matter what you are wearing, who you are, or anything this happens to most women. Up until recently I had never experienced it. A couple weeks ago I was in NYC for a concert, and twice when I was at the bus terminal I was harassed. The first time I was I had taken off my makeup, and I was a mess from the concert. I was in a pair of leggings a sweater, and a jacket. The second time was about a hour latter in another bus terminal. Both of them complemented me in ways that made me uncomfortable, and tried to ask me where I lived. It was probably one of the scariest moments I've ever had because I did not know what they were capable of especially with cases of women getting killed because they reject a man's advances happening quite often.
I would like to end this post with a segment from The Daily Show. It was a follow up piece to the Kristen Gillibrand story. One of the responses to her story was that a news caster said that the way he likes to catcall women on the street is with clapping at them, and that it normally makes them smile, and had a 90% success rate
About 5 days a week I find myself in a game store for a average of 7-8 hours with video game commercials constantly playing in the background so I find myself analyzing what is around me, and I don't always like what I see. It hit me today how bad it really is. We got in a standee of this that was put at the front of our store next to the door
If you have played GTAV then you will know that there is no female main character and that this is not even a real character in the game. They had the same marketing for the original release of GTAV
This women is on the actual disks for the game and on just about every piece of merchandise for the game including a headset box. She is not a playable character or even a important one. She is the daughter of one of the main characters and is honestly not a very good character. Then why are they used to market the game?
Because honestly there is nothing really striking about the man characters. They are very generic. In the game you can customize them to a degree but it doesn't matter what you do to them in the game how they look doesn't change the way anyone in the game looks or thinks about them unless you pull out a gun.
On the subject of generic main characters in the past couple years it seems to be that the majority of main game characters have been very generic. Far Cry, Bioshock, The Last of us ect. They all have main characters that honestly have the same features.Chad Concelmo's articlebrown hair and stubble sums this up very well and has great photo representation if you want to read more.
I will leave off with this commercial for Battlefield 4 and Axe (which to me honestly is a weird combination and a stupid commercial) where you can see that the man in the commercial is very simply made, his hair doesn't move and he honestly doesn't have many distinctive features. The women on the other hand you can tell when they made her that they took their time. Her hair moves when it comes out of the helmet and when she walk, and she has makeup despite being in the middle of war,
Boys will be boys is a phrase that I'm sure many of us have heard as a kid. The phrase is used to assure us that even though that boy may have hurt you, destroyed something another kid was working on or got aggressive with another kid that it is okay because that is what boys do. We tell little girls that the reason why the boy in her class is picking on her is because he likes her and that's what boys do. This is a idea in our society that needs to stop. Some might think this is cute for kids because they don't think kids can really hurt someone but this kind of thinking carries on further in life.
It carries on into high school too. Where girls have dress codes to make sure they are covered up because otherwise they can be distracting to men. When the students try to fight back they are told the same thing "boys will be boys". I have a personal story for this. When I was in high school a boy from my class at lunch threw a frozen roll at me with the intention of hurting me. He had been picking at me for a while but I had ignored it up until this incident. Upset I went to the office and asked to speak to someone about it. Ended up in the Vice Principle's office and when I told him what had happened and how it hurt and upset me he told me I was over reacting and that "boys will be boys" and wanted to leave it at that without there being any justice for me. I was furious and I caused such a commotion and yelled at the Vice Principle about how unfair he was being he to make me stop ended up giving the boy a sort of "restraining order" against him saying he wasn't allowed to be near me for the rest of the semester and that was all. No phone home or talk about what he did wrong. Nothing.
The worst part is that all of this doesn't stop there it goes into adult hood as well. When domestic violence, and even rape get written off as "boys will be boys" from our countries own judicial system and if that isn't scary then I don't know what is.
What can we do to fix this problem? Well we can start by stop reinforcing the idea that it is okay for boys to do these things without a punishment. We can stop saying "boys will be boys" we can politely inform people of the issue and we can make this problem more known and talked about. This won't happen over night but I hope that by the time I have children I won't have to worry about them ever having to hear the words "boys will be boys"
In the last couple of years the media has become more open to the LGBTQ comunity. In the last two years alone there seems to be more trans representation in the media. This is a great thing because they become role models for people who didn't know about who they really were and start to understand themselves Not only do young trans people see and learn from them but other people do too. With this being such a new topic to most common media outlets it brings up a lot of simple questions and manners that a lot of people might not know about. If we get these discussions out of the way we don't have to have them again. We learn what is offensive and we move on and never do it again. For example Katie Couric had trans women Laverne Cox on her show and accidentally said some things that she didn't realize were offensive to trans people and had Laverne back to discuse the issue and talk about how it was a great learning experience for herself
Laverne Cox has become a great advocate for trans people. Most people know her for playing Sophia Burset one the popular Netflix series Orange is the New Black. In the show she plays a trans women who is sent to jail for credit card fraud to pay for her sex reassignment surgery. Laverne instantly became a hot topic and everyone wanted to know more about her life. She has become one of the faces of trans women in the media and has become the first transgender person to be on the cover of TIME magazine and has become role model for trans people everywhere. She also recently has opened the first gay casino night club.
Another face of trans people in america is transgender advocate, and author Janet Mock. After she published her book Redefining Realness she went to promote it on Peirs Morgan's show during the interview there were some problematic parts that afterwords when asked Janet said “He doesn’t really want to talk about trans issues, he wants to sensationalize my life and not really talk about the work that I do and what the purpose of me writing this book was about.”
here is the original interview
The trans community and Janet saw this and got offended of the way that Janet's interview had went, and they backlashed back at Peirs through social media and it went viral.
Stephen Colbert a popular satirical news caster had a section of his show dedicated to the Janet and Peirs conflict and it can be seen here, there is also a interview he does with Janet on his website that was part of the same show.
There are other trans women who are considered leaders of the trans community but what there aren't alot of are trans males in the media. They seem to be somewhat invisible, and when they are there they seem to be talked about in a negative way and that is horrible.
A great example of a trans man who is looked at in a negative light is Chaz Bono son of Char and Sonny Bono. With Chaz's parents being so famous needless to say that Chaz has been in the public eye since birth so for many when Chaz decided to go through with his gender transition the media found out and the media wasn't exactly that positive. Articles that refuse to use the proper pronouns and refusing to call Chaz a he and saying other horrible things and articles that were made to discurage people from watching Dancing With the Stars because he was on it show up everywhere. I personally also remember when Chaz poped back up in the media for Dancing With the Stars people were saying things like that he was more attractive as a girl and that they thought he was discusting. Despite this Chaz seems to be happy and is still a spokes person in the LGBT community.
Now that there are more trans people in today's media there needs to be more talk of the issues trans people face in society and less about what is bellow their waste. There also needs to be more trans males in the media and they need to be treated with the respect that cis people get. Here is a pro tip if someone tells you they identify as he or she then that is what they are no ifs, ands, or buts, also you wouldn't ask cis person about their private parts so don't ask trans people it is rude.
Not all of the developments after the reveal of the video were helpful. There was just as much negative as there were positive it seemed. For example South Carolina Republican Todd Kincannon tweeted horrible things about Janay Rice including calling her a "dumb bitch" and saying that she was justifly beat. The article brings up that this isn't his first tweet like this. Another example of this negative news is what was said on Fox and Friends after the video was released the the public
There are two sides to what has come from this incident and I feel like there is alot that has opened up to make people aware of what goes on everyday to some people but at the same time I can see that there is still a lot for people to learn. No one deserves to be abused and you shouldn't make light of the situation and suggest someone to "take the stares" or don't hit someone in the elevator because they have cameras. If you or someone you know is in a abusive relationship please use some of the sourcing above with the facts of domestic abuse. there is contact information for help on those pages or please call 911.
Hello friends! This is the very first post on my blog. Time to party!
Okay now to the actual post. As stated above this post is going to be about gender marketing. It is something that is in every one's lives even if you didn't realize it and has just kind of become a normal life. You might think "Well if it is a normal part of every one's life then why is it a issue now?"
Well for one it can cause you to pay more money one things just because of your gender. Though the main thing it does that I want to talk about is that it imposes gender roles on us from a early age that can stop people from liking thing just because they are for "boys" or for "girls".
Let us start with a video.
This video is from ABC1 in Australia. Even thought it's not a American video the message is the same and in America we have most if not all of the products mentioned in the video. It also brings up children ads and how the market is segregated for both boys and girls. When you were growing up if you are a girl or boy what kind of toys did you have? Were they pink dolls and stuffed cute baby dolls or a kitchen set or were they blue action figures or trucks and tools? Chances were unless your parents were open minded to the idea of going against the gender roles or you just wanted toys and didn't care what gender they we marketed to that you grew up with very gender specific toys. For example when I was growing up and I got a Happy Meal from McDonald's the cashier would always ask if I wanted a boy toy or a girl toy, not if I wanted one brand toy or the other brand. Though things seem to be changing according to this article Mcdonald's and me: My Fight to End Gendered Happy Meal Toys by Antonia Ayres-Brown that McDonald's is starting to crack down on gendering their toys.This is something I also see when I work. A bit of back story, I work in a store that sells video games. A customer called the store asking me if games on the certain system were made for girls. I sat there on the phone trying to explain that the games on the system were not really gender specific. I'm standing there going yeah there are girl games for *insert system* but there are a lot of gender neutral games too. Any game really can be gender neutral. Yes I'm sure there are games for girls. Thank you have a nice day". The customer would not take my explanation of the fact that games don't have to be gendered and would only consider games marketed to girls. This is a concept that the media soaks into us and then we pass it on to others like family and children.
The worse part is that it doesn't stop when we grow up. It might not be as easy to see but it is still there.
VIDEO BREAK!
So this video brings a lot of truth to adult life actually. The examples of it I want to bring up is the tape dispenser/duct tape and the teas. Those are all real products that are marketed towards males and females. Some of the marketing can be really in your face like this ad for Doctor Pepper 10
This Ad is a bit on the extreme and a some might consider it insulting. I know I did. It gives men the idea that they have to like action movies and that if they drinks a normal diet soda that, that isn't "manly". It also implies that all women like chick flicks, can't like actions movies, and can't drink this drink. I personally think it was a great marketing approach because I know the first time I saw it I wanted to go out and prove them wrong, but I realized then that they would win.
This ad has a the same idea but is less insulting:
This watch is apparently made for men. Men need a big bulky watch that is very monochrome and has more numbers then I would know what to do with but that's probably why it isn't made for me cause I'm a woman. I want to know what it means to tell time like a man. Does it mean that you can tell me the time in multiple different ways because it is both analog and digital? Honestly what is the point?
One more for you all
If I live in a area where dog attacks are enough of a problem that I would feel the need to use spray to protect myself that I would not buy it unless it is pink. Seriously did people sit down and tell the company that they honestly won't buy their product unless it looked more "girly". This is one of the most unnecessary gendered products I have ever seen. Real talk for a minute the only one who is going to care about your spray is you and the dog, and guess what dogs are colorblind.
I might be a bit over critical but doesn't this seem a bit unnecessary that companies for extra money divide us? The idea that oh! no, you can't buy that it's for women/men!
These ads do more then just tell us what we can and can't wear. They also help shape who we will be. The best examples are of women in ads. They tend to be over sexualized and treated like items in ads. Here is a example of a American Apparel who is well known for over sexualizing their models:
Now here is the same piece of clothing on a male model
Why isn't he modeling it like her or vice versa?
Because why would we girls buy it if we didn't think that we would look as good we wouldn't buy it. While guys are taught that no matter what they look good.
Maybe you might not agree with me on this one but here look at this post from the tumblr blog Nick Goes Here
at the bottom of the post he writes "The men’s ad assumes you’re confident and powerful and tries to optimize that image. The women’s ad undermines your opinion of yourself and tells you how to fix it."
and that hits the nail right on the head.
I will end this post here because I put a lot of information and I'm afraid it is getting to long. I want to end with a video of a trailer for a seminar that you can find on the Internet or you can get the DVD. The trailer hits most of the points in the seminar without going into to much detail so if it interests you then please check out the full video
Lots of love,
Lau
Disclaimer: None of the images, links, or videos are mine. I found them on the Internet and tried to give as much credit as I could. The images were found through Google and if something is not properly given credit then please politely let me know and I will fix it.
