Blog post 5

Savanna Wingard

Money and Ucker

WMS 2000-92

20 March 2015

View the recording of the lecture "Pornland" in the library course reserves and answer the following:

(Note: you must download Quicktime or use a campus computer to watch the video.)

1. What is Dines' view of porn?

2. Go back to chapters 5 and 6 and relate Dines' discussion to any of the readings.

3. How does this discussion play into feminism? How can Dines be against porn but still be viewed as a feminist?

Watching the documentary Pornland, I was very appalled by what I saw. I have never seen porn. I assumed that it was just people having sex like on Game of Thrones (which according to the video is soft-core porn, so I guess technically I have seen porn) and women dressed in revealing plumber costumes. I had no idea what porn was really like; so obviously, it came as a huge shock to me that the porn industry is what it is.

Dine’s view of pornography is that it is a grotesque interpretation of sex and that it has hijacked women’s sexuality. It has done so by making porn increasingly violent and by basically making women in porn purely an orifice for men to put their genitals into instead of an actual human being. I think this is pretty true from what I saw in that video; however, I was talking about this video with a male friend of mine and he watched it and told me that not all porn was like the pornography in the video, so it may not be completely true. I have no interest in exploring porn further than that video to form my own opinion on the porn industry though.

I think the video and this discussion play into feminism because certain things in the porn industry objectify women. Things that were shown that were extremely violent, and calling the female pornstar things like “slut,” “whore,” and “bitch” while having violent sex with her is demeaning and objectifies her so that people watching do not really think of her as a person. In Vampires and Vixens by Alison Happel and Jennifer Esposito, they discuss sexualized violence as empowerment as analyzed in the movie Twilight. During the movie, whenever something violent occurs, Bella (played by Kristen Stewart) is seen trying to look sexy (and failing. I always thought she was having menstrual cramps or something). When she is mouth breathing, I always thought she just couldn’t breathe… Dines can be against porn and still call herself a feminist because she looks at the porn industry and how it objectified women to support her arguments about why the porn industry is not good for women and hijacks their sexuality. The thing is, on one hand you have the porn industry objectifying women and hijacking their sexuality, but on the other, women have the choice to go into the porn industry. Yes, some of them may be there because they are used to it and were abused or assaulted, but many of them are not there because of that. They are there to make money. I knew a girl in high school who wanted to be a pornstar. She dropped out of high school when she turned 18 to be a stripper. I do not know what she is doing now, but that was my point. To make porn for a living is a choice. They have auditions like any other actors would have, and are cast into a movie based upon their skills and the skills required for the film. Not only that, but I have seen internet memes where pornstar Sasha Grey jokes about porn and being a pornstar. She seems to enjoy what she does, and that is her choice.

Esposito, Jennifer and Alison Happel. Vampires and Vixens. 2010. Print.

Pornland: How the Porn Industry Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Media Education Foundation. Web. 20 March 2015.

Blog Post 4

Savanna Wingard

Money and Ucker

WMS 2000-92

13 March 2015

            Beyoncé is one of many celebrities who have joined the feminist movement. She mainly expresses her feminist ideas and beliefs through her music, but sometimes she expresses it in her performances or in interviews. Examples of her feminist music include songs such as “Flawless,” “Run the World (Girls),” “Listen,” “Me, myself, and I,” and “Diva.” “Flawless” is definitely the most feminist of her songs. In the middle of the song, Beyoncé quotes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from her 2013 TEDx Talk titled, “We Should All Be Feminists.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “We teach girls to shrink themselves; to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise you will threaten the man.’ Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy, and love, and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don't teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors; not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing. But for the attention of men, we teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” To me, this quote is very powerful. It opened my eyes a little more and made me think, “Oh wow. She’s right.” I also think that the definition of feminism is a great thing to have put in there. It reminds people what a feminist actually is. Sure, there are radicals, or people who are very hardcore feminists, but with this definition, I think it makes people realize that, in a way, many people are feminists, and without this definition, they would have never thought so. While Beyoncé is not a radical or hardcore feminist (or so it seems), she does make anywhere from subtle to bold, hard to miss statements in some of her performances. In the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show, Beyoncé performed with an all-female band and all-female dancers. She even performed with the other two members of Destiny’s Child, the group with which she got her start in the music industry. I actually did not notice the all-female casting until it was pointed out to me in, “Beyoncé: Feminist Icon?” by Sophie Weiner. After reading about it, I logged onto YouTube, where I rewatched the halftime show. Weiner was right: I did not spot one male in the show. An example of when she can be up in your face about it is during her performance in the 2014 Video Music Awards (VMAs), when “FEMINIST” popped up on the display behind her. It took her a while to actually call herself a feminist, but when she did, as she told The Daily Mail, it was not something that she “consciously decided to be.” I think we all are at least slightly feminists. “Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.”

Duca, Lauren. “Beyonce Gave You The Definition Of Feminism, Now Use It.” The Huffington Post. 25 August 2014. Web. 13 March 2015.

Hare, Breeanna. “Beyonce opens up on feminism, fame and marriage.” CNN. 12 December 2014. Web. 13 March 2015.

Weiner, Sophie. “Beyonce: Feminist Icon?” 2013. Print.

Here is Beyonce's amazing Super Bowl performance.

Also, I found this, and wanted to share it since it went along with the theme of this post.

Midterm

Savanna Wingard

Money and Ucker

WMS 2000-92

3 March 2015

Thinking about chapter 5, answer the following questions:

1. What are your favorite forms of popular culture and why? Discuss the ways your favorite forms maintain and/or resist systems of inequality and privilege.

2. How does social media reflect, maintain and/or resist systems of inequality?

My favorite forms of popular culture are television and movies, and music. I love television and movies because I’m a movie junkie. It’s what I normally do in my free time. I love music because it is a form of self-expression. Although, I hate most modern popular music because it’s either lifeless or the ideals are just really trashy, in my opinion. The media plays such a large role in society, and it continuously sexualizes women. We need to move past the point of women being sex objects.

So many people who watch TV and movies, whether it’s online, in the theatres, or actually on the television. There are also movies set in different times, or the content of the show or movie just appeals to people in a way that I can’t explain. For example, the show, “Mad Men” was very popular on AMC. It was set in the 1960s in New York City, and starred rich white men having affairs with secretaries, while being at the top of their business. I only saw one episode, so I don’t have an opinion of it, but I’ve heard enough about it to draw these conclusions. There are shows like Mad Men, where women have little to no power; and there are shows like MTV’s Girls Gone Wild, where girls are glorified as sex objects who can control men with their looks. Girls Gone Wild is an example of what Susan Douglas calls, “enlightened sexism.” “Enlighted sexism is a response, deliberate or not, to the perceived threat of a new gender regime. It insists that women have made plenty of progress because of feminism-indeed, full of equality has allegedly been achieved-so now it’s okay, even amusing, to resurrect sexist stereotypes of girls and women” (Douglas 285). Disney princess movies mainly consist of the female leads looking for love; and the characters are so young. Ariel in The Little Mermaid was 16, and Pocahontas was only 11 when she is said to have met John Smith (though they did not have a love connection in real life). As was pointed out in the documentary, Miss Representation, female Disney characters are usually sexualized. Ariel is in a seashell bra/bikini top, and when she “becomes human,” she is naked. While that makes sense since she no longer has a fish tail and obviously won’t just magically have shorts on, it would make sense if she still had the sea shells on. Where did those go? There are few movies where there is a female lead that is not sexualized. Movies such as Silence of the Lambs, both Kill Bill movies, and The Shining are all movies that have a female protagonist who is not sexualized. I recently showed Kill Bill to my younger, 16 year old brother. Throughout the course of the movie, he kept saying, “She’s so ugly.” and I just responded with, “Josh, shut up and watch the movie. Focus on the movie.” By the end, when I asked him what he thought, he said, “It was a good movie, but that lady is still really ugly, even if she is a total badass.” Even after the cliffhanger of an ending, the action, and Quentin Tarantino’s brilliant direction and effects seen within the movie, he was still unable to look past the fact that Uma Thurman was not made up to be a hot, sexy woman showing a lot of skin. It’s not just a standard in television though.

While there are songs about equality, activism, and peace, but there are so many more songs that include racial stereotyping and sexism. These are the more popular songs that I hear most kids listening to nowadays. The majority of songs now are about sex or “the booty” and are accompanied by sexualized music videos or a girl in a sexy outfit. Even album covers have pictures of minimally-covered women.

During last year’s super bowl, I remember watching a commercial that had a sexy woman on a beach or with a car, and I thought, “Great, another car commercial.” and it was a commercial for a burger… I looked at my mother, and we were both speechless. It was also the super bowl that featured Beyoncé in the halftime show. She performed with an all-female band, and there was even a reunion with Destiny’s Child, the group that she started her musical career with. Beyoncé made a statement for feminism while rocking the superdome at the same time. While her performance outfits can be quite revealing, she speaks some of her feminist ideals through some of her songs or in her music videos. In Beyoncé: Feminist Icon, Sophie Weiner points out that Beyoncé and Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video contain allusions to Thelma and Louise and a gender inverted Pulp Fiction. There are quite a few other allusions, especially to Tarantino films, but Weiner was right when she said that these references were a great way to show that girl power can reign supreme.

Women are sexualized all over the media. Once we can move past the media portraying women as just sex objects, we can accomplish so much more than we have and expand our influence in our society.

Douglas, Susan. Enlightened Sexism. 2010. Print.

Miss Representation. Girls Club Entertainment. Roco Films Educational. 2011. Web. 3 March 2015.

Weiner, Sophie. Beyoncé: Feminist Icon? 2013. Print.

Weeks 5 and 6

            The social meanings of virginity in contemporary U.S. society are different for women than men. Women are taught that their virginity is precious, that having sex is bad, and that they should wait until marriage. Men on the other hand, are taught that sex is good, it makes them manly, and that they do not have to wait until marriage. Dictionaries have defined “virginity” as an “unmarried woman” or a “religious woman.” There is no such definition for men. Virginity is an important aspect of contemporary femininity in many societies because it deals with the sexualization of women. As I said before, women are taught that having sex before marriage is bad and that they are unpure if they do have premarital sex. This idea has been around for centuries.

            Establishing paternity has to do with femininity because, traditionally, it is the father’s job to protect his daughter and her purity. The father polishing his shotgun as he waits for his daughter’s date to pick her up is what I think of when talking about the establishing paternity in femininity. In the film, The Purity Myth, the paternity aspect is shown by talking about something called “Purity Balls.” It is where daughters dress up in ball gowns and have their hair and makeup done and attend the dance with their fathers; essentially, a father-daughter dance. At some point during the ball, the girls pledge their femininity to their fathers, while their fathers pledge to protect their daughter’s virginity at all cost. This is related to the control of women’s sexuality and the “ethics of passivity” because it brings the daughter under the control of the father and the daughters are made up for this occasion to be beautiful, feminine, and pure. There is even a point in some purity balls when some of the girls do ballet around a wooden cross. And by focusing on the girls’ virginity, they are sexualizing them, which is kind of ironic, considering that that is the opposite of what they are trying to do. The “ethics of passivity” are what Jessica Valenti calls the qualities of the society’s picture of the typical virgin. “She is sexy, but not sexual. She's young, white, and skinny. She's a cheerleader, a babysitter; she's accessible and eager to please. She's never a woman of color. She's never a low-income girl or a fat girl. She's never disabled.”

According to Valenti, the contemporary virginity movement has a woman’s virginity as the ultimate test of her character. To say that virginity is a “moral quick fix,” is saying that you could be the meanest, nastiest, most horrible woman there is, but it’s all good as long as you’re a virgin. Abstinence education fits into this discussion because it teaches that sex is bad, and in some cases, it teaches that it will kill you. It makes me think of the movie, Mean Girls, when Cady, played by Lindsay Lohan when she cuts class and says, “I guess I’ll never know what I missed on that first day of health class.” The movie cuts to her health class that she is missing as her teacher says, “Don’t have sex. Because you will get pregnant. And die.” Later on in the movie, it shows her in health class as her teacher says, “Don’t have sex. Because you will get chlamydia. And die.” Back to the subject of abstinence education, they are also telling adolescents that no sex is safe sex, which, is technically true. It is a risk you choose to make. However, they focus on the tiny margin of when protection does not succeed in preventing pregnancy or STDs. They also try to make the darkness of it better by humor and abstinence conferences in glamourous places such as Puerto Rico. They even have clothes that emphasize a girl’s virginal status, promise rings, and posters. Also, many abstinence-only educators preach straight up lies, as discussed in a 2004 report by Henry Waxman. His report showed that over 80% of the abstinence-only curriculum either distorted information or told straight up lies to scare kids into submission. Also, in the video, a CNN report backed up this report by showing a few things taught in these classes that were incorrect or only theoretical at best. These were that 31% of condoms fail, mutual masturbation can lead to pregnancy, and that 10% of women having abortions become sterile. Evidence shows that these programs don’t work. My school didn’t talk much about sex. They were more focused on keeping us off of drugs. They just told us to be safe. It was vague, but it worked. I used to want to wait until marriage to have sex, but it stressed my out. I would worry that I would never get married or that I would be 50 by the time it actually happened. My mother waited until marriage, and I was raised with traditional beliefs for at least the first third of my life, so it shocked me when I was in the car with my mom during my sophomore year of high school, and she suddenly and randomly said, “I want you to have sex before marriage. I want you to experience what I didn’t. Have sex with a bunch of guys in college. Just, if you want to do it, talk to me about it first, and I will make sure you are safe.” It was a little odd, but I agreed. I made my own version that if it happened, it happened, but it would be with someone that I truly love. Now, I haven’t gone around campus sleeping with guys, but my senior year of high school, I started dating my boyfriend, whom I was best friends with for about three years prior. After dating for almost six months, we talked about it and decided that we wanted to. So I awkwardly brought it up during a car ride with my mom. She was a bit surprised but said okay. She came home later that day and threw a box of condoms at me as she walked through the door. I was mortified for about 30 minutes, but eventually mellowed out. I think sex education should be more like that. “Just be safe, and don’t be stupid.”- my mom.

The Purity Myth. Media Education Foundation. Valenti, Jessica. 2011. Web. 19 February 2015.

Link to some kind of version of The Purity Myth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWQnCcwPf_0

*YouTube did not have the version that I watched. This one might be similar, but it is not what I watched, To watch the same one, you may have to rent it.

Links to Mean Girls moments:

1.     “You will get pregnant”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5xkxTfVLSA

2.     “You will get chlamydia”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcZ-jg670bE

Women's Studies Class Weeks 3 and 4

Savanna Wingard

Money and Ucker

WMS 2000

6 February 2015         

I do not think that the video was very effective in its message about racial injustice in America. The reason being is that they just held up signs; and while those signs had a meaningful message, they did not provide examples of the racial injustice that African Americans are facing. Also, the majority of the signs only had hashtags written on them. I so not use twitter, so I do not completely understand the use of a hashtag. I understand it to a point, but not completely. In addition to that, I have not been watching the news very often, purely because of the lack of time. The only stories I have heard are ones such as Ferguson, where the African American involved was truly in the wrong; and there is evidence to back this up. The police are here for everyone’s protection, and are told that if they feel that their life is in danger, that they should shoot. I would too, if I thought someone was going to injure me, I would do everything I could to defend myself. One of the times that I was watching the news happened to be around the time of the whole Ferguson ordeal. The news station showed a graph of statistics that showed that, on average, more Caucasians are killed by police every year than African Americans. I do not remember which news station it was that I saw this on, but I promise, it was not Fox News. I do not watch Fox News because of its heavy bias. It was CBS, CNN, or my local channel 7 news. Those are the only news stations that I watch. I’m not saying that police brutality doesn’t happen once in a while, but I haven’t seen it directed at one specific race.

            Exploring the hashtags of the video did not bring up as much as I had hoped that they would. There were many linked to organizations demanding change. Here are some of the hashtags that I looked up:

#TrayvonMartin: one of the cases that I did hear about. It was claimed that Zimmerman shot in self defense, and according to police reports and medical reports, he did sustain a head wound and a broken nose. I do not think he shot Trayvon simply because he was an African American. However, I also believe that you probably could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt exactly what happened in the first place.

#Blacklivesmatter: literally just a movement linked to a website.

#Respecttheblackwoman: I found nothing on this. What I did find took me to a website with pictures that did not help me at all.

#forthemillions: mostly what I found was about money or followers. But in this case, I assume it means, “for the millions of African Americans.”

The video connects to the readings from weeks 3 and 4 because it empowers minorities and is a call for change.

Link to video:

http://www.vice.com/read/jose-james-peace-power-change-music-video-takes-on-racial-injustice-in-america-456

"Peace Power Change." Vice. Vice Staff. 13 January 2015. 3 February 2015.

Weeks 1 and 2: Social Media Activism

in·ter·sec·tion·al·i·ty

ˌintərsekSHəˈnalədē/

noun

the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

"Through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us."

            To me, the word intersectionality is combining race, class, gender, and sexual orientation into a form of discrimination. In grades 1-12, I was always afraid to let people know that my mother is gay, because kids would stop being my friend or make hateful comments toward my family. My ancestry is mostly German, but I am also Romani and Cherokee. Both the Romani and Cherokee people experienced discrimination, and in these two groups, mass genocide throughout history. The college I attend has a large population of African American students, some of whom hang around in groups outside of the dorms. I am a Caucasian female and constantly get cat-called with a combination of racial slurs and sexist comments. Applying to college senior year of high school was difficult for me. There were so many scholarships at these different schools for every race except Caucasians. It didn’t matter that I had a 3.84 GPA, what they cared about was that I was a white, middle-class (even if barely), female. The only scholarship that I got was an academic one for the college I attend now. It is better than nothing, but I was also refused Financial Aid because my mother and her partner made $100 too much as high school teachers, and the fact that my deadbeat father is running from the IRS. It is going to be very hard to pay off all my debt, and I am still applying for scholarships, and continue to be denied.

            As I watched the video, I found it shocking that people were going so far as to find Feminista Jones’s identity and address and that they even went so far as to threaten her son.

            The most important message that I took away from the video is not to be afraid to speak up for yourself and others being discriminated against.

            This video relates to the readings from weeks one and two because it discusses political activism on social media sites, specifically, Twitter. As was discussed in the video, social media activism continues to be an extremely effective way to promote change. Khan’s The Case for Social Media and Hashtag Activism reinforces some of the main ideas in the video, such as social media giving people the power to call out injustices, inaccuracies, and misrepresentations to bring about better understanding of other cultures and people. The ABC show, Alice in Arabia was eventually taken off the air after a Twitter hashtag campaign expressing that the show dehumanized Arab/Muslim men and brought forth stereotypes.

Sources:

Khan. The Case for Social Media and Hashtag Activism. Patheos: Altmuslim. 30 Ocotber 2014. Web. 22 January 2015.

BlogHer. “BlogHer '14 Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Feminism & the Internet.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube. 19 April 2014. Web. 22 January 2015.

Link to video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l6_6-Yb8zg