Final Reflections

I really never thought that I would actually be interested in what there is to learn about Women's Studies. I took the class because I just needed credit to graduate...any class was sufficient. I realized that I don't really look a lot at everything that is around me and that I take a lot for granted.

I found a lot of the topics that we talked about really interesting and I liked how the class was more geared towards conversations rather than full out lecture because it gave me the chance to see how other people my age feel about the issues we talked about. I feel that I have learned a lot about myself from this class and I now think about some of the values I hold and why they are so important to me.

I didn't think that women's issues really pertained to men, but when you think about it, everything that concerns women has to do with gender. When we talked about equality between men and women early on in the semester, I thought that it was something that was fought for back in the early 1900s and not relevant to today.

I also realized that a feminist is not someone that I thought she would be. I had the stereotypical notion that they were lesbians, hated men, and only cared about rights for women and completely ignored equality. Through this class I realized that I could be considered a feminist because I do care about the same issues that we learned and talked about in class, I never thought of them on a day to day basis.

Title IX

Title IX covers a lot of bases when it comes to sex discrimination. It includes areas such as education, sports, service organizations, educational institutions of religious organizations, etc. Many schools that have lots of sports programs have to follow by this title when it comes to the number of women's sports that are offered based on the female population in the school.

I found an article on the New York Times website about the University of Delaware and how they have cut back men's programs because they feel that in the future they will not be able to meet the requirements of Title IX. The school plans on adding another female sport in the fall, but they are concerned that they will not be compliant with the Title in the future. Is this really cause for concern? Or is it just limiting the choices for men and being unfair about it?

There is currently debate over whether or not the University is discriminating against its male athletes because of all of the cuts they are making to the men's teams. It seems like it's easier for some schools than others to follow the requirements of Title IX.

To read more of this article...click here.

Lara Logan's Story

I have heard of many stories from during the war where women and men have been sexually assaulted and raped by people who were fighting during the time, but this story really shocked me. A CBS reporter was in Egypt covering a celebration that was taking place because a president in Egypt had just resigned.

She was told that she needed to get out of there, but soon enough she was surrounded by so many men that she could not even think about escaping. She describes what happened to her and that she had so many different hands touching her and hitting her with objects that she honestly thought she was going to die.

This attack went on for about 25 minutes, which I can only imagine felt like more than a lifetime. I can't even begin to think about what this would be like, but I know that it would be nothing less than traumatic. I think it is very brave of her to talk about her experience because like it says in the article, she is breaking the silence for all of the women that this has happened to.

Click here if you would like to read more from the article.

Boys Who Like the Color Pink

I work in a daycare and I used to help teach in the classroom with the 2 and 3 year old children. In one section of the room, there is a little makeup table and a bunch of princess dresses and dress up shoes where the kids can pretend to be princesses. There was a little boy in my room who always wanted to put on the fluffiest princess dress and walk around in high heels. Not because he wanted to look like a girl, but because a majority of the other kids in the room are girls and that's what they were all doing.

I don't personally think that there is anything wrong with a boy wanting to wear a dress or even enjoying the color pink or purple. I found this video on YouTube about a boy who considers himself to be a princess and he really enjoys wearing dresses, sparkly clothes, and loves the colors pink and red. This would not have been a news story on NBC if everything in society wasn't so gendered.

I also remember an episode in season 3 from the show The Office where a woman had just had a baby and she brought her child into work one day. The baby was wearing pink from head to toe and Pam goes up to the mother and is gushing about how cute the little girl is. The mother interrupts Pam and says that her baby is actually a boy and that his favorite color is pink. Pam doesn't say much else before she walks away because she is embarrassed that she made such a mistake.

Going back to the boy at my daycare that likes to dress up in princess outfits...everytime his father came to pick him up and he was wearing a dress, he got really upset about it. He would always give his son "the talk" consisting of the fact that his son is on team blue and that team blue is so much better than team pink. So I guess that answers my question about where all of the insecurities boy have about liking the color pink come from. I personally think that pink is a nice color on a guy and that some guys should wear it more often.

The Royal Obnoxious Wedding

For the past few weeks it seems that all I have heard about it the Royal Wedding. I go on my facebook and there are multiple statuses with a countdown to when they can finally watch it on tv. I know many of my friends woke up at 3am on Friday morning just to watch it and then they were crabby the next day because they didn't get enough sleep. My whole view on this royal wedding is...thank god it is over!

I am not married, nor am I in a serious relationship...I'm not even sure if I ever want to get married because I have realized how big of a deal it is to have the most fabulous wedding ever. I think that the idea of marriage has become idealized...but most people think of the wedding as being the marriage and they think that if the wedding is spectacular, the marriage will be too.

I just think that the royal wedding has now given tons of hopeful single women the idea that a wedding needs to be grand and that you don't have to be royalty to marry into a royal family (because this is the point that many news stations have focused on).

It's also not just the royal wedding that has ruined the simplicity of a small, intimate wedding, but shows such as Four Weddings on TLC and Bridoplasty. Four Weddings is a show where four women are each having their weddings and they have to go to each others weddings and judge them based on a few different categories. Most of the women are judgemental of the food or the DJ or even the way that the bride's dress looked. And don't even get me started on Bridoplasty...who ever thought of a reality show to have brides compete to get plastic surgery of their choice for their wedding day?? Apparently the men they are about to marry are so dissatisfied with their fiancées body that there is no way they could marry them as they are.

I think that all of this means that there is something seriously wrong with the way that women in society are viewing weddings and marriage and it has become nothing but an unrealisitc dream.

"Don't Say Gay" Bill

I found a video on CNN.com describing a bill that was passed in California by the Senate that is prompting that a similar bill be passed in Tennessee. The Bill is being referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" Bill and it states that: No public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.

I know that there has been a lot of debate about sex education in schools, but I thought that it was just about information such as whether or not birth control should be taught as opposed to abstinence. I didn't think that it would come down to not talking about homosexuality in schools!

Apparently this bill had already attempted to be passed in the House, but got denied so it is now being brought to the Senate. The reasoning behind why Senator Campfield thinks this should be passed? He says that parents should be the ones to decide when to talk to their children about this issue.

He also tries to say that this bill is neutral...it doesn't speak for or against homosexuality, but in a way doesn't it? If the bill is banning the topic from being even talked about in schools or the word homosexuality being mentioned...how is that not speaking against it?

Watch the video and decide for yourself!

What Gives Them the Right?

I turned 21 almost a year ago, so I have had my fair share of nights at a bar. I prefer to go to the bars close to campus because a majority of my friends hang out there. Last weekend however, my friends and I decided to venture out to the bars on Main Street to see if we could find a new crowd to hang out with.

(Image found on Google)

Our first stop is a bar that has a pretty good mixture of college students and also graduated college students who still hang out in Oshkosh. I was hoping that since the majority of the men there were older that they would be more respectful and mature I suppose...well I was wrong. One of my friends got hit on almost immediately by a man who was about 25 years old and he seemed like a nice guy until he started to ask her about what kind of things she liked to do in bed. I walked away and decided to head to the bar to grab a drink and I had not been standing there for more than two minutes when some drunk man walks up to me and decides that the best way to introduce himself to me is by grabbing my ass.

I really did not appreciate this, so I walked away and my friends and I decided to head to a different bar, hoping to not run into any more disgusting men like the ones we had encountered already. Once again I was wrong...we went to Mabel's which I consider to be a more low key bar where you can just sit, have a drink, and actually have a conversation because it's not too loud.

A man came up to the bar and sat down right next to me, introduced himself, and offered to buy me a drink. We had been talking for almost a half hour and he seemed normal and actually nice. Next thing you know, he pulls out his phone and shows me very graphic pictures that he had taken of a female friend of his at a strip club. I didn't know how to respond to this, so I told my friends that we were leaving.

After what seemed like the longest night ever, we went home and just vented to each other about how ridiculous the men we find in bars are. My question is, what gives them the right to act and talk like that to women and actually expect something from us? Why do men think that it is acceptable to grab women's body parts and have them find arousing? All I could think about after that night was...really?

State Criminal Codes

It was Social Justice Week a couple weeks ago here on campus and I went to an event titled: Heterosexism, Sexual Violence Between Women, and Secondary Victimization. The professor giving the talk described how the criminal justice system plays a role in deciding whether or not sexual violence cases get taken to court and how a victim is defined.

Now everything that I learned is by no means new, but it seemed that everyone in attendance at the speaker had no idea of certain states criminal codes, especially those dealing with rape and sexual violence so I thought I would share those!

(Image found on Google)

The reason that criminal codes dealing with rape were discussed was because anyone can experience sexual violence...whether it is between two males, two females, or a male and a female. However, in some states the code dealing with rape specifies sex in the description which would make it impossible for some victims to even take a case to court. For example, the following is Alabama's criminal code on rape in the first degree:

Rape in the first degree.

(a) A person commits the crime of rape in the first degree if:

(1) He or she engages in sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex by forcible compulsion; or

(2) He or she engages in sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex who is incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless or mentally incapacitated; or

(3) He or she, being 16 years or older, engages in sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex who is less than 12 years old.

(Source) http://www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeofAlabama/1975/13A-6-61.htm

So in other words, in Alabama a man who is raped by another man would not be able to have a case because the code states that rape is between two people who are of the opposite sex. This is not just the case in AL, many other criminal codes on rape and sexual violence in different states say just about the same thing...some are even more explicit. This information gave me a lot to think about and I hope it will do the same for you!

Supreme Court Hears Wal-Mart Gender Bias Discrimination Case

I was talking to one of my friends the other day and he mentioned that there was a huge law suit dealing with gender discrimination in wages concerning women at Wal-Mart. I found a video on YouTube from PBS News Hour that I watched to learn more about what was going on with the courtroom and how the lawsuit was coming along. Apparently the first decision to be made wasn't whether or not to look into Wal-Mart's policies on discrimination and if there was actual wage discrimination against the women who worked for the company. Instead, they were deciding whether or not they were actually going to take on the case and advance it to the Supreme Court.

One woman brought forward her story and five other women joined her to file the lawsuit against Wal-Mart. They all felt that they should have been receiving raises and promotions to managerial positions before some of the men in the store because they had worked there longer and they were eligible for the pay increase. So now Wal-Mart could potentially lose billions of dollars if the case is picked up by the Supreme Court.

Apparently class action is the one way that helps these women actually have a case against Wal-Mart because if each woman was to try and file a worker's discrimination case on their own, it is very likely that it will be dismissed. Since there are so many different women who have come forward stating that they have experienced unfair pay at Wal-Mart, some people are saying that it is hard to pin just one policy that was being broken because these women are not all from the same store...they are from all over.

If you want to know more about this hearing...watch the video!

An article was published on www.nytimes.com titled When a Lawsuit is Too Big that describes the process of how the courts made their decision whether or not to take the case to the Supreme Court. Apparently it is too difficult for the courts to handle such a large and "improbable" claim, so it turns out that the case was settled for $3 billion. This just proves that we may not see any change in the wage gap, especially in companies such as Wal-Mart.

Here is the link to the article:

When A Lawsuit is Too Big

Woman Cop Fired Because of Pregnancy?

A woman from Georgia was notified that she was being let go of her job as a narcotics police officer shortly after she informed her boss that she was pregnant. They asked her to hand in a doctor's note stating what parts of her job she was still able to perform and if her pregnancy would keep her from certain tasks required by her job.

After being informed of her termination, she received a letter stating that her pregnancy was high risk and there was no safe position they could put her in on the force. Does this mean that the reason she was fired was because of her pregnancy? Thompson reports that her doctor gave her permission to still perform four of the six major tasks of her job, and her pregnancy was never referred to as high risk.

Thompson was also given a disciplinary letter stating that she needed to remain more careful on her job and the discipline was due to issues with keeping herself safe.

The Chief of Police was interviewed but he did not give any comments on the situation, instead referred the interviewer to another source, that of which was also unable to answer any questions.

I think that if a woman who is pregnant does not feel safe in her work environment and considers herself to be largely at risk, then she will quit or inform her superior of this. It is unfair to just assume that a woman who is pregnant is unable to perform her job as she has been doing for previous years. I'm sure that there are desk jobs in the police station that she could have been switched to.

Here is the link to the video found on CNN:

Cop Gets Pregnant, Loses Job

The Birth Certificate Issue in NYC

When an individual identifies as transgendered, how hard is it to change the gender on their birth certificate after undergoing hormone therapy? Apparently this has been quite an issue in New York for a woman named Joann Prinzivalli, formerly known as Paul.

Most transgendered people don't just have an ah-ha moment sometime in their teens or early thirties where they think they should be the opposite sex. It is usually something that they know and feel at a very young age. Joann says that she knew she was supposed to be a woman when she was four years old.

She underwent electrolysis and hormone therapy to give herself the outward appearance of a man, but was not able to complete this transition with a genital change surgery. She is currently suing New York City for not allowing her to change the sex on her birth certificate. It seems that the city requires proof of surgery before allowing someone to make this change...which is something that Joann did not have done.

After her public appearance about this issue, a few other transgendered individuals have decided to sue the city as well for similar reasons. They describe in the article that they have had a hard time either obtaining a new driver's license after moving to a different state or getting a job because their birth certificate does not match other forms of identification. The Board of the Health Department does not agree that they should change their requirements because they say that there could be misuse of the certificates without proper proof of sex change surgeries. I am not exactly sure what the worst is that could happen if they give these people what they want and I believe rightfully deserve, but this is not up to me to decide.

If you would like to read more about this here is the link to the article:

Transgender People Contest NYC Birth Record Rule

International Women's Day

I know that I'm a couple weeks late on this one, but I had no idea that there was an International Women's Day which was on March 8, 2011. I came across this holiday when I was reading an article about whether or not women political leaders actually do anything to help further women in society. The article didn't really interest me, so I decided to search for something about this date that I had no idea existed.

I found the International Women's Day website which contains tons of information about the events going on in each country around the world and also shares a press release containing information on how IWD got started.

The press release states that the first IWD was celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland in 1911, so this year was the 100th anniversary of the holiday! This day is considered a national holiday in countries such as China and Russia. It is a day to celebrate all of the women in your life, which makes it completely different from Mother's Day because obviously not all women are mothers. I had read another article on IWD that was not very lengthy, so I'm not going to include it in this blog, but I noticed that there was a comment made about the article stating that if this world valued equality, there would be an International Men's Day. I found this very disheartening, but I'm sure that this man is not the only one who feels this way.

Well, here's the link to the IWD website to check out what happened in other countries on this holiday and posts by women who celebrate this day with pride:

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Same Sex Experimentation in College

Just because it is Spring Break and we all know how peer pressured some women can get to drink as much as they can and perform sexual acts with other women, I decided to blog about this article that I found in the NY Times. It is called Study Undercuts View of College as a Place of Same-Sex Experimentation by Tamar Lewin.

The article describes studies that have been done to look at how women's level of education (whether or not they obtain a high school diploma or college degree) correlates with any same-sex experimentation. I found this article interesting because a lot of the TV shows I have seen have that one line in the dialogue where the woman says about kissing another woman "oh that was just something I tried in college" or "that was just a phase in college." I didn't assume that this would automatically happen to any young woman who was attending college, but from watching these shows when I was younger, I just thought that when you went to college you, your eyes were opened to more diversity and more experiences and this could be one of them.

The author describes a term that is used in situations like this; it is known as LUG (lesbian until graduation). I personally have never heard of this term before, but it was very interesting to me, so I read on. A study was described where the findings were that with almost 14,000 respondents, a small percentage of women (10%) with Bachelor's degrees had disclosed having a same-sex experience. The percentage for those who had no high school diploma was a little higher (15%).

I think the article makes an interesting point that society just likes to believe that women are sexually interacting with each other during college because those are the best years of your life, aka you don't have to think about what you're doing and you should just go crazy. I do think that society has a different view on two women kissing and two lesbians kissing. I feel that if it's labeled as a relationship, some people have a problem with it, but if it's just innocent college experimentation then it's sexy.

Here is the link to the article:

Same Sex Experimentation Among College Educated Women

Jersey Shore

When Jersey Shore first came out, I thought that I would never ever want to watch it because it just sounded like another one of MTVs really stupid reality series that was filled with drama and had no plot. I would still use those same words to describe the show, but I did start watching it during the second season, and well needless to say...I am hooked. I don't watch it for the supposedly attractive cast or because I feel the need to know about the process of GTL, but I find it interesting how this show portrays so many double standards. I also find a lot of their arguments very petty and amusing.

When I started to watch the second season, I thought that Vinny was the only good guy on the show and that all of the other male cast members were just "creepin" on girls in the clubs and creatively came up with ways to label them based on their looks. And by creative, I mean very insulting to women. It turns out that Vinny isn't such a good guy after all. In a recent episode in the third season, Vinny gives Snooki a hard time for "sleeping with all of Seaside" when in fact he does just the same and the only reason he's saying this is because she had brought home two different guys a night apart. All of the guys in the house do the same exact thing, but they don't judge each other for it, unless they brought home a "grenade" or an "A-bomb."

This bring up the double standard that seems to be in effect in society today, especially when it comes to sex. The cast seems to know that there is this double standard, particularly the women because they have called each other sluts and whores for doing the same exact thing they are. I think that these words are permanently ingrained in their vocabulary and I have even seen my friends who watch this show talk like them as well...so much for our generation not being susceptible to media.

Our America

We were talking in class about the media and the kinds of shows that we watch as a class. Someone had mentioned the show Our America and how recently they had an episode on transgendered persons. I decided to search on YouTube to find a video of this and a segment popped up.

This specific portion of the show is about a family where the youngest child named Harry was born male, but he identifies more as a girl. The young boy was more drawn towards dolls and girl's clothing and in self-portraits he drew him as a girl. He even renamed himself Haley all on his own. Lisa Ling is the host of the show and she interviews the parents to get a sense of how they are dealing with everything.

Here is the link to the clip of Our America:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5P9kUz0yO0

One of the concerns that the father mentions about raising a transgendered child is that he fears that she will not have a normal life and he questions who is going to love her? I am assuming that he also fears the issue of hate crimes committed against transgendered individuals. I found an article that describes how 14 states so far have changed a bill to include gender identity or expression to the list of factors (including race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) that would result in an increase of a person's prison sentence. Those who decided to have this addition to the bill passed felt that it would act as a deterrent against hate crimes towards transgendered people. This ensures that those who "attack" a transgendered person because of the way they are, will get a fitting punishment and prison sentence.

Here is the link to the article:

Transgender Laws

Trading Breast Milk On the Internet

I was searching on CNN for a story about gender that might be interesting to post something about and I came across a video under the Breaking News section about online websites whose sole purpose is for women to find other women who have extra breast milk for sale. The video I found is a news anchor interviewing a doctor to see if there should be any health concerns with this kind of online trading.

Dr. Lori Feltman-Winter is being interviewed and she expresses her concerns about the fact that there is no screening process for this milk that is being traded over the internet. There is a nationally recognized milk bank called the Human Milk Banking Association of North America that has a pasteurizing process that the milk goes through before it is sold to mothers in need of it.

Lori explains that it is best for a mother to breast-feed up through the time period of 6 months after birth (possibly up to a year) and that society expects that all mothers are able to do this. Sometimes there are problems and the body just stops producing the natural milk, but mother's still want their children to be on breastmilk, so they have started to look into these other options. which could pose health problems for their children. Some of these websites have names like Milkin Mamas, which makes me think that it doesn't even sound like a good idea just looking at the name. I agree that there is a societal pressure for women to breast feed and those that don't want to are not regarded as the best mother they can be because formula isn't as good for a baby as breast milk is.

Trading Breast Milk

Friends Shows It Best

I have been watching the show Friends since it was on and it is definitely one of my favorite shows. I have very many favorite episodes, and as I was watching it the other day, I rediscovered an episode that I not only thought was funny, but is relevant to what we have been discussing in my Women's Studies Class.

We had talked about the "man box" and how hard it is for a man to have characteristics or qualities that don't fit inside this box without being called names that make references to women or weakness. I found this clip on YouTube of an episode of Friends during season 6 which takes place after Joey's roommate moves in and changes the apartment completely. She adds pictures of watering cans, some potpourri, and also Joey teaches Monica how to properly arrange flowers. Chandler walks in while this is going on and he starts to accuse Joey of acting like a woman. I still think that this clip is funny, but now it has a different meaning to me because as we talked about it class, it seems that the worse thing you can call a man....is a woman.

Enjoy!

"Joey Turns Into a Woman"

The Birth Control Fiasco

We have been discussing the term privilege in class the past week and I believe that access to birth control is a woman's privilege. I found an article which discusses Walker's plan to eliminate this privilege from women. He is proposing a bill that makes it alright for a pharmacist to deny a woman birth control if they feel necessary. I believe that a pharmacist is paid for their job...handing out prescriptions, rather than passing judgement on the need for birth control. This is a basic right that so many women's activists worked for in the past and I believe that it is not up to one man to decide whether or not women should be using birth control.

Walker's Proposed Bill

Another article that I discovered discusses how Walker is also Pro-Life and wants to eliminate a woman's right to have an abortion even in the case of incest or rape. I'm not decided on what my views are as far as abortion, but I believe that these should be exceptions to the law. Why does a male governor have the right to determine what is best for women in the community? This article also discusses how Walker is opposed to sex education in schools, whereas his opponent Barrett fully support all of these things. I think that this is a very controversial issue and everyone is more than welcome to have their personal opinion about these things, but one man should not be able to make these decisions for women across the state.

The Abortion Debate

Should Boys Wrestle Girls?

I was on my way to work the other morning and I heard a story on the radio about a high school boy who forfeited a wrestling match in which he could have made it to the state level. The reason behind this decision? He was set up to wrestle a girl. I found a few articles about it online because I was curious as to why someone would give up a state title just for that reason. The article stated that he refused to wrestle her out of religious beliefs because he said that he gets violent when he wrestles sometimes, and he didn't believe it would be okay to wrestle a girl. Is this really the reason? Because if she is a wrestler on the high school team, I'm sure that she can handle her own because there are not too many female wrestlers out there and I'm assuming that she had to practice with boys. Or what would happen if she won? Would he still be the man that everyone thought he was...because he did have a pretty good record from previous matches? I'm not sure if I believe that this was all done for religious reasons, but maybe instead what society has taught him about manliness.

Boy Forfeits to Girl

Valentine's Day Observations

Since this is my first blog posting about gender, I thought what better way to start it off than talking about Valentine's Day? Ever since starting class, I have noticed so many things that involve gender that I never thought about before. Yesterday for Valentine's Day, my sorority sold pink carnations on campus as a fundraiser for our philanthropy. Instead of doing what I was supposed to (which was trying to sell them to people) I decided to observe the people that bought them. My sisters really only approached guys walking through campus, using phrases such as "wouldn't your valentine love a flower?" or "don't you have someone special you want to give this to?" It was funny to me that they only approached guys walking through, but if you think about it, men are the ones who are expected to give women gifts on this day and it would be considered odd if a woman bought a man some flowers. It would also be considered not normal if a man bought flowers or a valentine's day card for his best guy friend, whereas this would be completely acceptable if a woman did it.

I found this article online that discusses a different norm...in Japan. Women in Japan are supposed to buy chocolates and gifts for men, whether it's their boss or significant other. I found this interesting, and refreshing because I think it would definitely take a lot of pressure off of the men to spend so much money. And this trend has been happening since 1950...so maybe there's hope for America that things could change.

Japan Doing Things Differently