Embodiment

Embodied: describes a sense of subjectivity instead of objectification, a feeling of being in one's body physically and psychologically, instead of monitoring one's body from the perspective of an observer.

In class today, we watched a documentary titled, "Period: The End of Menstruation." It is a collaboration of various women's perspectives on having her menstruation and how they feel about menopause. I was surprised at how extreme some of the women felt about it. The one woman that shocked me the most is the one who took shots in her butt to stop getting her period. She did describe how excruciating the pains were during her menstruation but I questioned how safe is this method? I myself get severe cramps to the point of tears in a fetal position but I feel like I need my period. She was in her early 30s and was already going through menopause. In the end of the video, we find out that the method was extremely unsafe and could lead to many complications for her health in the future. I really enjoyed this movie because they had real women, of different ages, races, and sexuality speaking about how they truly feel. I think that everyone in the class was impacted in one way or another, because we were able to relate to (emobdy) at least one of the women. The different viewpoints helped our diverse class, the viewers, feel herself in the documentary. One thing I did not like was that most of the women were in the kitchen or hanging out with girlfriends during the interviews. I think that they chose these settings to help the viewer relate to the speakers more, but I found it as catering to certain stereotypes. Stereotypes like, the woman should stay home and that girls talk too much with their girlfriends.
In Chapter 7 of Crawford's book, Transformations, she has a section titled The Contradiction between Femininity and Physical Activity which I found interesting. She introduces it by questioning the stereotype of women being the "weaker sex." Crawford states that "It is not easy to answer this question because the answer depends on what is being assessed." I completely agree with her. Biologically, men are generally bigger than women, heightwise, weightwise, muscle masswise. With this in mind, of course they would be stronger, in the sense of carrying heavier things. But in racing, swimming, sports where the smaller the better, women prevail. I think that when comparing the two sexes, it should be a specific subject instead of generalizing. An interesting idea that Crawford mentions is that, "In the late 19th century United States, medical experts believed that intellectual activity and physical exertion would decrease women's fertility." This thought is from a little over a century ago and may effect perceptions now. Basically, medical experts thought, the smarter and more athletic a woman, the less capable she would be of bearing a child. Considering the time era, women's sole responsibility was to raise a family, hence, she couldn't risk being smart or athletic. Fortunately, the invention of the safety bicycle helped the movement of change.
Progression for the change where the idea of women participating sports activities was very slow. It took almost a century for women to participate in the Olympics (1972). This day and age, there are much more opportunities for females to be active in sports but it is not equal to our counterpart. For example, only men play professional baseball, even after the movie A League of Their Own. I even noticed this in high school where we had more sports teams for the boys than the girls. I see less girls active in sports. Crawford states that "It is unfeminine to have muscles, or to be strong, fast, tough, or better than boys." It is very true. Majority of the mothers that I know shelter their daughters, prevent them from getting hurt. I know my parents hated me playing rough because they didn't want me to have scars on my legs because it is unattractive. I never listened and I love my scars. Although there are more women in the sportsworld, it still remains a "Man's World."
So where would be the "Woman's World"? The insightful, entertaining article in the New York Times, "Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day" by Stephanie Rosenbloom, on Halloween, the "Woman's World" seems to be in dressing up for the strip club. I personally loved this article because it is so true and I unfortunately fall victim to this. Rosenbloom asks the reader, Why have so many girls grown up to trade in Wonder Woman costumes for little more than Wonderbras? Very good question. Pat Gill answers by stating that "many women think that showing off their bodies "is a mark of independence and security and confidence." I couldn't have thought of a more honest answer. Big females, skinny females, young girls, grown women, old women, can be seen dressed in very revealing costumes on Halloween. I am not saying all women, but a whole lot of women do. And what do the guys do? They stare, whistle,
try to talk, sometimes even try to touch these women. Women know that this would happen, but still initiate it. We don't like it because it's degrading, but we like it because we're getting attention. I think that this is the struggle of most teenage-young adult females.
To sum everything up, it is very difficult to embody any woman in any time era in any place. And what is disappointing is that it is small things that should be different yet we still need to overcome odds. Sports; women are just as capable as men but mentally and psychologically, it is discouraged. How we dress; should always be for ourselves, but it's not. Instead of changing those things, women are trying to stop mother nature by injecting themselves with hormones and other weird stuff. We need to step up and get our priorities straight.

Images of Women

Every single day, I get special treatment because I am a female.

Especially since I started driving, men tend to let me go, even though I don't have the right of way, help me park, even though I'm excellent at it, just to name a few. I'm not gonna lie, I do like the treatment but it still bothers me. What if I didn't look the way I looked, like an innocent little girl; would I still get treated the same?

Unfortunately, the ugly truth is that females are treated and judged

based on appearance/image. Right now, all around us, there are monster size, pocket size, traveling, static, glowing, dim, silent and loud advertisements, attempting to persuade females of all ages to buy, buy, buy to hopefully, maybe one day, look "beautiful."

A few years ago, a teacher showed me a great video on what

different cultures have thought and still think "beautiful" is. I was searching for hours for this video and I couldn't find it. So instead, I found some pictures that would help me explain the video. In China, small feet were considered beautiful, so women would bind their feet, and this would be the outcome: This doesn't happen anymore, but let's look back on our Disney Cartoon Movie, Cinderella. She wore a small glass slipper that she left when she ran out of the ball because it was midnight. The prince found this slipper, and vowed, whoever would fit the slipper, is his princess. I'm pretty sure she couldn't have been the only woman in the kingdom to have that shoe size. Let's say the prince found a girl who fit the shoe before he reached Cinderella's house. He would have married her! China's foot binding trickled into Walt Disney's interpretation of the old german faity tale and is subliminally telling little girls that if you have a little foot, you will marry a prince!

Aside from having small feet, having a small waist was always considered to be an asset to a women. Even now, we hear lyrics like "I met a girl! That's top of the line, cute face, small waist.." as being sexy. Women use corsets to reach this figure. Wearing a corset too tight affects the body like this: Seeing this before and after, you notice that the insides of the figure on the right are all mushed together. That can't possibly be healthy or good for her digestive system. I don't know if women still go to this extreme, but you still find many women still wearing girdles and other body shapers to look like, or help reach this form. From experience, they're annoying, hot and prevent me from eating well. I find no benefit in wearing things such as these. What if you do end up with a guy who likes you for looking like this? Once you take that off and he sees your true figure, do you honestly think he would stay with you?

I'm from the Philippines Islands. It is always hot there and either sunny or raining. When walking in the sun a lot to where you need to go, especially when you are in a tropical place, one can't help but get tan. But to this day, the whiter you are, the more beautiful you are in my country. There are endless skin whitening products, ones that my mom, who lives here, gets especially shipped from the Philippines to keep up her "beautiful" complexion. Not only are the women using these products, my dad uses them too. You'll see all kinds of ads like this one in Filipino magazines: The women here are famous actresses in the Philippines, whom many females look up to. Their faces are almost as white as the clothes they wear. They compliment the stars in the background. To this day, I don't understand the history behind this expensive craze.

In the Transformations book, by Mary Crawford, aside from advertisements, she also mentions stereotypes of women in comparison to each other as well as men. In a nutshell, personality trait stereotypes of men are focused more on their self superiority like, independence, dominance, ambition, etc. whereas the women are emotional, sensitive, nurturing, etc. Although these are stereotypes, they do affect women in how they think women are supposed to act. When I was little, I wasn't supposed to play as rough as I did with the boys. I was supposed to just sit quietly. With my ex-boyfriend, my mom told me not to argue what I think is right, and just agree with him.

Personally, I have always disliked how women are perceived this time and age. I try to change these perceptions one conversation at a time.

Food + Sex + Violence? = SOLD!

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Bad Girls Club

The Bad Girls Club is a show on Oxygen that I always see the commercial for. I always found it rather pointless but decided to watch it for this Reality TV show assignment. This show is about some bad ass women, well at least they think that they are, who live in a big house together. I watched the first two episodes On Demand from last season (I hope it's still acceptable). After spending nearly two hours of my life watching this show, I realized how perfect the show is to analyze. Every part of it exposes how society-created gender shapes every action and attitude of each of the woman. There are 8 women in the house, Tiffany, Amber M., Amber B., Kayla, Whitney, Ailea, Sarah and Whitney. Boy do they have some wild personalities.

First, the girls are given a job. They all go to a lingerie shop on Hollywood Blvd. Their task is to pick out the outfit the feel most comfortable in, strut their stuff down the boulevard to bring in customers. Whoever brought in the most people would win, I think $300. All of them tried hard at first, cat-calling men, fluttering their eyelashes, offering free lap dances, objectifying themselves to everyone, including couples, just to make a few hundred bucks. The winner was Amber M. because she would not give up, run up to people, pull off the innocent look, and drag them into the store. If I was in their position, I honestly would have done the same thing because I need the money. But watching it disgusted me. These women are supposed to be bad girls but they just looked so desperate. A lot of men didn't pay mind to them, which I found odd. I figured that maybe it was the cameras that shunned them.

Now, we have the character Kayla. She is a model-looking African-American woman who despises the other African American, Tiffany, at first glance. The reason behind her feelings is that Tiffany has a lighter complexion than she. Kayla defends herself by saying how her ex-boyfriend loves "light-skinned" women. Kayla's current complexion is lighter than it should be because she has gone out of her way to look lighter for her boyfriend. Complexion is her sole reason for disliking Tiffany and she admits to it with no shame. Through the expression of Kayla's emotion, she shows the audience how her "strong woman" personality, which she constantly must point out, is a facade. Although she came out as a tough girl, confronting an innocent stranger, I looked past it and knew that she is just intimidated by Tiffany. During her confession to Tiffany, her low self-esteem is accentuated. She's not even with this guy anymore and she's still ready to pounce on a light-skinned female! I found it insane how just seeing a stranger with a lighter complexion sparked such hatred in a person.

Another instance in which the concept of gender was evident was when the character Whitney aka Boston receives the news of a friend passing away. She refuses to cry or "show any sign of weakness" to the other girls. Instead, they all go out and she gets wasted. In class and in regular everyday discussion, the most common said difference between men and women is that they are "weaker" and/or "too emotional". I'm assuming that that is the reason why Boston held back her feelings. Eventually she cries, after the other ladies begged her to and after a lot of drinking. From experience, I think she'll probably forget what happened the next day and wake up with a terrible headache and/or vomiting. I've heard it is not good to suppress emotions. Family Guy subliminally suggests that it causes tumors. I have an aunt that passed away from a tumor (she denied the fact that her husband beat her all the time). Watching the show, it's obvious Boston wanted to vent about her emotions but did not know how. She felt the need to keep her bad girl attitude and prove that big girls don't cry.

The last part of the show I will mention is when Kayla and Amber M. had their own altercation. The day after Kayla was ready to fight to defend Amber M., they went out to eat with Amber B. Kayla unwillingly added $2 to the tip and that is where it all began. Amber M. keeps rambling on and on in the car about the situation, where Kayla is yelling to just drop it. Amber M. wouldn't so Kayla hit Amber M.'s arm. (Very funny to watch). Amber B., the driver, pulled into a gas station and the other two jumped out and started swinging and kicking. Their ending position was half in the car, Kayla pulling Amber M.'s hair while Amber M. was choking Kayla. I was wondering the entire time, are they really fighting over $2? Kayla was yelling saying she would kill Amber M. Amber M. was getting everyone else on her side by denying her instigation. This part portrays women as overreacting and conniving animals. The matter was so petty but they were ready to kill each other.

There were plenty more instances but I figured these covered a lot of ground. I realized that these self-proclaimed bad girls are just bluffers, not very good ones. They all spend so much time getting ready to go out, picking outfits, putting on make-up. I'm very disappointed in Oxygen for airing this show. I thought Oxygen was a channel for women who are comfortable with themselves. I'm assuming the projected audience for this particular show are for both males and females. What messages are they sending? Why this show that projects insecurity, hatred, and constant objectification? These females are not ugly and aside from all of their fights, they always go out and have a good time. I had so many mixed emotions after viewing this. I want to have an easy-going life like theirs during the show, but I hated their personalities and attitudes. I was disgusted at some of the things they did, but reminisced on similar situations that I have been in. Finishing up this assignment, I'm left more confused than ever.

Gender Norm Activity

*Names used in the following post have been altered very slightly in sake of privacy.

Since the assignment was "gender norm" as opposed to "self norm", the task was pretty easy. I'm the biggest lady dude you'll ever meet. I could walk around in a little dress, heels, and make up, while spitting and burping in public. I have no shame in releasing whatever I have to, to maintain homeostasis haha.

So for the most part, I'm usually hanging out with guys and for class, I experimented on a fairly new group of friends. I always pop a squat whenever the circumstances need me to, but this group hasn't seen it yet. The first time I did it, we were all walking to my soccer mom minivan and I yelled, "Is there anyone around? No? Good. Look out for me." They were all confused and walking towards me. At this point, I already had my pants and undies down, watering the grass. Once they reached me, I was done and they had dumbfounded looks on their faces. One of them, Mikael, said "Did you just pee here? Ew, I'm more ladylike than you." I just giggled.

The second incident was another night, when I took one of them home to Brooklyn and bought Philly Cheese Steaks. Once we reached the neighborhood, I ran in between two cars, pulled Alex and Jack together to block the view from traffic. "Stay there! Wrap your arms around each other! Don't move!" I yelled. Once again, they were confused, and I assumed the position and let it rip. Haha, this time, I splattered and they got my urine on them. I wasn't done, so they had to stay there and they were shrieking like little girls. Eric, who was a good 10 feet away from me walked back and asked, "Did you just pee?" "Yup" "Damn girl I heard that shit from the corner, I thought it was a hose." "Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go." "Good job."

This assignment was fun because I took something I always do, and for the first time, actually analyzed the reactions of those around me. When me and my close girlfriends gotta go together, it's nothing new. We "do as boys do" like compete with duration and quantity, we try to write our names and stuff like that.
-Jeunesse