Barbies or GI Joe, does it matter?

It is very interesting to really think about the toys that children play with in our society and how gender specific they are. Most toys are very gender specific, girls usually play with barbies and dolls, and boys play with toy guns and cars. Girls toys are marketed using lots of compassion and affection, like showing other girls taking care of a baby doll. Animals are also used a lot, like in My Little Pony commercials, or stuffed animals are also used. Little girls are also shown doing lots of house work, for example, little girls are the ones targeted in commercials for play kitchens. On the other hand, little boys commercials use more action, getting dirty, playing outside, and they are louder. Little boys are targeted in commercials for toys like water guns, cars, swords, and action figures. I do think that toys influence the way that children play to an extent. Children learn how to play from their parents and friends and from what they see on tv, and they use the toys that they are given. If we give a girl a barbie she can't realy pretend it is a gun or a car if she wants to, or if we give a boy a toy gun it would be hard to pretend it was a baby doll. On the other hand, when I was a child I loved barbies and dolls so those are the toys I had, but I would also play with my brother's cap guns, GI Joe, and the violent video games he had. I think that shows that kids really know how to find the toys they want to play with and will use their imaginations to play the way they want to. I was sitting here trying to make sense of why our society likes to force girls to play with "girly toys" and boys to play with "boy's toys". I feel like it started along time ago when our society wasn't as advanced and men were the physiologically stronger ones so they went out to do the manual labor, and women stayed at the home because someone had to do house work. Also, women had to be the pregnant ones and breast feed, and there were no daycares to watch children and someone needed to do it. So back then it was almost imperative to the running of a house hold for men and women to have these seperated roles. I think this is where gendered toys came from, because they almost had to take on those roles and the toys would prepare them for those roles. Today we are more advanced and all of work is not just manual work, and women can get out and earn a living because there is daycare so they can get away from their children. I don't think we need to force gendered toys on children anymore, but I do think it is just what we are ussed to now

Blog#4

The "Tough Guise" is a sort of front that men and boys put up so they look more masculine or tough. The tough guise can be beneficial to men and boys because it can be used as a defense mechanism. They might also use it to attract women, since we usually like to feel secure and protected, strength is a quality women sometimes look for in men. The tough guise can be an effective and adaptive response when it is used to scare off bullies in school or in sports to intimidate opponents, or even when it is used to act tough to get a girl interested in them.
It can also be self-destructive and dangerous when the it is taken too far and it is accomplished by hurting other people. This might happen when a boy putts on a tough guise by being the bully to other kids, or when a man instigates a fight in which someone could really get hurt. This could also be dangerous when a tough guise is accomplished by beating up women. People might think gender issues are synonymous with feminine issues because women are the ones who are on the losing side when it comes to gender, so they are the ones who would have problems with gender roles. Men do not usually have a problem with gender seeing how they get the upper hand for the most part. This can make it difficult for men and women to understand the gendered nature of men's lives because men are not supposed to talk about it. Men are supposed to handle their problems alone and not talk about them, and if they talk about them they are too sensitive or feminine. This pressure on men and boys to live up to the ideal of physical size and strength can have a huge toll on their lives. It can make them feel like they are not enough of a man if they are not strong. They might not get on the football team if they are not stalky enough, or might not get on the basketball team if they are not tall enough. This can also drive men and boys to use steroids to try and accomplish the size they desire. I think that media can inspire change because boys wouldn't know that they are not strong enough or big enough if they were not told this on a daily basis. The media feeds us these images of perfection thousands of times a day and we have to constantly compare ourselves to these images. We are susceptible to the media influence because it is everywhere, in every form, and they make it appealing to every single person. We are exposed to it at such an early age, and it teaches us how to think.

Blog#3

There are many repeated themes in the book. One of these is the struggle that women have fitting in when in the workplace. First of all women do not get compensated the same even if they are performing the same tasks in the workplace. Second, women get constantly ridiculed for what they wear to work, and people do not care at all what men wear. If a woman wears something serious or professional, she gets pegged as to masculine or not woman enough. If a woman wears something feminine of soft, then she gets pegged as slutty or too feminine, and men even blame sexual harassment on the fact that women dress feminine. Another theme is just the general oppression of women because of their looks. Women are thought to have less value in our society if they gain weight, get old, or do not dress well enough. Since when did our looks constitute the what we can contribute to society? If a woman doesn't fix her self up then she is thought of as not competent enough, but a man can roll out of bed in his clothes from the day before and nobody thinks twice about it. And why are there pants with writing on the backside for women and not for men? Why are there low-cut shirts for women available in just about every store, but I have never seen a pair of low-cut pants for men that give a little peek of their junk? Why do women think they have to show some skin to get recognized by men?
Beauty, body image, and sexual attraction is in fact a function of social construction. Everywhere you look you are influenced by advertisements that tell you what to think about yourself, other people, what is sexy, what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable. Beauty is social constructed because adds tell us that if we have wrinkles we need to get rid of them, or if we are fat we need to take diet pills. It is not just media, it is other people who look down on over weight, old, or unmanicurred people. School plays a huge role early on in a person's life. If a child wears clothes from a thrift store or wal-mart then they are not good enough. So people learn to change their weight, clothes, wrinkles, glasses, shoes, and teeth to fit in and not be an outsider (because no one wants to feel like they do not fit in.)Sexual attraction is socially constructed because we only see "good-looking" people getting action in the media, we do not usually see "ugly" people getting action, so we learn that if we want someone to be attracted to us we need to be skinny, muscular, have big breasts (or other big parts), white teeth, no wrinkles, and just be perfect.
Ideals of female beauty function as a form of social control because every thing that a woman is involved in depends on the way she looks. If a woman looks old she might get discriminated against for a job. These ideals can hinder women because they will be thinking about what to wear to school so they fit in, instead of thinking about their homework assignments. Women do not get seen as human beings sometimes, they are only seen as objects, so they are not taken seriously. These ideals can control women by making them spend so much time and money on looking pretty and less time on gaining power and authority so that men are the ones still in those spots of power and authority.

what is body image

Body image is what a person pictures in their head when they think about their self. It is not just a snapshot of their body or face, it is all the ideas and connotations that go along with that picture they see. A person could be a perfectly healthy weight but if anyone has called them overweight(or even hinted at it) in their life, that person might picture their self as an overweight person. They do not only picture what they think about their own body, they picture what other people have told them about their body. I think that is how some people construct their body image, by putting together what other people and the media have told them about their body ( even if what they are told is not true). It is not only what they are told, but also how they are looked at and how other people are looked at. We talked about the male gaze in class and it really fits in here. If a woman notices a man drooling over another woman, then the man pays no attention to her, this woman might think she needs to look like the other woman to gain a man's attention. Body image should be studied because it is a very important part of life. whether or not a person has a positive body image can determine so many aspects of their life. If someone has a poor body image they might be introverted and not associate with other people, they might be depressed which causes other problems, and they could have eating disorders. If this is studied and we know how to boost a person's body image, then they might have a more fulfilling life. The first wave of feminism was basically about suffrage, and women getting the same rights that men have like voting.The second wave was about equal wages for women and men, and about being seen as more than just a pretty face. It fought against domestic violence and abuse also. The third wave is about the individual and expanding the fight for equality. Women don't want to be compared to one generic standard of beauty, we want to be seen as beautiful for who we are, instead compared to who we are not. The first two waves were very organized and there were riots and things like that, but the second wave is all about individuals standing up for themselves. This has somewhat been accomplished because women are more widely accepted for who they are, this is how standards have changed. We are not only seen for how clean the house is or if we are wearing the right dress, or if we are married or not. We can now be seen for our thoughts, ideas, our brains, as a Strong woman. We do not have to be defined by a man anymore. Ophira Edut says a body outlaw is "a rebel with a cause, willing to step outside my comfort zone to expose people to a body type that had practically disappeared from the cultural imagination." In pop culture I think a body outlaw would missy elliot( because she doesn't think she has to be stick thin) and anne hathoway(because of her fair skin).