Weekly Reflection

This week I talked about several different ways that represent gender roles. First one is music. I have always noticed in music videos that men tend to dress very causally, usually a t-shirt, jeans and a pair of sneakers. That’s not the case with many women that are in videos. They’re either back up dancers for rappers or they’re the main artist themselves. Either way the point is that women are usually dressed much more provocatively. Women do not usually dress in casual clothes in videos. Usually they’re dressed in very revealing outfits that show a lot of skin, that most of them would not wear everyday when meeting a friend for lunch or going to get some shopping done. Guys seem much more relaxed and laid back while women have to be all “dolled up” with dramatic make up and clothing that leaves very little to the imagination. Sex sells, but this seems only to be the case for women. I showed an example of this when I posted Shakira’s new video. Shakira along with her back up dancers are wearing very revealing outfits for the most part while Lil’Wayne wears very comfortable everyday clothes. Another discovery that I made was that of how nature relates to this. For instance, I think that women have much longer rituals when it comes to getting ready – there’s the hair, the makeup, the wardrobe and not to mention all the shaving that has to go in. However, most men do not have to do so much to get ready. Some girls even like the rugged look and that doesn’t require much effort. And if they do “groom” themselves, I don’t think it’s as extensive as that of a woman. Why is it that women have to put in all the effort into attracting men while men wait around for women to flock them? Women have to do a lot to make themselves seem attractive and desirable. However, nature shows us something completely different. Instead, women are the one that get to lay back and take their pick at the most appealing male. The male counterpart is usually the prettier one with something to offer – like a song or a elaborate mane. The males have to attract the females. I’m not necessarily saying that women should let themselves go while men are supposed to go above and beyond to attract women but I’m just saying there should be some kind of balance. Lastly, I talked about the extremes. Sometimes it seems like there’s only two sides of the spectrum. On one side you have the extreme feminists that believe that women were disadvantaged for so long and now women should work while men stay at work or whatever it is that they think will make up for all the struggles that women have faced. On the other hand you have the other side which completely disregards women and doesn’t think that they belong in the “man’s world.” Throughout this entire project I just tried to strive at one thing – why is it that when it comes to gender issues it’s either this or that? There’s never a compromise or a balance. I think that’s definitely something that our society should work on.

December 6

Yesterday I met up with some friends to study for tests and finals. We talked about schoolwork a lot and I told one of my friends that my microbiology teacher constantly talks about Nobel Prize winners and how I think it’s ridiculous that they’re all male. Furthermore, in my Polish Culture class a group made a presentation about famous polish scientists that influenced science as we know it, and what do you know? They’re all male. What about Marie Curie? She left a giant footprint in chemistry, however, no one mentioned her. My friend that goes to a different school chimed in and said that her genetics teacher is a female and she only talks about other female geneticists and never about the male ones. I thought that this was quite interesting. I think it’s ridiculous that we can’t find a balance. It seems like males always choose other males when it comes to examples and females always choose other females because they feel like they have to catch up and prove something. I don’t understand why a class cannot find a balance. I think this is interesting because that’s what I chose to write my paper about, well a variation of it. I think it’s ridiculous that women cannot find the balance between work and family and instead are forced to chose one path, because if they choose both it will mean that they are sacrificing performance on both and it’s as if they are doing a poor job in both aspects. Another thing that I found that bothered me was something that I heard in church today. My priest kept talking about how women are not allowed to be priests and how many feminists now think that it’s unfair that they can’t be something that a man can. He then said something along the lines that it’s okay if women can’t do everything because not all men can do the same things as women – for example have children. Men are incapable of this job and so it’s perfectly acceptable for them not to be priests because that’s a job that only men can do. I understand his way of thinking but at the same time I found it to be a little bit ridiculous. if we apply the same logic to other things we might as well say “oh it’s okay for women not to be doctors or CEOs because they have other jobs that are specific for them that most men can’t do like stay at home, cook and clean.” I feel that logic can be spread out to accommodate that and next thing you know you once again have the jobs that are specific for women and once again high positions will be only a “man’s” job. If we apply this logic we’ll go backwards in time and undo all the progress that has been made thus far for women. However, at the same time I don’t think that an extreme feminist approach should be taken that states that women are owed more than men because of all the hardships and I don’t think that we should degrade men. I just think middle ground should be reached. Maybe I’m just being irrational and unrealistic but I’m just saying that it would be nice to see equality.

December 2

I woke up this morning and I thought to myself “if I don’t straighten my hair this morning I can sleep another 15 minutes or so.” Seeing as I went to sleep at 4 a.m. and had to wake up at 8 a.m. my choice was obvious. I pressed snooze. I thought about this issue (later on when I woke up of course) and how it relates to gender issue. It’s my personal belief that there is much more pressure on women to look attractive and spend time on their appearance. While men have several pressures to go work out and have a six-pack, women have a few more pressures I believe. We highlight our hair, wear make up to conceal everything, we don’t wear shorts if we didn’t shave our legs, and we wear uncomfortable tight clothes to highlight our silhouettes. I don’t think men are as pressured to do so much to make themselves more attractive to women. I think this is very interesting considering nature. Usually in nature (as far as animals are concerned) the male has to attract the female. For example, a male peacock has a brilliant blue color and an elaborate tail in order to gain attention from the female. However, a peahen isn’t as special. She doesn’t have to be. She’s the one that has to be attracted, not so much attractive. Another example is a lion. The male lion has a luscious mane in order to attract the lioness while the lioness is much plainer looking in comparison to the male. So how it seems that with our species it’s the women that are considered the ones that are desperate for the mate and that they have to make themselves more attractive in order for men to be interested?

November 30

Thus far I’ve discussed gender roles as they appear on television, in the media and even in our daily lives. The next thing that I think that reveals the differences in gender roles in today’s society is music. In the hip-hop, r&b and pop genres clothing says a lot about gender roles. For example, the male artist usually wears a lot of clothing to show “what he has” and wears a lot of jewelry. He flaunts what he has based on what he wears, so the more clothing and the flashier the jewelry, the better he’s off. The female artist however, especially in music videos, barely wears any clothing it seems like. If she is, she’s always showing some cleavage or some leg, wears heels, etc. For women it seems like the less the better. So clearly, there is a gender difference there. Women have be to be a lot more revealing to draw attention while men – not so much. Take for instance the new Shakira ft. Lil’Wayne video for her new song – “Give it up to me.” In this video, Shakira barely wears any clothing and is quite revealing. Lil’Wayne on the other hand is fully dressed in everyday clothing. Furthermore, even the lyrics in this song reveal some gender issues. For example, at one point Lil’Wayne says, “Now give it to me” and shortly thereafter Shakira says, “You can have it all/anything you want you can make it yours.” The male role is demanding while the female role is the giving and accommodating one.

Shakira - New Music - More Music Videos

Weekly Reflection

This week I looked at gender issues over several media that are all around us in our daily lives. I looked into two TV shows – one a “reality” and one that is completely scripted and how they both interpret gender issues. In “Trading Souses” I saw how women that stay at home can be portrayed and how they can be insulted by their own kids and significant others for the work that they do. In the scripted show, “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” the female characters do not seem to have the ability to have relationships outside of work while the males do. This is clearly a gender issue. Furthermore, I looked in the media and BBC revealed just how much trouble women are having balancing work and family life because they have more chores at home and so it’s hard to find that harmony. What is surprising is that 80% of women actually would quit their jobs because they are struggling so much, but do not because they need the money. Like I said in my post, if things were more equal at home, I think they could be more equal in the workplace. Until people stop thinking that the cooking, cleaning, etc are the roles of the women then I don’t think that gender issues at work will ever go away. Lastly, I even examined shopping and how it seems that the more practical things are in the men’s section while the women do not have this selection. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that women are known to be the shoppers, while men are considered to be more practical when it comes to their shopping decisions and so more thought goes into the product that gets put out. There’s another stereotype that I found to be quite insulting.

November 29

Today I went shopping with my sister. We went to GAP and she was looking for gloves. There was a pair of men’s gloves that were misplaced in the women’s section. My sister picked up this pair of gloves and really liked them because they had an extra lining inside that was really warm and soft. The women’s gloves did not have that. My sister picked up these gloves but was mad because there were a large and since they were misplaced she couldn’t find a different size. Then I told her that none of the other gloves have that so she’s like maybe they’re from the men’s section. Turns out – they were. So then while looking at all the other gloves in the men’s section, with the extra lining for softness and warmth my sister said, “well of course, the better ones are found in the men’s section.”

November 28 (Second Post)

Today I was watching “Trading Spouses” on VH1 and frankly, I felt quite offended. The thing that really set me off is when this one teenage son was coming to pick up his “new” mom said that he’s scared to meet the new mom. When the dad asked him why he felt that way he responded by saying “I’m scared she won’t do our laundry, clean up after us and be our maid.” As if this wasn’t insulting enough the dad found nothing wrong with how this boy talked about his wife. I was appalled. What kind of child speaks this way about the woman that brought them into the world? I hope that one day I can become a doctor, however, I do not look down on those women who have the opportunity and desire to stay at home and raise their children. However, if the children think of you as their maid, I think that’s a serious problem. If I was the mother of that boy and I saw this later I would be extremely insulted.

November 28

The other day in class we talked about racism and how it related to the last presidential election. The fact that a non-white man won meant that a lot of people either voted or did not vote for him because of his skin color and not because of what values he represented. There were people that supported him thought that they were doing the moral thing and supporting someone of a different ethnicity. However, there were also people who did not vote for him because of that reason. Regardless of what stance they took on that, they were voting for him for all the wrong reasons and not because of what changes he wanted to bring about to the country. Same can be said for Hillary. A lot of feminists supported her because they thought that we need a woman in the office, and a lot of people didn’t support her because she was a woman. Also, I believe that if she were to win the election and then did not do a good job in the office people would think that “this is why a woman can’t run a country and this is why we shouldn’t elect another woman again.” This is a very sad fact. A woman is just as qualified to be in the government as a man. Why is it so hard for us then to accept that?

November 27

“Four-out-of-five women say they would give up their jobs if they did not need the money.”


This quote appeared in an article published in 2000 on BBC. This struck me as extremely sad. The reason why 80% of women feel that way? The article reveals that a survey stated that women are finding it hard to manage a life at home and work. These women claim that they are lacking “support from both their managers and their partners.” The problem is that not only are women competing for jobs, but that they do a majority of the work at home. Furthermore, there’s a problem with guilt because they feel that they are “emotionally damaging their children and putting their own health at risk by working.” Being a mother and a wife is already a job on its own, and adding a career to that would be overload to some I’m sure. I can’t speak from experience because I do not have a family of my own to take care of since I’m neither married or have children, but I can say that managing school and work is hard. I understand that. What gets to me is that “77% feel they have to work much harder than men to gain promotion, even though they feel they have better communication and organizational skills.” Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad for women to find a balance between having a family and a career if everything else was equal. Women did come a long way, and it’s wonderful that we now have the same opportunities as men and we are able to work and have careers. However, everything should be equal. Maybe that’s too optimistic and unrealistic to think about – I get that. However, I think it would be much easier for women if they had the same amount of work as their husbands when they get home. Maybe if more men had chores at home women wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed. Maybe women wouldn’t feel so stressed about their jobs if they didn’t have to prove themselves just because they’re female and not male. Maybe if their gender didn’t matter, the four out of five women would actually enjoy their jobs.

Link to article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/781631.stm

November 25

Last night before going to sleep I was watching “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” on USA. I’ve watched this show many times before so I know the main characters quite well now. Mainly there are two main characters – Detective Olivia Benson and Detective Elliot Stabler. Olivia is a dedicated law enforcer and you rarely see her have a social life. The only time that she mentions dating is when she mentions the guys that she bailed on because she has to stay longer at work and that she does that to all the men that she dates. Elliot on the other hand has a wife and several kids – 4 I believe. True he has some relationship problems but the main point is that he does have a family while Olivia is by herself and doesn’t have time for a relationship because of work.  There are three other important characters – two other male detectives and a female prosecutor. One of the detectives has a child and the other one had three wives already. While they clearly have the time to have children and wives, the prosecutor does not and is never in a romantic relationship of any kind. This is yet another example of how women have to choose between career or love and men have all the time in the world to balance it all out. 

Weekly Reflections

Throughout this week I made several observations that relate to my gender issue topic. The first observation related to how fascinating it is for people to find out that a woman is doing a man’s job. This was illustrated through my friend’s essay topic. If a woman is doing a job that normally a man does that is seen as something news worthy and because of this we cannot say that women are seen as equals to men. Secondly, I focused on an issue that has always bothered me. I think that women are still judged no matter what they choose. If a woman decides to stay at home and become a stay-at-home-mom than she’s judged because she’s not using the opportunities that are given to her. However, if a woman does take those opportunities and decides to have a career than she is judged because she is not focusing on her family and so she’s either a bad mother or a bad wife, or both. Regardless of what path she chooses a woman will always be judged for her actions and there will always be some way to explain that the way that she chooses to live her life is wrong in the eyes of society. My next post was a positive one for a change. It focused on the movie “The Blind Side” and how the main female role was one of a successful, balanced woman. Sandra Bullock’s character is not only a supporting mother and wife that shows up to all of her kid’s school functions, but also a successful career woman. This was a refreshing movie to watch because she had it all. This was one movie where the woman did not have to choose between family and work but could find a way to have both. Sadly, the positive posts end there because the next one was a shocking one that focused on the health care system and how women can be put at a disadvantage if they have C-sections, when sometimes, they are quite necessary. This is unfair to a woman because a man will never have this problem. Lastly, I focused on a commercial that showed a woman who relied on a man to make her situation better while all she did was sat and said how “her burden is too heavy.” Meanwhile, the man complained but quickly got over it and found a solution to a problem while she continued crying about it. What my observations have showed me thus far is that women are still seen as the weaker sex and as much as we try to say that we’re all equal that is clearly not the case because for the most part the media still shows women to be the victims and if they’re not victims than they are selfish and they don’t care about their families.

Novemer 24

Today I was watching TV and I saw this commercial. I thought that this commercial was a perfect example of how women are still perceived as the weaker sex. In this commercial the woman has a problem and she just whines about it. She complains about it in this tragedy but never does something about it. The man on the other hand complains about it for a little, goes into the house and does something to fix it. When the man rescues the woman from her dilemma she becomes extremely happy and grateful for the wonderful manly job that he did. She’s the damsel in distress and he’s the night in shining armor. Before this assignment I probably wouldn’t have noticed the roles that these characters play. However, this commercial stuck with me and really bothered me.

November 23

Today in class we discussed the current state the nation’s health care and some of the updates that are currently being worked on. At first when I heard that we have to blog about it relating to our issues I thought that it would be slightly challenging. I was surprised though how quickly I was able to make a connection between gender and health care after watching the Colbert Report. One of the first things that were said was that women that had C-sections might not be eligible for health care because it’s considered a pre-existing condition. This really shocked me. Then I thought to myself – pregnancy is a major health concern, one that almost every woman goes through – some more than once, and is one that no man will ever have to deal with directly. Women are the ones that carry a baby for nine months and then spend time recovering (from the childbirth) while tending to the child. Pregnancy is an expensive procedure. Once a woman finds out she is pregnant she must seek several physicians to ensure that she and the baby are healthy. A lot of medical equipment is used for this since there are ultrasounds, and other various tests performed in order to find out how the baby is doing. All this costs money. An article posted on the parenting weekly website states that from the pregnancy test all the way through the delivery can cost anywhere from $6,800 to $10,600. Also, sometimes a C-section is necessary to ensure a safe delivery for both the mother and the child. If a C-section is considered a pre-existing condition a lot more women might not want to do it. This may turn out to be extremely harmful. For these reasons I thought that this video was completely absurd and unfair.

November 22

This weekend I went to the movies and I watched Sandra Bullock’s newest movie – “The Blind Side.” I loved this movie and I thought that the male/female dynamic in the movie was quite fascinating. In a lot of movies the female role has to depend on the male role in order to be happy. A woman can be successful, but in a lot of movies that’s not enough – she needs a man to be happy. She is often unhappy and is waiting for her knight in shining armor to come and rescue her. This movie was not like that. Sandra Bullock’s character had a gorgeous house, her kids went to a private school, she drove a BMW – she was well off. Her husband was quite successful, however, so was she. There are numerous clips throughout the movie showing how she’s a designer and that she works. Then, she picks up her kids, attends all their sporting events, etc. She even went to a great university and therefore she’s educated. I thought that this portrayal of a woman was quite refreshing. She showed a balance between being a successful career-woman and a great mother to her children. I was quite impressed with that fact that the movie was able to portray a woman that had it all and didn’t have to choose between family and a career. She had a well-balanced life. Realizing this made me like this movie that much more.

November 21

On Friday in English we talked about the issue of gender and whether or not the feminist movement is needed and whether it’s the males that actually need a movement because girls are shown to be more successful in the field of academics and that girls are allowed to wear all colors, but if a boy wears purple or pink then that’s frowned upon. At first I thought that yes, girls do seem to be a lot more mature, and excel in school more often than boys. However, I thought that the way that society views working women is still an issue. I, for instance, want to become an anesthesiologist. That means that I won’t be done with school until 2020 which means that I’ll be 30. As a little girl I always swore that I’m going to hold off marriage and family until I’m finished with school. Whenever I tell people that I find it that quite often I’m judged. I’ve been called selfish for that before that I’m willing to put a career in front of a family, and as a woman my number one priority is to be a mother. I find it that the reason why I don’t want to start a family until I’m done with school is so that I could have a stable job and a future before I bring a child into this world. I want to be able to provide for the child, in case something happens to my husband or in case my marriage falls apart, or some other unfortunate event. I want to be able to secure a future for my future children. How is that being selfish? Now, if a guy says that he doesn’t want to have children until he’s done with school, whenever that is, then he’s often seen as responsible and that he is doing the mature thing by making sure that he can provide for his children? This double standard is a clear indication that women and men are not yet seen as equals. How come it seems that for women it’s often a choice between family and a career? Why is it so hard to find a balance between the two and making them co-exist?

November 19

Today I was at a library with a friend of mine that was working on an essay for one of her classes. She decided to do her paper on Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan. My friend was telling me about how her professor told her that it's a good topic. What occurred to me is that the reason why this is a good topic is because Benzanir Bhutto was a female prime minister. This is a good topic because it's rare, especially in the predominantly Muslim countries. Writing a paper about a male prime minister wouldn't be as significant as about a woman prime mister. This one of those subconscious things that we don't really notice until they're pointed out to us. For instance, in some random country had a female president that would be a good essay topic for a lot of classes. However, a paper about a male president of same random country would probably not be as interesting.