Made in America

The two readings in “They say, I say” are both on agreement with each other, but each has a different emphasis. In Herbert’s reading he is saying that the American Dream is dead since our education system is bad and we’re spending a crazy amount of money fighting wars. In the second reading, Cal Thomas agrees with Herbert, but Thomas insists on pointing the finger at someone for causing all of these problems. He ends up pointing the finger at the left side of the political spectrum for this, (this doesn't surprise me that he blames Democrats and the left considering he’s a panelist on Fox News). In the last reading “why the rich are getting richer”, Reich uses a metaphor of 3 boats to describe the situation people are in. He says that Routine Producers (manufacturing jobs) are losing jobs at a very fast rate while In-Person Servers (Hospitality) are gradually losing jobs and compete against each other for In-Person Service jobs. Lastly, Reich says that symbolic analyst (political analyst) are growing at a great rate and are being the most stimulating and major part of our economy.

I think the “why the rich are getting richer” serves a great purpose to help our problem. When looking at Routine Producers, these people are at the base of our economy as well since they serve the important role of creating the products that we use every day, be it our cars or our electronics. I would also like to keep this in relation to the off shoring of jobs too. In Reich’s reading he referred to the off-shoring of ATT from Louisiana to Singapore and lastly to Thailand, which resulted in the loss of many American jobs. A more recent example is the Moto X phone which used to be assembled in the DFW area got off-shored to China, when another company bought the manufacturing or something like that. My point is the off-shoring of the jobs though. As a strong advocate of American jobs I think if we learn from this and stop off-shoring jobs I think that our economy will be able to thrive. The more people work, the more money they make, which means more money is circulating in our American economy. If we could find ways to retain jobs, like the Routine Producer jobs, and with the help of technology, we won’t have the domino effect explained by Reich of the Routine Producers spilling over into the In-service category of jobs. Right now, the economy is on a long recovery from the Great Recession 8 years ago, but we are better off than we were at that time and the change has started to become noticeable. It’s the recovery that shows us why it’s even more vital for us to ensure that as many Americans are working, here in America and not sending off jobs to Asia or somewhere else on the other side of the globe.

Americas economic Issues

Robert Reich’s work described a metaphor of three boats; one that is sinking quickly, one that is sinking slowly, and the last is rising. These boats represent the lower, middle, and upper class. Barbara Ehrenriech tells her own more personal story of how it is impossible to live off of minimum wage. She goes from state to state looking for jobs near cheap safe living. I feel like these two essays differ because of the different perspectives. Barbara writes from a very personal place, she writes about how she herself did all of these different things. She went to different states. Got different jobs, and looked for different places to live. Her hypothesis was that you could not go out and live off of only minimum wage. How she proved this to her readers was by actually going out and trying to do these things herself. Robert brings his hypothesis of why he thinks the social classes are changing. Not from personal experience, but because of what he thinks. Machinery is taking over the lower class jobs. Machines are much cheaper and faster. Workers need time off. Workers need to be paid for their work. Workers get benefits. Workers need so many things that machines don’t, so it only makes sense for workers to be replaced. Though I do feel bad about people not having jobs and not being able to afford certain luxuries I would replace workers as well. If I were a business owner I would want things done with the least amount of mistakes, the cheapest, and the fastest. To decide how to best solve the worlds economic problems we have to first know what that problem is. I believe that the world’s economic problems come from the lack of jobs.  By creating more jobs there would be more people paying on taxes on the money they earn. By people earning more money they would then spend more money. With people buying more things there would again be more taxes on the things that they were buying. Thus creating an overall increase in taxes without actually raising the taxes being taken.

FOOD

In the article “Fat is a Feminist Issue” by Susie Orbach, She goes in depth about her opinion that being fat a issue only for feminist (and no one else). She claims that woman predominantly have only two roles, which are a sex object and then simply as a mother and house wife. Women can go through both of these. First the woman must appeal sexy, thin, and simply a “sex object” so she can later on be a mother. Basically she is saying that this is the only way and if you fat or overweight (which 50% of woman in the US, says Orbach) then it can get in the way of being seen as sexy and a sex toy. However she also suggests that woman get fat can be understood as a “define and purposeful act”, this means that she believes women will gain weight, eat whatever they want, and get fat just o escape the stereotype or being a sex toy, they are “challenging the sex-role and the culturally definition of womanhood. As for the article “Having it his way” by Carrie Freeman and Debra Merskin, they all go along the lines of feminist topics and what it is and how society is following or creating the gender norms. Freeman and Merskin claim that just something as simple as different types of food can relate back to a man or woman, for example Meat. Meat is coordinated back to man and somehow relates to men more than woman? They give numerous examples of fast food commercials showing manly meats while they are promoting their food, like burger king, Carl’s Jr, Jack in the box, and a few other fast food chains. They all have in common meat and men selling it, for the most part there are not any woman in these commercials.

In both passages the authors are trying to say (argument) that eating and food can relate back to feminize and even way back to gender norms. The examples of formats they use are commercials and real statistics and their audience is everyone! Anyone who watches or has seen the fast food commercials is a victim and didn’t even know it. But all three authors sole purpose is to show us how everyday things like FOOD can relate back to gender norms and feministic things.

Fat being Feminist vs. Males liking Meat

I am glad these two readings were shorter than some of the previous readings that we had. I understood these two readings more because they both related to problems that are being faced right now with obesity and masculinity. The core concept that I viewed was present in both readings was the concept of Audience.

The concept of audience focuses on how people might understand the message differently than other people. In Fat Is a Feminist Issue, Susie Orbach talks about how obesity is only present in females. Orbach says that females become obese in order to contradict the normal stereotype about how females should be skinny, tall, and pretty. Orbach would want a female to be fat and not as appealing in order for her to feel confident in herself. Not only that, but she wants their fat to say “‘screw you’ to all who want me to be the perfect mom, sweetheart, [and] maid.” This can also relates on what I earlier said about how she wanted for females to contradict the normal stereotype of females. If you think about it, someone else could pick up this idea and think about it in a different way. They could think that society wants every female to be fat because that is what the fashion trend is nowadays. The only thing I found that I could disagree with is that Orbach said that “fat is a feminist issue.” I would have to disagree with Orbach, because I have seen several males that are considered to be overweight or obese. I, myself, am a male and think I am a bit fat, and I’m pretty sure I’m not a female.

The second reading Having It His Way: The Construction of Masculinity in Fast-Food TV Advertising, greatly focuses on the concept of audience. This reading gives many examples featuring famous fast-food ads that many of us have seen on TV. Many people interpret these ads in different ways. The overall message present in all of the ads mentioned is the message of portraying that men love meat. The more meat, the better the food is. This reading only views this point for the audience it is trying to catch, which can conclude that these ads are aimed at mostly males without females having anything to relate to in these ads.  

Howdy Everyone!

By the time I finished reading these two readings I noticed some differences about these readings than from the previous readings that we have done, 1) I understood the readings much more than the previous ones and, 2) I personally didn’t find much to disagree with these articles than I usually would.

In my blog I going to do it on the concept of content (number 4 on the list), I’m doing this one because there are so many different aspects in these two articles and I see that at one point there’s a little confusion. I tried to keep this relatively short while trying to answer the question to the best of my ability.

My first point is the time they were written in. “Fat is a feminist issue” was written in the late 1970’s, while “Having it his way” is a more modern piece, less than 10 years old. *As a side note I’ll be referring to the former as ‘Fat is” and the latter as ‘Having it” from this point on* Even as Orbach says “…the job is never ending, for the image [of a woman] changes from year to year”. These two articles are written during two different times where people lived different lifestyles where today we have social media and greater exposure to TV and advertisements than they did in the 70’s. It’s because of this difference “Having it” has more references to advertisements and media more than “Fat is”.

I thought that these two readings had pretty straightforward points. In “fat is”, Orbach said that women being fat is challenging women stereotypes and in its own way saying “screw you world, I’m fat, what are you going to do about it.” While in “Having it” the authors have many points like men eat meat to be manly men, most meat is sold through fast food and these fast food advertisements want to make meat a big deal that it is filling and good if you want to be a man. These ads also downplay the role of women as holding back the man or being a buzzkill when there’s an attractive waitress in front of you.

Lastly there’s this part where if you overlap and look at the two stories, something doesn’t really make much sense. In “Fat is” Orbach doesn’t say what women eat, she’s just saying that being fat is empowering and not necessarily how they get fat, while in “Having it” men are eating lots of meat and women are eating “plants”, and they say this is common throughout history. So what I wonder is, if women are eating “wimpy plant food” in “Having it”, and they are fat in “Fat is”, how does that happen, it doesn’t correlate to me on how that works out. Yet again, these two pieces were written at different times, and that might well be the case why that doesn’t make much sense.

Girls are either super feminine or badass. They can't be both

In the Ross entry, it shows Alice in Wonderland, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast and how the protagonists reach their big resolution. What I noticed above everything is how the first two stories were changed just to fit the audience they were trying to reach. If you are trying that hard to make a movie “kid friendly,” don’t even attempt it. It draws away from the original meaning of the story. A point that Ross also mentioned is that the heroine movies end in marriage. It is as if it is every girl’s mission to end up married to get their “happily ever after.” These princesses only know how to sing and dream to get out of the provincial life and be part of another world. As for Alice her resolve is by snapping into reality and realizing that not using her imagination is for her own good. Girls are taught at a young age that imagination will lead to trouble, not to mention attempting to leave your world behind will do the same.

In the Berlatsky article, it puts Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen head to head. I find this ridiculous because they are two completely different characters. It’s like comparing night and day. Bella is judged for being “needy” and wanting to be with her guy, whoever it would be. The thing is, there are teenage girls are out there who are like that as well. She desires things. What is wrong with that? Katniss fights to protect her family. Girls do that as well. She has that power people want. Why is it wrong to desire things, but okay to have power? What I completely disagreed with in this article is that he says that feminists are nervous about being seen as girly. A feminist is okay with being girly as much as she’s okay with being “butch”. That is not the reason Katniss is seen as a “badass”. I believe that she is more well-liked by because she is stepping out of the “girl box” and is doing what men are seen to do.  

Ideas along the lines of: purpose, We get it already, & no longer relevant

I believe Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female Imagination was a bit on the too long and “yeah we get” side, but now that that is out of the way I think she brought up some key issues. Disney insist my favorite, nor do I really even like, well nothing Disney actually. Disney has key components in their script like; damsel in distress, Masculine hero, LOTS of innuendo , and two small characters who are good friends and add humor to the script. The points she brings up are the first two, and while they are romanticizing Damsel saved by a hunk, do you think People, Realistically want to see something else? If they had a movie with swapped roles I think that would be great, maybe a lonely guy meets his damsel who shows him how to be a man, they could probably pull it off. What they wouldn’t pull off is a story of an independent woman making it in this world, sorry Deborah not even my grandmother would watch that nowhere movie. Her strengths on this paper include key observations in Disney Movies aimed at kids, but like I said earlier: It comes to the point of “yeah we get it”.

                'Twilight' vs. 'Hunger Games': Why Do So Many Grown-Ups Hate Bella? On the other hand has a much more interesting point on how women are portrayed in cinema photography, Bella being pretty much a nobody with no unique characteristics and little personality to speak of being the goal of two monsters, while the Katniss a ‘Tomboy’ who has a sharp personality and many defining characteristics ,flourish in the eyes of critics. She talks of this Tomboy characteristic being of choosing because people love men more I guess, but I’m sure it’s because she’s not boring and helpless like Bella that people like her, Unless Boring is a quality you’re into. Overall I think the strengths of the subject is interesting because I haven’t seen either movie (I still do not plan on watching either), however I think her rant gets murky and unclear towards the end.

                In my concluding thought, these movies are made because  the people who make them know the'll get money off them. They could care less about equal rights, as long as it doesn't offended the target audience. I hate to break it to ya'll; but until they restrict free speech, that's how it is.

The Deeper Meaning

Deborah Ross writes in her essay Escape from wonderland just how important a role the movies that children watch or the ideas shown to them in Disney movies is. It talks through Alice in wonderland, the Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, which is the story she favors to be the most satisfying. She informs us of her opinion of the roles these play in subliminal messaging into children’s minds and in particular little girls viewing these movies. I don’t believe she wrote this piece to slam Disney but it does puzzle me how after all the movies Disney has made and all the success they have why does she find it necessary to criticize the plot lines and analyze deeper than I think it is meant to be. Disney has done more than its fair share of movies and many of them we find entertaining and fun to watch regardless of what meanings they give. Strength of her points is how it is relatable evidence because looking deeper into it everything she states can be defended to be true, but its limitations are forgetting to mention in detail that these movies follow the stigmas of societies in which the time they were written, even in the new movie Frozen Disney tries something new in an attempt to keep the plot line dynamic but eventually these stereotypical plot lines have to occur in order to keep the movies enjoyable for people of all ages. Where as in Noah Berlatsky’s essay over twilight and the hunger games he explains the subtext rather than necessarily criticizing it. He does a good job in the article of showing how most modern women would obviously prefer Katniss and her spirit then Bella and her emotions. But he also explains that traditionally relationships follow the “opposites attract” theory so although we side with one character more closely we still might look for something different in significant others. Which could also be seen as a lesson to kids growing up watching these movies alongside with Disney ones, getting both the ideas of women discovering themselves and finding yourself is a big part of finding the perfect balance. The expected audience to both of these pieces is adults and teenagers to show some sort of hidden meaning so that we too may be able to share it with others.

No More Living In Fantasies

Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female Imagination by Deborah Ross had some very intriguing points about femininity and women in general. The first Disney story, Ross discusses is the infamous Alice in Wonderland. Ross breaks down how Alice and her various adventurous correlate with many women without us even realizing it. As little girls we would this interesting and crazy movie and get the thought into our head that it’s okay to daydream and fantasize about an unknown world. Little did we know that, those fantasies would carry into our lives as women and how we saw men. By constantly watching Disney movies women have expected that romantic type of man to come literally out of nowhere to sweep us off our feet. We’re living in a fantasy and admiring a world that we really think exist all because of movies with animated objects and animals. That crooked way of thinking has lead women down the wrong path that we need to try to come back from and soon. Women need to wake up and realize that this is not a fantasy that we are living in, we are living in the real world, this is reality and we need to treat our expectations as such. However as Deborah Ross, mentioned in Escape from Wonderland, living in fantasies is not the only problem with women today. Women also seem to think it’s quite alright to give up what makes us individuals just for some man who can’t offer us too much of anything, just as Ariel from the Little Mermaid did for Eric. Talking from experience I’ve seen many women give up their jobs, and such high standards all for a man, who most likely wouldn’t do the same for them. When I think about that I truly feel sorry for those women who feel that they absolutely have to do such a thing to make another human being happy. It’s quite shameful a bit sickening to be completely honest. If I had to personally choose a Disney story I would want any women to look up to and imitate themselves I think I would choose Beauty and the Beast. If we’re being honest I wouldn’t want any women to look up to imitate any movie but this Disney movie would have to be the one. In this story the man is actually chasing the women for once, while the women is able to sustain her standards and morals about her for once.

and to think we thought we knew these characters?

In Deborah Ross’s passage she goes in very deep detail about several Disney movies and how it portrays the female imagination and in the second essay by Noah Berlatsky he has a mini debate about the characters in The Hunger Games and in the movie Twilight. For Ross she begins to almost annotate the Disney characters in certain movies, primarily the ones about females princesses who dream and wish of life other than their own, for example Ariel The Little Mermaid is about a mermaid who lives under the sea and some how falls in love with a human on land and now its her sole destiny to become a human now and leave her whole life behind? Or even Beauty and the Beast, a female prisoner falls in love with a huge hairy, ugly, bear looking beast thing and decides that she wants to be with him now. From reading Ross’s passage it kind of opened my eyes about kind of foolish these movies we praise are… but we for the most part watched them when we were younger and honestly had no idea what was going on. As for Berlatsky’s article, I personally didn’t like it at all. He is comparing two movie/book CHARACTERS, not real people, they will never cross paths or ever be in the same story. They are playing a role, why the hell does it matter who will win in a fight? To me this passage was stupid, However one of his strengths in this paper is he does actually have some parts where he is talking about something significant, the part where he analyzes how people favor masculine over feminine, so in that case he is considering opposing points of view while contrasting and comparing them the whole. But other than that I didn’t enjoy this passage. Both authors were talking and comparing feminine characters and parts from movies and both were contrasting different ones and how they act and differed from each other. I much more enjoyed Ross’s passage, she has much more examples and makes her reading a hell lot more interested and actually made good clear point which made me think and Berlatsky’s on the other hand bored me and was happy that this passage was fairly short.

masuclinity and feminism- alex adame

I found the “Terry Crews: Manhood, Feminism and the mindset that leads to rape” to be very intriguing. Terry Crews talks about how feminism and masculinity have standards. He explains how many guys are afraid to show basically any kind of weakness, including him. He says how children are affected by this as well as adults. In his mind he sees masculinity as someone who shows strength and who is above others. This makes men think that it’s okay to make women feel like property. It gives the idea that men can disrespect women with abuse, rape, or other things because that makes men feel superior to women when in reality it just makes women want to feel like men aren’t need. Terry crews talks about “man code” which means he shouldn’t be putting out what he thinks in his book about how men are afraid to admit they are afraid. Terry Crews knows “man code” isn’t going to make anything right for example, rape. In the end he feels that men and women are both needed and it’s up to them to show the younger generation what it means to be a man or a woman.  I really enjoyed this video because you could tell how passionate Terry Crews felt about this subject. The reading kind of went hand in hand with the video. Paul Theroux talks about how masculinity is defined. Paul shows his hatred towards it because it personally effected his life. Paul Theroux was also afraid to come out and be a writer because it was seen as unmanly. He talks about how much he hates being a man because of the standards society hold for them.  I enjoyed this article as well because he also shows how much passion he has towards masculinity and how he’d wish for something different.

I felt that the “Terry Crews: Manhood, Feminism, and the mindset that leads to rape” video and “The Male Myth” article by Paul Theroux both go with how society is effecting how people think of feminism and masculinity. The “they say” they are referring to is how society defines a man and a woman.

Crews & Theroux

    Terry Crews who is a former football player and also an actor steps up and talks about the touchy subject of feminism, men’s expectation, rape and the “man code”. He says that these gender norms brought upon us are set by society and over time they become more drastic. He even gives examples of his own son and his shame of being scared and how he actually explained to his son that being scared from something in a movie isn’t a bad thing, that its okay to be scared and honest with your self. There is no shame and it doesn’t make you any less of a man or even any more of a woman just because you are scared. He claimed that this situation was a wake up call and how he needs to explain that to him self from time to time as well because society gets you so caught up in how you’re suppose to act and how men and woman are suppose to live. His main points are that being a feminist isn’t saying that woman are more important or powerful than men. He is saying that feminists are promoting gender EQUALITY and nothing less.

Theroux is a writer that goes into depth about how the expectations of a man and how they should act are instilled into young boys growing up all over the world. Boys young and older are constantly told to man up and be a man when they do something that isn’t “manly” and is girly.

I believe both Crews and Theroux are addressing the same problem and go about it in the same kind of manner. They both are giving examples of how men should act are being drilled into boys heads at a very young age. The “they say” that they are talking about is how society is changing up and making stereotypes for how a man should be and to change every ones views, and if you are a man and act differently than that then you are a pussy or a female.

Society's Distortion of Manliness

Terry Crews and Paul Theroux are both addressing the same conversation, though they each go about it in a different manner. The “They say” that they are responding to is society’s hijacking of the concept of being a man and the twisting of it to manipulate people to think and act in certain ways. Terry Crews goes about this in his interview by explaining that the way manliness is currently portrayed in society has resulted in many men believing that they need to assert force and aggression in order to prove that they are men instead of showing respecting to others. Examples that he uses are men who will beat women in to order to assert control or rape a woman because he views her as nothing more than an object to be owned. He traces the cause of this to the society convincing people that the only way they can prove themselves as men is to show that they are dominant, which ends up happening at the expense of others. He then talks about a time when his son was scared during a movie theater, but was comforted and told that he didn't have to watch the movie until he was ready in order to show that people should be respected when facing a problem instead of being forced to conform to certain standards, such as society’s interpretation of manliness.

Meanwhile, Paul Theroux explains in his article that he strongly dislikes being a man, and has always disliked it. He views it as something that is both pitiful and insulting to him when he hears somebody tell another person to be a man. The reason why he feels this way is because it pushes the idea that being masculine is something restricted solely to men, resulting in men feeling socially separated from women and viewing them differently than they do men because of what they were taught about the meaning of manliness. He also believes that the promoting of this mindset encourages men to view women as inferior.

Terry Crews and Paul Theroux are responding to the feminist movement and the belief maintained by some that it is a threat to their status as a man. They argue that they fear it because of the belief that the movement seeks to make women dominant instead of men. They make it clear that feminism is about promoting equality between men and women, which Crews emphasizes by saying that being a man isn't about seeking dominance over others. Theroux encourages men to fight for feminism right alongside women, and argues that they have just as much to benefit from it as women do by breaking the notion that men have to behave a certain way just to be considered socially acceptable. 

My Rant

Please forgive run-ons; This is my blog, so my style.

Terry crew; a actor and former professional football star talks about feminist, men’s expectations of other men, and Man Code.

He goes into how men have ‘Man code’ is implemented into society; if you want something, get it Period. This is what Crews describes as ‘Chasing wind’ if you probably or, better yet realistically cannot achieve something, do it anyways, ‘BE a MAN’. With this he breaks into how men and women are equals and how this ideology is subconsciously leading men to be either abusive, controlling, or even irrationally breaking the equality barrier most feminist want just to make things more fair and level for both sexes in a respond to men shutting themselves off from feminism. When he tries to makes points as men just doing their part and doing it right. [Please hold this thought]

Theroux is a writer talking about how the Ideology of being a man is instilled into every boy growing up in the US and possibly the world. He goes on (similarly to Crews) on how this ideology is harmful to developing minds. Minds that are trained to belittle women in sense of man being superior. Minds that are taught to ‘Man Up!’, ‘don’t be such a pussy’, also that money, lots of ‘toys’ and girls make a man; even on how he must “prove his masculinity” to be a writer. The article is a response to men thinking they are superior, shoving there ideology into every one’s head, and not giving feminist there time of day. [Keep this thought in your brain]

This is now where I rant.               Terry Crews takes a break from making cameos in movies, tv shows, video games, and soap advertisements to talk about how men are “too scared” to listen to what feminist have to say. He also rings up how men are incline to assert dominance on women, Hitting on them when they want to be alone, beating or even rapping women because the man probably views her as his “property” (Never mind I left out info i didn't feel like summarizing the entire bit, mainly what I felt would be a higher button topic) First off if I ever disagree with a feminist, it’s because I disagree with her points. That means I listen to what she has to say, I won’t simply ignore her and go on “I a man fuck her what does she know, Right!?” No I listen like a normal human being and proceed to debate like one. When it comes to men rapping, or abusing women because they may Be “property”, get the fuck outta here. Here is another rant on how men don’t know there place, mainly while Inspecting the lowest common denominator, Men who do this shouldn’t even be compared to the rest of us. If a man Raps or beat a women, his ass belongs in prison where he’ll be rapped and beaten on a daily basis. If you don’t do or think like that your not applicable to that group. Now with Theroux or however you say that name, He goes on how men are always pushed to be Manly aren't really appertained on personality as much as they’d like. First off this guy writes like a femboy but not because of his approach to being mainly but because of how much he denounces him being a man. Yeah men are pushed to never cry or be nice or anything else he put down. But his overall whininess throughout the paper; “Sport are a drug worse than Marijuana”, [ High school Sports] “ teaches you how to be a poor loser, the manly attitude toward sports seems to be little more than a recipe for creating bad marriages, social misfits, moral degenerates, sadists, latent rapists and just plain louts.” Like I said earlier he tailors to the Lowest common denominator, sure men are pushed to win, but it’s always and quote me if I’m wrong, but it’s the dumbest dick heads who always act and talk like this, I haven’t met but like 20 people who actually act like this and criticizing men as a whole is just as ignorant as what those losers have to say. As a side note I would like to say man up, the scenarios he dealt were bad but to denounce his man hood is completely whiney and incompetent of being proud of who he is rather than ashamed of his Sex.