Penny Arcade "Diversity Loungue"

For those of you who don't know, the Penny Arcade Expo is one of the biggest events in gaming, where developers, creators of other media, and gamers are able to mesh together for a few days, and discuss the overall state of gaming. Since the event has been plagued with issues, including but not limited to lack of women presenters, perpetuating rape culture (via rape jokes), homophobia and transphobia etc, this year, they organizers are making an attempt to promote diversity at the event. They've gone about this by creating what they refer to as "diversity lounges", were information specifically pertaining to minority groups will be distrinuted/discussed.

On the one hand, it seems that this is a great way to provide safe spaces for gamers who aren't straight/cis/white men, and that's always a good thing. However, on the other hand, it seems rather odd to attempt to create/maintain diversity by shoving gamers from minority communities into one dedicated area, rather than trying to make the entire even a safe space for all minority gamers. An author at Jezebel seems to agree with me in this article (http://jezebel.com/penny-arcade-rolls-for-diversity-with-segregated-loun-1485928139), were she accuses the organizers of PAX of "missing the point". As such, I'm interested in what other people think about this, so please, share your thoughts in the comment section!

SLU Art Museum

Fionna and I, and another friend of mine, went to the SLU art museum for class. The exhibition there was called "No Place Like Home: American Scene Painting in the Sinquefield Collection." The exhibition, not surprisingly, contained only works completed by men. Men were also the subject of almost all of the paintings containing human figures. Many paintings were of landscapes, but some of them were of farms and farmers. These farmers were exclusively men, which is not only a reflection but also a perpetuation of the notion that only men are capable of doing farm work. The absence of female artists was also an obvious reflection of the sexism within the art world - not that women artists do not exist, but that they are hardly ever put on display or given recognition.

There was one piece in the collection that struck my attention because of its subject being a woman. The woman looked pretty hard-off and angry/desperate. The description of the piece said that the artist chose to use women to evoke sympathy for the impoverished and unemployed during the Great Depression. I found it revealing that women were used to evoke sympathy instead of men, and telling of social notions that women are weaker and should be pitied more than men. There is a deeper underlying message here that women are less capable of taking care of themselves than men are.

Overall, I wasn't surprised by what I found at the art museum - it was a collection of men's artwork that was exclusive of any women artists, and had a very traditional depiction of gender roles when people were present in the paintings. aaaaand here's a selfie!

Successful Women Do Not Fall in Love

Thought catalog had a nice piece this week called "Successful women do not fall in love" It was a blog by a women who makes the point that women are not capable of getting married and growing their careers in the capacity that they would if they refused to become a wife. She has several funny and provoking moments. She draws out the idea that for women getting married is taking on a second shift of duties and caring for another human being where as men benefit from the status and other benefits.
"Because, when men fall in love, they get a wife. When women fall in love they get a husband. Despite idealism, the reality of these two paths is very disparate. For men, falling in love is an asset, for women it is a sentence to hard labor. I have no interest in marrying a woman, but I would love to have a wife. They cook and clean for you, remind you when it’s your mother’s birthday, and shoulder all the biggest burdens when it comes to raising kids. Hell, my ideal relationship would be if my husband and I could have a wife so we could both be supported without having to deal with all that minutiae ourselves."

Now I didn't know if I was on board at this point. It seems like with work there are couples that do make a fairly equitable division of labor with in the home. But after thinking about it, I was sold by the "remembering your mother's birthday". Even if you have a very progressive house hold there is still the idea that no matter what women are supposed to be more thoughtful and on it when remembering all the little details. I feel like there are many tiny details like that which would take up more and more energy when in a relationship like this. It truly does come down to a supporting kind of role. 

"I don’t mean stating my personal preference to be an insult, but it’s not the truth they relay during any other conversation about their relationship, even if they don’t use those words. We’re kind of brainwashed to take care of other people, and make them happy and for me, being single is kind of an armor guarding against whatever cultural or biological intuitions are telling me, as a woman, to be self-sacrificial."

So here she really sold me because she totally brought it around to the idea that women are trained to be married martyrs and find joy in it. I'm not saying that married women cannot find joy and success in the work field, but I totally agree that the time and energy that it takes to grow and establish yourself in a career cannot be undertaken when you are babysitting another human being. 
http://thoughtcatalog.com/amy-glass/2013/12/successful-women-do-not-fall-in-love/

Patty Libby Art Museum visit

My museum of choice was the St Louis Art Museum. I had visited a lot as a kid with a nanny that desperately wanted me to be cultured, or at least look really cultured in all of the photos that we took at the museum. I chose it really for that reason, it was very in my comfort zone so I figured that I would know my way around pretty well. But just in case, I tried to do a little googling to figure out if I could make a plan on where I would visit first. I wanted to explore an exhibit on women, but I quickly discovered that there wasn’t one. So when I got there, I asked around after discerning which patrons were art students (they stare, and step back, and stare, and tilt their heads, and never looks at the plaque to decide what they are seeing). I asked them if they had a favorite female artists that was being displayed. In a group of three, they all had favorites, but none of those were being displayed. They couldn’t direct me to a piece that was being shown either so I had to go it alone.

I tried but I got tired. It was the worst game of eye spy that I have ever had to play. Eventually I just settled on looking at the way that females are portrayed because there was a lot of portrayal in several pieces.  I took a lot of time looking at religious art. Most of the art featured men and was made by men. If a woman was there, she was typically naked and usually depicted as an angel or cherub. It really speaks to the idea that in Christianity there is a very strong idea that women are not the center and cannot be a leading force in faith. Even when Mary was shown it seemed like there was the same idea that she was not human. She seemed almost divine which again fits with the idea that ordinary women cannot play a large and defining role in art or religion.

In the biggest sense of the trip I felt that female art and artists are not being displayed equitably. Maybe this is just a problem of the field itself (after Fiona’s presentation I feel like that is a safe assumption but again I am out of my depth on this one).

One final thing that I did notice was that women alone or those in groups with younger children seemed to gravitate towards certain sections and avoided others. I felt like they were almost absent when I visited the upper levels with the modern art. They spent more time in my estimation looking at works that featured nature more than figures. Finally it was packed to the gills down stairs with the antique furniture and other artifact like objects. Perhaps this means that while women are not represented they are certainly being catered to. I’m not sure that if I had found a section on the figures of women that there would have been an interest from any of the groups that I people watched (stalked) during my visit.  

Event Blog: Take over

I attended the take over for the women’s studies department this semester. We took over Diablitos and my best friend Kirsti and I decided to lumber in and eat all of the food possible. It was a daunting task but we made a solid dent. An equally daunting task is the idea of finding space for the women’s studies department at SLU. There does not seem to be a huge amount of knowledge or integration of this department into life at SLU. I have felt at times that I was a little lost in a sea of people that have no idea or respect for the subject matter. For example one of the activities that my sorority ZTA did this semester was to increase the focus on academics. So for a few of our chapter meetings, we were to sit in our major groups. Nursing, PT, and OT dominate most of the sororities at SLU so I was not surprised that I was going to be in a much smaller group, a few things did surprise me though. The first was the chair emailing me twice to double check that I really was a women’s studies and poli sci major because she honestly had no idea what that was. As such she had no idea where to place me. I understood and so I gave her a blurb about what both subjects sort of entailed. Her response was a choice of two groups where to sit, “Do you think that you have more in common with the theater or early education majors?” I told her that perhaps a group that focuses on communication, English, or even pre-law would be the best fit. She was still very in the dark. I was assigned with the theater majors (we had a blast, but they too were very confused). This group was awesome and they did really want to hear about women’s studies, but like the chair, they were totally unaware it existed until I sat with them. To me this really proved that there is a disconnect with our department and life at SLU. Even the women who I regularly feel that I have the most in common with and call my sisters, are totally clueless about what I have devoted my academic life to.

The idea of taking over a space physically is just as important as taking root mentally. There needs to be awareness that we are a growing vital department that deserves more than a hidden corner in McGannon and little advertisement from the university.

The event itself rocked too. The food was amazing as well as the conversation. Kirsti and I got into discussions with many of the staff about the issues of birth control when you live in a small town and go to church with your doctor (result, difficult). We also got to discuss the concept of changing your name upon getting married result (I’m refusing to undergo the loss of identity she is willing to hyphenate Gesigh-Palovick I can hear any and all announcers crying at the thought of having to read that out loud. Finally we got into this great discussion about our high school classmates getting married and pregnant, though mostly jut married. And how it was terrifying and awful and totally setting them up for a difficult if not forever limited academic life. 

New Jersey Senate allows trans people to obtain new birth certificates

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/12/15/us-new-jersey-senate-approves-bill-allowing-trans-people-to-obtain-new-birth-certificates/

This is an article I found about some interesting progress. The New Jersey Senate will now allow transgender and intersex people to get new birth certificates. In the past there was a law in place that a transgender person much undergo sexual reassignment surgery before they could be issued a new birth certificate. Under the new law any transgender person is able to request a new one. This may seem like a small change but as the article notes I think these are the first steps towards greater understanding and acceptance. One of the Chairman on the Committee said, " “Birth certificates always have been a means of how we traditionally identify a person. In the transgender community, it doesn’t reflect who they are mentally, spiritually and in every other way but physically." Kudos to New Jersey!! 

Event Blog

Last Tuesday night I attended Ina's presentation of research from her dissertation. I'm so glad that I went; Ina was wonderful. There was two presentations, one on medieval texts and video games and Ina's on the life writing of immigrant women. I'm not very versed on medieval texts or video games so the first was a bit over my head. The overall assertion seemed to be that video game narratives are in fact heavily related to medieval texts. The presenter said that video games are most often looked at from a psychological perspective and rarely analyzed as literary narratives. He said that we can in fact "read video games and play stories". Although I understood this point, as a Psych and Gender Studies major I couldn't help but then revert this back to psychological and feminist thought. I can't say that I followed everything in his presentation, but I kept thinking if you want to look at video games through a literary standpoint, then why are we still "reading video games and playing stories" that are so sexist, violent, and over-sexualized?! Maybe medieval literature is actually to blame... (just kidding)
On to Ina’s presentation! The presentation covered the first-person narratives of immigrant women, asserting that this type of story telling can be a powerful tool to challenge stereotypes and change the political climate surrounding immigrant women. I think that this is a very important topic. I agree that oftentimes the only way to truly understand another is through their own words. In my Wikipedia project I was so disheartened by the way that the hijra were characterized and brought up in my paper that the only way to truly understand them or re-humanize learning about them is to look at first-person sources. I think this idea also connects to the consciousness raising in the feminist movement. The telling of one’s experiences can be extremely powerful. When looking at oppression in our society, it can most often be traced back to the deeply rooted mindsets of the people and culture as a collective. It seems very important to me to suggest that sharing the individual and relatable stories of those oppressed can truly achieve change on a deep level.
Ina’s presentation covered three books, which would probably be great books to read over break!!! I found it most interesting that one author, born in Korea and raised in Minnesota, through the telling of her story raises awareness about how damaging cross-cultural adoption can be. I’ve never actually thought of adoption from this perspective and it made me feel ashamed of my immediate Western notions of adopting children from other cultures as “saving” them.
Here's the books if you want to check them out...

Journey of Hope, Memoirs of a Mexican Girl: an autobiography of an illegal immigrant girl from Guanajuato, Mexico who immigrated to Los Angeles, California and eventually became an American Citizen by Rosalina Rosay 

Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka

Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin

Just a Really Interesting Conversation

I think I have mentioned before my friend, Bridget, who is converting to be a believer of the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormonism). She recently just finished the major part of her transition by being baptized in the faith and came up with her adopted LDS family to visit the giant Mormon Temple here in St. Louis. She messages me while they were driving up here and asked if I wanted to get together for a few hours while the other people she was traveling with finished up some things in the Temple (I promise this does relate to GPC!). I went and picked her up and we had lunch and over lunch we had a really interesting discussion about the role of women and the overall gendered nature of the church. I asked her about some of the things that our speaker had talked about when we learned about Twilight and got the perspective of someone who follows these things. 

One thing that stood out so so so much to me was her statement that comes from the church's teachings and outlooks on modesty. She said "Modesty allows righteous men to be comfortable around you." I immediately had issues with that statement, a lot of which were in regard to the idea that it is a woman's responsibility to make men "comfortable" being around you or even standing next to you. I asked her if she thought that could be related to victim blaming and slut shaming and she looked at me like I was nuts to relate those two to her teaching. It was one of those moments where I was made fully aware how much difference the few women's and gender studies courses I've taken have made in the way I analyzed things. To me, this statement obviously had issues, but to her, it was perfectly normal and expected. 

It was nice to be able to discuss these things in a rational manner and to have an intelligent debate about some of the issues we've talked about with the LDS church. I plan on continuing to talk to her about various issues to broaden both mine and her perspective on these things. 

Lululemon Revisited

Update: For one of my previous blog posts, I discussed Lululemon, specifically, chairman Chip Wilson’s attempt to “fat” shame customers in order to cover up defective products.  It appears that in one of those rare moments, the fury of the internet gained us a small victory; Chip Wilson resigned from his position! I hope that his resignation serves as a warning to other potential “fat” shamers, though, given the statements of Wilson’s contemporaries, I’m not so sure it will. Thoughts?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/10/chip-wilson-leaving-lululemon_n_4416487.html 

Event Blog: Homocoming

On December 7^th, I attended the dance hosted by the LGBT+ organization on campus (Rainbow Alliance). The event was hosted at the Allied Health Building on the Medical School Campus, and lasted from 8-11PM.

Why the Event is Necessary: In class, we discussed the idea of spaces, a space being an area where one can exist without overwhelming scrutiny. We also talked about how difficult it can be for people (particularly women), to find safe spaces, however, it goes without saying that there are many other minority groups that experience this problem, the LGBT+ community being one of them. An event like Homocoming is important because it provided that very space for students who are quite often margined due to sexual orientation and/or gender identity. For at least a short amount of time, LGBT+ students are able to express themselves without fearing for their safety, or having to occupy their thoughts with the reactions of others. In fact, I’d argue that it isn’t just the physical space it provides, but the fact that Homocoming’s status as a public event takes up space that is ordinarily reserved for events geared toward people who are assumed to be cisgender and/or straight. This is particularly important because it forces the average cisgender and /or straight person to acknowledge the presence of LGBT+ people around them, which is one of the first steps attempting to change the status quo.

Personal Reflection:On a more personal note, it was really awesome to go to an event where I felt comfortable presenting as my actual gender identity, which is a rarity at this point in my life! While it was certainly nice to not have to worry about violence (rates of violence directed against trans*women are insanely high), perhaps, a greater effect was that I was able to feel "normal" for one of the first times in my life. That is to say, I was in a place where I could feel like part of a greater whole, rather than an exception. That actually provided me with a bit of first hand insight into how norms at large are preserved; there is incentive to preserve them. After all, if a person was able to feel "normal" everyday, it seems only logical that they would do everything in their power to preserve that feeling..

Why We Need More Than Three Genders

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/12/12/250012887/why-we-need-more-than-three-genders

I found this story the other day via NPR titled "Why We Need More Than Three Genders". I really really love it. I think it paints a good picture of this topic... Some of the main points the author makes that I think are important are 1) "I would like to make clear right at the start that breaking out of a male-female gender dichotomy isn't some 21st century liberal-progressive agenda, as it is sometimes painted." I think this is a really important note when speaking about this topic... the idea of more than one gender is historically and globally relevant 2) that maybe 3 genders is not enough, changing our perceptions and definitions of gender what is truly important 3) "The transgender community is rich and vital. The full slate of options within it isn't captured by just considering those who transition male-to-female or female-to-male."My favorite part of the article is the last few sentences which truly speaks to the real issue of gender diversity: "We can be unafraid to move not only beyond male-female dichotomies, but also beyond an insistence on any hard-and-fast fixed categories. What, after all, is there to fear? We are all human; we all live and love."

Flawless: We Should All Be Feminist

  Last night Beyonce unexpectedly released her album. The album which is titled, Beyonce is actually a visual album that included 14 songs and 17 videos. I love the album and the videos but as soon as I started listening to I thought to myself that some feminist are going to have problems with it, probably calling it anti-feminist or something again.

However in the middle of her song Flawless, Beyonce features a sample of a speech from Nigerian author Chimamamda Ngozi Adichie. Adichie wrote the novels Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sky (great book btw). The sample comes from a TED speech Adichie did earlier this year called We Should All Be Feminist.

I thought this was a great speech for Beyonce to feature in her song, especially because of all the critiques she gets from feminist and about being a feminist. The speech also sums up all the things that Beyonce sings about in her new album. I personally do think we do need to look to famous people to be feminist in order for feminism to be valid but its always nice to find out that people you like are feminist.

Here's the portion of the speech that Beyonce featured in her song.

“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are.”

“Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, economic equality of the sexes.”

Entire Speech:

Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/powerful-feminist-speech-beyonce-new-album

Saint Louis Art Museum Visit

Yesterday I went to the Saint Louis Art Museum. When I first came in, I asked one of the gallery attendants if there were any exhibits about women. He told me no (which I already knew from the website) so I then asked him which category of art featured the most amount of female artist and he told me I'd just have to look around and see. I knew as well but I asked just incase.

When comparing how gender was portrayed in the art museum I noticed that a lot of the art that featured women as subjects was made by male artist. In the religious European art section I noticed that most of art work featured men. Even though women are religious and have played and still play a large part in religion there always kind of in the background so this did not surprise me much.  Another thing I noticed was that all of the nude art was made by male artist and once again primarily featured female subjects. This made me wonder if there were any famous pieces of nude men, made by women. In the European Art Modern Body area every single piece of art featured female subjects, however, most if not all, were (once again) made by men.

Overall I found the representation of gender in the Saint Louis Art Museum to be under representative of women. Women were often the subjects of art but not so much the creators of art.

Sidenote: Taking pictures of your self in the art museum was so awkward (hence the sideways picture below).

Creepy Guys that Don't Take a Hint

https://imgur.com/gallery/WJGyE

http://imgur.com/a/k0Wcz

Okay, so the first link is the show and tell that I had last for the last day of class (Second creepier link is included). It remains just as creepy and sad because it seems like a collage of a lot of conversations that I have had to endure in my life time. So instead of deconstructing it as I was planning to, I'll just talk about the idea the difficulty of rejecting a really forward guy in general. This has always really bugged me and been a problem. In my experience at least, it's really hard to get a guy that is intent on getting your number to understand politely that it's just not going to happen. Maybe I'm the only one but if I entered into an interaction with someone and they politely told me 6 times to get lost, I would be out the door by the second negative remark. But it seems like for some guys the reasons that I am giving are unsatisfactory, even if I am being downright hostile, they think its some kind of game. Do this happen to anyone else? Normally I have to resort to the I have a boyfriend/fiancee/large marine husband before they even consider backing off. This is also a bit of an internal feminist battle for me. When I uses this excuse, and it works, I am relieved to feel safe again. But at the same time I feel really gross because while creepy pushy guy did not respond to 10 logical reasons why he was not getting my number, he did respond to my fake relationship excuse. So he respects a fellow male's claim to my body, more that my claim. So that sucks.

Side note, the above conversations still make me cringe so hard I think I kissed the back of my head.

Responses to Catcalling

Roaming around on Jezebel, I stumbled across an article which was related to one of our last class discussions on Catcalling.

A twitter account, entitled "Everyday Sexism" set out to document the experiences that women face in various everyday situations due to misogyny. As such, when Jezebel picked up on it, it was featured on the site. Though, the article was intended to focus on women's responses to sexist comments in general, I noticed that it quickly became focused on responses to unwanted advanced and catcalling. Examples include the following:
1) "When I get harassed I always pretend I didn't hear & say "what?" The more they have to repeat the sillier they sound."

2)"Man flashed a group of us at a dance club. I turned to the woman drinking next to me and said:"Look! It's like a penis, only smaller!" She did a spit take, and he slunk off to some other part of the establishment, his tail between his legs."

Personally, I thought it was really awesome to see responses from people, and many of them were especially funny, though the fact that catcalling is so prevalent remains as a stark example of patriarchy. What do you all think (link below).


 http://groupthink.jezebel.com/great-comebacks-to-sexist-comments-1478737819/@burtreynoldsismyspiritguide1
 

Good job Google

I just flipped over to Google for a project and their title screen has changed yet again. This one features a woman sitting in front of a prototype of a computer entering code. The animation is in honor of a woman named Grace Hopper, one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark 1 computer and one of the first female computer scientist (which I only know because after I clicked on the animation to learn more, I couldn't stop reading about her). Beneath the animation, Google also has a link to a video about the lack of computer programming and coding being offered in schools. I was so happy to see that the two individuals narrating the video and educating others about coding were women. While I know that it was probably a play on Google's part to make sure to use women given the animation is honoring a woman, I was still excited. This is a relatively good example of how media coverage and promotion of women can lead to more women entering "male" fields. I hope that Google continues to promote a nice mix of individuals!

Extra Credit Blog-Last blog of the semester!

I thought this article might be an eye-opener especially since it’s talking about Saint Louis.  It is easy to find problems with other cities but I think it is harder to find problems in your own city.  This article points out 10 racist things about St. Louis that I think are important to note.

1.     The Arch: one of my favorite things about St. Louis because it is so unique also “symbolizes the genocide of North America’s original inhabitants-the Native Americans.”  Interesting and very sad point.

2.     MetroLink Expansion: the author argues that it is set up in a way that stops poor  people from going into the “rich” areas.

3.     Forest Park’s Lack of Basketball Hoops: there is a place to play every sport except basketball.  The author argues that “all black people don’t play basketball” but this has been done because stereotypically black people play basketball and therefore this was an attempt to keep them out of Forest Park

4.     Chop Suey, a.k.a. “Chinamen:” “basically become a generational slang term”

5.     The Delmar Divide: This doesn’t need much of an explanation. The author points out that “there is a noticeable difference in the living conditions and the crime rates”

6.     Washington University in the Loop: only Washington University students (who are mostly white) are welcomed in this area while most black kids are chased out.

7.     Driving While Black in St. Louis County: again this one doesn’t need an explanation.

8.     The Dress Codes at Certain Public Establishments: this is something I didn’t even know about.  Union Station is known for dress codes that say “no doo-rags, no fitted caps, no Air Jordans” hmm…

9.     Referring to Muslims as A-Rabs/Soldan Race Riots: this problem isn’t unique to St. Louis but still a problem

10. Being Any race besides Black or white in St. Louis: we don’t try to even expand our understanding of cultures besides while and black.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2013/12/st_louis_racism_tef_poe.php?page=4

"Leggings aren't pants!"

http://feminspire.com/how-accepting-leggings-as-pants-made-me-a-better-feminist/

A friend of mine re-posted this on Facebook a few days ago and I really enjoyed it. It's a post written by a woman about how she changed her mind on women wearing leggings. I hear people constantly debate about whether wearing leggings in public is appropriate or not. I personally am a culprit... I often wear leggings as pants just because they're super comfy and I've never understood why people get so angry about it. I'm not trying to send any message by wearing them, I'm not trying to look sexy (and even if I was, get over it), and it's always annoying that people can be so judge-y about it. It always seems like women are usually the ones judging other women for wearing leggings. As the author notes you most often hear other women saying, "“Leggings aren’t pants” / “That’s not even flattering” / “Does she think that looks cute?” / “Put some pants on.” The author changed her mind on the topic from legging-hater to acceptance. She said, "But my leggings epiphany has shown me that I need to tell my Creepy Subconscious Slut-Shaming Cave Dweller to shut up. Judging a person based on what they wear is weird and wrong. And in the case of women, it furthers sexual objectification and the idea that appearance is a woman’s most important characteristic." I had never thought of the whole issue in the way the author framed it, especially because it's always women complaining about the issue, but I appreciated it a lot!

Book Suggestion: Dangerous Women

                                     

A new book was recently released called Dangeoris Women. Its an anthology of 21 sci-fi and fantasty stories featuring authors like Jim Butcher, Lev Grossman and George R.R. Martin. I read books by Lev Grossman and George R.R Martin and they both always feature interesting and  complex female characters (Arya Stark is my favorite!!).

I bought this book but I haven't had time to start it yet but it's gotten great reviews on Amazon.

 And besides,  how bad could a book be with an introduction that starts with, "Here you'll find no hapless victims who stand by whimpering in dread while the male hero fights the monster or clashes swords with the villian...".


http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Women-George-R-R-Martin/dp/076533206X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386357184&sr=8-1&keywords=Dangerous+Women

Dear White Performers, Stop Trying To Be Anything Other Than White.

Quick read: 

Thought Catalog Article




I came across this short article about white performers and how they seem to be trying to portray other cultures constantly and always end up insulting people. "There is a difference between cultural appreciation and simplifying a culture to one’s convenience. True cultural appreciation strives to spread awareness and accurate facts about a culture. Katy Perry and so many other white artists utilized something exotic so they, the white person, could stand out, while the culture they are mocking is very clearly “othered”." That statement there clearly explains what happens each and every single time a white performer does something like this. It's sickening and wrong and I don't know how they get away with it. The post of course reminded me of this wonderful performance : 




If only being a celebrity came with some common sense training.Until then, these people seem to do whatever they want to. Of course, it is very unlikely for them to change when the audience doesn't perceive it as something wrong. For every person that speaks about what Katy Perry did as something wrong, there will be one thousand people defending her. It's hard to get people to understand when they seem so content with being ignorant.. 

Museum Visit- MOCRA & SLUMA

I went to Museum of Contemporary Religious Art  and Saint Louis University Museum of Art.

My selfie at MOCRA:

& I totally forgot to take a selfie at SLUMA..


MOCRA
Some of the examples included:

•  Hermaphroditus by Ann McCoy which had a man and a woman intertwined with a rose at the bottom. 
• I felt this piece was really powerful because this connects to well with gender studies. Things are not as black and white as what the norms in our society would have us believe. I really liked this piece a lot. 
• Madonna & Child from The Life of Christ Altarpiece by Frederick Brown. This own showed emotion, severe affairs. 
• "At first she seems severe but then we notice that her closed eyelids are pronounced and glistening, as if she is tearing up in anticipation of her son's trials to come."
• I really liked this one as well. I have never seen a piece of Madonna & Child portrayed in this way. She is portrayed in the kind of way that most ancient Egyptian women are usually portrayed. This is really interesting to me because ancient Egyptian women are seen as usually being equal to mean and being powerful. 
• Zoe "Lorenz & her daughter"
• This was a piece of a woman with AIDS and her daughter. This was really powerful to me because the woman seem so content with her life. She wasn't portrayed as being someone who had stopped fighting because of the stigma our society puts on people with AIDS.  This was by far my favorite piece at MOCRA. 

SLUMA
Examples:

• Parts of a woman shown in Cubist Venus by Jim Dine 
• This one shows part of a woman's body drawn with cubic shapes. When I saw this piece, I immediately remembered when we talked about women being seen as objects to the point where showing a piece of a woman's body is totally normal. We see this in ads, tv, and now I realize in art as well. 
• Naked at rodeo in Rodeo Queen Study by Luis Jimenez 
• This one was a little odd to me. Instead of perhaps depicting a woman who maybe could be seen as being very talented at rodeo, the artist depicted the woman as half naked at the rodeo. I didn't like it. 
• Lot's of women naked 
• I didn't know how I should take this, honestly. In a way, the woman's body is being shown and not hidden, which I think is a good thing. On the other hand, that's not why people are focusing on. When looking at it, they are most likely focusing on the fact that it is just another female body whose only use is to be admired. 
• Lots of women showing their boobs
• I had a similar reaction to these as with the ones with the women completely naked. The only other thing that I noticed is that women were always shown with very large boobs, like that is the norm and the way woman should look. 

Overall, I didn't see a lot of women portrayed at either of the museums. It did seem that when women were portrayed in the stereotypical feminine roles such as a mother. If they were not portrayed in that way, then it was just in a sexual way. Basically women are shown within the stereotypical one dimensional way and it sucks...

Something extra for the end of the semester.

I just saw this video and I thought it fit so perfectly into the end of the semester for us. Take a look it's awesome!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NswJ4kO9uHc#t=85

Why Frozen and Catching Fire are Great for Women in Hollywood

http://www.forbes.com/sites/melissasilverstein/2013/12/02/gender-and-the-box-office/

This weekend, both movies Frozen and Catching Fire broke records at the box office. Frozen grossed $93 million, the biggest Disney release since Lion King and Catching Fire continued to gross over $300 million. Besides breaking records, both of these films have something else in common; they both have female leads. In fact, the article mentions that if Catching Fire continues at the rate its at, it will be the first movie ever with a female lead to get the best box office records for the year. As sad as it is that NOT ONE movie with a female lead has ever been the box office leader of the year, this is a huge accomplishment. 


The one part about this article that was bothersome comes from the fact that the studio behind Frozen was nervous about this movie because they were afraid boys wouldn't want to see a Princess movie, or even just a movie starring a girl for that matter. Gender roles that are represented at the box office reflect how we treat women in our culture. It seems as though all movies about women are not taken as seriously if boys or men are not going to see it. As the article states, "Women all the time go and see movies about strong men as a given because that is what we are offered. No one ever questions whether we are going to go see The Avengers. We need boys not to only believe that it is the men who do the saving, but sometimes it is the men who need to be saved by the women." And that was the thing about both of these movies. Both the lead women are doing the rescuing, not the men. It raised the double standard that women can go see movies about men yet men can't go see movies about women. The same thing happened with The Heat this summer. It was a fantastic, highly praised film, yet when it came to the numbers, it just couldn't compete with the films staring men. 

Blog Post for December 2-8

Over thanksgiving break I came across an article that outlines these tweets from a guy named Elan Gale about his Thanksgiving plane ride.  He goes on a back and forth fight with this woman named “Diane” and he documents the whole thing via twitter.  I read it and I thought it was funny.  Diane was being rude and obnoxious about the flight being delayed and not being able to spend Thanksgiving with her family.  He spends his entire flight being snippy with her and being kind of rude.  After that I found out the whole thing was fake and I came across this article.  

http://jezebel.com/twitter-hoax-reality-tv-producer-depicts-imaginary-wom-1475539977

He is a reality tv producer who made it up for entertainment.  This article pointed out something I was not thinking about while I was laughing, “what’s reality TV but endless humiliation of women so distorted by editing as to be basically fictitious versions of themselves.”  I think this has defiantly impacted how I view reality TV.

Feminist

I saw this video on Facebook a few days ago and I love it! Upworthy always has amazing videos but this one really got a message across that I have yet to hear.

The Word "Feminist" Video

Joss Whedon is the presenter in the video. He is a screenwriter, film and television producer, director, comic book author, composer, and actor.  He was the guest of honor at the dinner. He starts the presentation off by saying he hates feminist. He makes it clear that he means the word feminist and not feminists themselves. He then starts to talk about why he hates the word feminist.

Listening to the word:
-Says the word starts off strong, likes the beginning "FEM"
- The middle part "IN" he has no problem with
- Completely hates the ending "IST" because it sounds dark, makes the word unbalanced

Meaning:
-'IST' you can't be born into an 'IST' but you have to be brought into it
-Having 'IST' at the end of feminist is not something then that is not natural, believing people should be equal and have those equal opportunities is not something that people are born with.

He says he hates the question, "Are you a feminist?" The word 'feminist' is problematic because it makes it seem like it is very important but also something in the past. The word 'racist' for example tells us that it is somtehing horrible and something you don't want to be. In terms of gender, we don't have anything like that word but you either believe women are people or you don't. He proposes the word 'genderist' to be used in that context.

What do you guys think?