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JOUR 4250-Oct 15th

Some topics that were talked about today were domestic violence and black feminism. The group that guided the discussion today presented three myths that were pulled from the textbook and I just want to give my reaction to those myths because they were quite striking if people actually believe them. The first myth is that women asked to be abused. The second is that men and women are equally responsible and the third is that violence is a means to ignite sexual arousal.

All of those myths sound like to me is justification for domestic abuse and victim-blaming.  Victim-blaming is all too common as a response to domestic abuse and common responses that I see blame how the victim handled the situation, what she did, or that she didn’t leave which is her fault. I know that there is also domestic violence where men are the victim but I’m talking about the majority of cases. I wish that people didn’t result to blame the victim before the oppressor because it shows support of their actions. Those myths fall into that because none of them put the blame on the actual oppressor. No one asks to be abused. No one wants to get hurt to where they have fatal injuries so that first myth is ridiculous. How can two people be equally responsible for abuse when there is one victim? Sounds like they’re trying to justify the abuser’s actions. And lastly, getting beaten to death out of anger by the abuser is not sexy, and that’s all I have to say on that.

Something else I want to mention very quickly is black feminism, specifically within the music industry as black female rappers are on the rise and creating a movement against male rap music that sees women as objects for them to play around with. Lizzo is one of those black female artists out of many that are on the rise for female empowerment in terms of body positivity, non-objectification, and just being comfortable in your own skin which is what we need more of.

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JOUR 4250- Nov 12th

So, there were two topics we talked about today, the intersections of gay African American football players and hate speech/crime. I don’t really follow sports so I was unaware of the two incidents involving Jason Collins and Michael Sam, but from what I gathered from the presentation today is that one’s coming out story was received better than the other because of status and experience in the industry. A point in class that was brought up during the presentation was that the football veteran, Jason Collins, had credibility to him as there were people to back him up and vouch for his character when he revealed he was gay whereas the rookie, Michael Sam, was new to the game and “unknown” so he couldn’t have that same reaction.

Also, one of the questions asked during the discussion was “if it was a gay white football player coming out, would it be received the same, better or worse?” and to that I would say it would be received better although, of course, there will still be push back but compared to the stigma associated with black men, especially football players, about having to be macho, manly, strong etc., adding the trait of being gay and the stereotypes around that, it affects how people view that black male even within the black community itself.

Regarding hate speech, in class we talked about the issues of hate speech and crime and how hate speech is not illegal but hate crimes are. Now, just because hate speech isn’t illegal doesn’t mean people should partake in it, but apparently, we can’t all be decent human beings.  For instance, regarding the incident that happened on campus this past week, a university assistant legal counsel used the n-word in an example of protected speech at an on-campus event. My opinion on this, along with many other people, is that it was completely unnecessary, ESPECIALLY in comparison to the fact that she censored the f-word, a curse word, and not a racial slur. To that I say, think before you speak everyone. I could go on about this, but I’ll just leave it here.

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JOUR 4250- Oct 29th

The focus of today’s conversation was male entitlement. I haven’t had a personal experience with male entitlement, but I often see it on Twitter, either through viral tweets or women combating male entitlement by quoting male’s tweets. I don’t go on Twitter often, but I see those tweets consistently enough to expect it on my feed. 

There are many examples of male entitlement and saferesource.org provides quite a few such as “Acting like ‘master of the castle’; Treating women like servants who should meet demands to serve and pamper; Having an attitude of superiority, of being better and smarter than one’s partner and other women in general; Insisting on respect or treatment entitled to as a man; Wanting women to adhere to rigid behavioral codes, believing that the way women dress ‘causes men to stumble’; Believing men are better decision makers; Stating opinions as irrefutable truisms; Expecting sex from their spouse as a duty or a demand.”

On Twitter, the tweets from males that receive backlash and are examples of male entitlement often belong under the categories of the last three previously listed from what I see on my feed and that also plays into toxic masculinity. I feel that those two concepts (male entitlement and toxic masculinity) go hand in hand and can be a dangerous way of thinking or evolve into abuse. Those thoughts of entitlement and hyper masculinity are not healthy for relationships and not accurate or true. The way males like to be respected in terms of their “alpha-ness” who exude toxic masculinity should know that that is how women feel about being respected as a woman. It’s a two-way street here but some don’t get that which boils back down to the concept of male entitlement. I don’t know how to bring a resolution to subduing it but I believe that it needs to start at a young age moving forward, where parents teach their kids to respect women and just people in general.

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JOUR 4250- Oct 8th

At the beginning of class today, we talked about media representation of poverty, disability, and aging. I was actually unaware, due to the media’s portrayal (go figure), that half of the homeless are single women with children and that many homeless people have jobs but can’t afford a place live. I think the media has stigmatized the idea of the homeless as “chronic homeless” so much that it has skewed my-and I’m sure many others’-perceptions of what actual, common homelessness looks like. Along with this, I see the poor portrayed as, according to the PowerPoint notes, “the victim” the most in the media because the media covers or portrays stories that elicit a reaction of pity from the audience which I also see in entertainment as part of the story line.

In this class discussion, I also noticed that I only ever see disability in entertainment (if there is representation in a show or film) portrayed with a focus or some kind of mention of the person’s disability. I don’t ever see a disabled person in entertainment as a character in a story without highlighting the disability. Moreover, in news media, like the notes mention, they portray a disabled person as a recipient of charity or needing people’s help which I didn’t take attention to until now.

Something else I didn’t realize until now is that older people are more joked on in entertainment, aren’t taken seriously or disrespected in contrast to Asian countries and their culture because there is an age hierarchy and 'the older you are the wiser'. I have an interest in Korean culture so I watch a lot of Korean content. In Korean dramas, the elder is more often portrayed as another character in the story without the discrimination or prejudice from other younger characters compared to what you would see in American content. It’s interesting in that aspect to see how culture affects content because in America aging is seen as such a negative thing resulting in jokes if you “show your age” through your physical appearance or behavior.

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JOUR 4250- Oct 1st

In today’s episode of JOUR 4250 Race, Gender and Media, we focused on Islamophobia. Just as a disclaimer, I’m not well versed on the topic of Islamophobia and all that it entails so I guess you can say I’m a bit ignorant about it. However, it doesn’t take me not knowing much about Islamophobia to know what is disrespectful and out of line to those who practice Islam. Just like the videos we watched in class of people being disrespectful to Muslims who wear hijabs in stores and restaurants, I’ve seen cases like that on social media and hear or see the common phrase of “you’re not an American.”

I think a common misconception for people who are ignorant about Muslims and don’t want to learn is that Muslims are from a certain country. A Muslim is someone who practices Islam which can be anybody from any race. They can live in America and have been born here, which makes them American, so it doesn’t make sense to immediately label someone as non-American just because of the way they dress and the religion they practice. This misconception probably comes from the media framing Muslims as being from the Middle East which a group mentioned in their presentation.

I know that it’s known that the wave of Islamophobia heightened after 9/11 because of the media framing that narrative, as I previously mentioned, using the terrorists who crashed planes into the twin towers but I’ve also read a bit about it for a research paper I had wrote for my English class in my freshman year of college about how the media perpetuates racial stereotypes. The increase of hate crimes after Trump’s election was also mentioned in our class discussion and it’s completely believable to me because of Trump’s ‘honest’ opinions about other countries, races etc. that he shares via Twitter as the President of the United States, which are never based on truth and influence his followers and supporters to partake in discrimination and prejudice.

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JOUR 4250- Sept 24th

Today’s class discussion was a great discussion filled with good points and presentations from the other groups on the topic of women, adolescent girls and selfies. The first thing that was mentioned was Objectification theory from the first group that began the discussion for the day. I wasn’t aware that objectification was involved in a theory related to how it affects the way females view themselves but it makes complete sense. I think of things like this and how sexual objectification can contribute to mental health disorders relating to body image. The worst things that come to mind relating to objectification were those ads from the early to mid 20th century as some of them were shown in class. 

I also want to talk about how selfie culture is related to negative body image. I’ve always thought about how social media influences people to think about what they look like in comparison to others because of what is posted online like swimsuit pictures and sexual selfies as those get more likes which one of the groups stated in their presentation. It has a real impact on adolescent girls as they’re still developing physically and mentally. They think about why they can’t look like that resulting in hatred towards themself and not being content about their body or looks. I know I was at a point where I wasn’t happy with the way I looked compared to one of the popular girls at my school when I was younger and I was jealous and upset because of what I saw on Instagram.

With that being said, there is a difference between the detrimental side of selfies and the empowerment side and that's related to all the editing apps out there to make you look better. It becomes detrimental when you don’t post images of you ‘feeling yourself’ and being confident and content with the way you look as soon as you start editing the picture and your features to get likes and comments as someone mentioned in class. Posting your raw self on social media and being happy with how you look is empowerment, maybe even a caption encouraging other people to be too is a step in the right direction for selfie culture.

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JOUR 4250- Sept 17th

A large portion of the class discourse that had a lot of input from the students I noticed was on colorblindness. I find colorblindness quite interesting because I had never considered applying it to the different races we see everyday. The first time I heard this term in the context of race and not the eye condition was my freshman year of college in English class where the subject that we talked about for the semester was race.

At first, I thought colorblindness in terms of race was a nice way of thinking for white people to express that they were not racist. But when you think a little harder about it, which is what I did with the help of peer opinions in the class, I realized it’s quite insulting actually. It’s erasing how we’re divided in this world. I see that divide as a good and bad thing. A good thing in terms of diversity and uniqueness that allows for learning about and experiencing different cultures. A bad thing in terms of how people get persecuted for the skin color they were born with and labeled under stereotypes that affect their identity. Colorblindness inhibits the solution and positive progression for the latter.

The question that came up in class was “Is being colorblind just as harmful as being overtly racist?” I had to think a bit as to how they can be weighed in terms of harmfulness but I think they’re both harmful just in different ways. I see overt racism as hurtful, acknowledging the presence of color, whereas colorblindness is disrespectful, ignoring the presence of color and not helping the problem of overt racism that people who are “colorblind” might think they are being by not being racist. Colorblindness erases identity when that’s what makes people so beautiful in the way we live, speak, sing, dance etc. under the essence of culture.

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JOUR 4250- Sept 10th

So today’s discussions focused on femininity, masculinity, women of color intersectionality, white privilege etc.

My group (Group 11) presented today and we talked about how women of color journalist receive hatred that is multiplied compared to that of a white journalist (particularly white male journalist), if a person were to disagree with their content, as social media allows for that kind of aggressive speech because of the anonymity that comes with it. This is reflected in the video shown in class of the men who had to read mean posts about two female journalists to their faces and how vulgar the content was.

Going back to the comparison between women of color journalists and white journalists, “A man might be called ‘stupid’ for choosing certain sources in his story, but women journalists of color get attacked in a different way (Lind, 2019)” explains what I think perfectly. Instead of discussing disagreement with the content a journalist writes, their race or gender always has to be mentioned to create the insult which just leaves a bunch of incivility online especially when it comes to articles with political undertones.

A separate topic I found interesting that was mentioned in the TEDTalk video shown in class of the model about the perception of beauty and white privilege is that 53% of 13 years olds aren’t happy with their bodies and that that number rises to 78% at age 17. I know all too well about insecurity growing up as I’m sure many people do but it still amazes me that that number is so high and that it has to do with the way beauty is advertised: white, fair skin, blonde hair, blue eyes, tall and skinny. That takes a toll on children who are growing up in the world where they have to learn to love themselves and their body types due to the perception of beauty that is deeply rooted in this country.