Modern Family, The L word and telling our stories Summary

Modern Family, and other popular sitcoms incorporating LGBT characters into their show, are frustrating many in the LGBT community. The episode in which Mitchell and Cam, a white middle class homosexual couple, are attempting to enroll their Asian adopted daughter into the most prestigious preschool possible is found to be stereotypical and unoriginal. They attempt to "outdiverse" the other parents attempting to enroll their kids in the school, as it is a highly competitive institution. They ultimately get "outdiversed" when an interracial lesbian couple, one being handicapped, with a black daughter eventually get the bid. This plot line, or one being very similar, was done on the old TV show The L word back in 2008. The LGBT community is becoming annoyed with the same old plot lines for the LGBT characters on TV. The plot lines rarely involve real life issues and situations the LGBT community goes through on a daily basis. Rudolph suggests that the TV producers involved actual LGBT people to help with plot lines and portrayal of LGBT lives on the TV and movie screen. This may help the producers be more original and less offensive to the community it is hoping to depict. I have to agree with the article for the most part that LGBT plot lines are generally unoriginal and are not doing to LGBT community justice. TV producers might see benefits in incorporating LGBT people when producing characters or plot lines involving the LGBT lifestyle of daily lives. Depicting the LGBT community accurately and with clever story lines could even benefit the audience and encourage more to watch the program as well.

Media Screening

The first film I analyzed was the documentary After Tiller, produced in 2013 by Martha Shane. This movie was based on the lives of a group of abortion doctors and their troubled patients. The abortion doctors were apprentices of Dr. George Tiller and are the only doctors in the country who provide third-trimester abortions, or when the child has been living in the mother’s womb for 25 weeks. The second film I watched was the documentary The Invisible War, produced in 2012 by Kirby Dick. This film was based on the lives of sexual assault victims in the military and their struggle to find peace within themselves and to find justice for their attackers. Both films brought light to the issues involving gender expectations and lack of respect for women.

In After Tiller, the film follows the difficulties the mothers and doctors of the abortion clinic. At their practice, the doctors meet with potential patients in order to hear their story. During these encounters the viewers are able to hear the stories of these women, many of which tell the struggles of the mothers financially or emotionally. In many of the cases, these women choose to abort their child after finding out he/she will be born with disabilities or extreme physical disorders. The mothers in this film are ridiculed by those outside the clinic based on their expected gender roles. As a pregnant woman, the expectations for them are to carry out their pregnancy and take care for their child regardless of its health or well-being. There were several scenes in the film where they showed the protestors outside the clinic or in the towns, trashing the mothers with signs and harsh words often deeming them murderers. Those that are pro-life generally blame the woman for their own pregnancy and scold the mothers for their choice in the abortion. Very few instances do you see the father being the subject of abuse, regardless of the situation. The well-being and situations of the mothers are never of any concern to those that are pro-life, only the child inside them. In one case, a woman explains that she did not tell her parents of her decision to abort because “they would call her a murderer”. Those who speak against abortion never know the individual story of the women who seek the procedure; they judge every woman the same based on the expectations of motherhood and show complete lack of respect.

In The Invisible War, countless stories are heard from military women and even some men who were sexually assaulted during their service in the military. Most of these rapes and assaults were committed by commanders and those of higher rank, and the criminal cases were never pursued or charged on the victims instead. Based on their experiences, the lack of respect for women in the military is appalling. Several men in the military clearly see their female colleagues as their property and something to be claimed. These men are reassuring gender expectations and see these women as inferior and something to assert dominance over.  In one case, the attacker of a victim put his hand on her body during his assault and said “I own all of this”. In another case, a female marine explained how one of her senior officers said “Female marines here are nothing but objects for the male marines to fuck”. By women attempting to speak out against their attackers, they are met with harsh punishments and accusations of lying by all military personnel and legal teams.

The themes of gender expectations and lack of respect for women are clear in both After Tiller and The Invisible War. Pregnant women are judged based on motherhood expectations and are criticized when defying them. Women in the military are viewed as inferior and weak by male colleagues, and are assaulted in order for these men to prove masculinity. In both of these issues, women are disrespected greatly and are the common victims of crude judgement.

Women's History Month Essay

I was able to attend two WGS events on campus this semester, both in hopes to bring awareness and address gender equality issues. The first event I went to was Alumni  Panel: Designing Feminist Futures, College and Beyond, organized by WGS students. The panel was composed of three female alumni who studied WGS at TCNJ and are now pursuing professional careers, two of which are lawyers. The second event I attended was the guest speaker Michael Kimmel, who is a sociologist and professor at Stony Brook University. Both of these events were very informative and provided different opinions and experiences with sexism and promoting feminism.  Sitting through both of these presentations, I noticed a common theme repeating throughout both. The struggle for women in the workplace was referenced numerous times in both the panel discussion and the talk with Mr. Kimmel. Women’s struggle in the workplace has been an issue the country has faced for years. Regardless of the profession, women are constantly making less money than men for equal work. Along with pay difference, women are subjected to much abuse and lack of respect from coworkers.

In the panel discussion, the three women were asked how it was dealing with feminist issues in the real world, and outside of the TCNJ classroom. The first speaker was a woman who attended law school after undergrad and was now an established lawyer. She mentioned how it was harder to confront feminist issues outside of the TCNJ classroom because she is not dealing with the same types of open minded people. She described her experiences with sexual harassment in the workplace and how such situations were downplayed greatly. When she was sexually harassed by her boss, to which then she approached the human resource representative about the situation, she was told she was better off just “dropping it” and that pursuing such an issue would just cause a storm. Another panelist, answering the same question, explained how she was paid unfairly from the rest of her colleagues that were men. Less qualified male colleagues, doing the same exact scope of work, were making substantially more money than her. She described one interview she went on where the company told her that she was not allowed to wear anything but skirts in the office if she accepted the job offer. She explained how these types of issues were way harder to deal with and could not be openly discussed and debated like how it was in the classrooms at TCNJ. All of the panelists agree that they have dealt with guilty thoughts to whether they were doing enough to stand up for themselves, and if they were letting down the feminist community. This is a result from them having to step down in certain situations because they must pick and choose the battles they want to take on, and that every day is a fight.

Mr. Kimmel stressed in his presentation how women need men’s help in promoting feminism. He described how men, typically white men, have a strong sense of entitlement for what is not theirs. Kimmel described the situation where a white man is going for a job. The firm eventually hires a woman in the position the man was hoping to acquire. The common male conception is that “they gave my job to a woman”, as if it was his job to lose. The idea that he feels he is entitled to the job and that any women, or African American man or women, is taking something that he already possesses. Kimmel also described how challenging an “unencumbered worker” can help with gender equality. Those working 80 hours a week are mostly males, as females do not want to participate in a work week that long because they would not have enough time to devote to their families and motherly duties. These men have trouble under the pressures of their CEOs and higher up bosses, who are also men, to sacrifice work for family. These pressures from higher up successful male workers challenge other male workers to work ridiculous hours to be successful. Men combating this sacrifice all attitude will ultimately help women become more successful in the workplace also, and no forcing them to compete with 80 hour work weeks. Women are struggling competing with men who are willing to work 80 hours a week to be successful, and have no other obligations.

In conclusion, both the women’s history month events stressed the ideas and the realities of women in the workplace. The unfortunate reality of women being paid less than men when doing the same scope of work, or even being more qualified, needs to change. How could an employer ever justify paying a women less than a man for the same job? Sexual harassment and other forms of female oppression also need to be brought to attention. It is also difficult for women to compete with male workers taking on ridiculous work hours a week based on pressures from their bosses and higher ups. Women cannot create a more gender equal world on their own; men need to help their cause which will ultimately benefit their lives as well. 

Gender Nuetral Children

I would say I agree with Dr. Harold Koplewicz with this matter. When we watched the short documentary on Ryland in class, I was moved by the way his parents handled the situation of him wanting to identify with the opposite gender. The alarming rate of transgender depression and suicide attempts when they attempt to make the change later in life is terrifying for any parent. By allowing Ryland to identify the way he wants, his parents are hoping to save Ryland from a life of depression and provide him with a strong loving support system. I actually admire the way the parents handled the situation. However, in this matter, the parents are from the start identifying their baby boy as "infant". Although some people may find it disturbing and not fair, children need to be guided in the direction of their gender in order for them to develop properly. By raising your child gender neutral, before them even giving the hint they want to change genders, could be overwhelmingly confusing for a child. This type of child raising could be even worse for the psychological development of a child. Like Dr. Koplewicz said, "When children are born they are not a blank slate, we do have male and female brains. There's a reason why boys do more rough and tumble play, there's a reason why girls have better language development skills". Humans, like any other organism, are wired a certain way. Children are born with a sex, they are no born a neutral object. I looked for statistics on gender neutral parenting to see what kind of affects it has on children, and there really are none. Most of the information supporting or criticizing gender neutral parenting is based on opinion or no real factual evidence. I did read on livescience.com that even if you raise a gender neutral child, the child is so surrounded by gender, especially in the home with both parents identifying, they will eventually identify as one or the other. I think gender neutral raising should be something implemented after the child can make his/her choice, not before. I feel that if a family is to raise their child gender neutral, they must raise them completely neutral. Not dress them as a girl one day and as a boy the other, it shouldn't be leaning toward any gender.

Perpetuating Online Sexism Offline

The article investigates the study performed on sexism's presence online and how it influences sexism offline. The study was based on the social networking site, Twitter, and several study subjects. the purpose of the experiment was to determine if people who wrote sexist tweets would (a) demonstrate more sexist attitudes, (b) judge female candidates to be less competent, and (c) rate female candidates as less hirable than participants who retweeted sexist messages. Based on the results, it was seen that people who are anonymous are way more hostile when tweeting sexist tweets than people who are identified. People who wrote sexists tweets were also determined to be more hostile than people who retweeted them. It was also found that participants who wrote sexist tweets also judged female candidates as less competent. The study results proved that social media, especially anonymous social media, allow people to become more hostile toward sexism online and off. Sexist hashtags that spread on twitter are exposed to people all over, giving them the impression that sexist jokes are acceptable and will receive a lot of popularity on the site. I was expecting that people who tweeted from anonymous accounts were most hostile than those who identity was revealed. This is because of new social media apps such as Yik Yak, present on college campuses. This is essentially an anonymous twitter. People post ridiculous posts on Yik Yak, ones that they would never post if people knew their identity. Many of these posts are insulting and many are sexist as well. Social media is destructive in general and allow people to post, anonymous or not, offensive comments because of the lack of person to person facial expressions and face to face responses from other people. The security of being alone in one's room separated from other viewers makes people far bolder and more inclined to post offensively.

Social Networks

Social networking is extremely popular in my generation, as most people my age have Facebooks, Twitters, or Instagrams. People use these forms of social media to communicate, keep in touch, and keep up to date on today's issues. Facebook is a very common form of social media in which people create profiles about themselves to connect with other people. The intentions of these profiles is to portray who you are: including your interests, friends, appearance, etc. All profiles are meant to be real depictions of ones self, and yet they are far from it. I went through Facebook to take a look at profiles to get a real idea of how people are portraying themselves. It is clear that people are creating their profiles for what they want people to see, not who they actually are. These social media profiles are tapered toward how the users wants them to look, and the image of themselves they want to create for other people. They are far from what they are meant to be. These profiles are also highly gendered. Each girl's profile I go through look exactly the same. The pictures many girls put up on their social media pages are highly coordinated and uncandid, a lot of which one could be considered sexual objectification. Its funny how whenever girls take pictures together, they are always leaning on one leg or half squatting.  Guy profiles are a little more diverse, however some themes are commonly seen throughout: Sports being an example. "Friends" on Facebook are even worse. The term "friends" is devalued, as many people have other 1000 "friends" on their page. A majority of the time, people only barely know, if even at all, most of their "friends" on Facebook. It it disturbing how something like Facebook clearly shows a very unhealthy trend in how people communicate and meet one another in today's society.

Small Change Summary

Small Change was an article about how activism and revolution has changed in recent years. The article began describing the protests in Greensboro, NC in the 1960s. This type of activism was sparked and grown by word of mouth and local emotional turmoil. Those suffering in the area were joining the fight which then inspired more in other areas of the country. The increase in social media in our society is tremendous as the number of users continue to increase for all forms: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. With the growing amount of users, these social media sites can connect millions of people in seconds, sharing news and information with people across the globe. This being so, social movements and events spread like wildfire, with millions of people actively sharing, liking, and posting about certain issues. Many social movements and causes have grown in number due to social media and the ease of communication. After discussing the old way of protest, the article began describing how this social media has been credited to protests in other countries in recent years. One specific protest in Iran, called the Twitter Revolution, was referenced in the article about activism lead by social media. The article criticized this type of protest and activism and how it really contributes to nothing. The ties we have with people we follow or are friends with on social media are weak ties and have no meaning behind them. Most protests in foreign nations, especially in the Iran case, that are credited to social media should not be. This is due to the fact that the people involved are not a part of western culture and do not even have twitters or facebooks. One journalist wrote how she did not understand why people trying to organize protests in the Iran case were writing in any other language by Farsi. The article states how the protest in Greensboro in the 1960s was a real protest, with the people suffering being the ones at the forefront of organizing the fight. Overall, I agree with the article that social media is getting too much credit for modern protest. Protests that catch fire on social media are generally weak and un-meaningful protests, as the people speaking our most about the cause are generally not the ones suffering, or are far attached from the real issues taking place. The type of activism that took place in history is far more impactful than how modern activism is executed.

Reality Television

Reality television today is getting out of control. The term "reality TV" is become almost an irony, as it is starting to become more and more scripted and fake. TV shows such as the Kardashians, Housewives, etc. focus on the lives of the rich and depict characters going insane with fights and emotional struggles over the smallest of conflicts or problems. The people depicted on these shows are despicable people and yet millions of people tune in daily to watch then complain over what guy they're dating now or what friend backstabbed them this time. Because I really dont watch much reality television, I tuned in to an episode of Survivor because it is one of the only reality shows I can actually watch. I do not have a favorite character, as it was my first time watching an episode in the series this season, however gender is seen throughout the episode. Because I used to be an avid watcher of the show when I was younger, I have seen that gender roles in Survivor have been a trend throughout its existence. The whole premise of the show is a large group of random people are brought onto an exotic island for over a month, where they survive and participate in competitions in order to stay safe in the nightly votes to send a participant home. Men in the show are always falling into the roles anyone would expect them to: dominating in the physical competitions and being the ones mostly doing the manual labor for shelter and hunting. The women are usually the gathering, or starting fires, or just lounging around. The women also excel most of the time in the critical thinking competitions. There is also always a weird dynamic, as the most athletic men are usually voted off first due to the threat they have in competition to win individual immunity every week. There usually are always a group of guys or a group of girls that form alliances with one another, but most of the time its quite blended guys and girls. Especially in past seasons, when there is an attractive woman on the show, she usually is depicted as the sex icon. Commonly wearing the least amount of clothing as possible (sexual objectification). Survivor may not be the best example for gender in reality TV shows, but even that gender roles and sexual objectification are eminent.

I Am Cait Article Summary

I thought this article was a hopeful one. The article summarized the new show "I Am Cait" on the TV station E! and how it has taken a whole different approach on reality television shows. Usually, reality shows are filled with drama, "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" being one of the forefronts for those types of shows. Little conflicts on reality TV shows are always produced into these large scale drama situations, with tons of emotion, screaming, and sometimes fights. A large amount of the time, events are scripted in the TV show just to produce more conflict and backstabbing. "I Am Cait", however, is a different type of reality TV show. Although it is focused around a sensitive topic, a recently identified transgender woman, the show provides a more realistic and true portrayal of reality. Instead of being under fire, or flooded with conflict or emotion, Caitlin Jenner is seen going through her daily life. The relationships shown with her family and friends are not altered or depicted for the viewers entertainment, they are supportive and good-hearted toward Caitlin's "struggle". Situations in the TV show that could be blown out of proportion just to entertain are kept in their originality, such as the scene when Caitlin visits the funeral. Overall, I think it is awesome that E! is airing a reality show that is actually reality. I have never seen the show- or any of the other fake reality shows like kardashians, housewives, and whatever garbage is airing on TV on those stations. I do think it is a great step in the right direction for television to start making reality TV shows that are informative or offer a true perspective, not one scripted in Hollywood to satisfy drama suckers.