Female and Women Essay

Reading Response Paper #1

When I first realized I needed to take a communications course this semester and I started looking through my options, this course and it’s description caught my eye. After reading the description and thinking about it for a few days I came to the conclusion that there was no way I knew as much as I thought I knew and wanted to take this particular course. When I got the syllabus and began reading the text and the first few reading assignments, I realized quickly that I was completely ignorant when it came to the topic of feminism. It’s really simple to define yet very complex to embrace and completely learn.

The first thing I read was the text. I like how the book is written and how the author gives the perspectives of students who have used the book along the way. One thing that struck me early on was that the author has found that many students finds her book a bit on the male bashing side. I agreed with her in her rationale of, in order to get the facts across, it almost has a male bashing tone. Facts are facts… Welcome to the real world, I thought to myself! The author continued on also stating that a lot of students feel feminism is history. I don’t think so. In my personal opinion, anyone who thinks and/or says that that either lives a completely sheltered life and doesn’t understand the definition or just wants to brush off the topic because it is, in fact, so very broad and can be uncomfortable to talk about (Wood).

The video I chose to watch was first Mickey Mouse Monopoly. I was pretty shocked. I have never looked at Disney movies in this light but I now completely see what these, honestly, experts were describing. When one particular little girl actually stated, “If Bell was my friend and I seen her go through this I’d probably just tell her to keep being nice and sweet and it will probably change him which in the movie it does” I literally held my breath. As the mother of a 13 year old daughter, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I do not believe Disney does this intentionally but again, facts are facts in the world and this is even how the writers of these movies were brought up. These disney movies really do (usually) have men in lead and more powerful rolls, have women as the weaker rolls, often mothering and having to bow down to their male co-characters. These movies have minority cultures in weaker and lower class rolls. Male characters abuse or talk down to women and children. These are just a few examples but again, I was shocked and it was eye opening. I realize this article wasn’t supposed to be viewed until week 3 but for some reason, it caught my eye (Sun).

I was quite impressed with the article “Seventeen Magazine Vows to Show Girls As They Are.” It was nice to see that real girls reached out and Seventeen listened. I somewhat agreed with Seventeen in that they were photoshopping minor things to enhance the pictures and not necessarily the physical appearance of the girls in photos but, nevertheless, they still empowered the girls who were voicing opinions and promised they would continue to not and never would photoshop physical appearances (Seventeen).

The article about gender representation was a little hard to follow as I was clicking all over the place and got a little lost but I got the gist of femininity and that it is created over time and more of an ideal than something we are born with. The same goes with masculinity. It’s basically learned as time goes on. Boys are brought up in a world where they shouldn’t show emotions and should be tough guys. They learn over time, they are “supposed” to be protectors for women and children and women are to be the nurturing moms and protected. The “Second Sex” power point also clarified Simone de Beauvoir’s beliefs. I realize these beliefs come from a different, but not so long ago, time so I do not necessarily have the same beliefs. I do believe it’s important history to know because it shows us how feminism is

Show More