Real Women Have Curves

This past week we watched the movie “Real Women Have Curves.”  First I was confused as to why we were watching it in the body image class.  I felt as the focus of the movie was more on Latino Americans and their struggles with the economy.  It was not until the movie was well into the plot that I saw why this is so important for our class to watch.  In the movie the Ana, who is played by the wonderful actress America Ferrera, is a little chubbier than the average girl.  She is by no means obese, but she does have some real curves.  Her mother is constantly bugging her about her weight and telling her that she needs to loose weight to find a real man. 

            I found this extremely sad.  So, basically her mother is saying that men don’t want curvy women.  This is an entirely untrue statement.  My cousin, who has been extremely overweight her entire life is absolutely beautiful.  She has finally accepted her body for the way it is, after failing at multiple diets.  She is now married and has a baby on the way.  She has accepted herself for the way God made her.  I feel like every girl should look at themselves this way.

            Back to the movie…I really loved the scene where Ana takes her shirt off and her mom basically has a hissy fit.  She then encourages all of the women who work in the factory to take their shirts off, too.  Eventually there are 4 overweight women in their panties and bras.  This is an extremely powerful scene.  These women are proud of their bodies no matter what they look like.

Michael Messner "Its All for the Kids: Gender, Families, and Youth Sports"

            I went to Michael Messner's presentation, "It's All for the Kids: Gender, Families, and Youth Sports."  Messner was an extremely wonderful speaker, and he kept my attention the entire time.  He first began his presentation by touching on how sports have evolved through the past decades.  He made a point about how women used to involved in sports.  Women were only seen as "cheerleaders" and the men were always the "jocks."  Since Title 9 was past in the 70s women's sports have been more widely accepted.

            Messner also touched on the idea of women being the main caretakers of the children in the home.  He described one survey that he took and said that the men told him that they did not have the "time."  So, basically these men said they were the "breadwinners" for their families.  Women also told Messner that they felt as they had to quit their jobs after they began having children because they needed to stay in the home with the children.

            I found this lecture extremely interesting because I thought things had changed since the 50s when the women were homemakers and the men were break winners.  According to Messner this is not the case.  I think that men should step it up and take care of the children just as much as women.  

Midterm!

 

Sorority "rush"

I am currently in a sorority.  The class discussion and the reading today really made me think about rush and everything that is included with it in a totally different way.  To be perfectly honest, I am a little offended that this girl did this “investigative” piece on sororities.  I should understand, because I am a journalist myself; but I just can’t bring myself to justify what she did.  This girl went undercover at recruitment and wrote a story about it.  I feel as this one story can’t speak for every “rush” that is out there.  Every house has a different style of rush, and every campus has a different style of rush.  I feel like some people might read this and think that every “rush” in the country is like this, when in fact, it is not.

Today’s class also brought up a good subject about “beauty” in sororities.  The girl in the youtube video was asked, “How do you get rid of ugly girls?”  She responded with, “Well, it really isn’t even brought up.  Girls just vote against them, and they are gone.”  With my experience in rush, I do not believe this to be the case.  But in other cases, like these girls, I guess they really do judge the girls on how they look, not by their personality.  Getting to know girls in about a 20-minute period is really hard.  So, that is why a lot of houses base the girl on their ‘reputation.’  One person in our class today didn’t think that it was okay to do this.  I would really like him to put himself in our shoes and go through the agony that we have to endure.

Rape of Women in the Congo

This Tuesday I went to the “A Night for the Women of the Congo” in Meachum Auditorium.  There was a speaker and a power point presentation at the beginning of it.  After the speaker enlightened the audience with the basics of the problem in the Congo, they played a documentary about the rape of women in the Congo.  They said that the Congo is one of the most dangerous places for women and girls on the planet.  Soldiers of the army take these women and rape them, in some cases gang rape them.  After they rape them they stick foreign objects into their private parts and tear their uterus and bladders.  Most women cannot even control their urine.

I think this is absolutely terrible.  I can’t believe that I am sitting here on my bed, in my warm house, and on my computer while across the world there are women who are scared to go to sleep at night in fear that they are going to be raped.  In some cases, raped to death.  The worst part about the rape is that the men who are doing this are not even getting in trouble for it.  There is no Special Victims Unit in the Congo.  So, these men are getting away with what they are doing.  There are even corrupt police officers, which is also extremely terrible. 

I can’t believe that this is going on and really no one even knows about, or even cares to know about it.  I am going to do all that I can to let this be know, and to try and get it stopped.

Hair...hair...hair!

I think I have failed to mention my love for all of these guest speakers!  Not that I don’t love your lectures, but getting all of these different perspectives from outside sources really makes me feel like I am broadening my horizons.

I really found the speaker on Wednesday interesting.  I really feel like I learned something from her.  Who knew that a hair stylist could teach me so much in so little time?  She brought up a good point that I had never thought about before.  I am from Norman.  I was born and raised in this beautiful town.  From my experience and getting my hair done has always been quite pleasant.  But your hair stylist brought up a good point about “black” hair stylists.  She says that she is the only one in Norman.  I know this isn’t a race class, but just thinking about this made me think about race and how it is portrayed in Norman.  I couldn’t believe that there was not a black hair stylist in Norman before her.  I mean what did people do before she came here?  Just did it themselves?  I like to think that Norman is a very diverse community, but hearing that it really made me re consider my view on our town. 

Also, with thinking about hair really made me think of women and why they are so concerned with always looking good.  Hair is just a dead thing that lies on your head.  And most people will pay well over $100 to get that dead thing looking good.  I feel as America is way too concerned with what they look like.

Eating Disorders

This past week was eating disorder awareness week.  I believe this is extremely important to have on college campuses.  Some people don’t believe that an eating disorder is a disease, but in fact, it is an extremely serious one.  I have done numerous papers and countless hours of research on eating disorders.  For many papers in high school and my freshman year at OU I researched the media and the impact it has on girls and the way they view themselves.  Not only girls, but women also are starving themselves because they think they are fat.  But in reality they are not fat.

This week we had guest speakers talk about the 2 different types of eating disorders.  They are bulimia and anorexia.  Thousands of girls in the United States today suffer from one of these deadly diseases.  In my opinion girls suffer from these diseases because of how the media portrays “normal” girls.  Today models are size zero or two.  Models back in the day were size six to eight.  One of the most beautiful ladies in the entire world, Marilyn Monroe, was a size ten or larger.  I think it is absolutely ridiculous that the media is portraying women to be so skinny.  The media is killing our youth.  One of the guest speakers said that girls as young as 9 are suffering from one of these diseases because they want to look like Mary-Kate or Lindsey.

Eating disorders are extremely dangerous.  I have vowed to myself that no matter how “fat”  I think I look that I will never ever fall into the trap of one of these deadly diseases!