Posts tagged social conditioning
Transcend Dualism
Your awesome Tagline
No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.
Okay, movies are just for fun, they never teach you anything.
“Disney films, and to a lesser extent other animated films, have become the staple of movie fare for children, an institution we bring them up in and use to teach values. One only need to look as far as books such as The Family New Media Guide and The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies to see the recommendation of Disney films for value lessons. The former title even goes on to point out that “Disney has almost become synonymous with wholesome family entertainment.” (p. 59) Neither of these books address the depictions of sexuality and gender role modeling that are an ever present subtext in Disney films.”
“Women are constantly depicted in sexually suggestive ways. Many of the human characters of animated films have suggestive mannerisms, dress or both. Aurora is flirtatious and coy. Pocahontas wears a low-cut dress with plenty of cleavage while Ariel wears nothing but a bikini top. Megara sashays her hips and her dress clings to her body like a second skin and Jasmine’s two-piece outfits are of the harem girl style rather than what real Arabic women wear. Chel dresses differently from every other woman in her tribe. And then there is Esmeralda, whose dance in The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a striptease in all but actually taking off her clothes. Esmeralda’s pole-twirling is straight out of that style. And these suggestive mannerisms are not just limited to the adult women. The little girl in The Jungle Bookis pre-teen, but has already mastered the coy mannerisms of suggestive sexuality to lure Mowgli back to the human village. Male characters are never shown in this manner.”
http://animation.memory-motel.net/sexuality_american.html
As children, not only do you watch these movies, you see them over and over and over again. As children your brain is developing, you’re learning about the world, what it’s like, how you fit in, what your position in society is etc. More than likely children trust their parents completely, and so when they sit them in front of a movie, I don’t doubt that the child’s brain automatically assumes that everything they are seeing is an accurate depiction of the world.
As far as the argument about knowing that magic etc. doesn’t exist and giving children credit… children can’t combat something they don’t even know is happening, or if they have never seen any alternative.
Male and female ability differences down to socialisation, not genetics
”Many of the studies that claim to highlight differences between the brains of males and females are spurious. They are based on tests carried out on only a small number of individuals and their results are often not repeated by other scientists. However, their results are published and are accepted by teachers and others as proof of basic differences between boys and girls.
“All sorts of ridiculous conclusions about very important issues are then made. Already sexism disguised in neuroscientific finery is changing the way children are taught.”
Great article, well worth the read if you think that the idea that male and female brains are inherently different has good scientific backing.
before i marry any man, i will ask him: but how will you attempt to undo patriarchy?
whilst patriarchy is an external social construct, for the most part it is ultimately perpetuated in the home and internalized as the first point of socialization for children. the home becomes the same place in which they first discover masculinity, femininity and all things gendered, inclusive of love. see, i have met many men who proclaim they are feminists but disappointedly turn out to be raging misogynists, so unaware of their complicity in the subordination of women they refuse to change their privilege in home life, behind close doors received from an inherited and comfortable chauvinism.
if we are to battle sexism in the public sphere i am a strong believer that it has to start and come from the home. so yes, i will ask the man i am to marry how he will attempt to undo patriarchy because i want my home to be a reflection of the freedom i envision for the world. and he will answer in a way that reassures me that love is not gendered, and that he is human first and foremost.
Fuck Yeah Menfolk: Struggling with Male Privilege
The existence of male privilege is undeniable. Women have been subject to centuries (truly, millennia) of second-class citizen status. They are often portrayed in the media as nothing more than ornaments for male leads. They are not given full sovereignty over their bodies and are not given equal…
All of the “female privilege” that you speak of can be looped back to conventional sexism. Take the number of unemployed men. That can be attributed to a shift in the needed jobs, from physical labour to service sector work. Men are socialized to believe that service work is feminine and don’t take those jobs. Or let’s look at healthcare or male violence. Men are again socialized to be more violent and to resist needing help from say a doctor when they get hurt. Not to mention, men tend to be greater risk takers as well. What we’re talking about here isn’t privilege that women have over men, but rather the sad effects of sexism and a rigid gender construction.
And there in lies the solution. If we want to change these problems in society, we need to deconstruct our gender ideologies. We need to teach the masses that there is no such thing as a “masculine” or “feminine” job, hobby, behavior, attitude, etc. There’s your answer.
Yes.
No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
I think life should be more like TV. I think all of life’s problems ought to be solved in 30 minutes with simple homilies, don’t you? I think weight and oral hygiene ought to be our biggest concerns. I think we should all have powerful, high-paying jobs, and everyone should drive fancy sports cars. All our desires should be instantly gratified. Women should always wear tight clothing, and men should carry powerful handguns. Life overall should be more glamorous, thrill-packed, and filled with applause, don’t you think?… Then again, if real life was like that, what would we watch on television?
How a Boy learns to be a Man
http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/mensvoices16.html
Then my mother asked, “Zachary, what’s the opposite of boy?”
My whole body tensed. Here it comes, I thought, Mars and Venus, the “opposite” sex, the whole gender binary.
Zachary looked up at his grandmother and said, “Man.”
Michael Kimmel is a renowned American sociologist whose specialty is pro-feminism. A professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he is the editor of Men and Masculinities, a spokesperson of NOMAS (The National Organization For Men Against Sexism), and the author, most recently, of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men
This is a great little article. I’ve run across Michael Kimmel a few times now, I have one of his books and look forward to reading it. I don’t want to flood my followers with a bunch of articles, but I can’t help but share when I find uplifting stuff.
children cartoons
So I watch a lot of children cartoons like Spongebob and Chowder…because of my baby cousin of course; being an anti racist feminist and all I catch many things most people wouldn’t notice or care about. Anyways here are my observations from over analyzing cartoons ( I know this is really silly):
- Shows like Spongebob and Chowder hardly have any female characters, unless you count Panini and Sandy ( you have no idea what I’m talking about). The other female characters are constantly portrayed in a stereotypical fashion being fixated on boys, obsessed with makeup being really pushy etc.
- If you do see a female cartoon character the creators to do this.
- If you have kids or if you just happen to really like cartoons maybe you’ve seen Cartoon Network. Can you think of any show that’s oriented towards girls? Of course there was Totally Spies, but again boys, make up, dating. They did go on adventures though.
- Think of cartoons that are oriented towards the girls. What’s it mostly about? Make up, boys, dating. Remember Bratz? Jesus Christ.
- So if you guys seen Chowder ( which I shamefully love) there’s Endive.
So as you can tell she’s fat. She’s the protagonist of the show and she’s pretty fucking annoying. Now look at the above picture, what kind of jokes do you think they use in the show that involve Endive? Lots of fat shaming of course. Endive’s size is exaggerated and constantly changing, her ass is so huge Chowder can climb, you can hear her from a mile away because the earth is crushing from her immense weight, her toilet is also really huge and is the size of a swimming pool. You get the point. You would just think that since this was a children show’s that they would try to make everyone including fat kids feel accepted.
- Who come everyone thinks Spongebob is white? He’s a fucking sponge.
- Are there any shows on Cartoon Network that have people of color as the main leads? I think the only black guy from Johnny Test is the FBI guy ( Mr.White and his partner Mr.Black, the white guy). Most of the shows I mentioned lack people of color, and well gay people. *Gasp*. These shows make it seem normal boys to like girls but not boys to like boys unless it’s part of the punchline. I mentioned this to my friend and she was so shocked I suggested such a thing. She told me kids are too young to see that. But look around , heterosexual is normal white is dominant and girls love make up. I don’t expect CN to criticize the white supremacist heteropatriarchy but some of these shows are ridiculous.
- Enough about CN, Nickelodeon kind of sucks too. Most of the shows on Nick are live action like iCarly, Big Time Rush, and True Jackson. There’s Mighty B ( which i think is a great show because Bessie isn’t always constantly thinking about boys, makeup, dating…) Fan Boy and Chum Chum and Spongebob. Not including Spongebob ( because they aren’t white, they are sea creatures, but you know that whole privilege thing where everyone is white until proven other wise) most of these shows lack people of color.
- Again not all cartoons are like this Kids Next Door was pretty good, Static Shock ( does that really count as a children’s cartoon?), Mighty B, Justice League ( PG 13 sometimes) and I really can’t think of anything else past 2nd grade.
- I can’t put in words how weird I think it is when Panini is practically sexual assaulting Chowder. She always is trying to make him her boyfriend, tricking him into kissing her, and just won’t take no for an answer. I mean really, I think there’s this trend in animated show where the girl is always chasing the guy and is a borderline stalker.
So there’s me over analyzing everything.
Thanks for “over analyzing” :) I couldn’t agree more. When I babysit, I generally don’t let my nieces and nephews watch movies because it’s just too horrible to see them watching this crap and thinking it’s normal. I would stick to the ‘taboo’ cartoons like Teletubbies and Barney. It’s been so long since I’ve seen those I don’t know if they are any good either. Generally, if there is something that our friends make fun of, that’s probably the only thing decent. That’s been my experience lately.
I know when I was little my mom never had me watching cartoons, especially Disney princess movies… I’ve probably only seen them once in my life, and they left an impression I can tell you that.
The Real MEN'S Project
“I was accompanied by two men who contributed their voices as well. It was long overdue to have men stand up and say that ending violence against women isn’t just a women’s issue. “
I am a strong advocate of feminism not being just for women, I am going to try and post more male allies for us. We are after all only half the population, and we aren’t the only ones with internalized oppression. Women having to live up to social expectations of beauty and men being thought of as stong and powerful is the same thing and is all controlled by our cultures patriarchal obbsession. We are all in this together, and I want to reach out to anybody who is sick of living up to ideals that uphold oppression.
