Sports and sexes

I will blog about guys and girls in sports and the stereotypes of sports with different sexes; Such as, football. Why do people assume girls do not like football and have no interest in playing. I understand some girls may not like football but we are just as capable as playing football as the boys, even tackle. On our high school team there was one girl that ever played football, I am not sure if that was because everyone else is scared to try out or scared to do something different.
Another example is color guard in the marching band. Our high school band director would not let any guys try out to do color guard. They could be just as skilled and talented as the girls, he was a sexist guy who thinks If a guy is doing color guard and not playing and instrument he will not represent the high school band very well.

This blog is going to be about human trafficking and how it is still a major issue in today’s society. Trafficking is when people sell mainly children, mainly young girls to others. It is normally for work or sex which is terrible but goes on everywhere around the world. I know this happens every day, I found out that a Hispanic male tried to sell me little girl cousin, and planned on taking her back to Mexico. Luckily, he was sent to jail and she is safe now. This has always been a problem, and I think people do not realize that it is just a terrible thing that still happens. This can relate to women studies because it is simply the fact that people want to sell children, for sex and work. That is immoral and I think people who want to sell these children, plus the people who are buying these children should be severely punished. I do not know if there is anything anybody could do to stop this, but I think one step at a time we can try to bring everybody aware of human trafficking.

News, and online pics.

This first thing I want to discuss in this blog is how dangerous today’s society has become. When people watch the news or read the newspaper, it is never really something good. It is always about how someone just did a shooting, or a suicide bombing in Iraq, or how poor the economy is. I think after all the negatives and terrible things that happening here I feel the news should have to find at least one positive thing to inform everybody about. When I went to CNN’s website the headlines were… sixth relative arrested in child sex case, John Gosslin sues TLC for $5 million. That is just two of the headlines that stood out to me. Not one of the headlines was good. I know there may not be any good things but I am sure there is at least one good story. And most of the bad news has to do with a male, the child sex cases and John. Maybe, the news can add some good stories about guys so they won’t always look like the bad guys.
Another thing I want to talk about is how when Myspace was big and young teens put pictures of themselves half naked on there, and they would talk to these guys who they did not know, and just let everyone look at their personal information. I think this has gotten very dangerous and out of hand. I think it is stupid for these girls to put half naked pictures on the internet, and talk to people they have no clue who they are.
I want to also talk about the reading article I had to discuss in class, about women in art. I never thought about why when we look in the past there are several famous men artitst but no female. Dealing with the comic strips and women, the book said that women do good comic strips but are never noticed, saying that women comics are to emotional and feminine. That got me mad because that is very sterotypical and we should be noticed just like men for our talents.

Everything and Anything

Our class discussion was about several topics, and I am going to comment on a few things. First, about the Mikey Mouse and how they are trying to masculinize him, I mean what is wrong with the original Mikey Mouse....nothing he is a classic.
The main topic of this blog is about what I read in the newspaper about out-lawing same sex marriage. I think they should not out-law it, and they should have the same chance as everyone else to get married. It is noboyd's else business who someone choose to marry. The newspaper said that Maine was the thirty first state to deny make same-sex marriage legal. That gets me angry, if someone can marry an object like the effile tower (who is not even a person) why can't two people who love eachother get married?
We also discussed about Western and where our money goes. The people of higher authority such as the president will just keep getting richer and taking our money without even caring. As long as they are getting paid everything is great. I think that we should be able to actual tailgate (with cars in the grass.) I liked the idea of making someone pay a dollar or two, it will be worth it and people would do it and WKU would raise money. I do think that this is a great school which is why I came, I love the campus and all the grass and trees.
Last thing, someone said a comment about if a guy is not manly than people will tease him and say things such as: pussy, sissy, wimp. just like girl terms. so is that implying we are weak??

Halloween

This blog will be about eating disorders and how so many young females are wanting to be skinner and how they look at these models and young girls idolize them. I do not know where this "American Weight" comes into place because in reality, sadly but more Americans are overweight than their expected weight. I do also think that obesity is just getting out of hand and becoming an epidemic. I think if the government want to do something, than they need to fix the prices of the healthier food. I think some of the problem is that the healthier food is more expensive than the fatty, unhealthy food. It is cheaper to buy a bag of chips versus some fresh fruit.

Another topic for this blog will be Halloween and how it can be a very dangerouse time (mostly because of men.) That is how I am relating this to our class, because I remember when I was young and I always giving my mom my candy to check before because people can do something to the candy. I find that pretty disturbing but I know it really happens. Also, when I went up to my grandma's one year for Halloween and I thought it was strange that their trick-or-treat night is always the Sunday afternoon before Halloween because there was a problem with children being kid knapped at dark and dusk. Most of the Kid Knappers are male, and they not only abduct girls, but boys too.

Random

I think this blog will be about several different topics. The first being what we watched in class and how explicit and terrible all of it was. It degrades women and I think if any guy watches that stuff and finds ‘pleasure’ out of it then something is wrong. Shoving something into a woman should not turn any guy on. I do not have much else to say about that, but I was watching True Life on MTV and one of the episodes were that they were addicted to watching pornography. It showed three different guys and they were all dating and it affected their relationships and if I remember right two of the guys broke it off with their girlfriends while the other was able to work through it. I do not think you should outlaw pornography, even though I do not agree with it, it is someone’s job and if that is the only income they have then so be it. It will also be hard to define what porn is and what is not. But I will not be surprised if they tried to outlaw pornography in the future.
The other topic I have relates to women’s studies but we watched the video in sociology. We watched a Dateline episode from the 80’s or 90’s and they did a test of how employers and unequal women are treated. One study was they took a man and a woman to go buy a car, they put a little hidden camera on their shirts to video tape it all. When the woman went to go look for a car, the sells man raised the price for the car, and would not let her test drive it because of ‘insurance reasons’, she had to ride while he drove around. Also, when she tried to negotiate the price he only went down $200 dollars. When the man went, he was able to test drive the car off the lot without the sells man even in the car. The starting price was lower than the woman’s and he negotiated about $800 dollars. When they confronted the sales guy, of course he made excuses saying “he is new to the job,” and how woman do not know as much as men about cars.
Another study was when they took the same man and woman went to apply for a job. It was the same company but had two different jobs, one as secretary and one as assistant manager. One the woman’s application they made her more qualified in the business with more work experience and education. When she went into the interview the employer assumed that she wanted to become the secretary and did not even offer her the assistant manager job position even though she was qualified and more educated. For the man, his application said he had little to no experience and little education and when he went for the interview the employer offered him the assistant manager position. After confronting the employer he said that would relate a secretary to a woman and would not even think about hiring a male for the position. Also there was about $1.50 difference in the pay the employer mentioned to the male and female.

Domestic Violence

This blog will be about the class discussion on Thursday and some of the reading assignments. These reading assignments were about domestic violence and how that males abuse females all comes down to power. They want to control their wives, girlfriends and families and it all is just a big cycle. He abuses the female, he continues and then he makes up and says things such as “I’m sorry it won’t happen again” and he will buy her items or make it all special and a few months later he is back from the start. She continues to take him back, she does not see how mistreated she is.
I also didn’t realize how much of a big issue stalking was not only on campus but in today’s society. I guess I just over look or just not think about these things but now I am more aware of the issue which will benefit me. Having a stalker is very serious and can be life threatening most of the time. What would you do if you have a stalker? Could you go the cops? I do not think there is that much help out there if you do have a stalker issue because you have to have evidence that you are being stalked. I wonder why people stalk others.
Domestic violence is such a terrible thing that will just continue throughout history. Women have been killed, raped, beaten, etc. and it still continues. I think if we continue to have domestic violence awareness maybe one day it will get better. Actually, this past Wednesday was domestic violence awareness day and at DUC they were handing out purple ribbons and had signs and statics about domestic violence which is a step to bringing more people aware about it.

Tyra

I am currently watching the Tyra Banks show and it is about obesity and how obese people are discriminated against. Tyra said something that made me think, how there are laws not to discriminate against race, sex, religion but not size. If two women are going for a job interview and they both have the same schooling and the same qualifications who would be more likely to get a job...a heavy set person or a skinny person? That bothers me because it is more of a chance that a skinner person will get the job just because they look better. But the employer will not say they can not hire someone because they are obese they will say something such as "you are not what we are looking for." Then there is nothing anybody could do. There was a women on the show who discriminates against over-weight people and she said that in an office the skinny people should be in the front(when people first walk in) and the heavier people should work in the back. The lady thought she was doing nothing wrong because she considered it freedom of speech but I think people abuse that right. There is a place and a time to express how you feel. Making fun of people is just wrong. You just don't look at an obese person and say "your fat" that is rude and that is when people abuse the right of Freedom of Speech. You don't always have to say the truth but just keep it to yourself. Just because it may be a fact does not mean you go around and say it.
It should not be about looks but it should be about who is more qualified. Which leads me to ask who set this 'American Beauty' standard. Tall, and skinny. Especially if over half of Americans are not that skinny. Some people associated obesity people with lazy which also bothered me. That is the biggest myth (in my opinion.) People think that the skinner you are the more you are worth but in reality everybody is worth something and equal.

On Saturday I was watching the Brady Bunch and knowing it took place and made in the 70's and it was really about women's rights. It really made me think about everything. In the show Marcha was speaking out about women's rights and her brothers thought she was stupid. She wanted to join something along the lines of boy scouts like her brothers because she is trying to do everything the boys are doing to prove to them that girls can do anything just as good. And it is true how girls can do everything just the same as boys, it is not based on sex it is based on skills and talents. The dad tries to find a rule saying that girls can't join in the hand book but it was not found so they were 'forced' to let her in. Then the brothers try to join girl scouts to make prove to Marcha how stupid she looks in boy scouts. Why do they think she looks stupid? Because she is a girl? She proves she is fully capable of doing everything within the boy scouts. Which also made me think, why are their boy scouts and girl scouts? Why can't they just be boy and girl scouts, and one big thing and not seperated by sex? They all have the same basis.Why are the seperated? If a girl wanted to join boy scouts will she be denied because she is a girl? Or if a boy wanted to join girl scouts willl she be denied?

I also thought about my Marching Band director in high school. I did color guard and the band director did not let boys particpate in color guard and nobody knew why. That always bothered me because boys are just as talented.

It also made me realized how much women's right has changed since the 70's(I know we have discussed this but it just made me realize when I saw it in the media.) I think we should watch this episode of The Brady Bunch.

Obama

So I just watched a video of Pres. Obama calling Kanye West a Jackass! I think it is pretty funny. Just thought I would put that out there.

Jerri


Here is the URL for the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCdDKEFFU7Q

Class discussion on Thursday 9-17-09

The big discussion we had in class about what has changed and what is still the same. The biggest thing that was a big surpirse to me is how I thought women have came a very long way (and we have) but I did not realize how much more work not just women but as a society has to do. Such as, how woment can't get their tubes tied without their husban's permission in the state of KY. That is not fair cause it is our body and females should be able to do what they want with it. I also want to comment on when we discussed who they found the killer of the women in Yale and how if it was an African American guy the media would have been very more descriptive in the suspect. I just do not think of these things, when I watch tv I don't even pay that much detail on who the media focues on. It is just kind of shocking how we have come so far since the 70's but yet still have a very long way to go as a society. In my opinion, the problems we have today will still be the same issues 10,20,30 years from now. But hopefully I am wrong!

I also will comment on the first article in chapter one an part of it discusses how some people can not even think about a women without having thoughts of a women being a victim. Women are individuals and when the thought of women come up in one's mind, being a victim should not come up too. To be honest I feel like I did not fully understand the part of article one about the gender/class/race. In my mind gender, race and class are all completly different things.

On the news side, when I was watching videos from CNN one thing that I am tired of hearing about is Jon and Kate and their split up. Jon was dating another Kate, but Jon denies that they had a realtionship. In my opinion I think it is invading their personal life. They are split up and there lives will go on. They did get themselves into the mess buy publicizing their lives, but I don't blame them for making that show with all that money they got for every episode! I also read an article stating that an American male who set up a home for children in need in Haiti was recently accused of sexual abousing the children (boys mostly.) He would abuse his authority over the boys the manipulate them and bribe them with extra food and gifts for his own sick mind. He has not been found guilty but if he does then he can recieve max.30 yrs in priosion. When I read that it really bothered me because that guy could have done really good in Haiti and those children looked up to him. That guy could have been the only person they have and he abused his rights and took advantage. Idk if I am just cruel for thinking this but I think some cases prision is not good enough for prisioners. I think prisioners have it to good sometimes for the cruel they did to others. I think that in extreme cases they should do more the prision. I don't think when people go to prision they learn, all they do is sit in a wall and loose privacy but what do they get out of it? I think if they get out they will do the same thing again, I think they belong in a mental hospital because what they are doing is all mentally.

That is all I have to say about everything...I am pretty sure it is at least 500 words! I will see everyone on Thursday in class!

Jerri

“I truly believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Since periods of change such as the present one come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to help create a happier world.”-Dalai Lama

All About me

My name is Jerri Renee' McMillan. I am 18 years old and my birthday is June 18. I am from Radcliff, KY (by Ft.knox.) I have to older sisters, a mom, dad and a niece. Now on to the interesting things...I like to be outside, watch movies, and hang with friends. I love my family and friends! I am kinda shy but very kind and nice!! I also like to listen to music, I like all types. I came to WKU because I like the campus, it has trees and not just all buildings and the campus is not to big. WKU also had more major choices even though I am undecieded. I am a freshman and so far I like the college life (for the most part.) The real reason I took this class because it was last minute. I was curiouse what it was going to be like but I think I am really going to enjoy it. It is not just the ordinary class where you just listen to lectures. You can get involved and the teacher is cool so I am excited I choose this class. The people seem pretty cool too!! What I want out of life is just to have fun, and succeed. I am a hard worker and I like to succeed in what I do (well at least try if I fail that is okay.) I am very simple and random but also very caring. That is about all, but if you ask me anything I will try try my best to answer.
Oh yeah...I HATE math. :)


Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr.