Manoe01's Blog

BLOG 10- Final Week

manoe01 — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:53:30 +0000

This week since this is the final week, I thought I would reflect on the whole class in general. As a male, this class brought me issues that I had never thought of before. I always thought all the topics were just a women’s lib movement, rather than a justified feminism movement. It brought issues like sexism and other oppressions to the forefront of my thinking–I really did not know these things existed for females. Growing up with a very sexist father, I learned gender–play with tractors, sister’s play with dolls, I worked in the yard, my sister’s did the dishes and cleaned house. I feel like my oldest sister took this gender playing very harshly and some of the attitudes portrayed by my father have continually offended her. She did not agree with the way my father treated my mother, even though their behavior was a standard practice for their time, but, this shows how far the feminist movement has moved. I believe the females of today would not stand to be treated the way my mother was often treated. Even though women have a ways to go in the wage equity movement, women have been able to achieve many other rights in the feminist movement. This feminism and the active movement thereof have changed women’s futures. Although the path is still long, I believe the movement has been positive. I watch television shows differently, I read articles differently, and I am more aware of the feminist situation. All in all, I believe this class has been a positive for me. I have grown as an individual with my beliefs and interactions. Who would have thought you can get all of this out of an internet class!?

Week 9

manoe01 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:14:24 +0000

I read an article this week on the internet about the world’s best country for women. It was a very interesting article. Can you guess which country is best for women? I was surprised, it was Switzerland. The United States was a dismal 17th place, one above Costa Rica. This was a shocker! Switzerland ranked high because it is a country that starts young anti-sexism awareness training. The training begins in kindergarten. Male toddlers are encouraged to play with dolls and females are encouraged to play with toy tractors. This all adds up to flexible gender roles for later in life. Switzerland is proud that their women drive busses and the men push baby carriages. The Swedish men do more housework than any other place in the world–average of 24 hours per week. In Sweden the ultimate female takes home an average of $22,000 per year. An American woman takes home $29,000 per year. Even with this statistic, Swedish women are fanatical about paying their fair share on dates. This causes the Swedish men to be painfully slow at making a first romantic move. This sets up the Swiss women to be the sexual aggressor. According to the article, this has an advantage because Swiss women can date 3 or 4 men at a time with no stigma about how many sexual partners they participate with. All of these things permeate the life of women in Sweden. Women sports get as much t.v. time as men and public toilets are unisex (minimizes long lines for women’s bathrooms). According to the article this leads to hot and heavy encounters behind locked doors. The Swedish have even developed the first female friendly car. The wage gap is Sweden’s biggest problem of inequality. I found this article really interesting, I guess maybe because it all relates to our class. I guess more women should consider living in Sweden.

Blog 8

manoe01 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:27:02 +0000

I want to discuss my wife’s experience at breaking into a male dominated upper management position. My wife has it a glass ceiling. She is a school teacher who recently got her master’s degree in administration. First, she applied for a principal’s job where she is currently teaching, she interviewed for the job and didn’t get the job. Second, she interviewed for an assistant principal’s job, but she was overqualified. The things they were looking for in the assistant principal’s job, she technically has been doing for eight years, but she didn’t get hired. The school hired a male, young teacher. Since the denial of these jobs, she has also applied in other school corps. She can’t even get an interview for those jobs. She is a very qualified individual and is disheartened when she doesn’t get an interview. Maybe if I show her this chapter’s readings about the glass ceiling it will help her understand the disadvantages that she is facing trying to break into a male dominated field. I feel that if she can keep pursuing her career advancement, she will one day accomplish her goal. It will be hard for her to keep a positive attitude. It is hard to basically not get a job in a male dominated field just because you are a female; although, a person feels they are very experienced and qualified to do the job. The trend is that eventually the male dominated jobs will open up to women. My wife and other women deserve a chance exspecially when they are qualified. They deserve a change in supervision roles and the compensation that goes with the role. I know I feel women should have an equal chance to move up the ladder.

Week 7

manoe01 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:27:21 +0000

Today, I heard on the news that a famous talk show host was taking all of Tiger Woods’ mistresses and trying to enter them into a bikini contest. I thought this might be an interesting topic for discussion. This talk show host obviously wants to exploit the whole Tiger Woods disaster by using the sexuality of these women to increase the shows ratings. I did not hear whether all the girls agreed to participate, I suppose it will come down to the dollar amount given to them for participating. This all goes back to the fact that Tiger Woods has an addiction to sex. What was interesting is that the commentator interviewed Tiger’s girlfriend from when he went to Stanford as an undergrad. She actually dated Tiger for a year and a half. She said that he was a very faithful boyfriend and she had no issues with infidelity. I guess the key word is–girlfriend, boyfriend not wife, husband. She actually broke up with Tiger when he went pro. She did not want to put her life on hold to follow him around the pro circuit. She stated that she would have never guessed that Tiger would have such a need for sex. She wondered if it was the money that changed who he was. Isn’t it interesting how sexuality and money are so tightly linked in the media and advertising. In Tiger’s case he has managed to destroy a family and many other women’s lives. Why did he choose to get married if this was how he wanted to conduct himself? He didn’t need to get married to increase his showmanship as a golfer, so why did he? I don’t know, I just think the whole media business is always exploiting sexuality and women. What do you all think?

Blog #6

manoe01 — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:16:06 +0000

Since alot of my extra time has been focusing on watching the Olympics, I thought I might blog about a few things I have noticed. First, starting with ice skaters. Check out their costumes. The women are most often barely clad and the men are dressed in long pants and long sleeved shirts. Does anyone find a problem with this? Why is it that women have to wear almost nothing as they perform and the men can wear non-revealing clothes? Is it to get people to watch the sport? to gather in the male viewers? Second, isn’t it nice to see both sexes represented in a variety of sports. In this regard, I believe society has come a long way. I have also enjoyed the coverage on their daily routines and workouts. Both male and female engage themselves in extensive day by day workouts. Neither one cares that they are male or female. Third, have you noticed the commentators? The commentators are represented by both male and female. There was a time in our society that only males would have been broadcasting the Olympics. Maybe life is getting better?! Fourth, have you noticed the amount of female participants that just had babies and are back competing. If men had to have babies, I don’t believe we would have the same results. I don’t know, but I enjoy watching both sexes participate in the variety of sports. Women bring a different twist, so I’m personally glad that women have advanced in the sports arena. I know it took a long time, but just be glad it has happened.

Blog #5

manoe01 — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:46:14 +0000

In this week’s readings on body image, I was surprised to find that none of the readings really addressed eating disorders of young females. It seems to me that alot of young women try to meet society’s expectation of being beautiful by engaging in dieting behaviors that will make them beautiful. I had a daughter who struggled with anorexia in the sixth grade. After much counseling it was discovered that she was more upset with how tall she was and all of her friends were short. Even though she was not overweight at all, she felt bigger because she was taller. I think of teen girls often as I now watch my son in his high school events. I think about how many girls might be experiencing the same type of identity crisis that my daughter was during her teen years. Today, as I watch commercials and television shows I can’t but think that the images being portrayed are permanently damaging some these young impressionable girls. As I look at magazine covers when I am in line at the grocery store, I can’t but think how do young girls ever live up to those expectations. How could they ever? How come most magazine covers don’t have young males? I guess I should be glad that my son doesn’t feel he has to live up to those same body images. Wow, is society ever messed up!

Blog 4

manoe01 — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:29:42 +0000

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I thought this could be an interesting topic considering we just read the chapter on sex and romance and power. Who really invented this day? Is it for the man or the woman? Who receives the most benefits for this or who has the most anguish on what to get that special someone? Being a male, I believe it was a day created by the female as a way to get the male to show intimacy and romance towards the female. It has to be becausee basically I don’t like to get flowers, I don’t need candy, and I think it is a big waste of money. But, I guess that shows my big lack of romantic endeavors. This is just me–it might not be every male. If the female gets flowers, what a way to show other females that their man is getting in touch with their female side. Is this what Valentine’s Day is suppose to be about? The other problem I have is within one month I need to recognize my wife’s birthday, Valentine’s Day and our wedding anniversary. How can you find the perfect gift every other weekend? I would hope that my wife would say that I am kind of romantic throughout the year, I don’t need a special day to remind me to be romantic–ha, ha! In fact my wife would probably say I am not romantic enough throughout the year and maybe I do need one particular day to remind me. Isn’t it sad that someone had to dream up a day to remind men like me to show a little romance.

Blog

manoe01 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:25:54 +0000

As I think about gender issues and feminism, I can only think about how feminism has come full circle at my house. In the past, I was the main ‘typical’ breadwinner for my family, but now my wife holds that trophy. With my recent decision to end my previous career and start a new one, I have had to start at the bottom. I appreciate that my wife can make what males do in the teaching profession which was once an all female field. Teaching is probably one profession in which males and females make the same amount of money and can climb the heirachy without much difficulty. Although, once dominated by males in the administrative positions, females are now finding those roles, too. Being that our career roles have changed, it has not really changed our gender roles at home. I fix the cars and remove the trash, my wife does the laundry and most of the cooking. What is interesting is how this is different for my two oldest daughters. My oldest daughter, recently married, will talk about how her husband has to do the laundry or clean up the kitchen and my middle daughter (not yet married) often times fixes her own car. It seems that the feminist movement has worked to reverse some of the stigmatism of the gender roles. My daughters learned one thing at home from their parents as examples, but are doing differently in their own lives. So, I am wondering will this continue through their own children.

Blog 2

manoe01 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:48:41 +0000

I am going to share with you an incident that happened at my place of employment. I hope I can share with you the female perspective. I saw what happened from a male’s vision, but it would be hard to imagine how the women in this situation felt. One day this week, my male boss was preparing for a visit from a group of executives. We were sitting around the break table just taking our usual afternoon break. My boss stated that we needed to clean the place the place up and sweep and mop the floors. One of the girls asked why he couldn’t help accomplish all the tasks. My boss looked directly at one of my colleagues (a woman) and said, “The broom fits better in your hands than it does in mine.” The two women took exception to this comment and wanted clarification about what he was inferring. He just walked away. The girls told me they were going to refuse to do the job and because there is alot of history with this boss and his treatment of women, I did the job for them, so they would not get wrote up for insubordination, again. Trying to take look at this through a women’s lens, I’m sure it was very hard for them to hold their comments back. I’m not sure how I would have reacted if I were a woman. As a male, I would have probably blown up at him if a similar situation had occured between a female supervisor and myself. Just like in the past, the almighty dollar kept my colleagues from retaliating, but I’m sure for them this was a total degrading situation–just for a job. This situation really made me think about the gap that is still in existence between the genders. Frankly, this is the first male supervisor that I have had that simply does not get sexual harassment. For the most part, the male supervisor’s I have had have been very knowledgeable and fair with regards to women in the workplace. This did make me realize that history has not taken care of every issue exspecially in the minds of all people.

Blog 1

manoe01 — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:16:57 +0000

This is just a test to see if I have done everything correctly. Very, very, very new at this!