No Eye-Sores Here

            The way we stare becomes interesting on a lot of different fronts, once we start breaking down what it is that we are staring at, for how long and its appropriateness in relation to being “civil”. In class, the discussion we had was framed around the veiling of the “eye sores” in a community. Which are ridiculous, taken into account of who the “eye-sores” were. People in society who don’t look like upstanding members of it; these are people like beggars or the homeless that a certain community, or city, didn’t want to be shown. This correlates directly to the civilization aspect of staring. Assuming that no one wants to see the “low down” members of its society; painting an unfair depiction of society. The message that this seems to underlay is that society doesn’t have “ugly” people.

            I believe that when we put this into context on how we stare at women, these variables become interesting and twisted in a sort of manner. The most stared at part of a women’s body seems to be her breasts. Breasts are stared at all the time and are therefore sexualized, like the image of the women, in media and in other places. The breasts are so sexualized because we, as a society, stare at them so much. This puts into play the question of “how long can I stare?” This question is fundamentally wrong though. Because women’s breasts are starred at so much, it seems that it becomes even easier to sexualize women.

Don’t stare for too long because these are not objects, this is a part of a real human being. (Depiction of woman's breasts)

Instead of objectifying breasts and women, we should be celebrating the body in the same way we would celebrate a male’s body.  The point I’m trying to make is that too often, we objectify the female body in ways that we should not. By staring, we make the women’s body an object of what we know, into something we desire and even though the frame work of being “civil” and not staring too long is too extreme a thing to structure it around, it is correct in the aspect of respect. Having a mutual respect for each other’s bodies will undoubtedly cure the staring problem I believe. Maybe the beginning of being “civil” was respect in the first place, but now the word “civil” means civil in the terms of the social construction around it. Civil in terms of the masses, and what the masses think is largely influenced by the media through images of society. So we see this idea of staring evolve into not looking at what society deems as “eye-sores” and looking at what society deems as desirable. But it’s important to go against the masses of society with important matters such as this, and to explore deeper into the matter and not to take things at face value. Taking things at face value will only perpetuate the problem, not help to solve it, as a society, these are things we need to be talking and thinking about.    

Visibility Beats Everything (Make-up blog for 11/30/11)

After reading Heywood and Dworkins work its seems as if our culture severely depends on the images of people to construct for us the parameters of the masculine and the feminine. These images have therefore allowed us to conjugate and list specific characteristics which outline what the masculine and feminine mean to us, both individually and culturally. The issue is that if there is something which visibly crosses those boundaries we instantly deem that individual as something other than the polar conjugates; masculine and feminine. This is to say that there is no ambiguity in what these two things mean, which they are in place to actually dissipate any ambiguous structures of what constitutes a male and a female.

Amongst female athletes, our conversations have mostly been about the way female athletes, depending on the sport, are portrayed in media as being more masculine than feminine or more feminine than masculine. This is to also say that heterosexuality is so closely related to the body of a female athlete. I agree with Dworkins and Heywood when they say that in our contemporary culture the images have changed our perspectives, and proposes images that appeal to the possibility of male femininity and female masculininty. The reason why there is so much controversy when perhaps a female athlete looks "too masculine" is because her body combates with the distinct gender codes which, she through her athletic body is suppose to display. Im wondering will we ever get to a point where we accept the shift or ambiguity of gender. Will this take us to reconstruct what male, female, masculine and feminine mean completely? and how would this affect our other systems which so distinctly ascribe a particular type of thing to our bodies? I think that this will certianly be a process if it is at all attainable. I also think that if we work toward creating new ways to think about gender it would help open or broaden our perspecives about other social categories which seem to be limited to the parameters that we have created.

Pop Culture Beauties: I don't look like them, does that mean I'm not beautiful?

In Toni Morrison’s book The Bluest Eye, the idea about what is “beautiful” is a central theme. But who has constructed the image of the beautiful in the lives of the characters in this novel?

We have discussed in class the idea that popular media constructs what is considered "beautiful." They accomplish this by continually displaying a certain model of beauty, the ideal that everyone should or at least aspire to look like, and they exclude all other depictions of beauty that are divergent than this one. The result on the psyche of the American population, young girls in particular, is that there is one way to embody beauty, and anything that doesn't look like what is presented in pop culture is not beautiful, even ugly.

There are discussions about how the media warps the impressionable minds of today's youth. But this has gone on for years, growing extremely influential when television shows and movies were starring young people and geared toward young people. To demonstrate what I mean I will start with contemporary examples and move backwards in time.

When I was young, the pop culture role model us preteens were suppose to look up to was Hilary Duff. The contemporary equivalent would be Miley Cyrus. These two individuals are women now but during the time the most press attention was focused on them was when they were in their preteen and teenage years. I used specifically said "suppose to look up to" to indicate that the media, through its constant bombardment of images and time, present these people as the ideal: what you should be and should want to be. As such many of us did aspire to be Hilary Duff, and many girls today love Miley Cyrus. At the same time however, there are some people that passionately dislike these girls and are adamant in rejecting them as people they should look up to. One reason I often here people give for justifying why they don’t like a certain media personality is because they “cannot relate to them” or see them as bad representations of what teens should be or look like.

Similarly, in the 1930s Shirley Temple was a movie sensation. Young, cute, and perky, she was often thought to be the perfect child. Her movies were popular with young people and her image was prevalent throughout the media. Moreover, young girls of color were not shown in movies, TV, magazines and other forms of pop culture as representations of beauty. If young women wanted to have a role model in the public eye she was going to be white. We can see some of Shirley Temples influence, of the media's chosen representation of child beauty, on the minds of the young girls in the Bluest Eye.

Shirley Temple’s beauty was also distributed onto toy dolls, one of the most popular girls to award ones female child with. On page 20, Claudia describes her Christmas experience of receiving a doll as a gift. “The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll. From the clucking sounds of the adults I knew that the doll represented what they thought was my fondest wish.” But Claudia did not like this doll. In fact, she hated it and thought she could not relate to it because of the way it looked. “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs –all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (21). When she subsequently mutilates the doll she explains being told: “‘you-got-a-beautiful-one-and-you-tear-it-up-what’s-the-matter-with you?’” Claudia’s rejection of this doll, and the rejection of the type of beauty it represented, was unimaginable to adults. Rejecting the blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty was radical for it demonstrated a denunciation of the overreaching ideal set out by society.

But Claudia’s ill will towards Shirley Temple faded with age. This might have been due to the fact that she became use to the idea of white, blue eyes, blonde indicating beauty because of its repeated representation in the media. It was therefore seen as normal. People of color are a minority living amongst majority whites, and living within a white controlled media. Subsequently, blacks compare themselves and get compared to white people in various aspects of their different lives. One aspect is in their differences in physical appearance. We already know what was pushed as being “beautiful” in the media, and it wasn’t black girls who had similar physical features like Claudia.

I can’t help but think that if there had been women of color represented in the media, whether they were young women or mature, as beautiful these three young girls would have a better appreciation for their own appearances. They saw their contrast as too extreme from these white, blonde haired, blue eyed girls like Shirley Temple. I am left to question if there had been representations of black women in the media as beauties, would these girls, as well as other black girls in similar circumstances as the characters in the Bluest Eye have felt pretty and not so ugly?

Self-authorship

"There are some ways in which serious athletic training disassociates or alienates an athlete from her body, a way in which athletes, male or female, are taught to regard their bodies as productive machines from and of which they are both separate and in control, both completely immersed in and alienated from, and this experience is largely unique to the generation post-Title IX. Serious athletic training paradoxically produces a profound sense of self-authorship of one's body (Heywood & Dworkin, pp. 86-87)."

Heywood and Dworkin explore the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship between an athlete and her body in Bodies, Babes, and the WNBA. They assert that because the athlete has disciplined herself to believe that she is sole owner of her body and its athletic ability/potential, she is likely to be manipulated in her photo shoots. The finished product of the shoot is a highly sexualized, objectified portrayal of the athlete.

I think this idea of self-authorship and manipulation exists for all women. Our embodied experience is so closely tied to our identity. Physiology and mental states certainly are not mutually exclusive. For instance, a depressed mood may manifest itself in aches and pains. We also have conscious control of many of the ways we use our bodies. Enjoying life as we move through space may lead many of us to believe, to an extent, that we are the sole owners of our bodies.

As a teenager I was aware of my ability to make choices about the way I present myself. My image meant so much to me and I was sure that I was in control. In retrospect I understand that so much of what I chose to wear and even how I chose to pose was heavily influenced by images circulating throughout the media. I was so easily manipulated into consuming an image that I thought I had created. I think this shows why it is so important to have media literacy programs available to kids so that they can learn to be careful consumers of media.

Race, Class, Beauty-- Can you have one without the other? (Make Up Blog)

"We had defended ourselves since memory against everything and everybody, considered all speech a code to be broken by us, and all gestures subject to careful analysis; we had become headstrong, devious, and arrogant. Nobody paid us any attention, so we paid very good attention to ourselves. Our limitations were not known to us—not then."

Imagine thinking that you will never be good enough. Now imagine thinking that and constantly being told that. Would you be able to keep your head up? Would you be able to mentally, physically or emotionally deal with it? While reading the Bluest Eye there was a constant struggle to be in a healthy and compassionate relationship with another person. I tried to think of how it felt to be in Pecola’s shoes and it was painful to even think about, but I also came to agreements that I never knew lied within myself. I, like Pecola, have a connection with blue eyes and beauty. I can note that I am a part of a “superior, white race” but I still connect blue eyes to a primal sign of beauty, and I do not have blue eyes. I do not know if it is because they are “unique” or just stunning to me, but I definitely can understand Pecola’s thoughts. The difference is, not having blue eyes does not make me feel like I am inferior or that my whole life would be different if I just had that one characteristic.

The girls had to constantly defend themselves, and by defend I mean, mentally physically and emotionally. Throughout the book the young ladies carry a feeling of worthlessness and I think the quote gave me a feeling of brunt hope for them. Brunt hope to me is thinking “Well, this is the hand we were dealt and we have to be tough to get through it”, but even then some cannot come out of the situations alive and well. It is sad to have an attitude, so strong, that it came off to be confident, and then to still be broken down by those around you. I think it takes the entire book for Pecola to realize her limitations, or at least how limited she really was. She often seemed to be strong and to deal with things better than most but there is only so much a human can take before they break. After Pecola get raped by her father there is a monologue between her and somebody. In class we discussed who or what that somebody may be and while I was reading I was brainstorming a couple of people/beings it may be. I came to the conclusion that I think it was her talking to herself, or an alter-ego. The only way she could have dealt with the pain of what had happened was to distance herself from her body. This alter-personality was what she created to tell her she has the blue eyes she has always wanted and that she is worth something, which is something she had never heard before.

Race and class is an obviously prevalent issue in the book. I think Morrison took the issues deeper than most books I have read because she was generally raw in how she wrote. There are not just hidden messages throughout the book but also messages that jump out at you. Race, beauty and class are all interconnected. Beauty can elevate a person’s class. Race can diminish a person’s class. Class can assist beauty and race. They all play parts in how society will view you and how far you will be able to get, and I often think this is still a problem today. An example I have is a documentary I watched in a Sociology course at Allegheny called, People Like Us. It went into the American culture and explored class. The people a part of the highest class were generally “better looking” than the lower classes. By better looking I do not always mean physical characteristics (a handful of the wealthy were obese, which reminded me of Fat Shame, when the wealthy were glutinous), but their surroundings were more attractive. Where they lived, what they wore, and the community they were surrounded by was clearly an advantage to them. That was an advantage that some of the people in the lower class would never have. It is a constant struggle to work your way up in society, especially when you have everything against you.

Whose Body is This?

Is your body your own? Our society constantly is depicting what is right, what is wrong in accordance to the bodies of men, women, adults, and children. Whether the body is glorified or shunned, each and every body is being scrutinized every day. We change our bodies to fit the norms that our society places on us. And we manipulate our selves and surroundings to fit in. But what is a body? Websters dictionary defines it as the entire physical structure of an animal or human (Dictionary.com). But what makes us more than simply flesh and bone is our way to think, our way to feel. These make us human But what happens when our body is no longer our own?

It can be argued that our body has never really been our own, and we are products of our surroundings. “The body can never be regarded merely as a site of quantifiable process that can be assessed objectively, but must be treated as invested with personal meaning, history, and value that are ultimately determinable only by the subject who lives ‘within’ it” (74) The body is extremely analyzed, and even more so when the body becomes not only a physical being, but a carrier of another in pregnancy.

Susan Bordo depicts the pregnant body in a way in which I had thought about before, but could never put a word to when she referred to it as an incubator. As soon as a woman becomes pregnant her life becomes second to the potential child in her womb. Her personality, successes, career, and life in general is put aside for the mass growing inside of her. She is seen as a holder, and a carrier for this unborn and undeveloped potential life. And she is seen evil if she doesn’t care for this fetus subjectively.

And when a woman is pregnant she is given different medical treatment, and not just in the sense that she gets different treatments because of the health of the fetus, but the way the doctor treats her personally changes. With the development of technology, and the ability to see features of the baby and apply subjective views to it rather than seeing it as just a fetus. And with this way to see the features that resemble developed people, doctors have the ability to use emotional pull with mothers in showing that it resembles a person, and humanize the fetus even at only a few weeks along.

Women can even be seen as unable to make decisions with her body, if the decisions could potentially harm the baby. If abortion is the ultimate decision, there are so many questions to make sure she is ready, and papers that she must sign, and hoops she have to jump through to get what she wants. But is there a single piece of paper that a woman has to sign when she decides she wants to have a baby?

Personhood and Birth Control

It seems like when a woman gets pregnant; all focus must fully be on the fetus growing inside her. She must revolve her life on what will make the fetus happy, even if these actions limit her in her everyday life. Susan Bordo article “Are Mothers Persons?” discusses how a woman is “supposed to efface her own subjectivity” in order to be viewed as a good mother. Women lose their personhood and a ripped of their rights because of what is growing inside them. How can this sound fair?

To help understand this better, Bordo discusses the idea of personhood and pregnant women.  Personhood suggests that one has control over their body.  In many abortion cases this has been the debate. Some may argue that a women’s body is made for reproduction and it should be embraced no matter what the circumstances are. Others would argue that a woman has the right to choose if she is ready to have a child, whether or not she is pregnant. Unfortunately, this debate never ends well.  Bordo claims that “in the face of such a conflict, her valuations, choices, consciousness are expendable” (79). Women lack the freedom of choice and are still fighting to have subjectivity when it comes to reproductive rights.

I believe that this is mainly due to our society's constructed gender roles. Before the Women’s Rights movement, a woman’s main goal was to get married and have a family. The female body was viewed as an object that was meant for reproduction. However, with the introduction of birth control, women were finally given the opportunity to control their bodies. Slowly, women were able to focus more on their careers and goals without the interruption of an unexpected pregnancy. However, the invention of birth control also had negative effects on various groups of people. In Harriet Washington’s article “The Black Stork,” she explains how Margaret Sanger was involved in the Nego Project, which used the eugenic principle to help find the best way to reduce the black population. (196). This project was meant to benefit black women who were being denied access to health services (197). Although, birth control may have been helpful to the black community, a long history of forcible sterilization led to suspicions that this was a new way “to limit or even to erase the black presences in America” (198). While white women praised the birth control pill because it enhanced their freedoms, black women viewed it as another form of genocide.

This evidence shows how different races experience reproductive rights in different ways. You could argue that their experiences are based off of what the socially constructed stereotype is of that race. Bordo states that the sterilization of black women emerged from a racist image of a “promiscuous breeder, populating the world irresponsibly” (79). Due to this stereotype, black women experience pregnancy differently in comparison to other races. However, Bordo seems to suggest that despite race, all women lose their personhood when they become pregnant.