Are Fathers Persons?

                In many custody cases, the mother is trying to get full custody over a child where the father doesn’t care or isn’t fit to care for his child. However, there also happen to be cases in which the father is fighting instead of the mother. Where he thinks the mother is unfit to care for their child. “For the basis for these cases is always a concrete occasion when the mother’s and the father’s goals are mutually exclusive. In that context, equal treatment cannot be achieved. Rather, one must prevail over the other in the dispute. Any father seeking his “rights” in such a case is claiming that his desires should not merely equal but supersede those of the mother”. (p 89, Bordo) What Bordo says in “Are Mothers Persons?” relates to many cases that exist currently and/or recently.

            I know personally of three families in which the father had to go to court for full custody of at least one of their children; my family being one of them. When my dad went to court for custody of my older brother, he had to provide more reasons than my brother’s mother as to why he wanted to have sole custody (with visitation of course). Although my dad won his case, the father doesn’t always come out on top. Instead many times the judge favors the mother before the case ever enters the courtroom.

            “The seemingly incontrovertible fact that only the mother experiences pregnant embodiment is a powerful impediment to the father’s-rights position”. (p 91) As the article says, today many people refer to a couple as pregnant, yet however this isn’t the case when the father and mother are not exclusively together. Although I am a female with the potential to one day become a mother, I don’t believe that it is right for women to have sole ownership of their child. A child is born to two parents, the exception being a sperm donor, in which both the mother and father are to care for them unconditionally. In the case that one parent isn’t fit to take care of that child; either the mother or the father should step in instead. If this means that the father has full custody of his son or daughter than it should be easy for him to receive that custody instead of having to go to court against the mother.

            Laws tend to lead towards the woman’s side when the issue at hand is a custody hearing. However, as we mentioned in class today, women tend to be told they can’t have abortions or that having an abortion is wrong. In this case, the fetus (potential child) has more rights than the women, even though this affects her and the father as well. Yet, if the father wants to keep the baby and the mother doesn’t, she can go ahead and abort the baby anyway, resulting in the father once again having fewer rights than the mother, since she carries the fetus and he doesn’t. Since the woman doesn’t want the child, it can be her choice as to whether or not she decides to keep it. Yet, the father doesn’t get to have a choice in the matter at hand since he doesn’t physically carry the fetus inside of him as the mother does.

            Although, yes, women aren’t given many rights by the government when it comes to reproducing, men are granted even less. This is something that will be hard to change since the rights are likely to stay in favor of the mother since it affects her body too. Nevertheless, men need to gain rights when it comes to their children as well. 

'She's a Lesbian'

“Some people believe, based on gender and lesbian stereotypes, that men are better coaches than women.”  (p 224) Pat Griffin

It’s wasn’t until I was trying to think of topics for my blog that I came across this line again in “Changing the Game” and made connections to it. This article states, that for many reasons, women who partake in sports are looked down on. Even if a coach has a male counterpart, or has kids, she is considered unfit to coach; she is considered a lesbian. (This viewpoint goes for female athletes as well.)

                Last night I watched Glee, a show, that many of you know, is all about bringing taboo topics out into the open to talk about. In last night’s episode, Sue, the cheerleading coach, writes in her diary that just because she is a strong independent woman who happens to have short blond hair and wears track suits all the time doesn’t mean she is a lesbian. She then tries to let others know this by dating a man publicly and selling pictures of them together to the newspapers. Although her lines made me laugh, they also stuck out to me because we had just finished talking about it in class on Monday. Should Sue have to announce that she is straight? Should she have to date someone of the opposite gender publicly to not be viewed negatively?

 However, this isn’t the first time Glee has brought these matters to its viewers’ attention. Last season, season 2, a new character was introduced- Coach Shannon Beiste. At first glance many people characterize her as either a lesbian or a man, and the other characters on the show viewed her just the same. She was seen as unfit to coach a football team even though she had brought other teams winning records. Although this case doesn’t fit exactly what Griffin writes in “Changing the Game” it relates to the same topic: female coaches being considered to be lesbians.

A female coach isn’t seen to be able to coach a team to a winning record and if she can, well then she must be a lesbian. This being another topic Glee brought into the open. There was an episode where Beiste admits that she has never been kissed and when another teacher goes to question her she has to come out and tell him she is straight. “Any woman who defies traditional gender roles is called a lesbian.” (p 226) Since Beiste coaches a male sport and can bench press more than most males, she is considered a lesbian. Since she doesn’t dress in skirts and heels (or other predominate feminine apparel), she is considered a lesbian. Since she doesn’t have a husband or even a boyfriend, she is considered a lesbian. This assumption that a female coach is a lesbian carries into most high schools and colleges as well. If a woman decides to partake in sports, chances are ‘she’s a lesbian’. Even if a person has never spoken to that woman before and they don’t know what her preferences are, if she is exceptionally good at something then she is automatically assumed to be a lesbian.

Bringing the attention of females in sport is only one small thing Glee has done, it takes backgrounds to most other storylines and it seems insignificant. Yet, it is still there in every episode pushing to be seen. Not all women are lesbians, and not all women who coach or participate in sports are either. 

Staring, it's Natural

               For as long as I remember, staring has made me uncomfortable. Obviously, this is only in certain circumstances. I’m fine with staring at someone to be funny, or to look a second too long when I see a person’s outfit. In fact, staring has only made me uncomfortable when it wasn’t in moderation or when it was someone I didn’t know. I’m not saying I don’t stare from time to time, its natural, but staring in general makes me uncomfortable.

                Up until the last two years or so, I spent time every summer (and various times throughout the year) going to visit my Aunt Dana. Although I’d met her tons of times, she couldn’t remember me, she couldn’t address me, and I’m not even sure if she could register that I was there. My Aunt Dana was forever doomed to live in a home for the disabled since about her third birthday. Thus meaning, that if I ever wished to see the woman I was named after, I had to also be around various other disabled people.

                There was this one man at my Aunt’s home that made lots of noises. He was an older man, maybe ten years older than my parents, and he made lots of noises. I don’t remember much other than that, except that unlike my aunt he could walk. However, I remember not being able to look at him, or not wanting to signal attention to him at least. It made me uncomfortable and I didn’t want to point out that I could hear him when I wasn’t supposed to be there seeing him.

                Perhaps this was about the time I became uncomfortable with staring. Perhaps it didn’t help that by the end of elementary school both of my parents worked at our local hospital. Being around people who were viewed as ‘different’ stopped being uncommon and these types of people stopped sticking out to me. Instead, I stopped what I assume was staring since I don’t actually remember. Other people may have stared but I just felt bad for them for being stared at. It made me uncomfortable to stare because I knew it would make them uncomfortable.

                My family doesn’t really talk about staring, not usually. We all still reference the time my brother was little and stared at girls in bikini’s on the beach. Or we’ll all look a little too long in disgust at a couple making out- save it for your private life. Or we all stare at that annoying kid who won’t stop screaming or kicking our seats on airplanes. Sometimes we scold one another for staring, but I don’t really remember being lectured not to stare. By this point, I think not staring is common knowledge.

 Its human nature to stare, as Garland-Thompson suggests in her book Staring: How We Look. Everyone stares, just not necessarily at the same types of people/things. Staring goes hand in hand with looking, whether you mean to stare or not there is still the chance to make someone uncomfortable.

Blue Eyes or Good Hair?

                After watching the trailer for Chris Rock’s documentary, Good Hair, I realized the crazy things we go through for a better appearance. (For example, in the movie, people use relaxer for their hair, something that isn’t healthy by any means.) You don’t like your nose? Get a nose job. You don’t like your hair? Get it dyed, cut, wear a wig, etc. You don’t like your skin tone? Get a tan. No matter what generation it is, there is always something that people want to change about themselves. In order to keep up appearances, something about ourselves is always changing. Be it our clothes, our hair, our makeup, our body shape, etc.

                This idea of changing ourselves reverts back to The Bluest Eye, when Pecola wishes that her eyes were blue. The wish for these blue eyes were something that Pecola thought could help make her beautiful, that with these eyes nobody could do wrong in front of her. “If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they’d say, “Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.”” (pg. 46). She hoped for blue eyes because they were known as something Shirley Temple had: white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes.

                The focus on this facial feature symbolizes that eyes are the window to the soul. Looking into someone’s eyes can tell a lot about that person in that particular moment. For example, if a person is lying or what emotion they’re feeling. The eyes hold vulnerability, weakness, innocence; all characteristics that describe Pecola and that have helped formed the girl (woman) that she is. She wishes for blue eyes because they might have helped prevent her father, Cholly, raping her, or they might have helped make her mother take care of her and acknowledge when she’s hurt instead of pushing her away (the blueberry pie scene).

Pecola wants blue eyes, something she could achieve with contacts if she were living here in our day and age. However, this want for something else doesn’t just end with eyes, even though it does for Pecola. This brings back the documentary, Good Hair. In this documentary, Chris Rock explores why African American women go through what they do in order to have better looking hair, hair that isn’t ‘nappy’. One example is ‘weave’ from the hair of women in India, where they ask for lengths of 10-14 inches. ‘Weave’ or relaxer (see first paragraph) is used in the attempts to have a better appearance, something which is used to be taken more seriously amongst society.

In the comments for the trailer on Youtube, a girl of 12 years old wrote that she never felt more beautiful than when she cut off all her hair and stopped trying to change it to cater to others’ wants. This feeling of wanting to appear beautiful is only looks deep and prevents a person from really being themselves. Blue eyes wouldn’t have solved Pecola’s problems; they just would’ve made her look different. 

A Mother's Love

              There is a scene in Autumn, from Toni Morrison’s book The Bluest Eye, which reminds me of my childhood. On page 11, Claudia throws up and her mother says “What did you puke on the bed clothes for? Don’t you have sense enough to hold your head out the bed? Now, look what you did. You think I got time for nothing but washing up your puke?” This section shows her mother’s struggle with showing her love for her daughter. Yet she is still taking care of her because this love is still there, even though it isn’t there in necessarily the nicest of ways.

                When I was younger, and even now that I don’t live at home, my mom has never been the nicest about different aspects of my life. “Oh, you want to go to that school? What happened to this one?” “You look like you need to go to the gym. You don’t want to end up like your sister.” “You only threw up a little bit, go to school.” And other, very inspirational, conversations have occurred. If I call my mom on the phone, she yells at me. After talking to my dad about this he said, “She doesn’t want you to feel different just because you don’t live at home”. As much as I appreciate nothing changing (I no longer have a bed at home though, so everything didn’t stay the same), it still hurts a little when she attacks me with her yelling. Although it may hurt a little, I know it’s her way of showing she loves me.

                When Claudia’s mom is yelling at her for throwing up, she doesn’t mean it. Her mom is frustrated and is voicing these feelings out loud; something that Claudia doesn’t realize until she’s older. I can identify with this because my mom does the same thing. When she’s had a bad day at work, she comes home and nitpicks our lives; not because she really means it but instead she wants the best for us so we don’t have to go through what she does.

Claudia’s mother and my mother are similar in that they both don’t show their love in the most conventional of ways. Obviously this doesn’t mean that the love isn’t there. Claudia’s mother never made her live outdoors like Mr. Breedlove did to his family. She didn’t believe them when Pecola got her period because she didn’t want her kids to behave badly and not get punished for it. She wants her kids to become the best they can be. When Claudia was sick, it was taking away from time her mother could be putting into other things that help put food on the table. My mother is the same way, she allows me to go to a great college and even though it isn’t the most affordable of schools, we’re making do because it’s allowing me to be the best person I can be.

Maybe our mother’s don’t show their love like other mother’s do. Maybe our mother’s don’t ask if we’re okay and if we need to stay home. Maybe our mother’s get frustrated and complain about us. This doesn’t mean the love isn’t there.  

Hey kids, Move Your Body

               “Eighty percent of children have been on a diet by the time they hit fourth grade”, both an overwhelming number and a believable statement. Children these days are becoming more and more overweight; fatter. America has come a long way in the need of making sure our kids are as healthy as the ‘average weight’ for their age and size. As a child, I was overweight, I too was fat. My doctor told my parents that I needed to pick up a sport in my spare time. Where has this need come from to keep our children ‘healthy’, to make sure that they’re at their physical best?

                On page 35 of Fat Shame by Amy Erdman Farrell, she states that “records from the American Medical Association indicate that many doctors needed to be convinced of the relevance of weighing children”. This was in 1949. In current time, 2011, doctors are obsessed with weighing those of adolescence. “Oh, you’ve seemed to have gained some weight since our last visit.” “Are you eating healthy?” “Do you exercise?” All the seemingly innocent questions or remarks can be hurtful and damaging to a child that age. Society has us, as Americans, conditioned to believe that stepping on a scale is the right thing to do, that losing weight is important, that being thin is superior. This societal movement towards being thin has been conditioned in our brains to attack those who may struggle with their weight, causing a chain that leads down to children.

                Last year, Beyonce was asked to change her song “Get Me Bodied” to “Move Your Body”, a weight-loss song for kids. (See video at bottom of page.) In the song, the lyrics are all different dances that were popular, and still are, at the time, such as ‘The Dougie’ and ‘The Catdaddy’. Throughout the song there isn’t a point where you aren’t moving. Last year in school, we decided to try and learn the dance and our results show that it definitely makes you sweat. This song/dance was partnered with First Lady Obama’s Anti-Child Obesity campaign, and was performed by a group of kids at a neighboring school.

                The fact that our First Lady and a popular music artist are both encouraging kids to get out and move their bodies shows just what our society has become towards the ways of fat shame. However, these two influential people aren’t the only ones pushing children to explore other possibilities. Every year for an entire day Nickelodeon doesn’t play any TV shows and instead has a scrolling screen telling kids to get out and move. When I was younger, I would just change the channel, and I’m sure I’m not the only person to preform this act. Yet, the purpose behind this day shows that even television companies whose main goal is to have child viewers put aside days each year to make kids move away from their TVs and exercise or just get outside.

                In the book, Farrell also touches on the movie Wall-E. Although she doesn’t aim her points at childhood obesity and the culture’s obsession with correcting children’s weight problems, which is what I thought of while reading about Wall-E. This Pixar movie shows what our society can become if we decide to let our weight go and allow machines to take over for us. We too could be carted around on machines and not have the correct muscles to stand. Wall-E shows kids that 'letting your body go' isn’t the right way to go about things and therefore should make sure to get physical exercise.

                Our obsession with children’s weight has increased a lot since the days where doctors didn’t even want to weigh them. In doing this, are we helping children and sculpting them for their futures? Or are we just helping our own opinions and making ourselves feel better?

This is not a workout, THIS IS A REVOLUTION... apparently.

                After reading the first few pages of Fat Shame by Amy Erdman Farrell, in which she discusses the different aims Americans have taken at weight loss, a thought struck me: The Shake Weight. This thought occurred to me in the way of, “wow, this product should be included in this book”. In the long line of ridiculous fitness ideas, from crash diets to pills to tape worms, the Shake Weight brings a different approach.

                When the Shake Weight was first introduced as a fitness product to the world, it was aimed at females inclusively. At first glance, and perhaps most glances, it appears as hilarious because it almost looks like it is preparing a woman to be better at ‘showing a man a good time’. The way it works is that you get it to shake back and forth as fast as you can for up to six minutes. The idea is to work muscles in a faster and more accurate fashion than lifting standard weights at the gym, or at home. According to Ellen DeGeneres, it works.

                Ellen was so impressed with the product that she bought one for her guests and everyone in her audience. Although she also thought the product was hilarious, the main reason it appears on her show, she decided to try it and found another ridiculous fitness idea. However, this isn’t the first ‘fitness’ product that Ellen has tried, there is also “3-Minute Legs”, an Ab Machine and others. After Ellen aired her episode on the Shake Weight she declared that there should also be a male version, instead of the one that is “for females”. Apparently the creators thought the same, as a Shake Weight for Men was soon on the market.

                Not only is there a Shake Weight for Men, but there is also a website dedicated especially to cater to the product: www.shakeweightformen.com. The video on this website is slightly different from the one shown above (the second video in this blog), because it advertises for the updated version: Shake Weight for Men Pro. The Pro version allows for adjustable resistance, where you can decide how tough you want your work out to be. “You can change the intensity of your workout from Moderate, to Intense, to Insane.”

                The need for products to help a person obtain an ‘ideal body’ relates back to the text (Fat Shame). Throughout history humans, mainly in America, have needed this reassurance that they weren’t overweight, heavy, curvy, big-boned, or any other word that may cover for fat. This ‘ideal body’ is the one the media shows us to try and state that the way we look isn’t alright. However, it is possible to be both healthy and fat at the same time. This isn’t something that many see as true, because visibility is such an important factor to how we perceive a situation, such as what is fat.

                Fat is more than a word, but a movement, a study, a culture. When you deem someone fat, they go out and try obscene products such as the Shake Weight. This product is just one in the long line of failed attempts on making themselves into the ‘ideal body’. When will the obsession end? 

Labels, Are We Too Obsessed?

               What exactly is Transgender? Such a definition is hard to come by. Is a man dressing in drag considered transgender, perhaps? To some people it may be possible. Our generation is obsessed with labels. If a male likes another male who was once a female but has always liked males… what is he? Happy; he is happy.

                Yet our obsession with labels makes many people wonder what exactly a situation is. It makes people exploit others and question random strangers on the street. It makes us question those in media, those who have made something of themselves. I give you the example of Beyonce’s Single Ladies music video.

      

       After having this pointed out to me last year in school, I became aware that one of these three females is, in fact, not female. According to many sources on the internet, the female on Beyonce’s right at the beginning of the music video, is actually a man in drag. However, is this considered transgender? Is this dressing up in the opposite sexes clothing something to be explored?

In opposition, Beyonce says that the two dancers in her video are both female and that this debate should be ended. It is true that the chorography was designed by a male dancer, JaQuel Knight, leading to some of the confusion with the two dancers in the video. Furthermore, showcasing how people’s opinions on strong looking females are, and that there comes an intimidation with a person who may be more muscular than others. Someone who has worked hard to look how they do.

 Is she a man? Was she at one point? Will she become one? Is Beyonce lying about them both being female? These questions have been exploited online since the video aired back in 2010. Thus leading back to the idea that our generation is obsessed with labels and that not everything is what it seems.  Whether she was born male or female, whether she dressed in drag for the video, whether she will be a male in the future, whether she will be a female in the future, is irrelevant. Beyonce picked two extremely talented backup dancers for her music video because they were the best for the job. The label put forth on this person’s gender shouldn’t matter.

These labels, this obsession, have brought us to become opinionated in matters that shouldn’t hold court in our lives. Why should we have to know a person’s gender in order to decide if we like something or not? Why should gender matter? Why should it matter if someone likes a certain type of person? Why should we determine how another person should live their life? Who are we to make these decisions?

            What is the definition of transgender and who falls into that category? Those who wish to consider themselves as such, who consider themselves transgender. Placing someone into a label won’t help solve anything. It will not produce world peace. It will not end wars. It will not make you rich or famous either. If a male likes a female who was once a female trapped in a male’s body but still has male parts but identifies as female, what is his sexuality? It doesn’t matter, because it isn’t our decision on where they classify. 

Male Underwear?

While looking across pictures that might inspire me, I ran into this website that appears to cater to ‘jocks’ from ‘all around the world’. As I’m not exactly sure what this means, I decided to give the website a click. Upon further digression, I found what is said to be ‘underwear’ modeled by males. It’s kind of hard to miss that what is in those pictures is definitely male, but apparently it might fool some as the title of this page is “Male Underwear”.

                Have a look for yourself:
http://www.internationaljock.com/mens-underwear.html

Perhaps the biggest issue I’m having with this is what is noticeable in the pants; the penis. Now, I know absolutely nothing about advertising and even less about what drives males to buy certain brands of underwear, but I don’t understand the placement of the noticeable genitalia. As a straight female, this disturbs me. I’m not sure if the reason of the obvious penis is to show consumers what other dudes look like in underwear or to give gay men a show, but it just isn’t cutting it for me. 

At first, yes, I was disturbed by the man-parts being thrown in my face, but then I began to think of the reasons that may be behind it. Unlike most advertisements these days, or pictures in online catalogs, the only object of clothing in this picture is the underwear. There is no torso, there is no shirt, there are no abs, in fact there is barely any leg. (Although if you do look at the top of the picture, the ‘V’ is included, meaning that these men are all incredibly fit.) Therefore the central focus of these pictures are what is being sold to customers; underwear. (Upon clicking on these photos, are full size images. Yet these are not on the main page as in most female online shopping.)

Personally, I’m used to being sold a shirt and seeing the full body, it’s very common to be sold a skirt and see a tank top in the picture as well. The outfit is usually complete. (See http://www.forever21.com/Product/Category.aspx?br=f21&category=whatsnew_app_tops  for examples.) Yet even when this isn’t the case, which typically is found in ads for men’s underwear, you get sold the whole body. In these instances, these pictures usually involve men with rock hard abs (that are sometimes photoshopped on) and some type of pose. Two likely poses are “The Lean” in which the model is leaning against something, perhaps a wall, and “The Face Off” in which the model is staring into the camera daringly. In such pictures, it’s easy to see what is selling the product. Thus being the man, the model.

Thus bringing back the image of the penis, it’s unavoidable. Advertisers sell to customers from the center of the page out. In this case, the center of the ad is the genitalia. There is no face selling these underwear. There aren’t abs encouraging females to think these are the best things they’ve ever laid their eyes on. There is no pose. There’s barely a model! The only thing selling these undergarments is how a stranger's penis looks in them- an issue we all look into when buying clothes of course! 

Perhaps these underwear sell themselves. Perhaps I’m overreacting. Perhaps the image of a noticeable penis sells more than just underwear. At first glance, this is all that is seen to the customer's eye. However, clicking on the pictures bring about a male model in which sometimes he appears in his undergarments as a normal man, and sometimes his genitalia is threatening to pop out. (http://www.internationaljock.com/calvin-klein-steel-micro-boxer-brief-electric-tangerine,54309.html) Whatever the case, whatever the pose, whatever the body shape; I'd still rather not have a model's penis popping out at me while trying to shop.