Please comment on the presentation topics - not on the style or "grading" of the presentations - but generate conversation about the topics covered in the presentations.
I will get us started this week. Overall, I thought the presentations were nicely done. Good job! This class, as you know, is cross-listed as a Women's Studies class. Since I am a political scientist, my approach to the class has been largely grounded in my discipline. As a result, most of your papers are politically oriented, though that was not technically a requirement. Hence, we had a very interesting presentation on female portrayal in comic books yesterday that was completely appropriate for the class, yet non-political.
As a follow-up to that presentation, I'm including a link to the Teen Titans website on Cartoon Network -the show I referenced during Q&A after Jill's presentation. I think the two female characters on this show (there is also a comic book) are very interesting and not as highly sexualized as many other female comic book characters. http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/titans/index.html
Jill mentioned that the Japanese-style comics seem to attract a larger female audience. Interesting, a Japanese girl band, Puffy Ami Yumi, recorded the theme song (which my husband and I agree is hands down the best theme song for any kid show). Here's the link to that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNCoZIRKutA
One of the interesting things I have noticed about this week’s presentations has been the prevalence of media in many political and women’s issues. Whether we are talking about abortion, female news anchors, or the coverage of first ladies, two things are apparent. First of all, the media, through framing and selecting certain stories, plays a large role in the public’s perception of women’s issues and politics. Secondly, a large portion of students in this class feel that the media is important enough to devote a significant amount of their time studying it.
On the first count, I believe that it is becoming more and more obvious that media plays an increasingly important role in the shaping of policy, political careers, and public opinion. Our earlier classes that discussed the issue of media framing fit in to many of these presentations perfectly. Today’s presentation on media coverage of first ladies is a perfect example of this. While it is clear that Laura Bush initially tried to shy away from the limelight, it is also clear that media coverage and slant affected many people’s views of these ladies. Every article that appeared in the presentation seemed to paint Hillary Clinton in a positive light, and the articles about Laura Bush were somewhat less pointed in their purpose. In fact, I may go out on a limb and say that the articles were intentionally ambiguous, unimportant, or lacking in substance.
Additionally, the study of ABC and CBS nightly news was telling as well. While Katie Couric appeared to be more empathetic and brought a more compassionate, human side to the news, the American news corporations appeared to be lacking in most important categories behind European equivalents. Interestingly enough, there is a lot of speculation that the “Katie Couric experiment” was a disaster for CBS and that she will be fired soon. I had looked at an article earlier in the week on this, but could not find it now. The closest thing I have found is this http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/04/report_some_at_.html?csp=34
Basically though, I feel that it is interesting that so many students chose to focus on the media for their paper topics/presentations. I wonder if that trend is reflective of the importance of media to politics and women’s issues or if it is just a coincidence. Regardless I would like to hear what my other classmates thoughts are so weigh in on this.
p.s. I checked out the cartoon network link for the teen titans. I could not get it to work, but I removed the index part and it worked just fine. I am ashamed to say I have never heard of this cartoon/comic. I mean, of course I know Robin (Or at least I think it is Robin) but that was from batman. Is this like a popular kids show now?
Considering I haven't seen all the presentations, so far they have been really good. I thought that some of them were really great and I learned a few things from watching them present their presentations. If I had more time with my presentation I can imagine I would have improved mine just based off of watching everyone else in class, unfortunately for me I was on the first day. I thought it was interesting to see the charts on the comic book portrayal of females and their physique that we all know targets the sexual side of people. I also found it interesting that American girls enjoy Japanese comics or cartoons over that of American comics. Could this be it is because the Japanese portray the Japanese comics as girls v. women? I see more girls in Japanese comics than I do women. In American comics I see more women or young women v budding teenage girls. Even in the zwinky.com (I think that is right) a cartoon avatar, virtual world online based off of the Japanese virtual worlds, the females are teens and not women. I myself was a big fan of x-men when I was 10 and 11 years old, I collected the trading cards and watched the cartoon on TV. On the cards the x-men were grown up, but on the TV cartoons, sometimes they were kids and other times they were adults. I could relate better to the kid, more so than an adult. Maybe this is why females aren’t as interested in the comics in America as the boys are. What boy wouldn’t want to see a womanly figure cartoon character or otherwise? There is research that says that males respond to pictures, and women respond to emotional sides. (I think we talked about this in class in the beginning of the year too, somewhat.)
I'm not sure if I can say the word limit on the presentations. I do find them all very interesting and I think all the presenters have done a great job. The topic that struck me as the most interesting (no offense to anyone else) was the comparison of Katie Couric to Peter Jennings, and their respective nightly news programs. I found that I was very intrigued as to the extreme differences between the news programs. However, I did find the comic book presentation to also be very interesting. I especially thought the BMI comparison was very interesting, especially when you compared the BMI of super heros to real world people. I also found the comparison presentation between Senator Clinton and First Lady Bush very interesting as well. I have noticed that First Lady Bush has not been in the media that frequently, but I didn't know that Senator Clinton had been in the media that frequently when she was the first lady. I suppose it is because I didn't pay attention to politics so much when she was still the first lady. I wish Rob would have had more time to finish his presentation because I think there was quite a bit of information there that I would have liked to have heard. Honestly, I'm surprised there haven't been more presentations on Sexually Oriented Businesses, because I thought porn would have dominated (no pun intended) the last little bit of class.
Overall I have really liked the presentations so far and am looking forward to next week's topics.
I have really enjoyed all of the presentations so far. I was surprised at the variety of topics. Personally I enjoyed Jessica’s presentation the most so far. I think he topic was extremely interesting; comparing Hilary Clinton and Laura Bush in terms of who received the most media coverage during the first 6 months of their husband’s presidencies. I figured that Hilary would have more coverage simply because of all of the scandals she has been involved in. She was also very proactive from the first day of Bill’s presidency. Laura, like Jessica said, was withdrawn for the first few weeks because she didn’t desire to be in the media spotlight. I would like to bring another issue into the light. I wonder what it would feel like to be a First Lady? What I mean is, what pressures do they feel? Do they feel like they have to be high-fashionistas because the media will scrutinize them? Do they feel like they have to take on the big issues and become a mini president, once again because that is what the media feeds on? I think everything we have discussed in class thus far can be connected to some form of the media. I knew the media had a huge impact but I suppose I never realized the degree to which they control American politics. If we think about it, the media determines what issues the public focuses on, the media can make or break a potential candidate, and the media can shape a campaign for the better or worse. I would like to see a change, but I am not sure what that change would be, mainly because we get so freaked out about our freedom of speech being limited.
I’m not going to lie; I think everyone has done a lot better on their presentations than I did this week. But then again each person is hard on themselves so I shouldn’t be too harsh on myself. I would like to say that I did really enjoy Jill's presentation. I would have never thought of that. I do know for a fact that girls like Japanese comics better, as a young kid I thoroughly enjoyed the cartoon Sailor Moon, I would watch it with my neighbors that were girls. Sailor Moon is a Japanese cartoon about this group of schoolgirl friends saving the universe one day at a time. For some reason I had a fascination with something that was quite different than American cartoons. But then again I’ve always liked things that other people didn’t. Even though as I think of it now, the girls in the cartoon were shown as very sexual beings while in "superhero" mode. Being that they had super short skirts, huge breasts and very long legs. If the cartoon characters have shorts on, a skirt, or anything, it’s also super short. I also know that the Japanese have a slight fascination with schoolgirls, even more so in uniform. But I do believe that I heard somewhere that Sailor Moon was not technically directed toward children at first, it was comic, but then grew into a children’s cartoon show. But the English version the producers took out parts that they thought were unsuitable for children. If you want to check out the rest of the cartoon here’s the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon. And here’s the first part of the first episode of the cartoon if anyone would like to see it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS5ARP6Yfb4.
Thus far, I have found certain aspects of all of the presentations interesting. The comic book research was very intriguing and informational, as I knew very little about the comic industry. I had never considered this another type of media that women could be portrayed in.
As the class knows from my own presentation, I am interested in research dealing with the media. The media is not only something that personally interests me and that I feel very passionate about, but being a Communications major, thinking and analyzing media is what I’m trained to do. The media is a source of how we perceive the world and its contents, whether we realize this influence or not. Thus, if the media has such an impact on society, then it’s important to study the media and politics, in order to see if we are being positively or negatively influenced. Therefore, I found the nightly news comparison study brilliant and a great topic that will hopefully spur our class on to be more observant to the overall media concerning how gender is portrayed.
The presentation concerning how looks may affect a person’s vote for a candidate and so forth was also a great topic. This caused me to check my own subconscious and wonder if I often make such judgments without realized the type of uninformed decision I’m making.
Overall, I feel that the topics presented thus far have covered a good range of issues that we’ve touched upon over the semester and will hopefully cause all of us to think or evaluate differently. All of the presenters have put forth a good effort and I look forward to the upcoming presentations!
I really enjoyed all of the presentations. I really enjoyed the presentation on Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush. It was interesting because I do remember seeing a lot about Hillary Clinton when Bill Clinton was in office, but I have not seen much about Laura Bush. I know there was a question in class about whether 9/11 might have made a difference on the coverage. I wonder if there is LESS coverage of Laura Bush because of 9/11, the war on terror, and the war in Iraq. I wonder if we were at peace right now if they would not have focused more on Laura Bush. I think maybe she has been sidelined because there is too many other stories to cover. I definitely do agree that personality plays some part in it, but I don't think that is the only factor.
I also found the comic book presentation interesting. I am so glad that my son has not been interested in comic books. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on Pokeman and Yugioh cards that he eventually lost interest in and threw away. I did find the BMI part very interesting. I would love to see the comparison as it was shown in the presentation comparing women in magazines and runways with realistic measurements. I know the shock I felt when I first learned that they airbrushed and digitally slimmed down women in magazines. If those women are not good enough and they had to be "touched up" what does that say about all of us "regular" women and society's expectations for women?
I have so far enjoyed all of the presentations but a few of them have stuck in my mind and left me thinking.
My favorite was the comic book presentation. When I was a kid I found a huge box full of comic books and "other magazines" that my Dad had kept over the years. He had probably 75-100 old western comics and I read through every one of them at one time or another. Mom took the "other magazines" away but the older I got the harder it was to hide them. Anyway to relate this all to class, when I started to collect comics the ones that I would buy even if they were from the 80's or early 90's had a substantial amount of women in them compared to the the issues of Dad's from the 50's and 60's, whether they were scantily clad minor characters, or super sexy heroines.
I'm sort of like a grown up kid nowadays so I know a good deal about the Teen Titans. It's one of the few cartoons I actually like to watch with my son, Sponge Bob being another one but I'm not sure if he has a comic or not. My son is four now and sometimes I read Batman comics to him at night. I never really liked Batman myself but the Dark Knight is pretty cool sometimes.
One thing that the presentation did not touch on that is probably an entire subject in and of itself is adult comics. I'm not a scholar on the subject but I do believe that a number of Japanese comics are essentially cartoon porn mags. I bought an entire series of comics once at a flea market, like 24 issues, and got them home and they were essentially a Native American porn adventure. I was like twelve so it was pretty sweet, but I ended up trading them for some back issues of Wolverine.
I just wonder how big the comic book porn industry is.
Another presentation that I really enjoyed was the Bush/Clinton comparison. I believe that the difference is probably more attributed to personality than to 9/11. For one the study used data from before 9/11 for Laura Bush, I think. Hillary is just more politically oriented than Mrs. Bush...see right there I feel like I can call Hillary by her first name but Laura is Mrs. Bush because I just don't feel like I know her as well.
I also enjoyed the attractive candidates presentation, although I will stick to my guns, less attractive people get elected. I think that a large number of the people that vote are old and they are more likely to vote for someone that is old, and often times not as attractive as someone younger. But me, if Wonder Woman ran for office I'd vote for her, I don't care where she stands on the issues.
I think that everyone in class has done an excellent job on their presentations. You guys are giving the rest of us who haven't went yet a run for our money. I would have to say though, that Kristeena's presentation blew me out of the water. I thought she did an excellent job. I thought it was interesting that the younger more attractive woman had higher votes. I never really thought about people choosing a person for a political office simply based on their looks. I thought that she had a lot of research and did a great job at presenting it.
I also thought that Jill did a good job too. It was neat how she did a presentation on something that really had nothing political about it. Women are portrayed in a lot of comics as sexy and overpowering. I really thought it was great how she gave us the background too of the comic book industry. Had she have not done this I would have been left a little clueless, seeing as how I know nothing about comics. I can honestly say I have never read a comic book as sad as it sounds.
Overall I thought that everyone did an awesome job. Like I said in the beginning, you guys are going to make my presentation look really horrible. I will do my best to have a really great one just like everyone else though. Congrats to all of those who have already went. Just sit back relax and enjoy the last week of your semester!
I’m glad to see that while most of the presentations have been politically oriented, some have dealt solely with women’s issues outside of the realm of the government and politics. From an academic standpoint, I suppose that I have a slightly stronger connection to the discipline of political science, but my presentation has ended up with elements of pure women’s studies as well, and I’m glad that I’m not the only person in the class who made the choice to go in that direction. Overall, I’ve been impressed with the presentations from last week. While it’s been nice to see some examples of things to prepare for in my own presentation, I must admit that I would rather have it behind me. As it has already been stated, I get the implication that the media is something very important to this class (it also helped that we had just finished discussing women and the media shortly before paper topics were due, perhaps also why there weren’t so many adult industry presentations). I found the presentation comparing the media coverage of Hilary Clinton and Laura Bush interesting. What I think would be interesting is an additional comparison of USA Today articles that included Barbara Bush articles during the first few months of her tenure as first lady. With that data, I suspect that Hilary Clinton would be identified more as the anomaly, as the first, and to date only, first lady to really break the barrier of gender roles in the workforce and the government. She did this first as an attorney in the days before women were earning their J.D.’s at a near equal number to men, and then as a politically active first lady. This combination made her a new and unique phenomenon, qualities that are certainly excellent fodder for the media. Best of luck to everyone else with the presentations for the upcoming week.
I thought that the presentation on Comics was extremely unique. I wish that I had thought of that one. I grew up reading comic books and eventually fell into collecting them whenever I was in my mid teens. After that presentation I found myself digging through all the crap that my wife and I have amassed over the last five years and piled into a wall in closet upstairs for all of my boxed up comics. I am still amazed that I had the self-discipline not to even open some of them from their poly bags. However, back to the topic. Whenever you are sixteen I guess that you do not really realize that the women that are being portrayed in the comics are being slightly objectified and misrepresented. Probably I only thought that they all were hot! I have about eight boxes of comics from Marvel and just about every woman portrayed in those comics sets an unreal expectation for women that do not exist in the fantasy world. I would have to admit that prior to that presentation I had never even given that concept any thought. But after thinking about it, what would make comics any different that any other form of print. Sex sells in advertising, television, movies, and books. So why not in comic books? I do however make me think a little differently about my views on comics. I used to praise Stan Lee for many of the comics that he developed. Most of them dealt with intolerance. Now it appears that there are some other issues that comic are promoting!
Just to reassure some of you who have mentioned it, there is an adult industry presentation coming! You just have to wait til this Thursday, at least for mine. I'm a political science major and a women's studies minor. So, I'm pretty inclined to think about both disciplines. I was most interested in Kristeena's presentation, mainly because I may one day run for political office. She had a lot of information! As is expected due to the amount of time and such, her sample requirements were limited. I think 50 people is a lot. However, I think all the participants being in a political science class in college had an effect on her results. The average voter, as previously stated, is older. In fact, young people are among the least represented by voters. I must say, some of the tables and graphs were hard to follow. Yet, she did an amazing job verbally explaining the results. She was very well researched and had great demeanor. As far as Bush v Clinton... I would have liked to see a breakdown of what type of articles they were. We saw a lot of titles for Clinton that were very politically motivated. It was stated that some of the Bush articles only mentioned her. A categorization of the articles would have helped the audience understand the bigger picture in the differences. Perhaps the media is changing its view on first ladies. Perhaps Clinton was an extroadinary exception. Perhaps political party has to do with it. I wonder if it's the case that democratic first ladies are more active and take the lime light. While maybe republican first ladies are more reserved and allow their husbands to be in the spotlight. I personally think this is a great possibility. One example to point to is democratic JFK. Jackie O was consistently covered by the media. Perhaps it is only because I am young, but I don't remember hearing much about Barbara Bush either. The comic book graph on BMI was startling to me. I just finished hosting a Love Your Body Week with the Feminists for Change. The whole week I was explaining to people that the average woman cannot meet the average model standards. I've explained that the average model is OVER 20% underweight. Yet, Jill explained the "real life" line was even a graph of models/dancers and the sort. I makes me fear what the graph would have looked like if it were compared to REAL AVERAGE WOMEN. And I wonder, what message does that send to our young boys? Fans of comics grow up seeing these images on a daily basis. With those amzazing figures, I hope boys understand it is not reality.
The presentations this week were really great, and some very interesting topics. The one about attractive people getting elected was interesting. We all know from earlier this semester that many times the media focuses on how a woman looks and what she wears as opposed to the issues, so it was a good idea to examine the issue of attractiveness and voting more closely. The one about comic books was of course interesting as well. Especially about the proportions of comic book characters to real life characters. Barbie dolls are like that too, so it doesn't surprise me. But what did surprise me was that the BMI of women in real life compared to the comic characters were completely different, but men were not as far off in the way they were depicted. It was also interesting in the abortion issue, and the fact that there were more abortion clinics around the borders than on the mainland of the nation. Perhaps it is because of people coming in from other countries. Especially Mexico, where they just recently decided to legalize abortion. Or perhaps it is because, with the exception of the Southern states, the states around the border tend to be more liberal? (California and the Northeast states for example). The topic of women and men covering media stories was interesting as well. I think it was especially interesting when comparing the two news anchors that there did tend to be a difference. And, the topic of bullying. I really enjoyed this, and the comparison between the US and Europe revealed different results. It is so true that boys and girls bully in various ways, and this was something very interesting to examine. I guess socializing of boys and girls could play into this, because girls are not brought up playing GI Joes, usually. Many of them play with dolls or play house. So, from early on, boys are playing with toys that engage them in physical fighting, whereas girls become talkative and gossipy. I don't know, that's just my perspective because those are some things her paper made me think about!
I've really enjoyed all of the presentations thus far. I, like just about everyone else on the blog really liked the presentation comparing Hilary Clinton and Laura Bush. I wasn't really surprised that Clinton was in the media more than Bush but what really surprised me was how much more Clinton was in the news or at least reported on by USA Today. I realize that this probably have a lot to do with the differences in the two first ladies' personalities, after all Laura Bush did make the President promise she would not have to make a campaign speech on his behalf. However, in the months prior to September 11, I remember seeing Laura Bush in the news promoting No Child Left Behind much more than what is reflected by the USA Today reports. This legislation was of course overshadowed by the tragedies of September 11 but on September 11 the President was promoting the program by reading to a class of school children in Florida. This makes me think that part of the huge gap between how much Hillary Clinton appeared in articles compared to how often Laura Bush appeared in the first six months of their husband's terms had to do with the media source at least a little. I wonder if the results would have been the same had someone looked at another paper like the New York Times or the Washington Post.
On a slightly different not concerning this presentation on first ladies, I was very intrigued by the almost identical pictures of the Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton at the beginning of the presentation. Not only did both have similar hair cuts but their suits were strikingly similar and the same pink roses were in the background. I was thinking maybe both were taken by the white house photographer and this could explain some of the similarities. Or, perhaps there is a certain look most females in the political lime light tend to adhere to. Maybe someone should do a study on the fashion trends among first ladies or political officials.
I also liked the presentation on the revolving door between politics, the military, and the corporate world. I thought it was very interesting to look at the difference in revolving door practices of men and women. I agree that the reason why women participate in the revolving door less than men is because females are not as prevalent in high profile positions as men. However I also think that if you narrow the study down and look at the rate at which women who are in high profile positions move between fields we might possible see that the rate is probably comparable to the rate for men. Of course, I haven't studied this in any way but that's just my own personal guess.
I would also like to here more information like what we heard in the presentation that talked about city ordinances and adult business pertaining specifically to Madison County. I wonder what Madison County's ordinances say because Madison Middle is just up the hill from the Manhattan club and that 24 hour video places on Keenland isn't too far from White Hall Elementary. I also remember some of the ordinances we heard about saying that adult business couldn't be located near a place of worship. I wonder what would happen if someone built a church near an adult business. Would the business be forced to relocate or would the church just be "out of luck" in a sense because the adult business was there first.
The whole discussion of adult ordinances reminds me something else really interesting. Almost as soon as Hustler Hollywood moved to Lexington they put up a billboard on the Robert Martin By-Pass advertising. The sign was red and in big white letters it said Hustler Hollywood. Well, the billboard was located right next to the road you turn off on to get to Red House Baptist Church. When the church saw that this sign had been put up they bought the billboard space above it and put up their own sign with red background and big white letters that said "Don't get Hustled, Give your Life to Jesus." The Church's sign with this slogan and others has remained up now for almost a year or two. Hustler's sing stayed up for a long time as well and has just recently been taken down. I thought this little anecdote was an interesting example in the exercise of free speech. It also shows the conflict that sometimes arises between adult businesses and members of the community.
There was a pervasive theme throughout the majority of these presentations: what is the perception of the public? be it through media or polls, many of these presentations focused on the perceptions of the masses. This was really cool to me, because it plays a large part in my paper, too.
What is interesting to note is that much is determined by the perception of the American people where politics are concerned. It doesn't really matter if Laura Bush is in fact less interesting than Hillary Clinton. What matters is what the people think.
It doesn't really matter if women are in fact more hawkish and aggressive in executive positions of political power than their male counter parts. It matters more that every one assumes them to be weak and indecisive. It matters so much that it may even make them behave differently than they otherwise would.
Perceptions are so important in determining not only the voter's actions, but the politician's actions as well if not more importantly.
All the presentations this week were fantastic! I was so intimidated when Kristeena got up in front of class and started her presentation, I was blown away! I found it engaging, interesting, and really impressive! A lot of people presented on their methods and literature, and I admit that I didn’t even think about doing so, although my literature was (unfortunately) a bit skimpy. I was also impressed by the presentation on the first ladies. It was very uncanny the way they both looked the same, and the fact that there was such a statistical difference between the media coverage of both Laura and Hillary. The difference is incredibly striking, and I do agree with the conclusion that personality has a lot to do with it. Hillary always struck me as being far more outgoing, whilst Laura does seem more meek and quiet. I also wonder if 9/11 made a considerable difference, and if Laura has managed to (statistically) outdo Hillary during her part as a First Lady. Although it is also interesting to note that Hillary outshines Laura (and most male presidential candidates) in media coverage now as well. I find this an intriguing subject that would be really neat to look into sometime.
I also found Robert’s presentation really neat! I really hadn’t known about the use of the ‘revolving door’ policy, and whenever it was mentioned, I admit I never really thought of it as that, I always simply assumed it was the in-and-out policy for the average worker. I thought Robert’s comparison between women using the revolving door policy and men was also very interesting!
I’d also like to address something everyone seemed to point out from my presentation involving women and their enjoyment of Japanese comics. Someone said a lot of them were essentially cartoon porno mags, and while there is a good majority of Japanese cartoon porn, it would be a more accurate description to call most Japanese comics the equivalent of “R” rated movies. Most of the comics girls tend to read are romance or romance-based action comics which don’t tend to ‘talk down’ to girls as much as many western comics, where they are more often-than-not written by men, while female writers and artists are far more common in both Korean and Japanese comics.
Also, Dr. Patton addressed the subjects of Raven and Starfire in the Teen Titans Go! Series, and how they are good role models for young girls, and how they look up to them as non-sexualized characters. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case in the original Teen Titans series, as I’ve included visual aid below. Interesting difference to note.
I have really enjoyed all the presentations. It was a nice break away from politics with the Women in Comic Books. The BMI scale was shocking! With the theme of the power of the media with the other presentations, this scares me. It is obvious what control the media has over the population and combine that with the way women are looked at in comic books, it’s impossible for boys and girls to get away from the idea of the perfect woman. From the time kids are little it is beaten into them what roles they are to take and how they are to look. Take into account the glass ceiling that women face in many occupations, it’s not surprising that women do not participate in the revolving door practices. Which I might add, was very interesting. I had never heard of that before class.
I am a psychology major, and never has a politics class before, so everything I have learned in class and other people’s presentations have had a lasting effect on me. I don’t listen to the television nor the radio in the same way.. Nor do I look at sexual oriented business in the same manner.
The topics this week were really interesting. I especially enjoyed the comparison of media coverage of Laura Bush and Hilary Clinton. I thought the research for this was really interesting and that the results were as well. It demonstrates to me the active role that Hilary Clinton took during her husband's administration and the attention she brought to certain issues.
I also liked the topic on bullying. I thought it was interesting the differences between boys and girls and bullying. I remember in school girls being tormented with silence and rumors whereas boys were much more physical in their attacks. Sometimes it seems that its more acceptable for boys to take out their aggression in this way. Boys seems to be encouraged sometimes to fight, not to take crap, and to walk away from a fight is a wussy thing to do. So I think that might play into the differences between boys and girls and how they treat each other.
POL 446 Politics of Sex Students: Welcome to your class blog! You are the only ones who can post comments on this blog, but be aware that it is available for anyone to read. You are responsible for posting to the blog on a regular basis as part of the graded assignments (see the syllabus), but you may also "discuss it" if there is something you want to discuss via the blog.
22 comments:
I will get us started this week. Overall, I thought the presentations were nicely done. Good job! This class, as you know, is cross-listed as a Women's Studies class. Since I am a political scientist, my approach to the class has been largely grounded in my discipline. As a result, most of your papers are politically oriented, though that was not technically a requirement. Hence, we had a very interesting presentation on female portrayal in comic books yesterday that was completely appropriate for the class, yet non-political.
As a follow-up to that presentation, I'm including a link to the Teen Titans website on Cartoon Network -the show I referenced during Q&A after Jill's presentation. I think the two female characters on this show (there is also a comic book) are very interesting and not as highly sexualized as many other female comic book characters. http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/titans/index.html
Jill mentioned that the Japanese-style comics seem to attract a larger female audience. Interesting, a Japanese girl band, Puffy Ami Yumi, recorded the theme song (which my husband and I agree is hands down the best theme song for any kid show). Here's the link to that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNCoZIRKutA
One of the interesting things I have noticed about this week’s presentations has been the prevalence of media in many political and women’s issues. Whether we are talking about abortion, female news anchors, or the coverage of first ladies, two things are apparent. First of all, the media, through framing and selecting certain stories, plays a large role in the public’s perception of women’s issues and politics. Secondly, a large portion of students in this class feel that the media is important enough to devote a significant amount of their time studying it.
On the first count, I believe that it is becoming more and more obvious that media plays an increasingly important role in the shaping of policy, political careers, and public opinion. Our earlier classes that discussed the issue of media framing fit in to many of these presentations perfectly. Today’s presentation on media coverage of first ladies is a perfect example of this. While it is clear that Laura Bush initially tried to shy away from the limelight, it is also clear that media coverage and slant affected many people’s views of these ladies. Every article that appeared in the presentation seemed to paint Hillary Clinton in a positive light, and the articles about Laura Bush were somewhat less pointed in their purpose. In fact, I may go out on a limb and say that the articles were intentionally ambiguous, unimportant, or lacking in substance.
Additionally, the study of ABC and CBS nightly news was telling as well. While Katie Couric appeared to be more empathetic and brought a more compassionate, human side to the news, the American news corporations appeared to be lacking in most important categories behind European equivalents. Interestingly enough, there is a lot of speculation that the “Katie Couric experiment” was a disaster for CBS and that she will be fired soon. I had looked at an article earlier in the week on this, but could not find it now. The closest thing I have found is this http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/04/report_some_at_.html?csp=34
Basically though, I feel that it is interesting that so many students chose to focus on the media for their paper topics/presentations. I wonder if that trend is reflective of the importance of media to politics and women’s issues or if it is just a coincidence. Regardless I would like to hear what my other classmates thoughts are so weigh in on this.
p.s. I checked out the cartoon network link for the teen titans. I could not get it to work, but I removed the index part and it worked just fine. I am ashamed to say I have never heard of this cartoon/comic. I mean, of course I know Robin (Or at least I think it is Robin) but that was from batman. Is this like a popular kids show now?
Considering I haven't seen all the presentations, so far they have been really good. I thought that some of them were really great and I learned a few things from watching them present their presentations. If I had more time with my presentation I can imagine I would have improved mine just based off of watching everyone else in class, unfortunately for me I was on the first day. I thought it was interesting to see the charts on the comic book portrayal of females and their physique that we all know targets the sexual side of people. I also found it interesting that American girls enjoy Japanese comics or cartoons over that of American comics. Could this be it is because the Japanese portray the Japanese comics as girls v. women? I see more girls in Japanese comics than I do women. In American comics I see more women or young women v budding teenage girls. Even in the zwinky.com (I think that is right) a cartoon avatar, virtual world online based off of the Japanese virtual worlds, the females are teens and not women.
I myself was a big fan of x-men when I was 10 and 11 years old, I collected the trading cards and watched the cartoon on TV. On the cards the x-men were grown up, but on the TV cartoons, sometimes they were kids and other times they were adults. I could relate better to the kid, more so than an adult. Maybe this is why females aren’t as interested in the comics in America as the boys are. What boy wouldn’t want to see a womanly figure cartoon character or otherwise? There is research that says that males respond to pictures, and women respond to emotional sides. (I think we talked about this in class in the beginning of the year too, somewhat.)
I'm not sure if I can say the word limit on the presentations. I do find them all very interesting and I think all the presenters have done a great job. The topic that struck me as the most interesting (no offense to anyone else) was the comparison of Katie Couric to Peter Jennings, and their respective nightly news programs. I found that I was very intrigued as to the extreme differences between the news programs. However, I did find the comic book presentation to also be very interesting. I especially thought the BMI comparison was very interesting, especially when you compared the BMI of super heros to real world people. I also found the comparison presentation between Senator Clinton and First Lady Bush very interesting as well. I have noticed that First Lady Bush has not been in the media that frequently, but I didn't know that Senator Clinton had been in the media that frequently when she was the first lady. I suppose it is because I didn't pay attention to politics so much when she was still the first lady. I wish Rob would have had more time to finish his presentation because I think there was quite a bit of information there that I would have liked to have heard. Honestly, I'm surprised there haven't been more presentations on Sexually Oriented Businesses, because I thought porn would have dominated (no pun intended) the last little bit of class.
Overall I have really liked the presentations so far and am looking forward to next week's topics.
I have really enjoyed all of the presentations so far. I was surprised at the variety of topics. Personally I enjoyed Jessica’s presentation the most so far. I think he topic was extremely interesting; comparing Hilary Clinton and Laura Bush in terms of who received the most media coverage during the first 6 months of their husband’s presidencies. I figured that Hilary would have more coverage simply because of all of the scandals she has been involved in. She was also very proactive from the first day of Bill’s presidency. Laura, like Jessica said, was withdrawn for the first few weeks because she didn’t desire to be in the media spotlight.
I would like to bring another issue into the light. I wonder what it would feel like to be a First Lady? What I mean is, what pressures do they feel? Do they feel like they have to be high-fashionistas because the media will scrutinize them? Do they feel like they have to take on the big issues and become a mini president, once again because that is what the media feeds on?
I think everything we have discussed in class thus far can be connected to some form of the media. I knew the media had a huge impact but I suppose I never realized the degree to which they control American politics. If we think about it, the media determines what issues the public focuses on, the media can make or break a potential candidate, and the media can shape a campaign for the better or worse. I would like to see a change, but I am not sure what that change would be, mainly because we get so freaked out about our freedom of speech being limited.
I’m not going to lie; I think everyone has done a lot better on their presentations than I did this week. But then again each person is hard on themselves so I shouldn’t be too harsh on myself. I would like to say that I did really enjoy Jill's presentation. I would have never thought of that. I do know for a fact that girls like Japanese comics better, as a young kid I thoroughly enjoyed the cartoon Sailor Moon, I would watch it with my neighbors that were girls. Sailor Moon is a Japanese cartoon about this group of schoolgirl friends saving the universe one day at a time. For some reason I had a fascination with something that was quite different than American cartoons. But then again I’ve always liked things that other people didn’t. Even though as I think of it now, the girls in the cartoon were shown as very sexual beings while in "superhero" mode. Being that they had super short skirts, huge breasts and very long legs. If the cartoon characters have shorts on, a skirt, or anything, it’s also super short. I also know that the Japanese have a slight fascination with schoolgirls, even more so in uniform. But I do believe that I heard somewhere that Sailor Moon was not technically directed toward children at first, it was comic, but then grew into a children’s cartoon show. But the English version the producers took out parts that they thought were unsuitable for children. If you want to check out the rest of the cartoon here’s the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon. And here’s the first part of the first episode of the cartoon if anyone would like to see it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS5ARP6Yfb4.
Thus far, I have found certain aspects of all of the presentations interesting. The comic book research was very intriguing and informational, as I knew very little about the comic industry. I had never considered this another type of media that women could be portrayed in.
As the class knows from my own presentation, I am interested in research dealing with the media. The media is not only something that personally interests me and that I feel very passionate about, but being a Communications major, thinking and analyzing media is what I’m trained to do. The media is a source of how we perceive the world and its contents, whether we realize this influence or not. Thus, if the media has such an impact on society, then it’s important to study the media and politics, in order to see if we are being positively or negatively influenced. Therefore, I found the nightly news comparison study brilliant and a great topic that will hopefully spur our class on to be more observant to the overall media concerning how gender is portrayed.
The presentation concerning how looks may affect a person’s vote for a candidate and so forth was also a great topic. This caused me to check my own subconscious and wonder if I often make such judgments without realized the type of uninformed decision I’m making.
Overall, I feel that the topics presented thus far have covered a good range of issues that we’ve touched upon over the semester and will hopefully cause all of us to think or evaluate differently. All of the presenters have put forth a good effort and I look forward to the upcoming presentations!
I really enjoyed all of the presentations. I really enjoyed the presentation on Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush. It was interesting because I do remember seeing a lot about Hillary Clinton when Bill Clinton was in office, but I have not seen much about Laura Bush. I know there was a question in class about whether 9/11 might have made a difference on the coverage. I wonder if there is LESS coverage of Laura Bush because of 9/11, the war on terror, and the war in Iraq. I wonder if we were at peace right now if they would not have focused more on Laura Bush. I think maybe she has been sidelined because there is too many other stories to cover. I definitely do agree that personality plays some part in it, but I don't think that is the only factor.
I also found the comic book presentation interesting. I am so glad that my son has not been interested in comic books. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on Pokeman and Yugioh cards that he eventually lost interest in and threw away. I did find the BMI part very interesting. I would love to see the comparison as it was shown in the presentation comparing women in magazines and runways with realistic measurements. I know the shock I felt when I first learned that they airbrushed and digitally slimmed down women in magazines. If those women are not good enough and they had to be "touched up" what does that say about all of us "regular" women and society's expectations for women?
I have so far enjoyed all of the presentations but a few of them have stuck in my mind and left me thinking.
My favorite was the comic book presentation. When I was a kid I found a huge box full of comic books and "other magazines" that my Dad had kept over the years. He had probably 75-100 old western comics and I read through every one of them at one time or another. Mom took the "other magazines" away but the older I got the harder it was to hide them. Anyway to relate this all to class, when I started to collect comics the ones that I would buy even if they were from the 80's or early 90's had a substantial amount of women in them compared to the the issues of Dad's from the 50's and 60's, whether they were scantily clad minor characters, or super sexy heroines.
I'm sort of like a grown up kid nowadays so I know a good deal about the Teen Titans. It's one of the few cartoons I actually like to watch with my son, Sponge Bob being another one but I'm not sure if he has a comic or not. My son is four now and sometimes I read Batman comics to him at night. I never really liked Batman myself but the Dark Knight is pretty cool sometimes.
One thing that the presentation did not touch on that is probably an entire subject in and of itself is adult comics. I'm not a scholar on the subject but I do believe that a number of Japanese comics are essentially cartoon porn mags. I bought an entire series of comics once at a flea market, like 24 issues, and got them home and they were essentially a Native American porn adventure. I was like twelve so it was pretty sweet, but I ended up trading them for some back issues of Wolverine.
I just wonder how big the comic book porn industry is.
Another presentation that I really enjoyed was the Bush/Clinton comparison. I believe that the difference is probably more attributed to personality than to 9/11. For one the study used data from before 9/11 for Laura Bush, I think. Hillary is just more politically oriented than Mrs. Bush...see right there I feel like I can call Hillary by her first name but Laura is Mrs. Bush because I just don't feel like I know her as well.
I also enjoyed the attractive candidates presentation, although I will stick to my guns, less attractive people get elected. I think that a large number of the people that vote are old and they are more likely to vote for someone that is old, and often times not as attractive as someone younger. But me, if Wonder Woman ran for office I'd vote for her, I don't care where she stands on the issues.
Cameron
I think that everyone in class has done an excellent job on their presentations. You guys are giving the rest of us who haven't went yet a run for our money. I would have to say though, that Kristeena's presentation blew me out of the water. I thought she did an excellent job. I thought it was interesting that the younger more attractive woman had higher votes. I never really thought about people choosing a person for a political office simply based on their looks. I thought that she had a lot of research and did a great job at presenting it.
I also thought that Jill did a good job too. It was neat how she did a presentation on something that really had nothing political about it. Women are portrayed in a lot of comics as sexy and overpowering. I really thought it was great how she gave us the background too of the comic book industry. Had she have not done this I would have been left a little clueless, seeing as how I know nothing about comics. I can honestly say I have never read a comic book as sad as it sounds.
Overall I thought that everyone did an awesome job. Like I said in the beginning, you guys are going to make my presentation look really horrible. I will do my best to have a really great one just like everyone else though. Congrats to all of those who have already went. Just sit back relax and enjoy the last week of your semester!
I’m glad to see that while most of the presentations have been politically oriented, some have dealt solely with women’s issues outside of the realm of the government and politics. From an academic standpoint, I suppose that I have a slightly stronger connection to the discipline of political science, but my presentation has ended up with elements of pure women’s studies as well, and I’m glad that I’m not the only person in the class who made the choice to go in that direction.
Overall, I’ve been impressed with the presentations from last week. While it’s been nice to see some examples of things to prepare for in my own presentation, I must admit that I would rather have it behind me. As it has already been stated, I get the implication that the media is something very important to this class (it also helped that we had just finished discussing women and the media shortly before paper topics were due, perhaps also why there weren’t so many adult industry presentations). I found the presentation comparing the media coverage of Hilary Clinton and Laura Bush interesting. What I think would be interesting is an additional comparison of USA Today articles that included Barbara Bush articles during the first few months of her tenure as first lady. With that data, I suspect that Hilary Clinton would be identified more as the anomaly, as the first, and to date only, first lady to really break the barrier of gender roles in the workforce and the government. She did this first as an attorney in the days before women were earning their J.D.’s at a near equal number to men, and then as a politically active first lady. This combination made her a new and unique phenomenon, qualities that are certainly excellent fodder for the media.
Best of luck to everyone else with the presentations for the upcoming week.
I thought that the presentation on Comics was extremely unique. I wish that I had thought of that one. I grew up reading comic books and eventually fell into collecting them whenever I was in my mid teens. After that presentation I found myself digging through all the crap that my wife and I have amassed over the last five years and piled into a wall in closet upstairs for all of my boxed up comics. I am still amazed that I had the self-discipline not to even open some of them from their poly bags. However, back to the topic. Whenever you are sixteen I guess that you do not really realize that the women that are being portrayed in the comics are being slightly objectified and misrepresented. Probably I only thought that they all were hot! I have about eight boxes of comics from Marvel and just about every woman portrayed in those comics sets an unreal expectation for women that do not exist in the fantasy world. I would have to admit that prior to that presentation I had never even given that concept any thought. But after thinking about it, what would make comics any different that any other form of print. Sex sells in advertising, television, movies, and books. So why not in comic books? I do however make me think a little differently about my views on comics. I used to praise Stan Lee for many of the comics that he developed. Most of them dealt with intolerance. Now it appears that there are some other issues that comic are promoting!
Just to reassure some of you who have mentioned it, there is an adult industry presentation coming! You just have to wait til this Thursday, at least for mine.
I'm a political science major and a women's studies minor. So, I'm pretty inclined to think about both disciplines. I was most interested in Kristeena's presentation, mainly because I may one day run for political office. She had a lot of information! As is expected due to the amount of time and such, her sample requirements were limited. I think 50 people is a lot. However, I think all the participants being in a political science class in college had an effect on her results. The average voter, as previously stated, is older. In fact, young people are among the least represented by voters. I must say, some of the tables and graphs were hard to follow. Yet, she did an amazing job verbally explaining the results. She was very well researched and had great demeanor.
As far as Bush v Clinton...
I would have liked to see a breakdown of what type of articles they were. We saw a lot of titles for Clinton that were very politically motivated. It was stated that some of the Bush articles only mentioned her. A categorization of the articles would have helped the audience understand the bigger picture in the differences. Perhaps the media is changing its view on first ladies. Perhaps Clinton was an extroadinary exception. Perhaps political party has to do with it. I wonder if it's the case that democratic first ladies are more active and take the lime light. While maybe republican first ladies are more reserved and allow their husbands to be in the spotlight. I personally think this is a great possibility. One example to point to is democratic JFK. Jackie O was consistently covered by the media. Perhaps it is only because I am young, but I don't remember hearing much about Barbara Bush either.
The comic book graph on BMI was startling to me. I just finished hosting a Love Your Body Week with the Feminists for Change. The whole week I was explaining to people that the average woman cannot meet the average model standards. I've explained that the average model is OVER 20% underweight. Yet, Jill explained the "real life" line was even a graph of models/dancers and the sort. I makes me fear what the graph would have looked like if it were compared to REAL AVERAGE WOMEN. And I wonder, what message does that send to our young boys? Fans of comics grow up seeing these images on a daily basis. With those amzazing figures, I hope boys understand it is not reality.
The presentations this week were really great, and some very interesting topics.
The one about attractive people getting elected was interesting. We all know from earlier this semester that many times the media focuses on how a woman looks and what she wears as opposed to the issues, so it was a good idea to examine the issue of attractiveness and voting more closely.
The one about comic books was of course interesting as well. Especially about the proportions of comic book characters to real life characters. Barbie dolls are like that too, so it doesn't surprise me. But what did surprise me was that the BMI of women in real life compared to the comic characters were completely different, but men were not as far off in the way they were depicted.
It was also interesting in the abortion issue, and the fact that there were more abortion clinics around the borders than on the mainland of the nation. Perhaps it is because of people coming in from other countries. Especially Mexico, where they just recently decided to legalize abortion. Or perhaps it is because, with the exception of the Southern states, the states around the border tend to be more liberal? (California and the Northeast states for example).
The topic of women and men covering media stories was interesting as well. I think it was especially interesting when comparing the two news anchors that there did tend to be a difference.
And, the topic of bullying. I really enjoyed this, and the comparison between the US and Europe revealed different results. It is so true that boys and girls bully in various ways, and this was something very interesting to examine. I guess socializing of boys and girls could play into this, because girls are not brought up playing GI Joes, usually. Many of them play with dolls or play house. So, from early on, boys are playing with toys that engage them in physical fighting, whereas girls become talkative and gossipy. I don't know, that's just my perspective because those are some things her paper made me think about!
I've really enjoyed all of the presentations thus far. I, like just about everyone else on the blog really liked the presentation comparing Hilary Clinton and Laura Bush. I wasn't really surprised that Clinton was in the media more than Bush but what really surprised me was how much more Clinton was in the news or at least reported on by USA Today. I realize that this probably have a lot to do with the differences in the two first ladies' personalities, after all Laura Bush did make the President promise she would not have to make a campaign speech on his behalf. However, in the months prior to September 11, I remember seeing Laura Bush in the news promoting No Child Left Behind much more than what is reflected by the USA Today reports. This legislation was of course overshadowed by the tragedies of September 11 but on September 11 the President was promoting the program by reading to a class of school children in Florida. This makes me think that part of the huge gap between how much Hillary Clinton appeared in articles compared to how often Laura Bush appeared in the first six months of their husband's terms had to do with the media source at least a little. I wonder if the results would have been the same had someone looked at another paper like the New York Times or the Washington Post.
On a slightly different not concerning this presentation on first ladies, I was very intrigued by the almost identical pictures of the Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton at the beginning of the presentation. Not only did both have similar hair cuts but their suits were strikingly similar and the same pink roses were in the background. I was thinking maybe both were taken by the white house photographer and this could explain some of the similarities. Or, perhaps there is a certain look most females in the political lime light tend to adhere to. Maybe someone should do a study on the fashion trends among first ladies or political officials.
I also liked the presentation on the revolving door between politics, the military, and the corporate world. I thought it was very interesting to look at the difference in revolving door practices of men and women. I agree that the reason why women participate in the revolving door less than men is because females are not as prevalent in high profile positions as men. However I also think that if you narrow the study down and look at the rate at which women who are in high profile positions move between fields we might possible see that the rate is probably comparable to the rate for men. Of course, I haven't studied this in any way but that's just my own personal guess.
I would also like to here more information like what we heard in the presentation that talked about city ordinances and adult business pertaining specifically to Madison County. I wonder what Madison County's ordinances say because Madison Middle is just up the hill from the Manhattan club and that 24 hour video places on Keenland isn't too far from White Hall Elementary. I also remember some of the ordinances we heard about saying that adult business couldn't be located near a place of worship. I wonder what would happen if someone built a church near an adult business. Would the business be forced to relocate or would the church just be "out of luck" in a sense because the adult business was there first.
The whole discussion of adult ordinances reminds me something else really interesting. Almost as soon as Hustler Hollywood moved to Lexington they put up a billboard on the Robert Martin By-Pass advertising. The sign was red and in big white letters it said Hustler Hollywood. Well, the billboard was located right next to the road you turn off on to get to Red House Baptist Church. When the church saw that this sign had been put up they bought the billboard space above it and put up their own sign with red background and big white letters that said "Don't get Hustled, Give your Life to Jesus." The Church's sign with this slogan and others has remained up now for almost a year or two. Hustler's sing stayed up for a long time as well and has just recently been taken down. I thought this little anecdote was an interesting example in the exercise of free speech. It also shows the conflict that sometimes arises between adult businesses and members of the community.
Kristeena Winkler
There was a pervasive theme throughout the majority of these presentations: what is the perception of the public? be it through media or polls, many of these presentations focused on the perceptions of the masses. This was really cool to me, because it plays a large part in my paper, too.
What is interesting to note is that much is determined by the perception of the American people where politics are concerned. It doesn't really matter if Laura Bush is in fact less interesting than Hillary Clinton. What matters is what the people think.
It doesn't really matter if women are in fact more hawkish and aggressive in executive positions of political power than their male counter parts. It matters more that every one assumes them to be weak and indecisive. It matters so much that it may even make them behave differently than they otherwise would.
Perceptions are so important in determining not only the voter's actions, but the politician's actions as well if not more importantly.
Sorry this is an hour late!!
All the presentations this week were fantastic! I was so intimidated when Kristeena got up in front of class and started her presentation, I was blown away! I found it engaging, interesting, and really impressive! A lot of people presented on their methods and literature, and I admit that I didn’t even think about doing so, although my literature was (unfortunately) a bit skimpy. I was also impressed by the presentation on the first ladies. It was very uncanny the way they both looked the same, and the fact that there was such a statistical difference between the media coverage of both Laura and Hillary. The difference is incredibly striking, and I do agree with the conclusion that personality has a lot to do with it. Hillary always struck me as being far more outgoing, whilst Laura does seem more meek and quiet. I also wonder if 9/11 made a considerable difference, and if Laura has managed to (statistically) outdo Hillary during her part as a First Lady. Although it is also interesting to note that Hillary outshines Laura (and most male presidential candidates) in media coverage now as well. I find this an intriguing subject that would be really neat to look into sometime.
I also found Robert’s presentation really neat! I really hadn’t known about the use of the ‘revolving door’ policy, and whenever it was mentioned, I admit I never really thought of it as that, I always simply assumed it was the in-and-out policy for the average worker. I thought Robert’s comparison between women using the revolving door policy and men was also very interesting!
I’d also like to address something everyone seemed to point out from my presentation involving women and their enjoyment of Japanese comics. Someone said a lot of them were essentially cartoon porno mags, and while there is a good majority of Japanese cartoon porn, it would be a more accurate description to call most Japanese comics the equivalent of “R” rated movies. Most of the comics girls tend to read are romance or romance-based action comics which don’t tend to ‘talk down’ to girls as much as many western comics, where they are more often-than-not written by men, while female writers and artists are far more common in both Korean and Japanese comics.
Also, Dr. Patton addressed the subjects of Raven and Starfire in the Teen Titans Go! Series, and how they are good role models for young girls, and how they look up to them as non-sexualized characters. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case in the original Teen Titans series, as I’ve included visual aid below. Interesting difference to note.
Starfire: http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/bigimages/starfire.jpg
Raven: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f5/Ravenacolor.jpg
I have really enjoyed all the presentations. It was a nice break away from politics with the Women in Comic Books. The BMI scale was shocking! With the theme of the power of the media with the other presentations, this scares me. It is obvious what control the media has over the population and combine that with the way women are looked at in comic books, it’s impossible for boys and girls to get away from the idea of the perfect woman. From the time kids are little it is beaten into them what roles they are to take and how they are to look. Take into account the glass ceiling that women face in many occupations, it’s not surprising that women do not participate in the revolving door practices. Which I might add, was very interesting. I had never heard of that before class.
I am a psychology major, and never has a politics class before, so everything I have learned in class and other people’s presentations have had a lasting effect on me. I don’t listen to the television nor the radio in the same way.. Nor do I look at sexual oriented business in the same manner.
The topics this week were really interesting. I especially enjoyed the comparison of media coverage of Laura Bush and Hilary Clinton. I thought the research for this was really interesting and that the results were as well. It demonstrates to me the active role that Hilary Clinton took during her husband's administration and the attention she brought to certain issues.
I also liked the topic on bullying. I thought it was interesting the differences between boys and girls and bullying. I remember in school girls being tormented with silence and rumors whereas boys were much more physical in their attacks. Sometimes it seems that its more acceptable for boys to take out their aggression in this way. Boys seems to be encouraged sometimes to fight, not to take crap, and to walk away from a fight is a wussy thing to do. So I think that might play into the differences between boys and girls and how they treat each other.
Jenny Holly
Post a Comment