Additional show and tell post Human Trafficking

http://www.katc.com/news/baton-rouge-ranks-in-top-ten-cities-for-human-trafficking/

After reading other people’s show and tell posts about human trafficking I wanted to share something I found as well so people could become more aware. I wanted to share a news report about this issue around Baton Rouge so people will see that it happens so close to home, but I also took a lot of information from the websites shared in other posts (Trafficking Hope and Tigers Against Trafficking). Before I read the other posts I didn’t really consider human trafficking as a big issue in the United States or even Baton Rouge for that matter. I always thought of human trafficking as something that happened mostly over seas, but it is happening everywhere in the US as well. With Baton Rouge ranked one of the top ten cities for human trafficking it is a much bigger issue happening close to home that not many people are aware of.

Girls from all age ranges are taken from their schools or parks, even lured in by false advertisements on the Internet and sold for sex. The girls that are being trafficked are threatened everyday to make a certain quota and if they don’t meet it they are beaten and harmed. Not only are they threatened if they don’t meet their quota, but they are also threatened into silence. Many girls are too afraid to talk about how they were taken from their homes because their life or the their families lives have been threatened by the people in charge of the human trafficking. These girls are only seen as objects to be sold and are so badly mistreated and abused that they often times die because of it. It is a scary thought that there are girls out there that have been taken from their homes to be trafficked for sex and an even scarier thought that anyone of us could fall victim to it.

Not many people are aware of this issue because it is a very hidden thing and people don’t want to believe it is happening. Sex and human trafficking is such a taboo topic that people just choose not to think about it. No one wants to consider that it is happening anywhere in the world much less their own town. The only way to stop human trafficking though, is for more people to be aware of what is going on around them. Taboo topic or not it is happening and it is something that needs to be stopped immediately.

Here is an additional news report about human trafficking in Baton Rouge. It touches in the issue of human trafficking in Baton Rouge as well as how Trafficking Hope and Tigers Against Trafficking got started.

http://www.nbc33tv.com/news/local-news/human-trafficking-in-baton-rouge

Be Aware

I think what really struck me from the Meet the Predator article that more people need to know is that most rapes happen between people that know each other. We all have this picture in our head of a woman being attacked by a sketchy older man hiding in the bushes. This is usually not the case though; most victims of sexual assault knew their attacker prior to the attack. The worst part is, is that victims that were sexually assaulted by someone they know are less likely to tell than victims that were attacked by a stranger. The people that get away with raping usually become repeat offenders and walk the streets holding on to a secret no one suspects.

More people need to be aware that the picture in their head of being raped by a sketchy random hiding in the shadows is less common than being raped by someone sitting next to you at a party. I think the best way to get people to listen and be aware is to put it in the media. First, I think shows that jokingly talk about issues such as rape should reevaluate the message they are sending out. If they are touching on these sort of serious issues in a joking manner then they are sending out a message to their viewers that it is OK to rape and attack people. I also think that sites such as Project Unbreakable should be more widely known. Most people won’t come across a site like this unless they are looking for it, and the people that need a wake up call the most probably aren’t looking for it. I think there should be commercials, kind of like the ones against texting and driving, with the different pictures from Project Unbreakable to get more people aware of the issue. If people see these stories on their television maybe they will get the message that rape can happen to anyone by anyone, a stranger or a friend.

Show and tell Stop Objectification

http://www.stopobjectification.com

I found this website called stopobjectification.com. It was so interesting to me because on this website women are taking pictures of their best assets, basically objectifying themselves, but using it to empower them. They will take a picture of what has been objectified and then tell their story of objectification and how they got through it and used it to become a stronger person. The video at the top of the page titled “Hey Baby” is blatantly objectifying the women by what is videoed, but then they add a caption about that woman that shows just how strong she is. It will scan up a women’s body but stop at her chest so you can’t see her face and then add a caption like “She has a PhD in neuroscience”. It shows that these women have beauty and brains and before you objectify them by just looking at their body you should try to get her story first and then you would learn that she is a strong successful woman. These women are probably more strong and successful than the men that are whistling at them down the street, but the men feel empowered by being able to call them what they want without knowing anything about them.

My favorite example in this video would be when they scan up the woman’s legs to her neck and stop there with the caption “She just made partner” and the it moves over and shows the face of the man walking with her and says “He just made her coffee”. This just proves my point that while this man isn’t being objectified and the woman is, she is still much more successful than he is and we shouldn’t just base all of our opinions by objectifying her. People will base their opinions of a person based on their looks, and by looking at most of these women on the website people would think that all they have going for them is their beauty. That is not the case at all though, all of these women are very strong and successful women that have been objectified and therefore thought less of, brains wise, before anyone got the chance to know them. At the end of this video it finally shows all of the women’s faces with the caption “Stop Objectification”.

If the video wasn’t enough for people to realize that objectification is wrong there are many different women’s stories further down on the page that show how women turned objectification into empowerment. Something that was said in a story about a woman that pole vaults really struck me. She says, “I don’t pole vault for your entertainment or drooling. I pole vault and wear heals and nice clothing because I am powerful. And these things evoke my power, and I will never stop. If it is my power that is luring your eyes to me, than have them meet mine, and ask me about my brain.” I can’t agree more with what she is saying. Many times women are judged by what they wear and people will say things like, “Well if you didn’t want to be objectified you shouldn’t have dressed like you did”. I don’t wear the heels and the cute outfits in the purpose for men to objectify me, I wear the heels and the cute outfits because I feel powerful in them. I believe that when you look good you feel good and in no way am I trying to be objectified because of that. If you are interested in me because of what I am wearing then talk to me like a normal human being would and have a normal conversation to get to know me. Don’t start whistling at me and saying nasty comments thinking it will attract me, because it won’t. Your interest in my personality and my story will get my attention not your comments as I walk down the street.

What I will take from this class

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I went into this class, but I came out with a lot more knowledge and appreciation than I expected. Since this class watching movies and television shows has not been the same. Not in a bad way but in a way that I am more aware of all the issues at play in the movie. I use to watch shows and movies in blissful ignorance and rate the movie on how emotional I got. Now while I still rate the shows based on my emotions I also find myself being more aware of the manic pixie dream girls or straw feminist characters and the way women AND men are being objectified.

The most important thing I think I will take with me from this class throughout undergrad and beyond is how I learned to listen and became more open minded. I never completely wrote off people’s opinions before this class, but it was a lot easier to stick to what I believed in over others. Now I listen to other people’s opinions and take that in to base my own. Sometimes someone else’s opinion can shift mine, because they put it in a way that I never thought of. We touched on so many different controversial topics in this class and I thought I knew where I stood with my opinion, but once I started to listen to other people in the class and what they thought about the issue it really opened my eyes and made me think differently. Some may think that this could be a bad thing because I changed my views based on someone else’s opinion but to me that isn’t the case. Once someone spoke up about what they thought and it might be different then what I believed but I still thought what they were saying was appropriate I didn’t completely shift my views to what they were saying. I made a new opinion that merged my original and what I got from the other person. I really learned a lot from this class; learning to listen and absorb is the main thing I will take away from it.

Abortion

The articles that we read for class and what we learned in class today really made me think twice about abortion. I’ve always been somewhat neutral on the topic of abortion, because I believe in certain instances that some people should have the right to choose. At the same time I think, how could someone take away a life from one that hasn’t gotten a chance to live it? To me it is a very thin line and I’m not sure exactly which side I’m on. That’s why when I was reading the articles and writing down the notes in class it all made me ask the question, when is an embryo considered a person to which it would be considered wrong or murder? to have an abortion? I’ve never wanted to consider abortion murder because I know there are many women out there having abortions because of certain circumstances like rape or even not being able to properly take care of the baby through the pregnancy or after. I also think that I can’t truly say that I am against it because I’ve never been in the position where I would have to even consider it so I don’t know what the reasoning is for some women that are doing it. But after learning more about it I feel that there is a particular point in the pregnancy where the embryo has developed enough that it would be too late and considered wrong to have an abortion. That being said I’m still not sure exactly when that time is, possibly before the embryo develops into a fetus. I am still staying neutral on the topic because I don’t know the reasoning for some people’s abortions and because I don’t know when it should be considered killing, but today did really make me reconsider the possibility of being pro choice because of the thought of taking away the chance at life from something so innocent.

Objectification

I can’t say that I’ve been seriously objectified before, but I have fallen victim to street harassment plenty of times. I don’t know what it is about guys that think that will get them a chance to talk to girls, but if someone says anything to me they will usually just get ignored or a snarky comment back. During tailgating at the LSU vs. Alabama game I had a lot of guys my age and even old men saying crude comments to me as I walked past. I know that alcohol had a lot to do with influencing it, but it got a little annoying and creepy as time when on, especially if I got separated from my friends and was walking alone. One instance in particular was when I was walking with a group of my friends and two older men, that had clearly been drinking heavily, decided to say something as we walked past. I could see it coming as I was about to walk past them, but I decided to try and ignore them because that usually works out. I heard one man say “yeah that one that one” so I just continued to walk with my eyes averted, but once I walked past the other man said to me “you smell like sex”. I was taken aback by that one because it was just so strange, was I supposed to be complimented by that? So to that I just sarcastically said “good one” and kept walking. He looked a little upset that I didn’t take that comment as a compliment, but honestly that was one of the strangest things I had ever heard. Even if he would have given me an actual compliment I still would have ignored him because saying things drunkenly or sober on the street is creepy and should stop because it won’t get you anywhere.

Show and Tell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta-rwTxAfuk

A simple straightforward question: How do you feel about your body? For some it could be difficult to answer and others may not have a problem. In this video people were asked this question at random on the streets by a stranger. Some people talked about a love-hate relationship while others talked about just loving their bodies. People of all different body types were interviewed and people of all different body types gave different answers. There were people that to me looked like they had no reason not to love their body, but talked of their love-hate relationship. It’s good to be aware that you are flawed because we all are, but you need to be comfortable with those flaws once you become aware of them.

I wish that there wasn’t so much pressure on people to have a certain body type or certain facial features. In the world we live in, what matters most to people at first sight are looks. We are constantly comparing, comparing ourselves to other people or comparing everyone else around us. This sparks an issue of wanting to look like something you can’t achieve, because you aren’t them, you are uniquely you and that is something you should be proud of. But not everyone has figured this out so they have turned to crazy diets and plastic surgery to transform themselves “for the better”.  Half the time these crazy crash diets are in no way for the better because they are harmful and unhealthy. If you are harming yourself to become skinny then I don’t see the beauty in it. As for plastic surgery I’m not against it at all, but once you start taking it to an extreme and doing things that are completely unnecessary or doing it at a young age cosmetically, I think you might want to realize a few nips and tucks shouldn’t be the reason you gain confidence. Confidence should come from within and I wish people would try to build some without the help of plastic surgery or crash diets. People should be able to be confident about their body type whatever it is, because everyone is different and we all know that.

Not Pro Ana

What really stood out to me is the Pro Ana websites that were talked about in class. I never knew that there was basically a whole society, based on starving themselves and being skinny, out there supporting each other on the Internet through blogs and other websites. I always thought that if someone was anorexic they were going to try to hide it. I never thought they would post it on the Internet for everyone to see, but on these websites people are talking to each other about their different anorexic lifestyles like it’s normal and healthy. I know we were advised not to look at these websites, but naturally I was curious because I had never heard of anything like this. I found different blogs where people talked about their day or their diet plan, mostly consisting of liquids or laxatives, or showed pictures of scarily thin women. Seeing all of this just made me want to feed them or eat for myself I wasn’t sure which one, maybe both. There was also a list I found entitled “70 reasons NOT to eat” as I was reading it I just couldn’t grasp who would actually believe what they were saying. I felt like someone was trying to brainwash me, but all of the things they were saying were so ridiculous and skewed I couldn’t help but shake my head and get angry that some people have read this and become anorexic because of it. These Pro Ana websites beautify anorexia when in reality 60% of anorexics die prematurely.

Stop comparing

The question I would pose is “Why do women and young girls compare themselves to models”? Even I am guilty of this and it really irritates me. We all know that models and actresses don’t really look like what they do on magazine covers and billboards, and yet we all compare ourselves to them. We feel the need to live up to that status and look just like them. If we don’t look like them then we are below average or imperfect when in reality they look nothing like what the advertisements make them look like. Photoshop plays a big part in making these women look “perfect” and “beautiful” and even though we know this we all buy into it and beat ourselves up over not looking like them. The main reason I want to know why we do this is so I can stop doing it to myself. I want to stop comparing myself to these photo-shopped pictures and be happy with the body that I have. I think the reason most everyone else does it to themselves as well is because they see these bodies as society’s only view of perfect and beautiful. Everyone knows that these photos are fake, but everyone still compares themselves to them because they feel that is what they need to look like in order to be accepted. Young girls and women’s self-esteem takes a toll because they are comparing themselves to an image that society says is perfect when it is actually fake. Society’s perception of beauty is greatly skewed by the photo-shopped pictures plastered everywhere.

My first gay encounter

The first time I encountered someone that was gay was my oldest brother’s best friend. They were friends all throughout high school and were roommates in college. Mark, my brother’s friend, was never openly gay until he got to college and he didn’t tell my family, who is like his second family, until his sophomore year, when I was in 8^th grade. I can remember my mom sitting me down to tell me like it was big news and I was going to have some big reaction, but I wasn’t really surprised and didn’t think it was that big of a deal. It’s not that he’s this very flamboyant guy; he was just never interested in girls and whenever he came over we always gossiped about the hot celebrity guys. At the time I may not have grasped the concept that he was gay, but when it was said to me out loud it all started to make sense.

I know that it was hard for Mark to tell my family because he was afraid we wouldn’t be accepting of him. He actually didn’t even tell us on purpose, my dad and my middle brother found out by a refrigerator magnet in their apartment that said “Help me my roommate is gay”. Naturally they were curious and started asking questions. Mark ended up telling them and of course everyone in my family had different reactions. My oldest brother, who already knew and had known for a long time, didn’t care, but my dad and middle brother had different reactions. My dad was a little uncomfortable but found a way to make an inappropriate joke out of it. My middle brother, the masculine baseball player, was completely uncomfortable with the situation and sometimes to this day is still uncomfortable around Mark. My mom, like everyone was shocked to hear the news, but she was very accepting. None of my family’s reactions influenced my own though, I was never shocked by the news and I was happy for Mark. I was and still am proud of him for coming out and being himself, because some people don’t have the courage to do that.

Not an Activist

I wish it wasn’t so hard for me to write this blog prompt, but I’m finding it incredibly difficult. I’ve always had this crippling fear of getting in trouble or embarrassing myself, and by speaking my mind I felt I would always end up doing one or the other. I could talk about one of the times that I went to the animal shelter and played with all the animals or other volunteer work I’ve done, but that’s something I enjoy doing because I like to help; it’s not too out of my comfort zone. I think the hardest thing I’ve ever had to struggle with was last spring when I didn’t speak up and I wasn’t an activist.

In the spring of my freshman year here at LSU one of my good friends committed suicide. I may never know exactly why he did what he did, but I do know he came to talk to me about a certain issue he always came to me about and I kind of blew him off. I tried to just side step all his issues and make jokes out of everything. Instead of speaking my mind and helping him like I usually did I just skirted around it because I wasn’t in the mood for it. I know that what he did wasn’t my fault, I’ve come to terms with that, but I always wish I could have done more. I know there were so many other factors in play that made him feel the need to do what he did, but if I would have been more of an activist and spoken up and helped him through what he was talking to me about maybe things would be different.

Unearned Privileges

An unearned privilege I have that I feel should be eliminated from society is able-bodied privilege. Reading through the privilege lists for class I decided to look at the able-bodied one and I was struck by how unfairly we treat people that are not of able-body. It was a check list that went through the life of a person that was not able-bodied and it made me realize that people of able-body do not treat people not of able-body fairly. We don’t treat them as equals, which is what they really want to be treated as. We treat them as if they are a completely different species, when really they are someone’s brother or sister or parent who went through something traumatic or were just born that way and didn’t get the able-bodied privilege that we did.

An unearned privilege I have that I feel everyone in society should have is the privilege of being financially stable. I’m not saying that I am rich and obviously I am supported by my parents, but it was nice to know growing up that there would be food on the table and I would have clothes to wear. I wish everyone could have that privilege and it breaks my heart that there are people in the US and in the world that go without eating on a daily basis. If everyone had this privilege I feel that it would take away a lot of crime and violence in the world. It’s like money is what fuels all the bad things that are going on in the world. Everyone says “money can’t buy you happiness”, but it sure seems to take away a lot of people’s problems.

Gendered Advertising (free blog)

http://www.feministfrequency.com/2010/11/toy-ads-and-learning-gender/

Before entering WGS 2500 I never noticed how gendered children advertisements really were. I always noticed that girls’ toys were always aimed at girls by being pink and frilly and boys’ toys were blue or green and were more masculine, but I never realized how bad it really was. The articles we read in class and the video I cited in my blog really capture the intensity of this problem. The toys for boys challenge their minds by allowing them to build and construct things, while the toys for girls allow them to play with dolls and learn the basics of child-rearing. At this early stage in life girls should be challenging their minds as well as boys, but the toys that are made for them don’t allow them to do that. They honestly make us look stupid and unimaginative. If a girl does decide she doesn’t like the girly toy options given to her and she goes against the gender norm and plays with a boy’s toy she is then seen as different or weird. The worst part about it is that the companies making and selling these toys are spending billions of dollars on these advertisements knowing all of this. To them it is all about the money, they don’t worry about how it affects these children as they grow up or how girls aren’t getting the same experience playing with their girl products as boys are playing with their boy products. In some places advertisement targeted specifically at young people has been banned to stop the problem of such gendered advertising. Hopefully this will spread everywhere and toys won’t have gender labels on them anymore.

Brute fact vs Social fact

Coming to college several of my guy friends have jokingly said to me “Oh you’re just here to get your Mrs. Degree”, meaning I’m only in school to find a husband. We all know that half of the time you jokingly insult someone, deep down you might actually mean what you are saying. I don’t know if this is just a stereotype, but I feel that it coincides with what they thought was a brute fact of women being the ones that stay at home while the men were off “bringing home the bacon”. Women were the ones that stayed home to cook and clean and take care of the family, while the men went to work to make the money. That might have been the social norm back in the 50’s, but times have changed. Today you see more women in the work force that went to college and got their degrees to become doctors, lawyers, or the head of a big company. You might even see the roles reversed in this day and age where the women go to work and you have a stay at home dad instead, or both parents work and share the responsibility of taking care of their family. It’s not just a one sided thing where the women hold the sole responsibility of the children because she is female and the man is responsible for providing the money and keeping the family stable financially because he is male. Most of us have broken out of what was thought of as a brute fact but was actually just a social fact, and learned to balance our everyday tasks set for a man or a woman. As for the Mrs. Degree jokes I plan to laugh them off as they are thrown at me, but I’ll be the one laughing when I have the college degree and the job.

Privileges

I have grown up with a lot of different privileges in my life, ones I’ll admit I take for granted, but the privilege I enjoy the most is the privilege of getting an education. Yes, I complain about my homework and my tests constantly, but without my education I would most likely be sitting on my parents couch wasting away my life; if they haven’t already kicked me out. Going through school and making it to college has opened so many doors for me. I changed my major three times, but I finally found what was right for me and I couldn’t have done that without the opportunity I was given by my parents. They have provided me with the privilege of a higher education that some aren’t able to receive and with that I’ll be able to go on and start a career that I’m passionate about.

My major is communication disorders and I’m hoping to become a speech pathologist. With that you are required to go to grad school and get your masters, I am also privileged in the fact that my parents believe in me enough to help me pay my way through it so I won’t have to take out loans and be in debt when I get out of school. Being able to go to college and grad school debt free is such a privilege that many aren’t able to experience and the fact that I am able to makes me want to take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way.

Staying in line

My daily routine of wearing makeup and doing my hair is how I stay in line with my gender role. As a woman I am suppose to know how to put on my makeup and do my hair and even enjoy those girly things, but honestly I just see it all as a hassle. Growing up as the younger of two brothers and having a mom who was also the youngest of all boys and a tomboyish sister, I never really learned the magic of makeup and hair products. I constantly see it as a struggle to get ready every time I’m getting dressed up or even just to go to class, and yet I still do it every day because that is what I’m supposed to do as a woman. I’m supposed to make myself presentable and more feminine when I go out in public, so I am definitely doing gender on a daily basis like so many of the articles we have read have talked about. Even though I do wear makeup and do my hair I still stay true to myself by doing the bare minimum. I don’t get all dolled up just to sit in a classroom for a few hours and I don’t even really wear that much makeup or do that much to my hair when I’m going out but I do like looking my best and feeling pretty so if putting on makeup and doing my hair helps, then I’ll keep doing it as best I can.

Oh Sh**

You could say I cross the gender norm by having the mindset of a guy. I’ve always been known for being the girl that has the dirty jokes or the one that always cusses. I have a very sarcastic personality and a lot of my jokes are very suggestive. When “that’s what she said” was popular I would be one of the first to make a joke out of that, probably to the point that it wasn’t funny anymore. I also try a lot of these jokes out on my mom, which probably isn’t normal or smart, but she laughs it off and tries to act like her daughter doesn’t have the mind of teenage boy. I just tell her I’m channeling my inner Chelsea Handler, but she’s never found her to be very funny so that doesn’t help my case.

I also have a bad cussing problem that I probably picked up from my dad. My mom use to punish me and my brothers for saying crap, but then we just said it so much that she started saying it so she couldn’t do anything about it without being a hypocrite. Now I can’t go a sentence without dropping some sort of cuss word. I can usually clean it up when I’m around adults, but since I came to college I’ve realized that it’s just gotten worse. I went home for the summer and realized that I was cussing like crazy around my parents. At first I kind of got nervous when I slipped up and my parents called me out on it, but then everyone was cussing and it became one big Cotton cussing party and no one could stop us. Sure I do wish I could clean up my cussing, but I think my suggestive jokes are what make me, me as cliché as that is.

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