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.