Stressed, Tired, Rushed - Portrait of the Modern Family

I chose to summarize this article based on this past week and Thanksgiving.  Families now a days- of all backgrounds, live in a nonstop world.  They are always busy and running to try to finish one thing in time to start the next.  The article talks about how women still do most of the house hold work and child raising even when both parents work full time.  Women are the ones that suffer.  The article shows countless statistics about women that work and have families and the inequality in balancing the two.  Even bigger is the disconnect between spouses and division of housework/child raising.  Men say that they do an equal job as their wives.  But the wives say that they do much more.  Why is this?  How can this divide be changed?  Would paid paternity leave help with this issue?  I think it would.  I think that having dads stay home to help with the adjustment would make them better understand the work of a working mother and how difficult it is to balance work and home.  This would help with family bonding, lessen how tired families are, cut down on the rush, and even lessen stress in the household with more being taken careful by two people instead of one.
Stress is a huge factor in families today.  The article says "this is not an individual problem, it is a social problem" and that could not be more true.  Stress pulls people to their limits which effects work, school, family, friends, love, etc.  In a survey half the people who said that work and family balance was not difficult and that parenting was always enjoyable.  While 36% said it was challenging.  I think it is and should be challenging- not as challenging as it is though.  I do not have the magic perfect answer but I do think that anything worth while should also be hard work and not handed to you.  The work place is forgetting about the home life- this is seen in the book spoken about in the article, All Joy No Fun.  This is because working parents are around for the joyful times and big events not the day to day fun and activities.

Gender Neutral Children

Sasha's story is the following.  Sasha was raised gender neutral and the infants parents do not want to raise their child in the fear of a set gender.  The child has a yellow room- plays with Barbies and Lego's and is able to dress in any way.  The infants gender was not only not stated but went as far as being hidden from anyone that was not immediately close to the child.  The parents even waited to find out the gender of the child after the child was born for 30 minutes.  However, Storm's story for the child's parents was different.  A child psychiatrist said that the parents were disturbed and misguided for raising their child this way.
In my opinion I feel that gender neutral parenting is something that is difficult to achieve and must be carefully planned out by both parents in a careful way.  I also find it strange that they refer to their child as "the infant".  This is a human being, someone's child.  Those words do not dictate the gender of someone, however, they do show more affection than "the infant".  In the article the psychiatrists sat that "we do have male brains and female brains" if this is true I think it is great that parents are allowing their children to find out for themselves which brain the have despite their physical parts.  However, it is important that parents do not cross the very very fine line and take gender neutral parenting to the point that could be detrimental to the child.  Unfortunately we do not know enough yet to tell what gender neutral parenting does to a child and what effects them later on in life.  Because of that it is sadly a wait and see situation.  I think that children no matter what their gender is or is not, they should be able to think, play, and create with whatever they wish to.  They even should be able to wear what they want in order to express themselves in a safe way.  However, hiding their gender from them I think will be detrimental to them later in life.  Allow child to express who they are for what they are- not who they could be.

NetGirls

After reading this article I realized the true impact that media can have both positive and negative and how impactful media is to the masses.  Positively, it spreads messages, and raises awareness.  Media truly does get the word out there.  However, there is little differentiation between the words spread being positive or negative in terms of self-worth.  The study tried to find the relationship to internet exposure and adolescent girls body image.  The study showed that there is a relationship between striving to achieve ideal thinness and body surveillance to social media- specifically Facebook.  This study  speaks about the link between social influences and medias perspective/power.  This includes fashion magazines and television.  The internet is a way to spread ads, messages, and ideas.  Websites like Facebook allow people to create personal pages- Facebook has been researches and is said to be increasing exponentially with the number of risks for cyber bullying.
To further examine the study it shows that there was no correlation between body image concerns and sites like YouTube or Google.  However, MySpace was also related like Facebook to negative body image.  I find it interesting that sites that allow people to create personal profiles are the same sites that personally attack people's self-worth.  If 95.9% of girls have internet in their homes- 43% in their rooms it is no wonder that their minds and lives are being taken over by the Internets media. The article said girls are speaking 'about 2 hours each day' on the internet plus 34 minutes more with MySpace and 90 minutes more with Facebook- there is no question that they are impacted by its effects.  (This number has probably increased since the article).
I have personally struggled with body image and because of the strong impact and constant effect of media and the urge to reach perfection it is no wonder that so many girls struggle.  It is important to educate specifically young girls on the power of their self-worth and be sure not to criticize them for unrealistic expectations.  However, it is more important to educate the internet and media sites about the impact that they are having on people's lives.  These sites show appearances and pressures that impact young girls minds and body's.  Media's negative impact on girls spreads further than simply appearance, but this is an evident place to begin media transformation.

Social Networks

Over the internet people portray themselves differently than who they appear to be in real life.  This makes me wonder who people truly are.  You could argue that who someone is in person is the real them and that the person behind a screen is a coward.  But you could also argue that in person someone is pretending where behind a screen they can be themselves without others physically judging their actions.  On Facebook, people that I am 'friends' with have recently been over-posting about the election.  These are mostly people that I knew in high school, some of which I have never heard speak.  I think that the internet gives them a voice and an opportunity to say their opinion by being able to reword and rewrite their thoughts accordingly.
In terms of summarizing what people represent I think this depends on the person.  Some people are very vocal with Facebook posting all their 'likes' and 'dislikes'.  However, I rarely publicly share things on Facebook and think I have made about 10 personal posts on my entire lifetime on Facebook.  I wish to keep my personal life exactly that- personal.  Do not misunderstand, I think Facebook and the internet is a great way to spread messages, meet people, create ideas, etc.  Because of these things pages are able to serve as virtual personalities and can give brief insight to a person based off of both what is and is not on their pages.
I think that the role of public network plays a large role in a teenagers social life and impacts gender and who they believe themselves to be as a person.  Social network sites are able to pull the younger generations- mostly teenagers and pull them in directions based off of networks.  This includes political beliefs, moral reasoning, academic intent, self-esteem, gender, and so much more that makes up an individual.  Social Networking is a way to portray to someone that does not know you who you are.  It's interesting when you know a person- or think you know them and their social page shows them in a different light.  This makes me wonder who a person truly is.

I Am Cait Proves Caitlyn Jenner Is the Kardashian Family’s Most Compelling Star Yet

I remember when I first heard about Cait Jenner I was in shock.  I pondered how a person who won Olympic Gold and set a world record, being a hero to so many, could have lived their life not being comfortable in their own skin.  I was in a sense 'happy' that Cait was able to come out and express herself at last.  However, because of media, pop culture, and that fame of the Kardashion family I was sadly a bit skeptical of the whole situation.  Although the family seemed to welcome much support to Cait I wondered if parts on the physical transformation of becoming Cait was for media purposes.  I think was strong and powerful to be shown on reality TV that the LGBTQ community should be supported and was supported by Cait's family.  Where my uneasiness lies is first and most obviously in the name- Cait.  The big power aspect of the Kardashion's is in the letter K.  The name Cait, is typically spelled with a K.  However, Jenner chose to spell it clearly differently using the letter C.  Media and pop culture went crazy about this aspect, which drew even more attention to Jenner.
Where I believe this transformation took a huge spiral was Cait winning the ESPY award.  This award was taken in many way- some agreed, some disagreed.  Many were turned away and offended by this award being presented to Cait.  At the time people said that it was an offence to women that Cait was receiving this award.  The award was presented on the basis of courage.  If Cait won this award simply on the basis of coming into the LGBTQ community then it is a shame because so many struggle and do not have support of anyone when they do the same thing as Cait.  I believe that Cait was compelling in wanting viewers to support "trans people with far less privilege, asking the viewer to care about them, too".  But I think that this award was over kill and done for media in this situation.  I also think it is a little extreme for the article to state that the show I Am Cait "might end up becoming the defining reality show of a generation."
However, overall I think it is important and compelling for media and pop culture for our generation to talk about the LGBTQ community.  It is important for the LGBQT community to be involved in reality TV, even though shows like I Am Cait, because all people experience reality and desire to be recognized, even if it is on 'reality' TV.

Reality Television

My favorite show is Greys Anatomy.  This shows when I began watching it was understandably fake, but portrayed a reality hospital setting.  The part that began as reality included the process of becoming a doctor- the long hours and rough shifts.  But what made it so enjoyable for me was the surgeries and the 'medical talk'.  I loved learning about the different procedures and the different wings and departments of the hospital.  However, there is SO much of the show that is not real, and mostly TV drama (specifically now in the show since it has been around for so long).  The characters of the show give off different vibes.  You would think being doctors all would be respected as so, however, that is not the case.  My favorite character is Christina Yang.  She was portrayed as the complete opposite of a typical female.  But many say that she is smart because of her culture (being Asian).  Which means it's 'okay' for her to be smart.  This is SO wrong and disrespectful, people should be looked at as individuals.  However, another character from earlier on in the show, Izzy Stevens, was portrayed as a stereotypical 'dumb blonde' despite being a doctor.  Christina Yang has quotes like: "Oh, screw beautiful.  I'm brilliant.  If you want to appease me, compliment my brain."  Where as Izzy is given quotes like "I believe that if I eat a tub of butter and no one sees me the calories don't count." It's interesting to notice that even in a medical situation women are still told that they are not good enough or cannot be something based on their appearance.
The title of 'Is TV for Real?' made me think about a lot of shows that are on TV.  Specifically, shows that claim to be 'reality TV'.  The first show that came to mind was Keeping up with the Kardashions.  This family has taken over the reality TV world, for better or for worse.  Many people idolize them, many people cannot stand them.  However, whether you like them or not you must look at the facts... they are good at what they do and have made themselves stars because of it.  People in today's world thrive off of other beings so called reality.  If someone walked around filming me no one would watch the show.  However, if you script 'famous people' and record their exciting Hollywood lifestyle people jump at the chance to live vicariously though them.
It's important to keep in mind that not much of television is real.  It may be based on a real story, or be located in a real setting but at the end of the day it is simply television not real life.  I believe that its important to keep that in mind and that it's important to make the youth aware that what is seen on television is NOT real.

Halloween and Gender Perfomance

To start my post I will show this image seen on several of the articles on Halloween.

People are saying that Party City should be reprimanded and remove this product.  While others are saying that they are simply promoting what sells.  Sadly, the second is true.  This image (and other Halloween costumes that I have seen this past weekend) are culprit to the content and stereotyped culture of the media.  On Friday night, I volunteered at an elementary school's 'Spooktacular'.  All of the young students that attended were dressed up- and very few altered from the gender boxed costumes for today's youth.  The boys were monsters, police, fire fighters, race car drivers, etc.  While the girls were princesses, cats, unicorns, fairies, etc.  I believe that sadly many parents do not see the issue with suggesting certain costumes to their children over other.  Because of parents influence (at least at an early age) on their children I am amazed that some care-takers allow their children to dress as they do.  Not only because of their gender boxed costumes, but because of either the violence of their son's bloody, weapon in hand, monster costume or their daughter's revealing tu-tu.  While reviewing my experience on Friday and the articles the following caught my attention.  

Lin Kramer: “Is this boy superman?

Daughter: “No, he’s pretending.”

Lin Kramer: “Exactly, he’s just pretending. So if he tells you that you can’t be superman, tell him that you can be because you are just pretending too.”

When I was little gender boxes must have existed, however, I do not know if it is that I just did not notice or if I was lucky enough to grow up with out it dictating my life.  When I was little my mom always made homemade costumes for my brother and I.  Halloween was always my favorite holiday because I was able to be ANYTHING I wanted to be.  I NEVER was a princess, despite being a girl.  I simply knew that I did not want to be a princess.  I was more excited by being a giant felt bag of Twizzlers candy because I could not be a bag of candy any other time of the year.  It deeply bothers me that youth is forced to conform to gender boxes at such a young age.  This issue grows from gender boxes to cultural appropriation, as ages increase.  College students (and high schoolers) are the worst with cultural appropriation and Halloween.  Many people insult religions, races, genders, cultures, and more through the way they dress act and dictate a group of people.  Whether one person from a specific group or even 10 from a group think the costume is okay- that small group does NOT speak for the whole.  People lose site of the greater picture and the greater effects that ones action of a costume could have to someone or a culture's image.  It is rude and unnecessary.  People are beginning to notice the issue with gender boxing and the same should be seen with cultural appropriation.  Both of these issues spread deeper than  Halloween, however, fixing the media's perspective for this day could lead to chain reaction of aiding the future.