Sex, Power, and Politics Blog

According to a study, a chemical in plastic has been linked to cause boys to act like girls.  The study found that boys who were highly exposed to the phthalates chemical were less likely than other boys to play with guns, cars, and also less likely to join in ‘rough’ games.  Now, parents are worried that their boy might not be as ‘masculine’ as they should be.  Some are seriously considering buying toys that do not contain phthalates.  They are afraid that they might ‘turn’ gay or that they won’t become ‘real’ men.  Shouldn’t parents be glad that at least their child is not going to mimic dangerous acts (such as gun games) or that their child may be less involved in fights? Nope. Also how does a child know what a certain toy represents?  They don’t.  This article shows just how much pressure is put into our biological sex and the stereotype that toys have over gender.

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/11/16/2009-11-16_study_chemicals_in_plastic_can_make_boys_act_more_like_girls.html

Video Just For Fun:                                                                                             

This YouTube Video is Entitled “Stay-At-Home-Dad”.  The man in this video raps about his experience as a Stay at Home Dad.  One comment stood out from many posted was this one: “it is only a considered a full-time job if a woman is doing it”.  Though I do not agree with this comment because I believe that men are just as capable to take care of children, the stigma associated with Stay-at-Home-Dad is that they are being lazy because they are the ones who are suppose to be working.  Making men feel inadequate and shameful, relating to the message that Warner makes about the troubling ‘norm’.  Instead of people being indifferent to this, many choose to criticize, reinforcing the idea that a group needs to be looked negatively, in this case it’s the men. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmWp-rI6vSw

I was looking at the headlines today and noticed a disturbing trend in teen relationship violence. Katie Couric interviewed two teenagers who experienced relationship violence and emotional abuse from their significant other and believed that it was part of a normal relationship.  Since March of 2007 and March 2008, the amount of calls and emails to the National Teen Dating Violence Hotline increased almost 600 percent, and in a recent survey showed that 25 percent of teenagers claim they are experiencing physical violence in their romantic relationships.

Despite some of the advantages of technological advances, the article describes how technology like texting, instant messaging, and online social networking has simply added to the amount of control partners can have over their significant other in a relationship.

While our class has looked at the different ways society views sex and gender, this article explains that the increase of teen relationship violence is a result of the constant messages teenagers receive from pop culture images objectifying and degrading women. When 15-year olds are proclaiming, “it’s hard to resist violence,” we need to step up and inform teens that relationship violence is NOT normal.

http://wcco.com/national/teens.abuse.relationships.2.1348954.html

So I received an email this morning (not sure how I got on their mailing list) from CREDO mobile.  Apparently, it is a mobile phone company that “protects a woman’s right to choose.”  They advocate social change and activism simply by allowing a consumer to “stay connected to what’s important and generate donations from money that would be spent on a phone bill anyway…”  Each phone bill updates CREDO members on issues, and easy ways to speak out.  They have “raised over $60 million for nonprofit groups in [their] five issue areas: civil rights, environment, peace & international freedom, economic & social justice, and voting rights & civic participation.”  Members of CREDO nominate and decide 50 nonprofit groups to fund for the year (as well as how much funding will be provided for each group).

This reminded me of the political strategies relating to privilege as detailed by Ayres and Brown.  Almost anyone can promote social change for any cause that they believe in (although this entail class – the availability to access of cellular phones and long distance plans).  CREDO really seems to “enable people to make a difference in the world by doing the things they do every day” – because why would we otherwise; we like social change to come easy 😉 .  I think it is a great idea, however!

http://www.credomobile.com/Default.aspx

I’m sure we’ve all heard about what happened between Rihanna and Chris Brown almost a year ago; just this month however Rihanna “broke her silence for the first time” in a 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer.   It was quite an interesting interview to watch; Rihanna details what happened, why she went back to him, left him again, etc…  I highly recommend viewing it if you haven’t already. 

I thought this correlated well with the silent protest and speak out during WAC week (sorry I didn’t post it earlier L ).  Rihanna definitely endured attack after attack during the last year, and was finally able to come out and set the record straight.  What I found extremely interesting was a clip shown during the interview of Chris Brown speaking to a late night talk show host with the headline “Chris Brown breaks his silence.”  I think that this has a very interesting dynamic to it … Chris Brown was silent because he was embarrassed? In the wrong? Didn’t want to say anything wrong to jeopardize his career?  WHAT?!  He in no way suffered in silence to the extent of Rihanna.

Another interesting point to make is how many people thought that “she must have done something” to make Chris Brown hurt her like that.  People continually questioned what exactly it was that she did.  This just shows how played down domestic violence is; that it wouldn’t exist if she didn’t do something!  This really really really astounds me.  Even Diane Sawyer perpetuated this idea when she said “so many people said she always seemed like the least likely person to be in this situation where that would happen, that she always seemed strong…” Rihanna stopped Diane right there and announced: “I am strong; this happened to me, I didn’t cause this, I didn’t do it.  This happened to me, and it can happen to anyone…”  Rihanna has it right!  Just because she was in this situation does not mean she isn’t strong; In fact, Rihanna is beyond strong for speaking out.    

*Just a side note: I was listening to a weekend countdown on the radio last week (I’m not sure who the host was) and Chris Brown’s new single made it onto the countdown.  The host said something to the like of “well, the way to make people like you again is to make a hit song.”  So now, apparently, one good song is enough to alleviate all of the wrongs associated with domestic violence.  Whoa.

You can watch the interview at abc.com, the interview with Rihanna starts at about 13 minutes.

http://abc.go.com/watch/2020/166626/240777/rihanna-speaks-out#sl-0

A friend of mine posted a link to this article from “TommieMedia” on Facebook a week or so ago; and it immediately reminded me of “For the Straight Folks Who Don’t Mind Gays but Wish They Weren’t So Blatant.” This article is a list of the five worst forms of public displays of affection, compiled by a St. Thomas student.  It isn’t a serious article at all, but I’m still really glad that we’ve realized that the “straight folks” can be excessively blatant as well, not just the “gays.”  I sense that a lot of people would enjoy not seeing such public displays of affection (from anyone).  Often times, I think that people who tend to embody some degree of homophobia target only homosexual people and their public displays of affection; completely ignoring heterosexual displays of affection – in their attempt to “prove a point.”

Another thing I found interesting was the language used in this article.  While the author uses the example of Joey and Jenna (a heterosexual couple), the author does use the term “partner” several times in the article.  This reminds me of our discussions on making sexual orientation ambiguous.  Even though the author uses this term perhaps trying to signify that he is referring to all kinds of couples, he still tends to clarify that partner, for him at least, refers to heterosexual partners only.  However, I am glad to see that terms like partner, spouse and significant other are becoming more common.  All that is left is to stop clarifying heterosexual orientation when we use these terms.  Really, why do we need to clarify?!

http://www.tommiemedia.com/diversions/take-five-worst-forms-of-pda/#comments

I stumbled upon this article about transgender police officer Kerry Bell while I was looking into information about the Debate Club for this week.  I found it very interesting that a transgender officer would be so easily accepted by his chief and co-workers, especially since Bell was previously a woman and now has become a man.  Also, it made me think of GLBT individuals in the armed forces, and how it is thought that if they were to come out as who they really are, the unit cohesion would be destroyed.  I think this article proves that if the unit cohesion already exists, it won’t matter if a few individuals are to come out.

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_13886492

The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is “devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.” The ISNA was founded in 1993 to advocate for intersexed individuals and their family. They have worked very hard with the medicial community to improve the care provided to intersexed individuals.

http://www.isna.org/

William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia is the second oldest college in America. They consider themselves a “Public Ivy” school which they define as superior education that is accessible to everyone. They are ranked 33^rd overall among the nation’s best universities. That is something to celebrate. However, this weekend, W&M found another reason to celebrate. The college students elected their first transgender homecoming queen, Jessee Vasold. “There is no rule against men or women running for opposite roles. Students who made nominations were simply asked to describe how the candidate exemplified Tribe pride.”  Although Vasold has mostly been congratulated, ze (gender neutral pronoun preferred by Vasold) knows that the event has sparked some conversation. I think that even though some may not agree with zir being a queen instead of a king, it is good to raise peoples conciousnesses on the topic!

http://flathatnews.com/content/71865

So, I have to admit, I love fashion magazines. I know I know, they represent women terribly; the models are too skinny; it encourages materialism, etc. But they’re still fun. And while I don’t usually expect a to learn a lot about anything doesn’t fall into the categories of shoes, clothing, and sex, I was impressed to find this article about how to mediate conversations about abortion in the october issue of Glamour. While the article itself may not be that informative, I still was impressed to see a fashion magazine attempting to take on such a controversial issue.

http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2009/09/its-time-to-make-peace-on-abortion

This blog is an outlet of the National Center for Trangender Equality (http://www.nctequality.org/index.html). NCTE is a non-profit, social justice organization that aims promote equality of transgender (and all) people through advocacy, collaboration with other groups and empowerment. This blog primarily focuses on educating its readers about current and relevant policies to transgender issues, and every so often provides examples of ways to get involved and take action—whether it’s providing you with the phone number of Congress members before a large vote is cast, or if it’s just giving you a link to follow and sign a petition.  The most recent topic of discussion on the blog is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which is currently in its fifteenth year of being introduced to Congress.

T-Equality is a blog that is very relevant to this class’ material—especially when we’re focusing on serious forms of gender discrimination that we see today.  Transgender issues have not been remotely prevalent within recent legislation Congress is dealing with, thus blogs like this exist to keep us informed as well as accountable as citizens to do something about it.     

T-Equality Blog link:  

http://nctequality.blogspot.com/