Monday, January 22, 2007

Profile and Evaluation of blackfeminism.org

Profile:

Name and subject: blackfeminism.org; one woman's opinion on race, gender, and politics.
Author, relation to and location in field: Tiffany B. Brown, who is a web developer and designer living in Atlanta. Evidently, she is not directly connected to the field of gender studies, but she is an expert on the Internet, which has a huge influence on the formation of gender roles and social expectations of gender (thanks to its power to spread images instantaneously).
Frequency of posts: Tiffany was posting about every three days for a while, but she published a blog at the end of December that said that she has to discontinue blogging until January.
Blog popularity: Technorati ranks it 28,629 because it has 318 links from 113 blogs

Evaluation:
1. I think this blog relates to my field of interest because Tiffany discusses gender issues such as marriage, and she mentions both gender and race quite frequently. I think racial and cultural differences in gender are fascinating, and I would love to learn more about them.
2. Many of Tiffany's blogs revolve around published information, such as news articles, but for the most part, it is not a professional or academic blogs. It is simply a collection of thoughts from an average American woman.
3. The posts do not tend to be extremely detailed. They are concise and discuss a single issue at a time.
4. I believe the audience is women, especially black women. They are relevant because their comments may help to understand the issues in the blog more thoroughly.
5. This blog may feed my work because it will give me insight on intertwining racial and gender issues. Because I am white, this blogger will be able to provide me with experiences and information that I may have otherwise overlooked or misunderstood. I want to look at and discuss as many diverse sides of issues pertaining to gender as I can in my blog.
6. Again, my blog will differ because I will also discuss intertwined racial and gender issues in it.

What This Blog Will Focus On

When I was five or six years old, I fantasized about what I would look like when I was all grown up. I imagined that I would have flowing brown hair, luscious breasts, and a mesmerizing singing voice—a woman I perceived to be a man’s dream, probably thanks to a Corona commercial or two. By eight, I was flipping my hair out of the pool to look as sexy as Ariel does in The Little Mermaid when she first bursts out of the ocean as a human. Also, I ascended the sauna steps in a dress slip to look like she does at the end of the film when she emerges from the sea for the final time—her gown, shimmering and beautiful, clings to her slim body as she runs into the arms of her charming and handsome Prince Eric. Unlike Ariel, however, I did not shimmer, and I certainly did not look beautiful; my slip hung limply from my chubby prepubescent frame, and I moped about my lack of sex appeal. At eight years old.

As is evident, media images have had a strong effect on my perceptions of femininity ever since I was a child. In fact, I attribute a great deal of my preteen and adolescent behaviors to these media-based perceptions. For this reason, I am deeply interested in how television shows, film, magazines, advertisements, etc. affect males’ and females’ self images and their ideas about what acceptable gendered behaviors are. And I’m not just talking about the ubiquitous female quest to be thin and pretty—men, too, face stifling pressure. They are encouraged to hide their emotions, be as buff as possible, find a well-paying job, etc. These are just a few of the topics regarding the social construction of gender that I will delve into while blogging this semester.

I am also interested in broader social issues pertaining to gender. One may think that thanks to the feminists of the 1970s, humans live in a world where men and women are totally equal. But is that really the case? If so, why are American women still routinely paid less than men for doing the exact same job? The glass ceiling still exists when it comes to women in the workplace, unfortunately. And outside of the United States, Afghani women endure clitoridectomies and female babies in China have become the victims of infanticide—if you can only have one child, better make sure it’s a boy so that he can take care of you when you’re old (or so the logic goes)! I will be discussing a variety of international social justice issues that have to do with sexual biases and expectations for the next few months.

Going back to gender development in children, I am not just interested in how children have been acculturated by the media; I am also interested in how kids are affected by behavioral clues all around them. For example, ever been inside a Toys ‘R’ Us? There are two toy aisles: one is stocked with pink fuzzy things, Easy Bake ovens, and Barbies (which, by the way, would not be able to stand on their own if they were actual, life-sized women), and the other is jam-packed with black and red race cars, Lego adventure sets, squirt guns, and extremely muscular action figures. Why do we do this to our children? Can’t our kids play with unisex toys, such as, say, colorful blocks? Why do we insist on laying out certain roles for them as soon as they pop into the world? I, for one, would like my children—regardless of gender—to be whoever they want to be. It may sound idealistic, but it’s true. Parents are quick to discourage their sons from wearing Mom’s nightgown and high heels, and scold their daughters for becoming too loud or dirty. Is this kind of parenting psychologically and developmentally healthy? I am deeply interested in exploring the answers to these difficult questions.

I am looking forward to spending the semester thinking critically and writing about gender discrepancies in media and society, as well as contemplating various international social issues pertaining to gender that are currently pertinent. Because my life and behavior have been deeply affected by my perceptions of what a woman should be, look and act like, the subject of gender fascinates me. Career-wise, I am hoping to influence the world somehow, to change some of the unfair and harmful gender differences I perceive to exist all around me. Perhaps this blog will be the first step in doing so.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

For Love of a Mother

This is a comment I left on the blog, "Bad Feminist."

"First of all, that posting was absolutely gorgeous. It made me cry! The torment you expressed over loving and hating your mother at the same time was palpable; I feel the same way, but underneath it all, I love my mother as much as you do yours. After reading that, I am inspired to let my mom know how much she means to me.

A particular paragraph that you wrote caused me to think a great deal about how we judge our mothers:

'...we turned twenty- and twenty-five and fell in love and began to cobble together careers and we saw for the first time the sacrifices their mothers had made for their families, the ways in which their selves had been subsumed into the dreams of the men they loved, how they must have seen their lives disappearing, how they had no chance to be good mothers when they couldn’t even be themselves. We saw these things because we had begun in earnest our own battles for ourselves and we could feel that at some point you just can’t give anymore to others what you can’t give to yourself.'


After reading this, I realized that I am still too young to understand the troubles my mom has had to endure as a stay-at-home mom. As you said, her identity has gotten sucked up in the life of the successful man she loves--my father--and in those of her four children. But who is my mother, really? Do I really know, and have I given her the time and understanding she deserves?

Starting as soon as possible, I am going to ask my mother to share with me a side of herself that perhaps even she no longer recognizes."

Thursday, January 11, 2007

The Day Begins with a Blog

Greetings all. Let the analysis begin.