Blog #12 The Dove Self-Esteem Fund

The topic I chose that was most interesting to me was self-esteem. It is important to me that all people regardless of their gender, age, out side appearance or whatever to have high self esteem and know that they are beautiful just exactly the way that they are. I found an organization that is actively trying to make girls have high self esteem. The organization is called the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. They create thought-provoking ads, confidence-building programs and messages that embrace all definitions of beauty. They even donate a dollar to a charity of your choice by entering your dove UPC number at their website. They are most famous for their commercials and advertisements with pictures of women of all different shapes and sizes in their bras and panties saying that they are beautiful. The society has so many assumptions as to what is beauty. It can really hurt one's self esteem. By showing all different types of women that are average and are not famous saying that they are beautiful, shows that real beauty is in the inside and is not what society makes it seem like. The Dove self esteem fund provides products to make us feel even better about ourselves and know that we are all beautiful. On their webpage they have picturs of little girls saying "i know my hair is beautiful" and it is fizzy, a little girl with freckles saying " i know my freckles are beutiful". The dove campaign has helped girls everywhere realize that they are beutiful just the way that they are.

Paper #2 The Kabul Beauty School Film

A main issue that Deborah Rodriguez addresses in the film The Kabul Beauty School is that women are inferior to men. No man seemed to really want to support the beauty school. As american women went around Kabul telling people what they were doing, men just laughed in their faces. Women do not drive in Kabul. Only men do. When the American woman drove around in her car everyone just stared at her. Men would look back at her and put their hands up at her and point and laugh. Men walking in the streets would not move out of her way , they just would stand their and shake their heads. The women are not allowed to show too much skin. When the Tailiban was there, they were only allowed to show their eyes. If they were too revealing they would get beat up. For years Kabul was under attacks from the war. It was bombed daily. Many of the women in Kabul felt depressed and hopeless. Doing their hair and makeup was the only way to keep their spirits up and feel good about themselves. That is why the Kabul Beauty School was opened.
Women would have salons secretly during the war. Most of the time their husbands did not want anything to do with it for fear of being exposed and harmed by the Tailban. Nafisa, which ran a salon in her home said that women would come all the time to her house to get their hair and makeup done. Even the Taliban’s wives would come. But after they got their hair done, they would just cover up their faces anyway with a veil. They were not allowed to feel good about themselves and show off what they had. Only men could show some skin and their faces.
In Kabul, being born a male made you very powerful. Women were just expected to take care of the house and the children. They are not allowed to make their own decisions. Men do not look at them as being attracted or anything like that, it seems they only wanted women to bear their children and take care of them. Some men even live double lives with more than one wife and several children with each wife. Women could barely even run a salon. There is not was that it would even be possible for a woman to live a double life. They have absolutely no freedom .
The Kabul Beauty School was just a place where the women could gather around and give them more self esteem and be able to be themselves and not just be a person to take care of the house and their husband. Being at that school gave them a sense worth. It also helped to give understanding of the similarities that us as women, regarless of our religious backgrounds or where we are from, have. Gender inequality needs to end. It should not matter what gender you are. We are all people and should be treated equally.

Blog #11 International Council of Women

There are many issues out there are are centered around women. For instance abortion rights. Rather a person is for or against abortion, having the choice to have it done legally or not touches on the freedom that women have to make choices about their own bodies. The International Council of Women also known as ICW, is a worldwide federation of National Councils of Women, which work together on international issues of concern specific only to women. International council of Women is an umbrella organization whose membership consists of National Councils of Women from many nations. This organizaions promotes equal rights and responsiblities for all people regardless of their sex. The elimanation of all forms of discriminations is the ultimate goal. Back in the older days, men had all the power. Women's issues were put aside. Many women's organizations were founded in order to promote peace internationally, general well-being and the right of vote for women. ICW just tries to save the progress that those women have made and make the pain they went through worth while.

Blog #10 Masculinity

In today's society men fell like they have to be strong, independent, and violent in order to be respected. If they are not then they are considered to be a wuss, weak, and get picked on. If men put on a "tough guise" they benefit very much from it. They are socially liked and have much popularity. Perhaps the media can be blamed for this portral of men. In all kinds of movies, even little kids movies, the muscular, violent, stron man is shown as the leader and well respected. The weaker men are used as servants and beat up all the time. People say it is bashing men by saying they are the violent ones, but its true and they learn it through society. It seems to be a cultural norm. This view of men makes it harder on men of color. Ther are already so many stereotypes of people of color. The men of color already feel like outsiders and not respected because of their race. So, it seems like they have to be violent to be a man. Asians are linked to being martial art fighters. Latinos are associated with fighting. So, seeing these men of color engaging in such violent sports, it makes the sterotypes even worse and formulate even more. The combination of those things make the white majority see men of color as the ones to commit crimes and resposible for all of the violence. It makes the white majority to be reserved about being associated with men of color and increases discrimination.

Blog #9 Women and the Work force

People are pretty split on how they feel about Belkin's essay. The sides to the arguement is whether moms should work when they have kids or have no job and stay at home with their children. Those who choose not to work are simply opting out. They want to stay at home to experience every little detail of their childs life and not put them in the hands of other people to take care of while they are working.
I personally think that women should definetly work. Even if it is just a part time job. It is hard to get back into the work force once one has decided to get out of it. Staying at home puts stress on a person. Me personally, I would go insane with boredom and get tired of looking at all the things in my house. And I do not like to cook and clean that much. If I stayed at home then my husband would probably expect me to cook everynight because he worked all day. I do not want that for me. I want it to be 50/50 and both of us contribute to chores in the house and raising our child. And if divorce happens then the woman is left to fend for herself. She becomes very vunerable. Women in our history worked very hard to earn rights for us. By staying at home to become the traditional house wife make me think that we are saying that how women were treated back in day was ok.

Blog #8 Single Parent Income

A full time workin single parent with 3 children who make 1048 dollars a month after taxes has a very difficult time makin it through each month. The cheapest place I could find was a 2 bedroom 1 bath apt that was $340 a month plus the cost of utilities. It was not in too good of a shape. After just the rent on a place leaves $703. I found a daycare from a woman who does it in her own home. It would be #300 for all the kids becase the 5 and 6 year olds would be in school most of the day. This would leave $403 for the rest of the month. A church offers Angel food. $28 for for 2 weeks worth of food. It has ramen noodles, hamburger helper, and hamburger meat. Theat leaves $347. If the church runs out of food it would cost more for food at the store. The rest of the money would have to be used sparingly because most of the remaining #347 would be used for utilities. It is just not very possible to live on this income. Something would have to be donw without to provide for the necessitites or late payments probably accumulate on bills. If something unexpected happens like a flat tire, then there definetly will not be enough money.

Blog #7 Privileges

McIntosh describes some pretty big things that I have never even thought of. I did not realize that people still had so many problems with their race in todays society. I knew in the past there were issues but didnt think it carried over in todays society. I guess there are the older generation that still remembers being segragated and things like that that still hold the same views about race as they did in the past. Some privaleges of being white would be having no one look at you and think of so many bad stereotypes. Even on the video when they interviewed people about some stereotypes about people, they had so many bad things to say about people of color without even thinking about it. But when they had to think of something to say about white people they were like ummm..... didnt have too much to say. Except that whites are rich and the leaders, but even then they had to like a little while before coming up with that. Another perk of being white is that there are more whites around you so you dont have to be lonely and considered an outcast. You are around people mostly the same color as you. Some privelages of being female is that if you do not like working (which I totally do, I would never do this) you can stay at home and not work and no one will really be tough on you and say you do not amount to anything like they would a guy, because it is ok and "normal" if women decide to stay at home as with a guy, it is not so heard of and normal. Most of the time on dates, guys want to be a "gentlemen" so they pay for the date, open your car door, and just treat you soo nice just to impress you. And women do not have to do the nasty dirty work if she does not want to because "its the mans job" so to say. Middleclass you do not have to worry and stress over coming up with money just for simple necessaties such as a roof over your head, food on table, and you can even have extra money to be able to afford to go out to a movie or buy yourself a new outfit or something like that. Being young means that you can have your parents pay for everything. They provide you with a place to live, utilies, and food. Well most of the time, if you have parents that care about you and stay around. You have no bills to pay. And even when you are old enough to drive, you can get a job and just blow all your money and still have no bills, just to put gas in your car and go have fun. You do not have much responsiblities.