Whats up caffeine addicts,
I just started to really get into podcasts. They are an amazing way to learn about new ideas while you're on the go, doing tedious work, and more. Listening to 2 Dope Queens really opened my eyes up to start checking out some amazing podcasts and I couldn't thank my Psychology of Women class enough for showing me how amazing they are.
Anyway, while I was sifting through different podcasts shows on my Ipad I found a gem. Ted talks has a podcasts show! I was ecstatic and went straight to listening to their latest one "Painfully Funny". If you haven't heard it yet I really recommend it. Its a great episode and it allowed me to realize something incredibly important: comedy can play a tremendous role of activism. In the show, they interview several people who have used their comedic talent to bring light unto very controversial or uncomfortable topics. From LGBT rights and feminism all the way to cerebral palsy, these comedians are changing the landscape of what people talk about through their comedy.
After listening to this podcasts, I really understand the importance of making fun of some pretty terrible issues. Sometimes its okay to laugh about a bad situation. It allows people to stop being so afraid of talking about it. Its almost as if these comedians are breaking the ice on these societal issues and by doing so they can summon a conversation about how we could possibly fix them.
Here is a link to the podcast: http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/519272124/painfully-funny
Stay awesome.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Saturday, March 25, 2017
A Rebuttal on Anita Sarkeesian
What's up caffeine addicts,
In a way, I was a bit reluctant to do a blog post about this. After all, Anita Sarkeesian is a pretty prominent voice who many people look up to. My problem with her is when she bashes something she very clearly doesn't know much about. In the end, I decided to write this post because I felt that it makes complete sense for me to calmly present a counter argument against Anita Sarkeesian's claims in an attempt to prove her wrong. I am not doing this to bash her or her opinions; I am doing this because sometimes it's important to calmly allow someone to understand the other side of an argument. It seems like she takes things out of context more often than not.
What I am talking about in this case is her recent tweets which have gone against the newest game: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
With this rant, I will try to systematically break down her tweet and prove them wrong while also proving her followers wrong and try my best to keep an open mind.
Let's start with the first: "The slew of perfect scores BOTW [Breath of the Wild] received from critics shows that most still don't give a damn about how women are represented in games."
This one won't be too long to debunk. To add some context to this, so far BOTW has been the second or third highest rated game in history while also beating the record for achieving the largest amount of perfect scores in history. Now, I do not completely understand where Sarkeesian is going with this. This game is a masterpiece. Just because something may be misogynistic, which this game is not but I will get into that later, doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve the praise for the incredible work these people have put into this masterful work. There are plenty of things, some of which we discussed in class, which can be seen as sexist and wrong but that doesn't make them not worthy of at least some of their praise. Not unless they go completely overboard with their sexism. Everything has its flaws, a perfect score doesn't exempt it from that. Sure, maybe these reviewers don't care about female representation in video games, but giving BOTW a perfect score does not automatically prove that.
The other tweets work with each other so I will put them all together.
1) "Through the memories player can collect, BOTW acknowledges the ongoing problem of Zelda being damseled but doesn't do anything about it"
2) "Critics might call out sexism in games with bad gameplay but often act as if it's not worth mentioning when the gameplay is great. It is.
3) "There is so much to admire in BOTW. Its gameplay is incredible. But that absolutely doesn't excuse its use of tired, sexist plot devices.
Alright, let's do this. First of all, if you actually collect the memories in the game, you can see that Zelda as a very intelligent woman who is trying to have her voice heard. First, some background is needed. Zelda is the reincarnation of the goddess Hylia. So, in the game, Zelda has to try to awaken her powers in order to defeat the enemy in the game called Ganon. Because of this, her father tries his best to have her constantly pray and learn about the history of Hyrule, the place they are in, instead of receiving a real and more comprehensive education. In the game, Zelda actually goes against this by not only teaching herself mathematics and engineering but also becoming one of the lead scientists in re-engineering the machines that would help destroy Ganon. Zelda is obviously shown in these memories as a very capable and incredibly intelligent woman, not a damsel in distress.
Adding on to my counterargument that Zelda isn't "damseled", you can also how powerful she becomes when she obtains her powers. Link, the person who you play in the game, was put in a 100 year sleep after the initial battle with Ganon because Link lost the battle. So during all of those 100 years that Link was gone, Zelda was the one fighting and keeping Ganon at bay. She isn't captured by him and made obsolete. Zelda is the only reason the world wasn't destroyed by the time Link woke up. And yes, Link throughout the game has to build himself up so that he can go to the castle and help Zelda. But thats the thing, he went to help Zelda fight Ganon, not save her from him. Zelda even dealt the final blow and helped Link fight Ganon at the final fight.
All in all, there is no point in this game where Zelda is depicted as a damsel in distress. Throughout the entire adventure she is depicted as an incredibly intelligent person who loves engineering and biology while also being a major badass with the way she is able to handel Ganon single handedly for 100 years. Anita Sarkeesian, and many other people at this point, need to learn that this more to things than their surface. People aren't black or white, sexist or not sexist, racist or not racist; the world is much more complicated than that. If we just look more into the context that surrounds a subject or a specific person, than we can better understand, judge, and change the opinion of those who are in the wrong. But pointing fingers at random things that are no where near wrong just because they seem wrong at the surface is no way to go about life. This isn't the first time Anita Sarkeesian has tried to label something it isn't and it won't be the last.
Stay Awesome.
In a way, I was a bit reluctant to do a blog post about this. After all, Anita Sarkeesian is a pretty prominent voice who many people look up to. My problem with her is when she bashes something she very clearly doesn't know much about. In the end, I decided to write this post because I felt that it makes complete sense for me to calmly present a counter argument against Anita Sarkeesian's claims in an attempt to prove her wrong. I am not doing this to bash her or her opinions; I am doing this because sometimes it's important to calmly allow someone to understand the other side of an argument. It seems like she takes things out of context more often than not.
What I am talking about in this case is her recent tweets which have gone against the newest game: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
With this rant, I will try to systematically break down her tweet and prove them wrong while also proving her followers wrong and try my best to keep an open mind.
Let's start with the first: "The slew of perfect scores BOTW [Breath of the Wild] received from critics shows that most still don't give a damn about how women are represented in games."
This one won't be too long to debunk. To add some context to this, so far BOTW has been the second or third highest rated game in history while also beating the record for achieving the largest amount of perfect scores in history. Now, I do not completely understand where Sarkeesian is going with this. This game is a masterpiece. Just because something may be misogynistic, which this game is not but I will get into that later, doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve the praise for the incredible work these people have put into this masterful work. There are plenty of things, some of which we discussed in class, which can be seen as sexist and wrong but that doesn't make them not worthy of at least some of their praise. Not unless they go completely overboard with their sexism. Everything has its flaws, a perfect score doesn't exempt it from that. Sure, maybe these reviewers don't care about female representation in video games, but giving BOTW a perfect score does not automatically prove that.
The other tweets work with each other so I will put them all together.
1) "Through the memories player can collect, BOTW acknowledges the ongoing problem of Zelda being damseled but doesn't do anything about it"
2) "Critics might call out sexism in games with bad gameplay but often act as if it's not worth mentioning when the gameplay is great. It is.
3) "There is so much to admire in BOTW. Its gameplay is incredible. But that absolutely doesn't excuse its use of tired, sexist plot devices.
Alright, let's do this. First of all, if you actually collect the memories in the game, you can see that Zelda as a very intelligent woman who is trying to have her voice heard. First, some background is needed. Zelda is the reincarnation of the goddess Hylia. So, in the game, Zelda has to try to awaken her powers in order to defeat the enemy in the game called Ganon. Because of this, her father tries his best to have her constantly pray and learn about the history of Hyrule, the place they are in, instead of receiving a real and more comprehensive education. In the game, Zelda actually goes against this by not only teaching herself mathematics and engineering but also becoming one of the lead scientists in re-engineering the machines that would help destroy Ganon. Zelda is obviously shown in these memories as a very capable and incredibly intelligent woman, not a damsel in distress.
Adding on to my counterargument that Zelda isn't "damseled", you can also how powerful she becomes when she obtains her powers. Link, the person who you play in the game, was put in a 100 year sleep after the initial battle with Ganon because Link lost the battle. So during all of those 100 years that Link was gone, Zelda was the one fighting and keeping Ganon at bay. She isn't captured by him and made obsolete. Zelda is the only reason the world wasn't destroyed by the time Link woke up. And yes, Link throughout the game has to build himself up so that he can go to the castle and help Zelda. But thats the thing, he went to help Zelda fight Ganon, not save her from him. Zelda even dealt the final blow and helped Link fight Ganon at the final fight.
All in all, there is no point in this game where Zelda is depicted as a damsel in distress. Throughout the entire adventure she is depicted as an incredibly intelligent person who loves engineering and biology while also being a major badass with the way she is able to handel Ganon single handedly for 100 years. Anita Sarkeesian, and many other people at this point, need to learn that this more to things than their surface. People aren't black or white, sexist or not sexist, racist or not racist; the world is much more complicated than that. If we just look more into the context that surrounds a subject or a specific person, than we can better understand, judge, and change the opinion of those who are in the wrong. But pointing fingers at random things that are no where near wrong just because they seem wrong at the surface is no way to go about life. This isn't the first time Anita Sarkeesian has tried to label something it isn't and it won't be the last.
Stay Awesome.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Sex-ed courses in modern society
What's up caffeine addicts,
In our class, we have continued to read more of the Purity myth and something that surprised me was the severe lack in good sex ed courses.
Before reading this book, I never realized how bad it actually was. The fact that people are allowed to spread misinformation to kids who don't know any better is just so unethically stupid. Being that I have never had courses such as these, I never knew they even existed. In high school, I had a pretty good health class that went into detail about all of the different contraceptives and their effectiveness. Because of this, I was completely oblivious of this abstinence only education that is poisoning our school system.
Many of the textbooks that the author was quoting also don't even sound like they should have been published in our "modern society". This just goes to show you that we aren't all that modern at all, misinformation is still widespread because of people like the ones that are perpetuating the virginity movement.
This wave of misinformation that is destroying the minds of our youth is just going to cause the problem these people were trying to solve. If all someone has had is abstinence only education, and they end up "giving in" to sex because it's a natural and pleasurable thing, then they would either be too ashamed to get contraception and protect themselves or they wouldn't even know what forms of contraceptive to get. All this will do is cause more disease and unwanted births.
We need to learn that being oblivious to natural systems of our body will only hurt us in the end.
Stay awesome.
In our class, we have continued to read more of the Purity myth and something that surprised me was the severe lack in good sex ed courses.
Before reading this book, I never realized how bad it actually was. The fact that people are allowed to spread misinformation to kids who don't know any better is just so unethically stupid. Being that I have never had courses such as these, I never knew they even existed. In high school, I had a pretty good health class that went into detail about all of the different contraceptives and their effectiveness. Because of this, I was completely oblivious of this abstinence only education that is poisoning our school system.
Many of the textbooks that the author was quoting also don't even sound like they should have been published in our "modern society". This just goes to show you that we aren't all that modern at all, misinformation is still widespread because of people like the ones that are perpetuating the virginity movement.
This wave of misinformation that is destroying the minds of our youth is just going to cause the problem these people were trying to solve. If all someone has had is abstinence only education, and they end up "giving in" to sex because it's a natural and pleasurable thing, then they would either be too ashamed to get contraception and protect themselves or they wouldn't even know what forms of contraceptive to get. All this will do is cause more disease and unwanted births.
We need to learn that being oblivious to natural systems of our body will only hurt us in the end.
Stay awesome.
Monday, February 27, 2017
My Reaction on the existence of purity balls
What's up caffeine addicts,
In class, we recently started reading a book called "The Purity Myth" which posed some interesting insights on the societal construct of virginity and how it affects each and every one of our lives.
Going into this reading, I have already questioned what virginity is and how pointless it can be previously, but this book opened my eyes to exactly how it can affect women in particular.
For example, one thing that astounded me was the existence, and federal funding, of purity balls. These are balls where six-year-old girls pledge their virginity to their fathers in a sort of ceremony. There are countless problems that I realized with this.
First of all, this is one of the creepiest things I have ever heard of. Just think about it, it's a six-year-old girl who knows nothing about sex yet is promising her sexuality to be contained and owned by her father. Why the heck would her father be the one that controls her sexual life; it has too many creepy tones to exist. My second problem with this is that, as the author goes into, it tells these young girls that their father owns them. It turns them into property rather than human beings for the father to have complete control over. When she finds a husband, the "responsibility" is passed from the father to the spouse. It's a transaction. And of course, if this girl breaks her pledge by having pre-marital sex, then she becomes damaged goods. My third problem with this is the fact that it is federally funded. How can we be considered a civilized society if our tax dollars is going to expensive events where girls who have no idea what they're doing are being taught that they are property. What kind of a world are we in that allows this creepy and cult-like behavior not only to be allowed but encouraged?
Well, that was a rant if I've ever seen one, but my point still stands. Our money can be used for much better things than funding creepy cults. This must be squashed before it can continue thriving like a parasite on everyone's backs. Staying stuck in past ideals of women as property is how we will never keep pushing forward into a thriving and happy nation.
Stay awesome.
In class, we recently started reading a book called "The Purity Myth" which posed some interesting insights on the societal construct of virginity and how it affects each and every one of our lives.
Going into this reading, I have already questioned what virginity is and how pointless it can be previously, but this book opened my eyes to exactly how it can affect women in particular.
For example, one thing that astounded me was the existence, and federal funding, of purity balls. These are balls where six-year-old girls pledge their virginity to their fathers in a sort of ceremony. There are countless problems that I realized with this.
First of all, this is one of the creepiest things I have ever heard of. Just think about it, it's a six-year-old girl who knows nothing about sex yet is promising her sexuality to be contained and owned by her father. Why the heck would her father be the one that controls her sexual life; it has too many creepy tones to exist. My second problem with this is that, as the author goes into, it tells these young girls that their father owns them. It turns them into property rather than human beings for the father to have complete control over. When she finds a husband, the "responsibility" is passed from the father to the spouse. It's a transaction. And of course, if this girl breaks her pledge by having pre-marital sex, then she becomes damaged goods. My third problem with this is the fact that it is federally funded. How can we be considered a civilized society if our tax dollars is going to expensive events where girls who have no idea what they're doing are being taught that they are property. What kind of a world are we in that allows this creepy and cult-like behavior not only to be allowed but encouraged?
Well, that was a rant if I've ever seen one, but my point still stands. Our money can be used for much better things than funding creepy cults. This must be squashed before it can continue thriving like a parasite on everyone's backs. Staying stuck in past ideals of women as property is how we will never keep pushing forward into a thriving and happy nation.
Stay awesome.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Adjusting to a new environment
What's up caffeine addicts,
One of the earlier topics that we discussed in class is the stigmatism that exists around feminists. At the time, I knew that negative stereotypes around them existed, but I never realized how far it went until I started telling people that I am taking psychology of women.
In a way, it almost became an experiment; everyone always had an initial surprised reaction towards the fact that I was taking the class but it differed from then on. Some people chose to say nothing and continued on with the conversation as if I never said anything. An incredibly small amount of people thought it was cool that I was taking the class. But a vast majority of the people responded with disgust.
These people ultimately came to the same question of why the heck I was taking the class in the first place. Most of them thinking that it was completely unnecessary. One person, a female to boot, specifically said: "The only thing worse than a feminist is a male feminist."
This took me by surprise. Because I was in a performing arts high school, a vast majority of the people there were liberal feminists. They all understood the importance of feminism and even fought against the school's dress code of not allowing us to show our shoulders because they would pose a distraction. It never crossed my mind that people really felt this way about feminism until I came to this school and started taking this course.
Sadly, it began to make me ashamed of the fact that I was taking the course. I started telling people that I was taking psychology rather than telling them what the class really was. I became so obsessed with trying to fit into this new environment that I threw away a part of me that I actually believed in.
It took me a while to realize how absolutely ridiculous I was being. Learning the ways in which the media manipulates information to skew views on social issues, I figured that this was no different. The way in which people were judging me with disgust because I was taking the class was just their way of putting down the movement because of what they learned from mass media. I realized that I had to go against that by being proud of my views and by engaging in a debate with those who thought the class was useless.
Stay awesome.
One of the earlier topics that we discussed in class is the stigmatism that exists around feminists. At the time, I knew that negative stereotypes around them existed, but I never realized how far it went until I started telling people that I am taking psychology of women.
In a way, it almost became an experiment; everyone always had an initial surprised reaction towards the fact that I was taking the class but it differed from then on. Some people chose to say nothing and continued on with the conversation as if I never said anything. An incredibly small amount of people thought it was cool that I was taking the class. But a vast majority of the people responded with disgust.
These people ultimately came to the same question of why the heck I was taking the class in the first place. Most of them thinking that it was completely unnecessary. One person, a female to boot, specifically said: "The only thing worse than a feminist is a male feminist."
This took me by surprise. Because I was in a performing arts high school, a vast majority of the people there were liberal feminists. They all understood the importance of feminism and even fought against the school's dress code of not allowing us to show our shoulders because they would pose a distraction. It never crossed my mind that people really felt this way about feminism until I came to this school and started taking this course.
Sadly, it began to make me ashamed of the fact that I was taking the course. I started telling people that I was taking psychology rather than telling them what the class really was. I became so obsessed with trying to fit into this new environment that I threw away a part of me that I actually believed in.
It took me a while to realize how absolutely ridiculous I was being. Learning the ways in which the media manipulates information to skew views on social issues, I figured that this was no different. The way in which people were judging me with disgust because I was taking the class was just their way of putting down the movement because of what they learned from mass media. I realized that I had to go against that by being proud of my views and by engaging in a debate with those who thought the class was useless.
Stay awesome.
Friday, February 10, 2017
Discussing "2 Dope Queens"
What's up caffeine addicts,
Since class had to be canceled on Friday, I got the chance to learn about a new podcast that was sent to us called "2 Dope Queens." The podcast that I ended up listening to was "The 2 Dope Queens Go Marching" and there were two things that I found most interesting about this podcast episode.
The first thing that I found interesting was when one of the guests was talking about how her body would make people do anything for her. This immediately reminded me of the discussions we have had in class in which we spoke of the fact that the only real "power" we give women is to inflict sexual desire upon men. This is actually very sexist though because it doesn't really give power to them. Instead, it just rewards the correct feminine behavior by making them into a puppet almost in that their "power" is actually derived from an external force which would be men in this case. The woman is obliged to work and become beautiful for a guy so that they can have any sense of power at all.
The next thing that I found interesting was the jokes that she made about how ridiculous some of the reasons are for being pro-life. For one thing, it completely disregards the mothers choice; you know, the person that actually has to deal with what will become of her situation. And it is also ridiculous because people become hypocrites when they support something, under a different name, which can easily be connected to having the same ideas as abortion.
I really enjoyed the satirical humor that this podcast took in dealing with a lot of feminist issues while also staying relevant to the problems at hand.
Stay awesome
Since class had to be canceled on Friday, I got the chance to learn about a new podcast that was sent to us called "2 Dope Queens." The podcast that I ended up listening to was "The 2 Dope Queens Go Marching" and there were two things that I found most interesting about this podcast episode.
The first thing that I found interesting was when one of the guests was talking about how her body would make people do anything for her. This immediately reminded me of the discussions we have had in class in which we spoke of the fact that the only real "power" we give women is to inflict sexual desire upon men. This is actually very sexist though because it doesn't really give power to them. Instead, it just rewards the correct feminine behavior by making them into a puppet almost in that their "power" is actually derived from an external force which would be men in this case. The woman is obliged to work and become beautiful for a guy so that they can have any sense of power at all.
The next thing that I found interesting was the jokes that she made about how ridiculous some of the reasons are for being pro-life. For one thing, it completely disregards the mothers choice; you know, the person that actually has to deal with what will become of her situation. And it is also ridiculous because people become hypocrites when they support something, under a different name, which can easily be connected to having the same ideas as abortion.
I really enjoyed the satirical humor that this podcast took in dealing with a lot of feminist issues while also staying relevant to the problems at hand.
Stay awesome
Sunday, February 5, 2017
MANicures
What's up caffeine addicts,
In class on Friday, there was a big focus on the fact that men are rarely ever seen in a nail salon or otherwise getting themselves pampered, so I would like to share my experience on the first couple of times I went to get a manicure.
My first time getting a manicure was at about 10 years of age. Before this, I had gone to nail salon's several times with family friends of ours, who are both men, but I always refused to get a manicure and instead just sat in one of the chairs and spun around until my heart was content--or until I became way too dizzy. The thing that was holding me back was the constant stigmatism in my head that men don't get manicures. It's something that is reserved for women as their own little sanctuary. I also believed that if I did get a manicure, I would be frowned upon or immediately considered gay. The whole idea of fearing the thought of being considered gay as a child is a whole problem in itself which I won't get into right now. Finally, after some convincing from my mom, because my nails looked like garbage and she believed girls like guys with nice nails, I decided to go. Well damn. The massages were incredible. I don't think I had ever felt so pampered in my life and it was unbelievable, to say the least.
After this initial experience, I started to like getting a manicure. I first realized that a tiny amount of people realized I even got one and the ones that did notice actually liked it. And even though I still had that stigmatism in the back of my head, I just decided to say fuck it because it felt good. After maybe my third time I even started holding competitions between my two family friends and me to see whose nails can become the shiniest by the end. It was both fun and relaxing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
The moral of the story is that all men should give up their stereotypical views for a second and remain open minded to trying things outside of the tight constraint that "manliness" brings us. Even if it means adjusting the name to something as ridiculous as "MANicures" so that you can wrap your head around the idea of trying it.
Stay Awesome
In class on Friday, there was a big focus on the fact that men are rarely ever seen in a nail salon or otherwise getting themselves pampered, so I would like to share my experience on the first couple of times I went to get a manicure.
My first time getting a manicure was at about 10 years of age. Before this, I had gone to nail salon's several times with family friends of ours, who are both men, but I always refused to get a manicure and instead just sat in one of the chairs and spun around until my heart was content--or until I became way too dizzy. The thing that was holding me back was the constant stigmatism in my head that men don't get manicures. It's something that is reserved for women as their own little sanctuary. I also believed that if I did get a manicure, I would be frowned upon or immediately considered gay. The whole idea of fearing the thought of being considered gay as a child is a whole problem in itself which I won't get into right now. Finally, after some convincing from my mom, because my nails looked like garbage and she believed girls like guys with nice nails, I decided to go. Well damn. The massages were incredible. I don't think I had ever felt so pampered in my life and it was unbelievable, to say the least.
After this initial experience, I started to like getting a manicure. I first realized that a tiny amount of people realized I even got one and the ones that did notice actually liked it. And even though I still had that stigmatism in the back of my head, I just decided to say fuck it because it felt good. After maybe my third time I even started holding competitions between my two family friends and me to see whose nails can become the shiniest by the end. It was both fun and relaxing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
The moral of the story is that all men should give up their stereotypical views for a second and remain open minded to trying things outside of the tight constraint that "manliness" brings us. Even if it means adjusting the name to something as ridiculous as "MANicures" so that you can wrap your head around the idea of trying it.
Stay Awesome
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