Barbies?!

Barbies and other toys for children are definitely one of the causes for unattainable beauty standards in girls, but are they really the biggest factor?

This week, our class talked about the article "Our Barbies, Ourselves" and discussed the ways in which such objects resulted in the impossible standards set for women. I definitely agreed with the arguments Prager made in her article; I mean, if Barbie didn't set any standards, then why does there exist a women that looks like this?

"Now that I look just like Barbie, I'm beautiful!"

But is it only Barbie (and other toys) that set this impossibly high bar for women? It's really tempting to just place all the blame on the people that create these horrible toys--Prager calls Barbies a "weapon (Prager 354) "designed by a man" (Prager 353)--but that'd be wrong. The sad truth is that the blame is to be placed on society as a whole. For example, this video shows the demoralizing effect our words can have on girls over time: 

See, Barbies aren't really the cause of the unattainable standards; they're a byproduct of it. They exist to encourage and facilitate the raising of this metaphorical bar, but they're not the actual reason that it exists. Stopping the creation of Barbies, or making them more lifelike, won't change anything; the only thing that can be done is to alter society's attitude. Until we adjust society's mentality, there will be no progress on the issue of women's beauty; instead, it'll be just like Prager described it: "As if we're all trapped in Barbie's world and can never escape" (Prager 355).

Othering?!

How does the oppressing of people affect society?

Personally, I think it's human nature to judge others and categorize them, leading to future oppressing. Seriously, if a magic machine suddenly made everyone on the planet believe that everyone was equal, and that stuff like gender, skin color, or beliefs did not affect the value of a person, I think that us humans would still find some dumb way to oppress some group of people. It's been going on since we were kids--I mean, back in elementary school, I remember watching some really cruel kids making fun of a child with a speech impediment. It was absolutely horrible, but it serves to really emphasize the point; humans are born with the urge to oppress and make themselves feel superior.

How kids were oppressed back in elementary school. Now, it's a lot more complicated.

Now, how does this really impact society? We had a prompt relating to this this week, and I didn't really agree with the statement that the prompt asked to analyze. Sure, the othering of people certainly leads to the dehumanization of the oppressed; we've seen multiple viewpoints that confirm this, from Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven to Staples' Black Men and Public Space. In addition, it's just obviously true--of course you make people feel less human when you're discriminating against them. But what about the oppressors themselves? Are they becoming more or less human? Well, if it's human nature to stereotype and discriminate, like I just argued above, then it could be said that the oppressors are actually more human. And if the othering of people makes the oppressors more human--a word that is often associated with positive connotation--then human nature is just inherently messed up.

Confessions?!

Is it better to confess your sins or to hide them from society?

I remember that when I was a kid, I'd never tell my parents the bad things I did, even when it was super obvious. For example, I once tried to make myself a hot dog (not Jeannette Walls style--I was just microwaving one) and when I put the hot dog on my plate, didn't realize how hot it was and accidentally dropped the plate. Now, I figured that my parents wouldn't notice if I swept up the broken plate into a corner and covered it with a paper towel. Obviously, they found out, and I confessed to it all immediately. Being 6 years old, it was kind of hard to hold in a secret for that long.

This is (almost) exactly what happened to me.

In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale faces a similar dilemma, except his secret is a lot easier to hide than mine. However, his also comes with a much deeper sense of guilt; after living with it for 7 years, he "longed to speak out from his own pulpit...and tell the people what he was" (Hawthorne 139-140). It brings about the question: is it better to admit your sins or refuse to acknowledge them? Personally, I' think it's fine to tell the occasional white lie (don't lie, everyone does it), but when it comes to the big stuff, just admit the truth. However, the way Dimmesdale dealt with this problem annoyed me. Seriously, he spent 7 years debating on whether to tell his sin or not. He could have just decided at the beginning to confess--if he didn't want to, he could go on through life without any intent to tell society his sins and without any of the guilt that accompanied him. I mean, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Harry finds out about the first task, you don't see him debating on whether to tell Dumbledore or not--he decides to keep it a secret and use the information to his advantage (admittedly, Harry's secret is a lot less intense than Dimmesdale's). Instead, Dimmesdale chose to debate over this issue for a very long period of time, which probably contributed to the damage to his body. Basically, Dimmesdale's predicament taught me that when it comes to revealing your sins, despite your final decision, don't spend an extraordinarily long amount of time making your choice; it'll only end up hurting you. This is a pretty obvious statement, so it's kind of annoying that it took Dimmesdale so long to realize. 

Writing Styles?!

Before I start, I want to say that I am not anti-feminist; I completely agree that men and women should have equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal pay.

Now, this week we read a piece titled "There is No Unmarked Women." As interesting as it was,  I somehow felt uncomfortable while reading it. It wasn't the content, either--I understood nearly all of what Tanner was trying to convey (I think) and I saw why she would write a piece like this. After a while, I finally realized what it was--what I disliked wasn't the ideas, but the way in which she was conveying them.

Somehow, when I was reading the piece, instead of feeling like the ideas were just being presented and evaluated for me, I felt like Tanner was trying to force her beliefs down my throat. Whenever she kept on repeating stuff like "All married women's surnames are marked" (Tanner 391) and "Women can't even fill out a form without telling stories about themselves" (Tanner 390), I kept on getting the sense that she wasn't giving me any other options to believe; instead of presenting her ideas rationally and calmly, she was very aggressive about it. I found it really interesting that I got this impression, seeing as how her essay contains 2 exclamation points (both of them describing reactions to her beliefs).

I made a weird connection while writing this post--somehow, her writing reminds me of Jehovah's Witnesses. You know, those people that come up to your door and ask you if you have time to talk about Jesus or whatever? And then from there, I made another weird leap--Tanner's writing is a lot like Puritan beliefs back in The Scarlet Letter! Like Tanner, the Puritans believed that their views was the only right one, and would aggressively attempt to convert other people to their beliefs. The connection, though stretched, allows for a better understanding of the attitudes of the Puritans and gives a general idea of the beliefs of the society Hester rebelled against.

This car is an example of a Jehovah's Witness.