Twelfth Entry.

As I was talking to another one of my guy friends about what the guy in my Tenth Post had said to me, I mentioned that I was taking this class.  He asked me a little bit about it then started to tell me his opinions on my past journal entries.  He said that while he does think that it's wrong for women to not be treated as equals, he feels as though it's wrong for a girl to wear whatever she wants because the men usually get chastised for looking.  He said, "There was a time when subtlety existed, and the further I'm getting along in life, the further it doesn't exist.  There's a difference between freedom and order, and we as a society are straying from the path".  He went on to say that he has certain opinions on the matter, and that that was one of them.  He also mentioned that he's "just as guilty as everyone else, sometimes", which to me means he knows the typical ways in which men perceive women, and even though he tries, he falls wayside to the all too common things that he believes men should think about women.

Eleventh Entry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBsEF7Qx09o

The Pussycat Dolls - "I Don't Need A Man"

With all the song that are out there now that just depict a woman needing a man or not being able to go on without her guy, I feel like this is different.  The Pussycat Dolls are a pretty well known group of strippers turned singers, and they aren't even that bad.  This music video of theirs show's a bunch of half naked, sexy women which automatically catches people attention, which is what they were aiming for.  But once you actually listen to the song, you realize they're singing about being independent, and not needing "a ring around their finger to make them feel complete".  I wish more people were like that, and actually cared about themselves enough to realize that they can be amazing on their own, and they don't need to rely on anyone else to help them be.

Tenth Post.

I was talking to one of my guy friends recently, and something he had said kind of set me on edge.  He is one of your typical piggish men, and to be honest, I don't know why I'm friends with him.  We were talking about how certain people come off to him, and he told me how he looked at me.  He said that if he didn't know me, and spent an entire day with me having never met me before, that I would come off as a slutty girl who gives it up right and left. ..Now if you were to ask anyone else I know, they would say the complete opposite.  He just knows the right things to say to get me mad, and once I'm mad, he knows he won by getting to me.  I'm actually a virgin, and I'm not ashamed to tell people.  He knows this and told me, "I'll bet you ten dollars you f*** before you're married".  Just the fact that he categorizes me like that with such vulgar terminology really makes me angry.  I just don't understand the guys who think it's their job in life to demean girls and women, regardless of what they know or don't know about the person.

Ninth Post.

The text in the red circle reads, "we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb. Girl = Bad. Girl = Weak". To me I feel like the fist represents what we should be doing to help ourselves. We need to stand up for ourselves, and not let ourselves be silenced by men who feel like they tower over us. We should prove to people who question us that we smart, capable, and strong.

Eighth Post.

Back to the website I made the first post about.  Once in a while, I come across some pictures that I don't disagree with.  I like this picture because it's on a public website that a lot of people I know go to, so there must be people I don't know who also go to it.  Even though the purpose of the picture might be that cross dressers or transgenders are degrading to men, I'm hoping the last line pulls more people's attention than just mine.

Seventh Post

Actor Daniel Craig, who plays James Bond in the most recent movies, dressed in drag to highlight the need for equality. I think this is awesome that a guy who has power in the media would do a publicized spot like this and show his support for something that not a lot of people know is a problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6E7chb7Pt4

http://www.weareequals.org  : women's right's website.

The whole commercial on the front page of weareequals.org is a powerful piece, where for two minutes, a woman lists a whole bunch of advantages that men have over women.  You never really realize exactly how limited we are until you hear a list read out loud, really listen to it, and try to figure out just how to fix this problem and come to the understanding that it's a lot harder than we all think to fix a problem that's been present for decades.

Sixth Entry

On top of March being women's history month, March 8th marks International Women's Day, where people realize just how far women have come, but at the same time look ahead and realize just how far we still have to go.  Jweekly.com posted an article about how in today's society we take women's rights for granted, and no one makes a big deal out of a women being at the top of a company or popular when it comes to politics.  The article says that "We look forward to the time when an International Women’s Day would no longer be necessary, with women fully elevated to coequal status with men in every respect."  I would like to see the day when this happens, and we don't have to fight out way to the top just to get noticed or to be taken seriously.  I know I'm not the only one who would like to see women in authority a normality, and not something that people are taken aback by.

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/61079/editorial-dont-take-womens-rights-for-granted/

Fifth Post

In Russia, women's heads, wrists, legs, and mostly their whole body must be covered up before going into public.  And when dozens of Chechen women were attacked with paintballs by young men, some people were angered, while some people applauded the young men.  "In June 2010, dozens of women were targeted in paintball attacks for not donning headscarves or because their skirts or sleeves were not long enough."  President Ramzan Kadyrov said that what the paintballers did was admirable, and that if the women came out without headscarves again, they could face more dangerous consequences.  One woman was so scared from having a gun pointed in her face that she said she will never leave the house without 'appropriate' clothing again.  I think it's wrong to leave these women so scarred from what happened that they won't leave their houses because they didn't cover their heads.  Since President Kadyrov put an edict into place saying that women without headscarves could not enter state buildings, a campaign limiting Chechen women's freedoms has been gaining strength, where you'd think it would do the opposite..


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12705300

Fourth Entry

I work for my mom at an insurance agency, and I was in the office with her the other day when a customer came in.  My mom is a licensed insurance agent and can sell insurance as can her boss, who is a middle aged guy.  The customer asked if her boss was there, and since he wasn't, my mom asked if there was anything he could do to help them.  They said no and that they wanted to talk to her boss because they didn't want her handling their business.  Many people view her as the secretary, and still want her boss to handle the work even when they find out that she is just as licensed  as her boss, and actually does more of the work.  I just feel like people need to get over women in a different environment than what they expect them to be in.

Third Entry

We've been trying to move for a while, now, but it's been really hard finding a place.  This one apartment in particular that me, my mom, and my sister had looked at was really nice.  The landlord showed it to us, and when my mom talked to her about pricing, afterwards, the landlord was flat out rude.  The landlord, herself, was a woman and she said point blank to my mom, "Yeah, I'm sure you'd be a good tenant somewhere else, but I just don't feel comfortable renting to a single mom."I just find that so messed up on so many levels. Who is she to tell my mom she can't pay?  My mom is trying to do everything she can to put a roof over mine and my sister's heads, and since all some people do is think of stereotypes, she's inconvenienced in trying to do so.

Second Entry

A few weeks ago I went into Best Buy to buy a remote car starter for my mom.  I knew exactly what kind I wanted and I had researched it like crazy, because contrary to what people usually think about girls, I am obsessed with electronics. I know there are a lot of girls who have an interest in electronics and what not, but it isn't that common.  When I went in to the store, the guy seemed to think the same thing.  He treated me like I had no idea what I was talking about, and like I didn't have enough money to buy what I wanted.  I had gone in alone, and I have a feeling if I had gone in with one of my older male cousins or friends, I wouldn't have gotten treated like that.  After he made the determination that I didn't know what I was talking about, he sort of dismissed me and started helping these two guys that were standing near us that had a question.  Needless to say, I walked out and bought m merchandise elsewhere.

First Entry

There's this website I go on that has quotes, and cute pictures that I like to save to my computer.  It also has collections of picture that you could choose from, such as: love, funny, sayings.  There was one collection, though, that kind of got me thinking and rubbed me the wrong way: the collection on Beauty.  I opened it up hoping to find maybe some beautiful photography shots, or something that I actually associate with the word "beauty".  But I opened the collection up only to find every single picture in one way or another of a naked girl, or of naked or clothed girls in compromising positions.  Scrolling through the pages I thought I'd find a decent picture that didn't match the countless others I had already seen, but to no avail.


It just troubled me, because I didn't know when beauty became associated with pictures like that or when girls though they had to take those kinds of picture to be considered beautiful.  With the way the world is today, they make girls feel like they have to go above and beyond to be seen as attractive or beautiful, and that's just something I don't agree with.  Just be yourself, and your personality will make you beautiful or ugly, and have people make the right kind of judgments about you as a person.