Man[goes] to Reality

I would like to talk about what I think is the uncontroversial main point in Our Barbies, Ourselves and point out some flaws in the piece.

Well, I completely agree that the Barbie doll might be modeled after the creators vision of a perfect woman which pretty unrealistic. The world is imperfect and so are humans. Perfection is the ultimate desire and so the creator isn't much in the wrong. He did do his purpose of making a popular doll.

While Prager in the right to say that Barbie dolls are instilling young girls with the desire to be perfect, it is not that only women are expected to be perfect. I bet that even male dolls would be unrealistically perfect if they existed. It is naturally common for young boys to not play with dolls while girls do.

This might seem like its irrelevant according to many people, but I think to truly explore the world of seeking perfect, people should explore the library of comics (including mangas, manhwas, etc.), cartoons (including animes), movies, and novels. Many of the characters in these fictional creations are perfectionized, both men and women, be the author/director male or female.

While sexism does exist in the world, I think Prager is not right. Many might argue against me, but it is only an opinion. It may be flawed and I accept that. I am not anti-feminist or anything.

The truth is that women were treated as a valued commodity in some areas of the world. Nowadays, the situation is much better, but it is still not perfect. Gender roles are slowly being erased and hopefully they will.

However, I don't think sexism will ever cease to exist. Our subconscious will always create prejudices. That is the truth about the human brain. It is molded through experience. 

Man[goes] to Analyze

This blog entry is essentially going to be a random jumble of my experience and response to the prompts from the textbook.

To summarize my response to prompt number 4:

The internet does provide platforms with essentially true anonymity. However, the outside world can affect one's words in the chat. The trauma from an experience or something else like the way someone was brought may not allow them free themselves fully. On the contrary, I sometimes go full rage mode if something really aggravates. While this may childish, in the game Clash of Clans, people with no true knowledge about other countries, would talk crap about them and I would get really pissed, especially if it was India.

Focusing on gender roles, girls are often brought up to sweet, caring and soft-spoken. This often allows people to differentiate them from males even if anonymous. This differentiation maybe wrong sometimes, however, many times it is right.

Sometimes, I get pissed when people complain that society drives to not follow their dreams. Then what about all the gamer girls, LGBTQs, a guy who made pads for women, etc. They changed society. Man anyone can do it if they are determined and have the mental power to last. However not everyone has the mental power. I don't, which makes hypocritical. However, atleast I'm accepting it. 

Anyway back to gender roles. I would to mention the James Bond movies. James Bond is always awarding with some woman, making women seems as a trophy, a material possession. However, in this movie, a woman was secret agent or something. So the movie follows and disregards the steretypical gender roles??? I don't being a trophy is female gender role. I think I just made that up. Oh well, guess I am stupid. Man, I am excited to watch some movies with the my new headphones and then analyze gender roles.

Man[goes] to Dressing School???

The opinion that women do not an unmarked fashion choice seems false to me. Or it is that there is concept of markedness and unmarkedness that is false. I do not know.

Or maybe I do not understand the concept.

I understand the concept in 2 different ways:

i) You do not notice the person and proceed to them uniquely at first glance (Unmarked)

ii) You do not judge them after scrutinizing the person for a long time (Unmarked)

Let us look at the first one:

This one seems to be pretty obvious, at least to me. There is always a set of unmarked fashion for both genders. In India, I would say it would say the unmarked color would darker like maroon, dark blue, etc. (Even for women)

Now, let us look at the second one:

Unmarked fashion means that you can't find something about their unique selves through clothing, make-up, etc. However, Tannen ignores the men because they don't appeal to her because they are boring to analyze. Let's just look at the example we formulated in class of an unmarked Troy High male student. Airpods might show that the students follows trends and tries to fit in with the crowd and so on with the other pieces of clothing. This might seem to be exact point that Tannen is trying prove. That, the end conclusion would be that they are trying to fit in with the crowd.

However, what about the color, the haircuts, the shoes, the pants. The type and brand of these pieces of clothing can also be considered. There are basically infinite amount of possibilities. Just because a certain large group is similar in some ways doesn't mean they are the definition of "NORMAL" or "UNMARKED."

It is basically segregation in a sense.

Everyone is marked in someway or another.

For example, let's take my classmate for example. He wears what seems to be the same hoodie (to me) everyday. Then, he finally got a new one for $5 dollars at Target or something. He wore simple "off-brand" clothes. It told me he didn't care so much about his fashion that much. He never wore skinny jeans, so I thought he didn't prefer. He recently confirmed that it was true.

Maybe I am getting the whole concept wrong. Then I'm an idiot. But this is the

THE END