Daily Archives: March 18, 2014

Manifesto ; Sexual Objectification of Women

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 If I was to write a manifesto about the women in our society as Loy did I will most likely write about sexual objectification of women. One main example I will use to back up my manifesto will be in today’s music videos. I took a hip-hop world view class in my previous semester where we learned about misogyny in today’s media. Misogyny is the hatred against females. It could also be define as degrading the female image, sexual objectification of women and discrimination. In the hip-hop culture we see many of the music videos where women have a little to nothing clothing. We see women dancing in a very sexual way and exposing their body parts. Misogyny has become a trend where women are considered to be accessories or sexualized as props in the hip-hop culture. Not only do we see this behavior happening in the videos, but we also hear them in the lyrics in many of these songs. This is something that women have to stop. I will try to answer questions such as why these music videos tend to use women body to get the attention of the audience. Are people buying this type of music also being a part of this sexual objectification of women? I believe that women that are part of this environment are only giving into the stereotype that the society place them in. They shouldn’t feel the need to expose their body to get a job or to any anyone’s attention. Women should be noticed because of their intelligence e and ambition in life.  In today’s society in many situation women are hired or not hired based on their looks. What the looks have to do with how good they are going to get the job done. I agree with Loy Manifesto telling women that they should take charge of their lives and be the individual that they were born to be. To find their true identity as I said in my previous post response on “Feminist Manifesto”, the author is trying to say is that the purpose is not to have the same right men do and be equal to them, but to look deeper within themselves to gain their individual worth not caring the status men are in. A women should take full responsibly in their lives make it their
business to be educated and be respected. I will include these ideas as well in my manifesto.

Quicksand: Part 1

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In Quicksand we are introduced to our protagonist Helga Crane, 23 years old biracial teacher that works in a Negro school in Naxos, Georgia.  Helga is having a hard time in accepting her own background. Having a white mother and a black father has brought lots of frustration in her life because being a mulatto; she doesn’t feel like she can identify herself as either white or black.  At some point Helga was pleased to be part of Naxos educational environment until she realized that it was an unpleasant racial place.  After hearing a speech made by one of the professors in her school talking down to the black race disappointed her. “This great community, she thought, was no longer a school. It had grown into a machine. It was now a show place in the black belt, exemplification of the white man’s magnanimity, refutation of the lack man’s inefficiency. Life had died out of it. It was, Helga, decided, now only a big knife with cruelly sharp edges ruthlessly cutting all to a pattern, the white man’s pattern”(page 9). At this point she knows that students won’t be able to be their own individual but what the school is making them to be.  After thinking about it for hours in her room she decided that it was time to leave Naxos. “And again it subsided in amazement at the memory of the consider-able applause which had greeted the speaker just before he had asked his God’s blessing upon them. The South. Naxos.Negro education. Suddenly she hated them all”(page 6-7) Helga didn’t want to be a part of this type of environment where the culture of these students was trying to be changed. Helga was already having a hard time in accepting who she was and staying in this place only will make it worst.  This is the moment where I believe the Helga character started to develop because it was the beginning of her journey. The journey where she will be in search of finding self- happiness, her own identity and to feel comfortable in her own skin.

 

Intimate Apparel : Play

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In “Intimate Apparel”, by Lynn Nottage took place in 1905 where we come across an African American woman named Esther. Esther is something now in days we call as a hopeless romantic, she is 35 years old and one of her most important dreams is to have a good man by her side which she will marry and have a life with. Throughout the play we noticed that her self-esteem as a woman is not very high. Esther suffers from self-confidence were she find herself to be unattractive and old. She believes that this is one of the reasons why she still hasn’t found a good man based on what she thought she looked. We can relate this in today’s world where appearance seem to be more important that the human-being itself. Many women now in days are never satisfied by the way they look based on what society has made them believe what characteristic a “beautiful women” should have , for example; beautiful hair, nice body, perfect skin and so on.

Women are always being in competition with other women in who is looking better, who is wearing the latest fashion and who have a better life etc. When in reality these things shouldn’t really matter everyone is unique in their own way no one should never feel less of a person than anyone else because at the end they are both people. I think many women in today’s world live their life based on what others think of them, just like Esther. Esther believed that because she was in her thirties the chance of her having her own family were very limited and that’s why she only focused so much on her job as a seamstress. Another question I ask myself is why Esther felt as she the urgency to have a man by her side? Did women back them were looked down if they weren’t married by a certain age? I can relate this in today’s world because of course everyone in one point of their life will like to find someone to share their life with, a person that will be there for them when no one is, a person that they call a soul mate but what’s the rush? Now in days many people will decide to be in a relationship with each other for all the wrong reasons without really spending time and effort in to knowing who the person really is. Even worst many enter a relationship without evening knowing who they are THEMSELVES.

One of the major reason why I believe there is a lot of broken homes now in days. In this play we see that Esther meets George through letters. Can we really get to know a person throughout ink and paper? How can we know if they are being sincere or not? When Esther marries George he turns out to be the total opposite of who she “thought” he was. He ended up being a manipulative that took advantage of her wanted to find true love to take her saving and use her hard work in useless things.