December 9, 2012
Dear Young Woman Aspiring to be a Model,
I hope this letter finds you well and adjusting to your new life in New York City. I know your friends and family are extremely proud of your achievements; completing high school, immediately finding a modeling position and starting to gain recognition as the beautiful young woman that you are. I have watched you grow up over the last fifteen years and as your neighbor and someone who cares about your well being I certainly understand your attraction to the world of fashion, making a good income while modeling beautiful clothing and the latest accessories. I became a teenager in the early 1970’s and Twiggy, having become a big hit in the ‘60’s was still the model that we all idolized and wanted to emulate because she was tall, very thin and had an innocent angelic kind of beauty. In those years I felt enormous pressure to be attractive as I tried to formulate my value in this world. I was born into a patriarchal family where both my parents had nine brothers each. They had emigrated from a little French island in the Indian Ocean called Mauritius to South Africa, where I was born, and I vividly remember hearing many conversations between my uncles over the years about beautiful women and particularly the body parts of those beautiful women. I learned at a very young age that a woman’s value was in her looks.
The drive for women to do all that they can to enhance their looks certainly permeates all cultures around the globe and I believe this drive is the very basis of women’s biology in order to attract the best possible genes in a partner which will therefore afford their offspring the chance to not just survive but to thrive. This fact was highlighted by a Newsweek article entitled the Biology of Beauty where several scholars of the beauty question where quoted including Nancy Etcoff, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab who wrote a book on her studies of human attraction. She says "I defy anyone to point to a society, any time in history or any place in the world, that wasn't preoccupied with beauty. The high-minded may dismiss our preening and ogling as distractions from things that matter, but the stakes can be enormous.” "Judging beauty involves looking at another person," says University of Texas psychologist Devendra Singh, "and figuring out whether you want your children to carry that person's genes." Newsweek’s article clearly illustrates this behavior by women comes from an internal drive rather than from external forces.
It seems that long before the media and advertising were around women had an intrinsic need to enhance their looks with whatever was available to them in order to achieve their perceived standard of beauty. However I believe that advertising companies and the media play directly into this fact and take major advantage with very little regard to the millions of women all over the world that have been adversely affected. This mechanism to be beautiful has been going on for centuries and in every culture, where women go to extraordinary lengths and even dangerous lengths to make themselves beautiful. In a Morton Report article entitled Chasing Beauty: Cultural History of Beauty Obsession the author states that “During the Renaissance, Italian women thought that large pupils were alluring and placed a toxic plant extract in their eyes to dilate the pupils. That plant still bears the name belladonna, Italian for "beautiful lady." Chinese fashion considered small feet appropriately dainty for women; the practice of foot-binding created "lotus feet," deformed appendages that didn't allow women to walk without assistance for the sake of beauty”. This article clearly highlights that even before the media was manipulating and lying to women we were attempting to reach the beauty standard of the culture. I have had half a life time to reflect on the beauty issue and although I have never been inclined to entertain any drastic surgical changes, now in my 50’s I am willing to do the very uncomfortable work of reflecting at a deeper level and admitting to myself that my obsession with exercise over the years has played directly into this discussion. I have been a marathon runner since my 20’s and I have run six days a week through all types of weather including as much as twenty-six miles in a torrential downpour with severe winds. I have run in the forest at 5 am because it was the only time of day I was able to get my workout in with little regard for nocturnal creatures, including mountain lions that we know live in our mountains. I ran when I was sick with flu and sinuous infections and the like, all the while justifying my actions as “keeping healthy”. Today, I am able to ask myself, was it really just keeping healthy or was it partly an obsession for keeping my weight down and a desire to feel and look good? I know the answer and I can now acknowledge the truth to myself and know that there is a very fine line between keeping healthy and being obsessively focused on how I look: and that line I walk everyday with significantly more awareness than I was able to in my youth.
This fine line is even more difficult to navigate today than it was forty years ago because technology has progressed so significantly and digital enhancement and air brushing of photography has changed everything. The”perfect” woman is now attainable, but only in the glossy pages of fashion magazines. This has created one of the biggest issues in the world of advertising and the media: an extremely unrealistic standard of beauty that so many women are striving for. It is no wonder that those of us after seeing these images of perfection struggle with low self esteem and a intense desire to attempt to measure up and this has caused the beauty issue to take on a dangerous and unhealthy direction. The statistics for women of your age and younger having plastic surgery is astounding and a 2004 article from The New York Times entitled How Young Is Too Young to Have a Nose Job and Breast Implants? stated that “The number of cosmetic surgeries performed on people 18 and under reached 74,233 in 2003, a 14 percent increase from 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Girls and boys as young as 6 get plastic surgery to flatten protruding ears. Adolescents of 13 or 14 have nose jobs. And nearly 3,700 breast augmentation surgeries were performed on teenage girls last year, according to the society.” It is extremely unfortunate when children and teenagers, and no doubt their parents, view their physical appearance negatively and this of course plays havoc with their self esteem. It is bad enough when teenagers feel they are not attractive enough but even worse when parents agree with them. In another New York Times article entitled Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery the author Camille Sweeney highlights a young woman whose mother and sister had both received breast implants and this young girl, because she had small breasts said “I didn’t feel like a woman.” So at age 18 she followed in their footsteps and had saline implants put in and then tells us that “I just wanted to look normal, and now I do”. Comments like this clearly leave the impression for many smaller breasted women that they must be abnormal or somehow deficient.
This thinking is now a part of our society’s deeply held belief system helped by advertising, the current culture and now the latest rage of reality TV shows such as America’s Next Top Model and Extreme Makeover. I read on ABC’s website about Extreme Makeover and this is how they describe their show to the American public; “Extreme Makeover follows the stories of the lucky individuals who are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be given a truly "Cinderella-like" experience: a real life fairy tale in which their wishes come true, not just by changing their looks, but their lives and destinies.” There is no doubt why the viewer is left with the idea that changing one’s looks can change your life and following on in the fairytale theme, the rest of one’s life will be completely perfect and trouble free as long as the surgeon reconstructs several parts of your face, enlarges your breasts, liposuctions your thighs and enhances your lips with collagen. It is this beauty discussion that I feel compelled to write you this letter; primarily to offer you an alternative way of thinking about your new found career for no other reason but to give you a heightened awareness of the potential adversity that you are likely to encounter in the world of advertising.
Walking and balancing on that fine line has to include questioning ourselves on how and what we choose to eat. The excessive focus on the need to be thin once again creates for us the clouded vision of the perfect woman and this gives rise to an unhealthy and obsessive distraction of diet in an attempt to reach this unobtainable goal. The statistics for eating disorders are grave and according to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health there are seven million women in the United States who have eating disorders. They also inform us that “A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover” and that “The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.” This shows that our country’s obsession with thinness is not only serious but in many instances it is deadly.
As I think about you and the extraordinary situation you find yourself in, I ask you to consider what an incredible opportunity you have before you: the ability to become a powerful voice for young women around the country who are looking at you in those glossy magazine pages in order to formulate their own value in this world. How I wish I had a powerful voice to guide me through the maze that took me forty years to navigate. With self-confidence and a deep understanding of yourself you can use this opportunity to state loudly and clearly what young women and perhaps women in general should or should not have to believe about themselves. You could help in starting a real paradigm shift in this industry. I believe that a smart and beautiful young woman such as you does not want to perpetuate the myth that women are not beautiful unless they have significantly modified what they were born with.
My best regards to you,
Veronica
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Final Paper - 2nd Draft
December 2, 2012
Avery Jones
273 Main Street
New York, NY 35932
Dear Avery,
I hope this letter finds you well and adjusting to your new life in New York City. I know your friends and family are extremely proud of your achievement; completing high school, immediately finding a modeling position and starting to gain recognition as the beautiful young woman that you are. I have watched you grow up over the last fifteen years and as your neighbor and someone who cares about your well being I also certainly understand your attraction to the world of fashion and making a good income while modeling beautiful clothing and the latest accessories. I became a teenager in the early 1970’s and Twiggy, having become a big hit in the ‘60’s was still the model that we all idolized and wanted to emulate because she was tall, very thin and had an innocent angelic kind of beauty. In those years I felt enormous pressure to be attractive as I tried to formulate my value in this world. I was born into a patriarchal family where both my parents had nine brothers each. They had emigrated from a little French island in the Indian Ocean called Mauritius to South Africa, where I was born, and I vividly remember hearing many conversations between my uncles over the years about beautiful women and particularly the body parts of those beautiful women. I learned at a very young age that a woman’s value was in her looks.
I want to emphasize that I don’t think there is anything wrong with women wanting to be beautiful and making themselves as desirable as possible to the opposite sex. In fact, I believe this drive is the very basis of women’s biology in order to attract the best possible genes in a partner which will therefore afford their offspring the chance to not just survive but to thrive. This fact was highlighted by a Newsweek article entitled the Biology of Beauty where several scholars of the beauty question where quoted including Nancy Etcoff who is a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and is writing a book on her studies of human attraction. She says "I defy anyone to point to a society, any time in history or any place in the world, that wasn't preoccupied with beauty. The high-minded may dismiss our preening and ogling as distractions from things that matter, but the stakes can be enormous.” "Judging beauty involves looking at another person," says University of Texas psychologist Devendra Singh, "and figuring out whether you want your children to carry that person's genes." Newsweek’s article clearly illustrates this behavior by women comes from an internal drive rather than from external forces.
It seems that long before the media and advertising were around women had an intrinsic need to enhance their looks with whatever was available to them in order to achieve their perceived standard of beauty. However I believe that advertising companies and the media play directly into this fact and take major advantage with very little regard to the millions of women all over the world that have been adversely affected. This mechanism to be beautiful has been going on for centuries and in every culture, where women go to extraordinary lengths and even dangerous lengths to make themselves beautiful. In a Morton Report article entitled Chasing Beauty: Cultural History of Beauty Obsession the author states that “During the Renaissance, Italian women thought that large pupils were alluring and placed a toxic plant extract in their eyes to dilate the pupils. That plant still bears the name belladonna, Italian for "beautiful lady." Chinese fashion considered small feet appropriately dainty for women; the practice of foot-binding created "lotus feet," deformed appendages that didn't allow women to walk without assistance for the sake of beauty”. This article clearly highlights that even before the media was manipulating and lying to women we were attempting to reach the beauty standard of the culture. I have had half a life time to reflect on the beauty issue and although I have never been inclined to entertain any drastic surgical changes, now in my 50’s I am willing to do the very uncomfortable work of reflecting at a deeper level and admitting to myself that my obsession with exercise over the years has played directly into this discussion. I have been a marathon runner since my 20’s and I have run six days a week through all types of weather including as much as twenty-six miles in a torrential downpour with severe winds. I have run in the forest at 5 am because it was the only time of day I was able to get my workout in with little regard for nocturnal creatures, including mountain lions that we know live in our mountains. I ran when I was sick with flu and sinuous infections and the like, all the while justifying my actions as “keeping healthy”. Today, I am able to ask myself, was it really just keeping healthy or was it partly an obsession for keeping my weight down and a desire to feel and look good? I know the answer and I can now acknowledge the truth to myself and know that there is a very fine line between keeping healthy and being obsessively focused on how I look: and that line I walk everyday as consciously as possible.
One of the biggest issues in the world of advertising and media is that there is an extremely unrealistic standard of beauty that so many women are striving for. I say unrealistic because the pictures in the glossy magazines have been digitally enhanced and airbrushed to a point where no human being can ever look that perfect. It is no wonder that those of us after seeing these images of perfection struggle with low self esteem and a intense desire to attempt to measure up and this has caused the beauty issue to take on a dangerous and unhealthy direction. The statistics for women of your age and younger having plastic surgery is astounding and a 2004 article from The New York Times entitled How Young Is Too Young to Have a Nose Job and Breast Implants? stated that “The number of cosmetic surgeries performed on people 18 and under reached 74,233 in 2003, a 14 percent increase from 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Girls and boys as young as 6 get plastic surgery to flatten protruding ears. Adolescents of 13 or 14 have nose jobs. And nearly 3,700 breast augmentation surgeries were performed on teenage girls last year, according to the society.” It is extremely unfortunate when children and teenagers, and no doubt their parents, view their physical appearance negatively and this of course plays havoc with their self esteem. It is bad enough when teenagers feel they are not attractive enough but even worse when parents agree with them. In another New York Times article entitled Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery the author Camille Sweeney highlights a young woman whose mother and sister had both received breast implants and this young girl, because she had small breasts said “I didn’t feel like a woman.” So at age 18 she followed in their footsteps and had saline implants put in and then tells us that “I just wanted to look normal, and now I do”. Comments like this clearly leave the impression for many smaller breasted women that they must be abnormal or somehow deficient. It is so unfortunate that this thinking is now a part of our society’s deeply held belief system helped by advertising, the current culture and now the latest rage of reality TV shows such as America’s Next Top Model and Extreme Makeover. I read on ABC’s website about Extreme Makeover and this is how they describe their show to the American public; “Extreme Makeover follows the stories of the lucky individuals who are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be given a truly "Cinderella-like" experience: a real life fairy tale in which their wishes come true, not just by changing their looks, but their lives and destinies.” There is no doubt why the viewer is left with the idea that changing one’s looks can change your life and following on in the fairytale theme, the rest of one’s life will be completely perfect and trouble free as long as the surgeon reconstructs several parts of your face, enlarges your breasts, liposuctions your thighs and enhances your lips with collagen. It is this beauty discussion that I feel compelled to write you this letter; primarily to offer you an alternative way of thinking about your new found career for no other reason but to give you a heightened awareness of the potential adversity that you are likely to encounter in the world of advertising.
Another sobering fact that I would be remiss if I did not highlight is the high incidence of eating disorders by young women in this country. Again the excessive focus on the need to be thin creates for us the clouded vision of the perfect woman and this creates an unhealthy obsessive distraction of diet and exercise in an attempt to reach this unobtainable goal. The statistics for eating disorders are grave and according to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health there are seven million women in the United States who have eating disorders. They also inform us that “A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover” and that “The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.” This shows that our country’s obsession with thinness is not only serious but in many instances it is deadly.
As I think about you and the extraordinary situation you find yourself in, I ask you to consider what an incredible opportunity you have before you: the ability to become a powerful voice for young women around the country who are looking at you in those glossy magazine pages in order to formulate their own value in this world. How I wish I had a powerful voice to guide me through the maize that took forty years to figure out. With self-confidence and a deep understanding of yourself you can use this opportunity to state loudly and clearly what young women and perhaps women in general should or should not have to believe about themselves. You could help in starting a real paradigm shift in this industry. I believe that a smart and beautiful young woman such as you does not want to perpetuate the myth that women are not beautiful unless they have significantly modified what they were born with.
My best regards to you,
Veronica
Avery Jones
273 Main Street
New York, NY 35932
Dear Avery,
I hope this letter finds you well and adjusting to your new life in New York City. I know your friends and family are extremely proud of your achievement; completing high school, immediately finding a modeling position and starting to gain recognition as the beautiful young woman that you are. I have watched you grow up over the last fifteen years and as your neighbor and someone who cares about your well being I also certainly understand your attraction to the world of fashion and making a good income while modeling beautiful clothing and the latest accessories. I became a teenager in the early 1970’s and Twiggy, having become a big hit in the ‘60’s was still the model that we all idolized and wanted to emulate because she was tall, very thin and had an innocent angelic kind of beauty. In those years I felt enormous pressure to be attractive as I tried to formulate my value in this world. I was born into a patriarchal family where both my parents had nine brothers each. They had emigrated from a little French island in the Indian Ocean called Mauritius to South Africa, where I was born, and I vividly remember hearing many conversations between my uncles over the years about beautiful women and particularly the body parts of those beautiful women. I learned at a very young age that a woman’s value was in her looks.
I want to emphasize that I don’t think there is anything wrong with women wanting to be beautiful and making themselves as desirable as possible to the opposite sex. In fact, I believe this drive is the very basis of women’s biology in order to attract the best possible genes in a partner which will therefore afford their offspring the chance to not just survive but to thrive. This fact was highlighted by a Newsweek article entitled the Biology of Beauty where several scholars of the beauty question where quoted including Nancy Etcoff who is a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and is writing a book on her studies of human attraction. She says "I defy anyone to point to a society, any time in history or any place in the world, that wasn't preoccupied with beauty. The high-minded may dismiss our preening and ogling as distractions from things that matter, but the stakes can be enormous.” "Judging beauty involves looking at another person," says University of Texas psychologist Devendra Singh, "and figuring out whether you want your children to carry that person's genes." Newsweek’s article clearly illustrates this behavior by women comes from an internal drive rather than from external forces.
It seems that long before the media and advertising were around women had an intrinsic need to enhance their looks with whatever was available to them in order to achieve their perceived standard of beauty. However I believe that advertising companies and the media play directly into this fact and take major advantage with very little regard to the millions of women all over the world that have been adversely affected. This mechanism to be beautiful has been going on for centuries and in every culture, where women go to extraordinary lengths and even dangerous lengths to make themselves beautiful. In a Morton Report article entitled Chasing Beauty: Cultural History of Beauty Obsession the author states that “During the Renaissance, Italian women thought that large pupils were alluring and placed a toxic plant extract in their eyes to dilate the pupils. That plant still bears the name belladonna, Italian for "beautiful lady." Chinese fashion considered small feet appropriately dainty for women; the practice of foot-binding created "lotus feet," deformed appendages that didn't allow women to walk without assistance for the sake of beauty”. This article clearly highlights that even before the media was manipulating and lying to women we were attempting to reach the beauty standard of the culture. I have had half a life time to reflect on the beauty issue and although I have never been inclined to entertain any drastic surgical changes, now in my 50’s I am willing to do the very uncomfortable work of reflecting at a deeper level and admitting to myself that my obsession with exercise over the years has played directly into this discussion. I have been a marathon runner since my 20’s and I have run six days a week through all types of weather including as much as twenty-six miles in a torrential downpour with severe winds. I have run in the forest at 5 am because it was the only time of day I was able to get my workout in with little regard for nocturnal creatures, including mountain lions that we know live in our mountains. I ran when I was sick with flu and sinuous infections and the like, all the while justifying my actions as “keeping healthy”. Today, I am able to ask myself, was it really just keeping healthy or was it partly an obsession for keeping my weight down and a desire to feel and look good? I know the answer and I can now acknowledge the truth to myself and know that there is a very fine line between keeping healthy and being obsessively focused on how I look: and that line I walk everyday as consciously as possible.
One of the biggest issues in the world of advertising and media is that there is an extremely unrealistic standard of beauty that so many women are striving for. I say unrealistic because the pictures in the glossy magazines have been digitally enhanced and airbrushed to a point where no human being can ever look that perfect. It is no wonder that those of us after seeing these images of perfection struggle with low self esteem and a intense desire to attempt to measure up and this has caused the beauty issue to take on a dangerous and unhealthy direction. The statistics for women of your age and younger having plastic surgery is astounding and a 2004 article from The New York Times entitled How Young Is Too Young to Have a Nose Job and Breast Implants? stated that “The number of cosmetic surgeries performed on people 18 and under reached 74,233 in 2003, a 14 percent increase from 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Girls and boys as young as 6 get plastic surgery to flatten protruding ears. Adolescents of 13 or 14 have nose jobs. And nearly 3,700 breast augmentation surgeries were performed on teenage girls last year, according to the society.” It is extremely unfortunate when children and teenagers, and no doubt their parents, view their physical appearance negatively and this of course plays havoc with their self esteem. It is bad enough when teenagers feel they are not attractive enough but even worse when parents agree with them. In another New York Times article entitled Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery the author Camille Sweeney highlights a young woman whose mother and sister had both received breast implants and this young girl, because she had small breasts said “I didn’t feel like a woman.” So at age 18 she followed in their footsteps and had saline implants put in and then tells us that “I just wanted to look normal, and now I do”. Comments like this clearly leave the impression for many smaller breasted women that they must be abnormal or somehow deficient. It is so unfortunate that this thinking is now a part of our society’s deeply held belief system helped by advertising, the current culture and now the latest rage of reality TV shows such as America’s Next Top Model and Extreme Makeover. I read on ABC’s website about Extreme Makeover and this is how they describe their show to the American public; “Extreme Makeover follows the stories of the lucky individuals who are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be given a truly "Cinderella-like" experience: a real life fairy tale in which their wishes come true, not just by changing their looks, but their lives and destinies.” There is no doubt why the viewer is left with the idea that changing one’s looks can change your life and following on in the fairytale theme, the rest of one’s life will be completely perfect and trouble free as long as the surgeon reconstructs several parts of your face, enlarges your breasts, liposuctions your thighs and enhances your lips with collagen. It is this beauty discussion that I feel compelled to write you this letter; primarily to offer you an alternative way of thinking about your new found career for no other reason but to give you a heightened awareness of the potential adversity that you are likely to encounter in the world of advertising.
Another sobering fact that I would be remiss if I did not highlight is the high incidence of eating disorders by young women in this country. Again the excessive focus on the need to be thin creates for us the clouded vision of the perfect woman and this creates an unhealthy obsessive distraction of diet and exercise in an attempt to reach this unobtainable goal. The statistics for eating disorders are grave and according to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health there are seven million women in the United States who have eating disorders. They also inform us that “A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover” and that “The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.” This shows that our country’s obsession with thinness is not only serious but in many instances it is deadly.
As I think about you and the extraordinary situation you find yourself in, I ask you to consider what an incredible opportunity you have before you: the ability to become a powerful voice for young women around the country who are looking at you in those glossy magazine pages in order to formulate their own value in this world. How I wish I had a powerful voice to guide me through the maize that took forty years to figure out. With self-confidence and a deep understanding of yourself you can use this opportunity to state loudly and clearly what young women and perhaps women in general should or should not have to believe about themselves. You could help in starting a real paradigm shift in this industry. I believe that a smart and beautiful young woman such as you does not want to perpetuate the myth that women are not beautiful unless they have significantly modified what they were born with.
My best regards to you,
Veronica
Sunday, November 25, 2012
First Draft - 2nd Paper
November 25, 2012
Avery Jones
273 Main Street
New York, NY 35932
Dear Avery,
I hope this letter finds you well and adjusting to your new life in New York City. I know your friends and family are extremely proud of your achievement completing high school and immediately finding a modeling position and starting to gain recognition as the beautiful young woman that you are. I have watched you grow up over the last fifteen years and as your neighbor and someone who cares about your well being, I feel compelled to write you this letter primarily to offer you an alternative way of thinking about your new found career for no other reason but to give you perhaps some additional awareness of the potential adversity that you are likely to encounter in the world of advertising.
I certainly understand your attraction to the world of fashion and making a really good income while modeling beautiful clothing and the latest accessories. I came of age in the early 1970’s and Twiggy, having hit the big time in the ‘60’s was still the model that we all idolized and wanted to emulate; she was tall, very thin and had an innocent angelic kind of beauty. I hope you will understand that I don’t think there is anything wrong with women wanting to be beautiful and making themselves as desirable as possible to the opposite sex, I believe it is one of the most basic needs of our biology and this fact was highlighted by a Newsweek article entitled the Biology of Beauty where several scholars of this issue where quoted including “Nancy Etcoff, a neuroscientist who is studying human attraction at the MIT Media Lab and writing a book on the subject. "I defy anyone to point to a society, any time in history or any place in the world, that wasn't preoccupied with beauty." The high-minded may dismiss our preening and ogling as distractions from things that matter, but the stakes can be enormous. "Judging beauty involves looking at another person," says University of Texas psychologist Devendra Singh, "and figuring out whether you want your children to carry that person's genes." Newsweek clearly informs us that women make themselves attractive in order to attract the best possible genes in a partner, which therefore affords one’s offspring to not just survive but thrive. This very basic biological drive seems to be the very basis for women’s desire to be beautiful. It has been going on for centuries and in every culture, where women go to extraordinary lengths and even dangerous lengths to make themselves beautiful. In a Morton Report article entitled Chasing Beauty: Cultural History of Beauty Obsession the author states that “During the Renaissance, Italian women thought that large pupils were alluring and placed a toxic plant extract in their eyes to dilate the pupils. That plant still bears the name belladonna, Italian for "beautiful lady." Chinese fashion considered small feet appropriately dainty for women; the practice of foot-binding created "lotus feet," deformed appendages that didn't allow women to walk without assistance for the sake of beauty”. It seems that long before the media and advertising were around women had an intrinsic need to enhance themselves with what they perceived was beautiful. However I believe that advertising companies and the media have managed to use this fact to take major advantage, with very little regard, for the millions of women all over the world that it has adversely affected.
One of the biggest issues in the world of advertising and the media is that there is an extremely unrealistic beauty that so many women are striving for. I say unrealistic because the pictures in the glossy magazines that have been digitally enhanced and airbrushed to a point where no human being can ever look that perfect. Therefore most of us after seeing these images of perfection have a hard time not feeling considerably unattractive and this has caused the beauty issue to take on a dangerous and unhealthy direction. The statistics for women of your age and younger having plastic surgery is astounding and an article from The New York Times entitled How Young Is Too Young to Have a Nose Job and Breast Implants? In 2004 stated that “The number of cosmetic surgeries performed on people 18 and under reached 74,233 in 2003, a 14 percent increase from 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Girls and boys as young as 6 get plastic surgery to flatten protruding ears. Adolescents of 13 or 14 have nose jobs. And nearly 3,700 breast augmentation surgeries were performed on teenage girls last year, according to the society.” It is extremely unfortunate when children and teenagers, and no doubt their parents, view their physical appearance negatively and this of course plays havoc with their self esteem. In another New York Times article entitled Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery the author Camille Sweeney highlights a young woman whose mother and sister had both received breast implants and this young girl, because she had small breasts said “I didn’t feel like a woman.” So at age 18 she followed in their footsteps and had saline implants put in and then tells us that “I just wanted to look normal, and now I do”. Comments like this clearly leave the impression for many smaller breasted women that they must be abnormal or somehow deficient. It seems so unfortunate that this thinking is now a part of our society’s deeply held belief system, helped by advertising, the current culture and now the latest rage of reality TV shows such as America’s Next Top Model and Extreme Makeover. I read on ABC’s website about Extreme Makeover and this is how they describe their show to the American public, “Extreme Makeover follows the stories of the lucky individuals who are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be given a truly "Cinderella-like" experience: a real life fairy tale in which their wishes come true, not just by changing their looks, but their lives and destinies.” There is no doubt why the viewer is left with the idea that changing one’s looks can change your life and following on in the fairytale theme, the rest of one’s life will be completely perfect and trouble free as long as the surgeon reconstructs several parts of your face, enlarges your breasts, liposuctions your thighs and enhances your lips with collagen. Unfortunately, many people are swayed heavily by these types of shows and it brings me to one other point that I would like to make and that is regarding the high incidence of eating disorders by the young women in this country. Again the excessive focus on the need to be thin creates for us the clouded vision of the perfect woman and this creates an unhealthy obsessive distraction of diet and exercise in an attempt to reach this unobtainable goal. The statistics for eating disorders are grave and according to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health there are seven million women in the United States who have eating disorders, they also inform us that “A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover” and that “The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.” Showing that our country’s obsession with thinness is not only serious but in many instances it is deadly.
I am hoping that you will understand my desire to bring to your attention this important subject. You are making a really good income right now and there is no need for you to change that, however I also know that you are a very smart young women that will be able to get a college degree without too much difficulty and become just about anything you want to be that will ultimately also give you a comfortable and happy life. Therefore, perhaps once you have reached a point that this career is no longer working for you, I hope you will consider changing direction. I trust that my letter will help you become more aware of the beauty pressures that are now also placed on you in this industry and allow you to make thoughtful decisions for yourself but also consider the possibility of one day no longer being part of an industry that perpetuates the myth that women are not beautiful unless they have significantly changed what they were born with.
My best regards to you,
Veronica
Avery Jones
273 Main Street
New York, NY 35932
Dear Avery,
I hope this letter finds you well and adjusting to your new life in New York City. I know your friends and family are extremely proud of your achievement completing high school and immediately finding a modeling position and starting to gain recognition as the beautiful young woman that you are. I have watched you grow up over the last fifteen years and as your neighbor and someone who cares about your well being, I feel compelled to write you this letter primarily to offer you an alternative way of thinking about your new found career for no other reason but to give you perhaps some additional awareness of the potential adversity that you are likely to encounter in the world of advertising.
I certainly understand your attraction to the world of fashion and making a really good income while modeling beautiful clothing and the latest accessories. I came of age in the early 1970’s and Twiggy, having hit the big time in the ‘60’s was still the model that we all idolized and wanted to emulate; she was tall, very thin and had an innocent angelic kind of beauty. I hope you will understand that I don’t think there is anything wrong with women wanting to be beautiful and making themselves as desirable as possible to the opposite sex, I believe it is one of the most basic needs of our biology and this fact was highlighted by a Newsweek article entitled the Biology of Beauty where several scholars of this issue where quoted including “Nancy Etcoff, a neuroscientist who is studying human attraction at the MIT Media Lab and writing a book on the subject. "I defy anyone to point to a society, any time in history or any place in the world, that wasn't preoccupied with beauty." The high-minded may dismiss our preening and ogling as distractions from things that matter, but the stakes can be enormous. "Judging beauty involves looking at another person," says University of Texas psychologist Devendra Singh, "and figuring out whether you want your children to carry that person's genes." Newsweek clearly informs us that women make themselves attractive in order to attract the best possible genes in a partner, which therefore affords one’s offspring to not just survive but thrive. This very basic biological drive seems to be the very basis for women’s desire to be beautiful. It has been going on for centuries and in every culture, where women go to extraordinary lengths and even dangerous lengths to make themselves beautiful. In a Morton Report article entitled Chasing Beauty: Cultural History of Beauty Obsession the author states that “During the Renaissance, Italian women thought that large pupils were alluring and placed a toxic plant extract in their eyes to dilate the pupils. That plant still bears the name belladonna, Italian for "beautiful lady." Chinese fashion considered small feet appropriately dainty for women; the practice of foot-binding created "lotus feet," deformed appendages that didn't allow women to walk without assistance for the sake of beauty”. It seems that long before the media and advertising were around women had an intrinsic need to enhance themselves with what they perceived was beautiful. However I believe that advertising companies and the media have managed to use this fact to take major advantage, with very little regard, for the millions of women all over the world that it has adversely affected.
One of the biggest issues in the world of advertising and the media is that there is an extremely unrealistic beauty that so many women are striving for. I say unrealistic because the pictures in the glossy magazines that have been digitally enhanced and airbrushed to a point where no human being can ever look that perfect. Therefore most of us after seeing these images of perfection have a hard time not feeling considerably unattractive and this has caused the beauty issue to take on a dangerous and unhealthy direction. The statistics for women of your age and younger having plastic surgery is astounding and an article from The New York Times entitled How Young Is Too Young to Have a Nose Job and Breast Implants? In 2004 stated that “The number of cosmetic surgeries performed on people 18 and under reached 74,233 in 2003, a 14 percent increase from 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Girls and boys as young as 6 get plastic surgery to flatten protruding ears. Adolescents of 13 or 14 have nose jobs. And nearly 3,700 breast augmentation surgeries were performed on teenage girls last year, according to the society.” It is extremely unfortunate when children and teenagers, and no doubt their parents, view their physical appearance negatively and this of course plays havoc with their self esteem. In another New York Times article entitled Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery the author Camille Sweeney highlights a young woman whose mother and sister had both received breast implants and this young girl, because she had small breasts said “I didn’t feel like a woman.” So at age 18 she followed in their footsteps and had saline implants put in and then tells us that “I just wanted to look normal, and now I do”. Comments like this clearly leave the impression for many smaller breasted women that they must be abnormal or somehow deficient. It seems so unfortunate that this thinking is now a part of our society’s deeply held belief system, helped by advertising, the current culture and now the latest rage of reality TV shows such as America’s Next Top Model and Extreme Makeover. I read on ABC’s website about Extreme Makeover and this is how they describe their show to the American public, “Extreme Makeover follows the stories of the lucky individuals who are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be given a truly "Cinderella-like" experience: a real life fairy tale in which their wishes come true, not just by changing their looks, but their lives and destinies.” There is no doubt why the viewer is left with the idea that changing one’s looks can change your life and following on in the fairytale theme, the rest of one’s life will be completely perfect and trouble free as long as the surgeon reconstructs several parts of your face, enlarges your breasts, liposuctions your thighs and enhances your lips with collagen. Unfortunately, many people are swayed heavily by these types of shows and it brings me to one other point that I would like to make and that is regarding the high incidence of eating disorders by the young women in this country. Again the excessive focus on the need to be thin creates for us the clouded vision of the perfect woman and this creates an unhealthy obsessive distraction of diet and exercise in an attempt to reach this unobtainable goal. The statistics for eating disorders are grave and according to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health there are seven million women in the United States who have eating disorders, they also inform us that “A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover” and that “The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.” Showing that our country’s obsession with thinness is not only serious but in many instances it is deadly.
I am hoping that you will understand my desire to bring to your attention this important subject. You are making a really good income right now and there is no need for you to change that, however I also know that you are a very smart young women that will be able to get a college degree without too much difficulty and become just about anything you want to be that will ultimately also give you a comfortable and happy life. Therefore, perhaps once you have reached a point that this career is no longer working for you, I hope you will consider changing direction. I trust that my letter will help you become more aware of the beauty pressures that are now also placed on you in this industry and allow you to make thoughtful decisions for yourself but also consider the possibility of one day no longer being part of an industry that perpetuates the myth that women are not beautiful unless they have significantly changed what they were born with.
My best regards to you,
Veronica
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Annotated Bibliography #2
Annotated Bibliography
The Beauty Trap
Boodman, Sandra G. "For More Teenage Girls, Plastic Surgery." Washington Post, 26 Oct. 2004. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62540-2004Oct25.html>.
This is an excellent article by the Washington Post, written by Sandra Boodman that discusses the issue of teenagers and their obsession with plastic surgery. It brings to bear the facts as presented by several experts such as psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke, a visiting scholar at Columbia University who studies girls and body image, as well as plastic surgeons who discuss how they decide which young girls will be authorized for surgery and which will not. This article also discusses the potential complications of breast augmentations as presented on the FDA website that somehow many young women and their parents do not seem to want to pay attention to and also highlights a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine that discusses complications with breast feeding once augmentations have been performed. The president of the ASPS and the chief of plastic surgery at Georgetown University Hospital, Scott L. Spear also weighs in to say that young women cannot possibly realize the impact of their choices at such a young age and do not see that these procedures are far more complicated “than pierced ears”. This article will be very helpful for my argument, giving pathos as I feel it shows that against all odds young women will choose these surgeries even if they have been told of the possible dangers showing a real desperation to “improve” themselves, against all odds.
"The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery." Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.surgery.org/media/statistics>.
The ASAPS is the leading organization on aesthetic plastic surgery in the United States it therefore has all the current statistics and press releases on the issues of plastic surgery. This website will be very helpful with showing the logos in my argument and it presents the statistics from as recently as 2011. Statistics such as national totals for cosmetic procedures and age and gender distribution for cosmetic procedures can be found on this website. The press releases discuss a smorgasbord of issues including the safety of silicone breast implants, the dangers of childhood obesity and liposuction and “understanding women’s complicated relationship to the mirror”.
Perkins, Nancy. "Chasing Beauty: Cultural History of Beauty Obsession." The Morton Report. N.p., 22 Feb. 2012. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.themortonreport.com/home-away/health/cosmetic-surgery-will-never-be-the-solution/>.
Nancy Perkins of the Morton Report in a very recent article discusses as she puts it “science and beauty obsession have converged into an intoxicating and dangerous mix”. The Morton Report is a website launched by a British writer Andrew Morton who is also the author of several biographies including one on Princess Diana entitled Diana: Her True Story. As the title mentions, this article discusses the cultural history of the beauty obsession and speaks to the risks women have taken in the past from the Renaissance period in Italy (long before any media was an issue) where women used a toxic plant extract to dilate their pupils, to the Japanese women’s tradition of wrapping their feet because tiny feet were perceived as beautiful. To the current day use of botulinum toxin and breaking facial bones in order to reconstruct faces, all because women think it enhances their beauty. This article helps my argument by showing that the desire to be beautiful is biological because the evidence shows it started a very long time ago yet it also shows that with the bombardment of media images and a push by all the people who make money from all the many beauty aids has the issue has become significantly worse.
Spettigue, Wendy, M.D., and Katherine A. Henderson, Ph.D. "Eating Disorders and the Role of the Media." Http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/. National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 14 Feb. 2004. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information was established in 1988 and is a division of the National Library of Medicine. This abstract on their website written by two doctors, Wendy Spettigue, MD and Katherine Henderson Ph.D. speaks directly to the effect the media has had on people with eating disorders. They highlight the many studies that have been performed on this issue and discuss how as the ideal for the perfect women has gotten thinner and thinner in the media so the incidence of eating disorders has risen and in fact if anything, the population has gotten fatter and fatter. This website will help me with my argument that the media is exploiting the need for women to focus on beauty and as discussed also in this writing the beauty magazines significantly impact the development of young women’s ideas about themselves. It says that 83% of young girls read beauty magazines for 4.3 hours every week and the Seventeen Magazine has a readership of 11,000,000. Kilbourne is also cited in this work for her documentary Killing us Softly, which I will be watching excerpts of on Utube which will also contribute to my argument on this topic.
I want to mention that although my proposal had two book possibilities “Reviving Ophelia” and “The well-dressed Ape” as possible sources, upon closer scrutiny of those books I decided that they did not come close enough to the issue as I wish to present it, so I have therefore not included them.
The Beauty Trap
Boodman, Sandra G. "For More Teenage Girls, Plastic Surgery." Washington Post, 26 Oct. 2004. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62540-2004Oct25.html>.
This is an excellent article by the Washington Post, written by Sandra Boodman that discusses the issue of teenagers and their obsession with plastic surgery. It brings to bear the facts as presented by several experts such as psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke, a visiting scholar at Columbia University who studies girls and body image, as well as plastic surgeons who discuss how they decide which young girls will be authorized for surgery and which will not. This article also discusses the potential complications of breast augmentations as presented on the FDA website that somehow many young women and their parents do not seem to want to pay attention to and also highlights a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine that discusses complications with breast feeding once augmentations have been performed. The president of the ASPS and the chief of plastic surgery at Georgetown University Hospital, Scott L. Spear also weighs in to say that young women cannot possibly realize the impact of their choices at such a young age and do not see that these procedures are far more complicated “than pierced ears”. This article will be very helpful for my argument, giving pathos as I feel it shows that against all odds young women will choose these surgeries even if they have been told of the possible dangers showing a real desperation to “improve” themselves, against all odds.
"The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery." Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.surgery.org/media/statistics>.
The ASAPS is the leading organization on aesthetic plastic surgery in the United States it therefore has all the current statistics and press releases on the issues of plastic surgery. This website will be very helpful with showing the logos in my argument and it presents the statistics from as recently as 2011. Statistics such as national totals for cosmetic procedures and age and gender distribution for cosmetic procedures can be found on this website. The press releases discuss a smorgasbord of issues including the safety of silicone breast implants, the dangers of childhood obesity and liposuction and “understanding women’s complicated relationship to the mirror”.
Perkins, Nancy. "Chasing Beauty: Cultural History of Beauty Obsession." The Morton Report. N.p., 22 Feb. 2012. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.themortonreport.com/home-away/health/cosmetic-surgery-will-never-be-the-solution/>.
Nancy Perkins of the Morton Report in a very recent article discusses as she puts it “science and beauty obsession have converged into an intoxicating and dangerous mix”. The Morton Report is a website launched by a British writer Andrew Morton who is also the author of several biographies including one on Princess Diana entitled Diana: Her True Story. As the title mentions, this article discusses the cultural history of the beauty obsession and speaks to the risks women have taken in the past from the Renaissance period in Italy (long before any media was an issue) where women used a toxic plant extract to dilate their pupils, to the Japanese women’s tradition of wrapping their feet because tiny feet were perceived as beautiful. To the current day use of botulinum toxin and breaking facial bones in order to reconstruct faces, all because women think it enhances their beauty. This article helps my argument by showing that the desire to be beautiful is biological because the evidence shows it started a very long time ago yet it also shows that with the bombardment of media images and a push by all the people who make money from all the many beauty aids has the issue has become significantly worse.
Spettigue, Wendy, M.D., and Katherine A. Henderson, Ph.D. "Eating Disorders and the Role of the Media." Http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/. National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 14 Feb. 2004. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information was established in 1988 and is a division of the National Library of Medicine. This abstract on their website written by two doctors, Wendy Spettigue, MD and Katherine Henderson Ph.D. speaks directly to the effect the media has had on people with eating disorders. They highlight the many studies that have been performed on this issue and discuss how as the ideal for the perfect women has gotten thinner and thinner in the media so the incidence of eating disorders has risen and in fact if anything, the population has gotten fatter and fatter. This website will help me with my argument that the media is exploiting the need for women to focus on beauty and as discussed also in this writing the beauty magazines significantly impact the development of young women’s ideas about themselves. It says that 83% of young girls read beauty magazines for 4.3 hours every week and the Seventeen Magazine has a readership of 11,000,000. Kilbourne is also cited in this work for her documentary Killing us Softly, which I will be watching excerpts of on Utube which will also contribute to my argument on this topic.
I want to mention that although my proposal had two book possibilities “Reviving Ophelia” and “The well-dressed Ape” as possible sources, upon closer scrutiny of those books I decided that they did not come close enough to the issue as I wish to present it, so I have therefore not included them.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Paper #2 - Proposal
Title: The Beauty Trap
Topic: Women in cultures throughout history have attempted to enhance their beauty and desirability through many means. The underlying reason for this behavior is the inherent biological need for females to attract the best possible genes in order for her offspring to have the optimum chances of surviving and thriving. Advertisers and the media in this day and age are exploiting this need and in many cases employ dishonest methods. This is causing women to believe that they can never quite reach the mark set by the advertisers in the ads showing the idealized vision of a woman.
Analysis: This obsession to become the ideal women starts at a very young age. Girls as young as fourteen years old are getting breast augmentations, nose reconstruction, liposuction and eating disorders are also on the increase. Clearly this has parent’s approval, which points to a second source of pressure on these young girls, where mothers who are themselves trying to reach this ideal are therefore projecting their own insecurities onto their daughters. Women who are caught in this web are in a constant struggle to achieve an unattainable goal.
Exigence: I am motivated to give young women an awareness that can help them choose a healthier road to womanhood.
Intended Audience: My intended audience is young girls who are currently enmeshed in this process and allow them to see an alternative to responding to these pressures.
Main Evidence: I will use logos from articles from the Washington Post, Newsweek as well as excerpts from Mary Pipher’s book “Reviving Ophelia” Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls and The Well Dressed Ape written by Science Journalist Hannah Holmes. I will use ethos because as a women who struggled with this issue and had to wade through the marsh myself, before coming to my own realizations and decisions, I hope that my arguments will prove helpful to others. I will use pathos by illuminating the driving force behind the manipulation that causes this dysfunction in the population that advertisers and media are attempting to sell to with little regard for the consequences.
Topic: Women in cultures throughout history have attempted to enhance their beauty and desirability through many means. The underlying reason for this behavior is the inherent biological need for females to attract the best possible genes in order for her offspring to have the optimum chances of surviving and thriving. Advertisers and the media in this day and age are exploiting this need and in many cases employ dishonest methods. This is causing women to believe that they can never quite reach the mark set by the advertisers in the ads showing the idealized vision of a woman.
Analysis: This obsession to become the ideal women starts at a very young age. Girls as young as fourteen years old are getting breast augmentations, nose reconstruction, liposuction and eating disorders are also on the increase. Clearly this has parent’s approval, which points to a second source of pressure on these young girls, where mothers who are themselves trying to reach this ideal are therefore projecting their own insecurities onto their daughters. Women who are caught in this web are in a constant struggle to achieve an unattainable goal.
Exigence: I am motivated to give young women an awareness that can help them choose a healthier road to womanhood.
Intended Audience: My intended audience is young girls who are currently enmeshed in this process and allow them to see an alternative to responding to these pressures.
Main Evidence: I will use logos from articles from the Washington Post, Newsweek as well as excerpts from Mary Pipher’s book “Reviving Ophelia” Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls and The Well Dressed Ape written by Science Journalist Hannah Holmes. I will use ethos because as a women who struggled with this issue and had to wade through the marsh myself, before coming to my own realizations and decisions, I hope that my arguments will prove helpful to others. I will use pathos by illuminating the driving force behind the manipulation that causes this dysfunction in the population that advertisers and media are attempting to sell to with little regard for the consequences.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
RA#3 - The Death of Macho
Reihan Salam writes a thought provoking article in “The Death of Macho”, were he argues that the balance of power in the world is shifting from men to women and although this has been happening over a long period of time, in his opinion the recent economic crisis around the world is causing the shift of power to pick up steam. He blames this recession on the high risk behavior of “the cult of macho”. Salam feels that this shift in the power structure is occurring for several reasons. Two of which are; more men than women have lost their jobs in this recession and women are graduating from college in greater numbers. Salem’s exigency in writing this article is to inform both men and women of his observations so as to bring about awareness of what is occurring in the hope that perhaps both sexes can find a functional way of dealing with this new paradigm.
Salem uses Narration as a mode in order to get his point across, he points out that “The consequence will be not only a mortal blow to the macho men’s club called finance capitalism that got the world into the current economic catastrophe; it will be a collective crisis for millions and millions of men around the globe”(620). So he tells us that although the finance capitalists who created the housing bubble are the reason this economic crisis exists they did not just mess things up for themselves but for a very high percentage of men on the planet who are losing their jobs during this crisis. He goes on to explain that “the bubble actually represented an economic policy that disguised the declining prospects of blue-collar men” (631). It seems the declining prospects were disguised because the bubble allowed the housing market to soar. Contractors who are predominately male as a consequence had an enormous amount of work. This bubble of course did not last for long and when in popped many of the people in that sector of the economy lost their jobs.
Salem effectively uses Cause and Effect to explain how the balance of power is shifting. He asks us “Consider the electoral responses to this global catastrophe that are starting to take shape” (630) and then goes on to explain that when “Iceland’s economy imploded, the country’s voters did what no country has done before: Not only did they throw out the all-male elite who oversaw the making of the crisis, they named the world’s first openly lesbian leader as their prime minister” (630). He also mentions that the small country of Lithuania did a very similar thing in voting in a female president to fix that country’s financial woes. So therefore as blame is being placed on these macho men who seem to get an adrenalin rush from making high risk decisions on the economy, the people are choosing to take a very different path by putting women in charge.
It is clear that Salem has many examples to prove his point; Exemplification is used as a mode in many places in this article. As an example of women gaining more power, Salem tells us that “Already in the United States, women make up nearly half of biological and medical scientists and nearly three quarters of health-industry workers” (632). And continues to say that even “President Barack Obama has weighed in on the shift of power” and Salem cites an article from the New York Times where the President says that “Women are just as likely to be the primary bread earner, if not more likely, than men are today” (632). His many examples certainly give a lot of power to his assertion that the power structure is shifting from men to women.
My response: This was a fascinating article and it speaks of a real possibility where more and more women’s voices are being heard. However, there is no doubt that women still currently do not have equal standing to men, but based on this article women are making major inroads into claiming the power they own and deserve. I do not see this shift in power as positive because it might diminish men but rather to raise women up so that they are on an equal footing with men. I also do not see the decline in men’s position of power being quiet as stark as Salam’s assessment. However, women’s ideas need to be brought to the table so that both sexes can contribute equally to the discourse that affects everyone. I do believe that when women are at the same level of power to men the ability for world peace and a more gently used planet may begin to come into view.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
RA #2 - From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos
From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos is a provocative analysis of Joan Morgan’s view of the root causes of the prevalence of misogyny in rap music lyrics. Written in 1999 as part of a collection of essays entitled, When Chickenheads come Home to Roost…. My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist, the author being both a woman and an African-American brings her personal experience to bear giving this writing significant credibility. Morgan illuminates the hidden causes of the harsh sexism in rap music lyrics and argues that one needs to look deeper to understand why the misogyny exists and how women in her culture need to respond and also start taking responsibility for its existence in order for changes to begin to take place. The catalyst for Morgan’s writing appears to be her desire to shift the focus on the rap culture from condemnation to a deeper analysis of the root causes. I believe her intended audience is primarily the men and women of her own culture, but also the American public at large, in order for us all to understand what drives this seemingly hateful and self-destructive behavior.
Morgan weaves both description and narration in this writing, as she paints the picture of rap musicians and their attitudes and activities that are very much present in their lyrics. She describes “On booming track after booming track I hear brothers talking about spending each day high as hell on malt liquor and Chronic. Don’t sleep. What passes for “40 and a blunt” good times in most of hip-hop is really alcoholism, substance abuse, and chemical dependency” (603) and she goes on to explain how these same men casually talk about killing each other and don’t really have high expectations for their own survival. “This is straight-up depression masquerading as machismo”. The dysfunction is evident, yet somehow it is seen and admired as manliness and success. She describes the life of the Notorious BIG, one of the kings of rap also filled with drugs, sex, jail time, murder and then reveals to us that “The seemingly impenetrable wall of sexism in rap music is really the complex mask African Americans often wear both to hide and express the pain” (603). Her descriptions are vivid as is the extent of the pain the men must be feeling if they feel such a need to use the hard, crude and hateful lyrics in writing their music. The narration that she uses to weave in and out of the description often comes in the form of her personal views, feelings and questions and they come with a powerful punch. “I need to know why they are so angry at me. Why is disrespecting me one of the few things that make them feel like men? What’s the haps, what are you going through on the daily that’s got you acting so foul?” (603). It’s as if she is making a personal plea, coming from a strong yet knowing place, that there is something wrong on a daily basis in their lives that is causing them to show up this way.
Another mode Morgan uses is exemplification, giving us concrete examples of the dysfunction in the African-American community with statistics from the “U.S. Census Bureau, the number of black two-parent households has decreased from 74 percent to 48 percent since 1960. The leading cause of death among black men ages fifteen to twenty-four is homicide. The majority of them will die at the hands of other black men” (602). Her examples show the incredible amount of anger and deteriorating state of things in this community, currently less than half of families have two parents and the statistics also show that young black men are killing each other in big numbers.
Another mode that Morgan uses is Cause and Effect. She states that “Black men are engaged in a war where the real enemies – racism and the white power structure – are masters of camouflage. They have conditioned our men to believe that the enemy is brown” (604). Therefore it seems that Morgan wants us to understand that the cause of the Rappers misogyny and sexism stems from their low self esteem, their ability to be unable to love themselves and the need to use music lyrics to put women down in order to boost their own self image. All of this created by the racism and white power structure that has always controlled them, and led them to believe that the problem is really theirs.
My Response: I really liked this piece of writing for several reasons; firstly, condemning this culture of rap music is very easy for us all, however Morgan really allows us to take a completely different perspective on it and see the pain that exists at the very base of it. Another reason I liked this was because it was written by someone who is in the midst of the pain and she was able to say things that, had they come from a person of another race, could have been misconstrued to be racist or judgmental. Her ability to take this issue personally and her honesty about this topic made in very powerful. I liked how she spoke about both women and men in her culture needing to take responsibility for this war that is going on between them that it was not just the lyrics but also some of the women who were enabling the rappers by cheapening themselves. I really liked that in this gloomy writing she ends on an empowering and positive note saying that “hip-hop can help us win” “that its incredible ability to articulate our collective pain is an invaluable tool when examining gender relations”(606). So in the end this music is a way for people to hear and express the pain and if they are willing to hear each other’s pain, perhaps they can start figuring out how to heal.
Morgan weaves both description and narration in this writing, as she paints the picture of rap musicians and their attitudes and activities that are very much present in their lyrics. She describes “On booming track after booming track I hear brothers talking about spending each day high as hell on malt liquor and Chronic. Don’t sleep. What passes for “40 and a blunt” good times in most of hip-hop is really alcoholism, substance abuse, and chemical dependency” (603) and she goes on to explain how these same men casually talk about killing each other and don’t really have high expectations for their own survival. “This is straight-up depression masquerading as machismo”. The dysfunction is evident, yet somehow it is seen and admired as manliness and success. She describes the life of the Notorious BIG, one of the kings of rap also filled with drugs, sex, jail time, murder and then reveals to us that “The seemingly impenetrable wall of sexism in rap music is really the complex mask African Americans often wear both to hide and express the pain” (603). Her descriptions are vivid as is the extent of the pain the men must be feeling if they feel such a need to use the hard, crude and hateful lyrics in writing their music. The narration that she uses to weave in and out of the description often comes in the form of her personal views, feelings and questions and they come with a powerful punch. “I need to know why they are so angry at me. Why is disrespecting me one of the few things that make them feel like men? What’s the haps, what are you going through on the daily that’s got you acting so foul?” (603). It’s as if she is making a personal plea, coming from a strong yet knowing place, that there is something wrong on a daily basis in their lives that is causing them to show up this way.
Another mode Morgan uses is exemplification, giving us concrete examples of the dysfunction in the African-American community with statistics from the “U.S. Census Bureau, the number of black two-parent households has decreased from 74 percent to 48 percent since 1960. The leading cause of death among black men ages fifteen to twenty-four is homicide. The majority of them will die at the hands of other black men” (602). Her examples show the incredible amount of anger and deteriorating state of things in this community, currently less than half of families have two parents and the statistics also show that young black men are killing each other in big numbers.
Another mode that Morgan uses is Cause and Effect. She states that “Black men are engaged in a war where the real enemies – racism and the white power structure – are masters of camouflage. They have conditioned our men to believe that the enemy is brown” (604). Therefore it seems that Morgan wants us to understand that the cause of the Rappers misogyny and sexism stems from their low self esteem, their ability to be unable to love themselves and the need to use music lyrics to put women down in order to boost their own self image. All of this created by the racism and white power structure that has always controlled them, and led them to believe that the problem is really theirs.
My Response: I really liked this piece of writing for several reasons; firstly, condemning this culture of rap music is very easy for us all, however Morgan really allows us to take a completely different perspective on it and see the pain that exists at the very base of it. Another reason I liked this was because it was written by someone who is in the midst of the pain and she was able to say things that, had they come from a person of another race, could have been misconstrued to be racist or judgmental. Her ability to take this issue personally and her honesty about this topic made in very powerful. I liked how she spoke about both women and men in her culture needing to take responsibility for this war that is going on between them that it was not just the lyrics but also some of the women who were enabling the rappers by cheapening themselves. I really liked that in this gloomy writing she ends on an empowering and positive note saying that “hip-hop can help us win” “that its incredible ability to articulate our collective pain is an invaluable tool when examining gender relations”(606). So in the end this music is a way for people to hear and express the pain and if they are willing to hear each other’s pain, perhaps they can start figuring out how to heal.
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