SHOW AND TELL POST #2

For my show and tell post, I went to sociological images and found a lot of things I wanted to use.  I saw a lot of shocking things on there that I didn't really know about society.  And some things on there I knew about but never really thought about.  The url for the topic I decided to do this post on is http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/14/skechers-shape-ups-for-tween-girls/.  This is about a commercial I've never seen before.  You guys know what the Sketchers Shape Ups are, right?  Made for women so you can get a better butt and thighs by just walking?  Yeah, they make those for 11 year old girls now.  Which I think is disgusting.  Why on earth would an 11 year old need a better butt? Why on earth would a parent tell her daughter that her butt is too big by buying these for her?  They took the video of the commercial off the site, but they talk about a few key points in the commercial.  In one part, they show a girl wearing shape ups, walking confidently down the street while boys dressed as food walk behind her, looking exhausted.  So, do these shoes make you avoid fatty food, too? It obviously does not make sense to put that in the commercial.  What's even worse is that research has proven that these shoes don't really make anyone more fit.  They don't really help burn very many calories or improve muscle tone. So you're putting your child in these ugly shoes, indirectly telling her she has a bad body, and they don't even work??  All that humiliation and lowering of self esteem for nothing.  I just think that it is really sad that we are now trying to make pre-teens have firmer butts.  What's next? Making babies crawl on treadmills because their thighs aren't skinny enough?  I just think the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous, so I wanted to share it with everyone.

One thing that really surprised me from Monday's class was how many people have mental health disorders.  We think of mental disorders as rare things.  We think there are only a few "crazy" people in the world, but mental disease exists everywhere.  In another one of my posts, I talk about how I participated in an activist movement called Spread the Word to End the Word, which tried to stop people from using "retarded" in such a casual way.  And what we learned in Liz's class showed that we really do need to be careful about these things.  I do it, too.  When I go back to my apartment to make sure my door is locked, I always joke about how I'm "so OCD," and I really do need to stop saying that because a lot of people suffer from the actual disease in today's society.  Overall, I really liked everything in the lecture on Monday, but the statistics on the amount of mental disease in the population surprised me the most.

My question for this week is: "Why do women get eating disorders so much more often than men?"  I understand why women have body image issues.  Turn on the tv or flip through a magazine at any given time and you will see a vast amount of beautiful women with perfect, unachievable bodies.  Being surrounded by these images is enough to make any girl feel bad about herself.  And these problems with self image lead to eating disorders in a lot of girls.  But when flipping through these magazines and watching these commercials, you also see a lot of really hot guys with perfect, unachievable bodies.  All cologne commercials sell their product by showing a hot naked man holding the bottle.  Deoderant commercials also sell their product by showing perfect naked men with impeccable bodies. I'm not sure what naked men have to do with cologne or deoderant, but I'm certainly not complaining.  Why do guys seem to be so much more immune to these ads?  While girls are watching these commercials and tearing themselves apart, most men seem to be unaffected by the perfect male bodies on their tv screens.  I'm not saying that no men are affected, but statistics say that girls get eating disorders much more often.  Why is that?

Hey everyone! I'm not exactly sure when I first met a gay person, but I know when I became close with one for the first time.  When I went to STRIPES the summer before my freshman year, I knew that a person from my high school named Robert was going to be there, too.  I did not really know him very well, but people had speculated that he might have been gay.  No one knew for sure, but I didn't know him well enough to make a judgement one way or the other.  He was the only person I knew at STRIPES, so I hung out with him and got to know him a little better.  By the end of the week, I knew he was gay.  He had made enough comments to me throughout the program for me to catch the hint.  The truth is that it didn't really bother me.  We started to hang out once we got to college, and now I consider him one of my best friends.  We hang out every chance we get, and if we aren't with each other we text and talk on the phone constantly.  I tell him about my boy problems, and he tells me about his.  I'm really glad he's one of my best friends because I feel like our friendship has benefitted me in so many ways.  I feel like I'm so much more accepting of different lifestyles after getting to know him and learning about his life.  When he tells me about any inappropriate encounters with other men, I don't even consider it abnormal behavior even though it's two people of the same sex.  I go to the gay bar with him and don't even flinch when I see boys and girls dancing with members of the same sex.  It has also helped me realize how big of an advocate I am for gay marriage, and I know I'll do whatever I can to make it happen because I want my best friend to be happily married someday.  Although I can't say exactly when I first encountered a gay person, I can tell you when I finally got to know one, and it turned into an awesome friendship that I am so greatful for.

When I was in high school, I had a teacher who had a three year old daughter with down syndrome.  She talked about how hurtful and insulting it was when she heard people say "retarded" in a derogatory way.  So she started an organization called "Spread the Word to End the Word" in order to raise awareness about down sydrome and about the harm you could cause someone by just throwing that word around.  A lot of people in our school got really involved, and "Spread the Word to End the Word" started to spread.  Other schools and businesses started to hear about it and contributed to the cause.  I never stood out on the street with a huge poster or anything like that, but I did start fussing people for using the word "retarded" in a derogatory way, which definitely could be considered out of the ordinary.  You should have seen the look on my sister's face when I yelled at her for saying "My science teacher is retarded" when she came home from school one day.  However, both my sisters are more aware of that word now and are more careful about what they say.  My mother had her boyfriend's father over to dinner one evening, and he was saying that he should be able to say "retarded" whenever he wants because of his constitutional rights.  You should have heard me then.  I had never felt like such an activist before that night.  So although it was one of my teachers who created the organization, I feel like I've become an advocate for people with down syndrome and their families, and hopefully I can continue to raise awareness in my everyday life.  One way I can be an activist is to spread awareness in our WGS class, so SPREAD THE WORD TO END THE WORD :)