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Well, this is my last blog post for the semester.  I am not going to lie, I really liked posting blogs although it got to be a bit much with all the assignments from my other classes.  However, the benefits I feel far out weighed the cons. 

For my last blog I have choosen to write about the media in terms of magazines.  This is something we only loosly touched about in class.  Have you ever noticed that a males magazine will have naked women or half naked women all over the pages.  This is what they thoroughly enjoy.  However,  a womens magazine will have pictures of females and very few males in it.  Why is this?  Well, the magazines are establishing what males and females hold in value.  Males are comfortable and dream about the women in their magazines.  Females however, are so self conscoius about their self image that they like to look in these magazines to see the latest fashion, advice, and skinny girls.  This is incredibly unfortunate as it tells women how they are to look.

Another problem within the male magazines (or at least I find it to be a problem) is the big boobs.  Most females in male magazines will have HUGE boobs.  This makes men feel like their women too should have huge boobs.  Female magazines rarley have females with huge boobs in them, and therefore, feel as if these are not important.  Since magazines unfortunatly help establish social norms, males feel if their partner has small boobs that they should persue a boob job.  While many females initially do not think to get a boob job they likely give in because of their desire to impress a man. 

I mean look at the following pictures.  Which one is more appealing to males and which is more appealing to women:

From my experience, I would think the males would be more attracted to Pamela with the giant boobs opposed to the other girl who I think is far prettier than Pamela. 

Anywayz, I just wanted to show how something as simple as a magazine can influence social perceptions of what is a norm and what is not.  It is amazing to think that something so “fake” as a magazine contributes to the way we think and feel.  Scary isn’t it!

Has anyone had a huge desire to go to Africa?  I sure have.  Most want to go to make a difference and I admit I do too.  However, to me making a difference isn’t just helping the continent deal with Aids or their war torn countries.  While these are all incredibly important, making a difference to me is so much more.  Making a difference is allowing them a shoulder to cry on, making a difference to me means really letting them know that you AREN’T going to give up on them.

This is why I have choosen to go to Africa after I am done school! I hope to go to the refugee camps to make a difference in them.  So many people go to Africa to the resorts, and when I bring up my desire to go to Africa people call me crazy.  But, I think they are crazy.  Who wouldnt want to go somewhere and make a difference.

The other reason I want to go to Africa is something no one else ever really talks about.  I want to go to learn something very important.  It seems in the world according to North America, that we can’t be happy without material things.  We get bored, when we have to entertain ourselves.  We our happy when we have enough money to buy something.  TV and videogames, and other technologies occupy our time so that we don’t have to be creative.  However, in the tribal areas of Africa they smile with no money.  They laugh with no money.  They are genuinly happy people, living in a world of poverty.  And no one stops and admires this.  Why is this so?  I don’t know, I just don’t have the answer but I am eager to learn.  I want to know what that feels like to not be so dependant on material objects.  I want to learn what it feels like to not listen to music and appreciate it but to make music, to make clothing, to dance important tribal dances.  I want to play soccer with my bare feet and I want to laugh and smile because I have found what it feels like to be happy as a person, and not happy because I am dependant on other things to make me happy.  I think this is a lesson Africa can teach the so called “modern world”!

I am not trying to blame the media for this, instead I am just seeing from my own experiences how much I depend on the media to keep my happy and content.

I am in my third year now of Unniversity and as a female I must say that even I am sick of hearing about feminism.  This seems to be the main trend for many of the Profs in the Unniversity.  Each prof seems to devote a portion of their class to feminism thoughts and theories.  And as a student I must say hearing it once was great, hearing it twice was good, even hearing it three times was fine.  But every class, I mean common.

I realize the importance of feminist theories and the things they have done for women rights, but after a while it starts to make me feel bad as a women, because we are constantly shoving this knowledge down mens throats.  And quite frankly after the third time of hearing this I start to feel bad, I feel that it makes men feel horrible, it makes them annoyed and I think telling these kinds of theories a million times throughout the course of unniversity only frustrates men into believing that women are just out to get them.

Can you imagine being in their shoes hearing about what we had done to them in the past, and having it constantly shoved down our throats in at least every class throughout the course of your unniversity career.  Would you not feel immense guilt?  I sure would, and many men today don’t believe in men being superior to females, and I think the unniversity is only trying to show this as a theory, but at the same time I think a step back needs to be taken in order to look at how shoving this theory down a mans throat affects him as a person.

I would also like to applaud this class for having no feminist content in it ( or if it did it was very little that was unnoticed by me).  In this class males and females learned together.  As a sociology class I was suprised by the little amount of theories, and the immense amount of personal thought.  I am happy to say that I believe this is the first class in which no feminist content has been presented.

Well, If anyone has read my blog faithfully, which I’m sure no one has because my thoughts are pretty random, I am a huge music fan.  I love music from unknown bands.  For instance, has anyone heard of the band called Feeder.  If you listen to their lyrics for one song, you will notice how they sing with such passion.  Why does this seem to not be important to people anymore?  The songs dominating things like MTV or Much Music are rap and R and B songs talking about getting “crunked” or shot or women.  How can these messages be far more important than that of real heart felt lyrics.

I am not saying that songs have to talk about deep love to be important or beautiful songs , because I personally am sick of hearing about those songs too.  It seems that lots of the “mainstream” rock songs all focus on this topic.  While I will be honest with you there are songs from Feeder that do talk about these things, they discuss the issues not in boy meets girl, girl and boy fall in love, and happily ever after. For example here are lyrics from my favorite song called pushing the senses

“Pushing The Senses”

Always
I can depend on you
But sometimes
It’s burning a hole right through
Keep pushing the senses through
Let’s talk about us

The lyrics just catch you.  They intrigue me, and it makes me try so hard to find some meaning in what he is saying.  I feel a deep connection with bands like these who are more focused on their music then on their money.  They sing because it is what they love to do not because it is a way to get rich and famous.  At least this is the way I percieve such individuals.