xoxo gossip girl ;)

Today in class we talked about gossip and the role it will play in Their Eyes Were Watching God. The act of gossiping can be many things. It can be a source of information, a social practice, a cathartic act, a consolation for oneself, a bit of excitement to break up the mundane, more times than not it is an exaggeration, and often a condemnation. The word “gossip” elicits a thrill because it is human nature to want to be in the loop. Hearing gossip about someone else plays on both our need to connect and our need to feel superior to others. It is reassuring to hear of other's’ downfalls because we can be reminded that no matter how crummy our own situation is, at least we are not in that person’s shoes.  

I mentioned in class that gossip often says more about the gossipers than the subject of the gossip. An example from TEWWG would be the front porch sitters who were talking poorly about Janie. Another example that came to mind was from the Tina Fey reading where she relayed the story of her cousin judging all of the girls who walked by, saying their hips or nose or stomach was too big or too small. There are also modern examples that we see today. Besides gossiping with peers, which is something we have all done at one point or another, we also read magazines and gossip rags about our favorite celebrities. Famous people are not gossiped about because people really hate them, they are gossiped about because people are jealous of them. We always want what we don’t have, and when someone else has what we want it is easy to look for the negative aspects of that person’s situation. 

Deborah Tannen coined the phrase positive gossip, but I don't know if I believe in such a thing. I think gossip always has malicious undertones. To me, positive gossip is not gossip, it is having a normal conversation about another person who is not present where neither party talking has any jealousy or resentment or judgement aimed at the third party. Which, in my experience, does not happen often because, like I said, it's human nature.

Intersectionality and Women in Prison

Intersectionality is one of the most important concepts we have learned about this semester. It relates to every other concept we've learned about and has created the need for a "third wave" of feminism. In the article, "The Road to Prison is Paved with Trauma for Women and Girls", the connection between childhood trauma and incarceration of women of color is explored. As most of you know, the U.S. has the highest rate of incarcerated people in the world. Of these two million incarcerated Americans, there is a disproportionately high population of people in color in prison. Although most prisoners are men, the same is true for female prisoners. The article states that "African American women make up almost one-third of the female prison population and are incarcerated at three times the rate of white women." We've learned that a lot of this epidemic has to do with systems of privilege and oppression, and this article explores this in a new way. The article explores the idea of trauma, especially sexual trauma, being a leading cause for incarceration among women of color.

Women who end up in prison often are put into the criminal justice system at an early age. This is not because they are committing crimes, rather they are the victims of crime. According to the article, The ACLU reports that 92 percent of all women in California prisons have suffered physical or sexual trauma in their lifetimes. According to The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: A Girls’ Story, girls in juvenile justice are four times more likely to suffer from sexual abuse than boys.

So, if our justice system was to address this problem, would we see less incarcerated women in the future?

Here's the link to the article: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/2016/04/the-road-to-prison-is-paved-with-trauma-for-women-and-girls/

Firing back at slut shamers

http://www.teenvogue.com/story/woman-calls-out-shirtless-men-slut-shaming-women-social-media

I some how came across this article that I thought was super important. My Outside of Class event was about the Unslut screening we went to and in my paper I talked about how women are being slut shamed and never the men. Usually men are praised for "being a slut." This article is about a women who found a twitter account of men slut shaming girls and her firing back. She calls out, in a kind of funny way, the men who pose shirtless or upload pictures of them shirtless. To me, this is super important because why are women the only ones being slut shamed? And more importantly, why are they being slut shamed at all? Slut shaming is so pointless to me because, for example, if you're calling a girl a slut because she sleeps with a lot of people who is that effecting? The girl is choosing to do that. Her body her choice. Why do people always point fingers towards women and never the men?

Ellen Degeneres Speaks Out About Mississippi "Religious Freedom" Bill

MUST WATCH!!! Ellen speaks out against anti-gay rights law

I have to admit, it makes me kind of sad knowing this will be my last blog post for this semester! I hope that even after this class is finished we have the ability to post, because lord knows we will always have something to write about! As much as I'm sad for this being the last post, it makes me a little bit happier knowing I'm going out with a bang--all thanks to Ellen DeGeneres!

For those of you who don't know, Mississippi just passed a "Religious Freedom Bill" in which the state of Mississippi promises that they, "will not punish people who refuse to provide services to people because of a religious opposition to same-sex marriage, extramarital sex or transgender people."

I know, I know, my jaw was just as far down to the floor as yours probably is at this time! Can you believe in todays society something like this passed?!?

Luckily the world has people like Ellen, herself gay, to speak out on the public stage for what's right! Ellen closes her monologue by saying that ,"we all need to remember that we are more similar then we are different, and we all want the same things--love, acceptance, and kindness." She even mentions many of the struggles we have talked about in our class recently dealing with the gender pay gap, women's rights, and racism.

Ellen takes her ability to speak in front of a large audience and runs with it...ITS A MUST SEE!!!!!!

Thanks for a great semester of blogging!!!

Hollywood is Hard on Pretty Actresses

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/04/charlize-theron-beauty

I recently saw this published Vanity Fair article and thought it related class, particularly when we discussed how women are often not given deep, gritty roles in movies or TV. In this article, Charlize Theron explains how Hollywood often treats her unfairly because she is both a women and pretty. She explains that she constantly gets turned down for being a beautiful women because directors don't think she looks the  part of a gritty, meaty character. She often is in roles that are below her skill level. Charlize has however won an Oscar for a staring role in the movie Monster, which she was cast by a female director.

Charlize also said “We live in a society where women wilt and men age like fine wine. And, for a long time, women accepted it. We were waiting for society to change, but now we’re taking leadership. It would be a lie to say there is less worry for women as they get older than there is for men. . . . It feels there’s this unrealistic standard of what a woman is supposed to look like when she’s over 40.” She explains how Hollywood and society set unrealistic standards that limit women's careers as they get older and it can be a struggle no matter how talented the actress is.

I thought this was an interesting read from a women who we would all deem successful on gender issues that affect her career.

The Pay Gap

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/basketballs-gender-wage-gap-is-even-worse-than-you-think


Recently we have talked a lot about the pay gap and how women get the short end of the stick when it comes to receiving a paycheck. As an athlete, I have always been aware of the difference in pay between men and women's basketball, because that is the sport that I have played my whole life, and was hoping to play professionally. However, as I grew older and started looking into the pay that a professional women's basketball player would receive, I decided that I would not pursue it professionally because the pay was not enough unless you are like the Michael Jordan of women's basketball. In this article, it says that statistically, the league minimum for women is $75,000 and the minimum for men is $490,180. How can that even be a thing? That is almost SIX times the pay! Not only does this happen in basketball, but the difference is evident in every sport that both men and women play. For the most part, the reasoning behind it is that women do not draw as much attention as men do, which affects attendance numbers, merchandise sales, etc. Is it fair to pay women athletes far less even though they have to do the same amount of work and training as men?

UnSlut

Attending the outside event unsult this week I had no idea what to expect. One thing that I can honestly say is it exceeded my expectations. I won't go into immense detail of the whole documentary, but I will tell you some of the things that really stood out to me. Starting off, I found it very interesting  the documentary showed the true lives of those who have been bullied, disowned, and shamed. It was very heartbreaking  to see young girls  go through that. 

One girl was in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend, and decided to send him a nude picture after a break up. Little did she know the next day she would be The laughingstock of the school. Her boyfriend decided to show one of his team mates  the picture, and from then is when it spread like a wildfire. She moved from her original high school to a new one, and still was a laughing stock. The sad part about this whole entire thing is a camera phone.

Overall, one of the main things I can take away from the documentary is to never judge someone. If you haven't seen this documentary I highly recommend you look into it. It is guaranteed to change your perspective on a lot of different things!