Collectives

The easiest collective that people associate with is a team of some sorts. The biggest, or really the most important, collective that I associated myself was the different sports teams in which I participated. I feel that a big part of my identity was shaped by these two collectives. From sports and the different teams i was on, I learned how to act and carry myself, as well as how not to act and carry myself. I learned about myself, as well as learning from my teammates and my coaches. A lot of who I am and how I act comes from the coaches who stressed discpline and all that jazz. When I was playing a sport, whether it be basketball or softball, I never was really that gung ho about it like the rest of my team. I mean that winning wasn't everything. I know that is really corny, but I enjoyed working hard at something that was meaningful for a time. I enjoyed working until I physically couldn't work anymore.

Conflicting Authorities

When I was in high school, I was a member of the baseball team but I was also concerned with keeping my grades up. The baseball players were required to start practice as soon as school let out. However, I often felt the need to attend study sessions after school in order to prepare for my upcoming tests. My teachers always said that I needed to attend the study sessions because I would only be missing a portion of my baseball practice. On the other hand, my baseball coaches would be angry because we were always preparing for a big game every week, so we needed all the practice time we could get. The school kids would always get on my case about playing baseball while the other baseball players would give me crap and argue that the next game was more important than a quiz or test. I was always left with the difficult decision of when to attend the study sessions and when to focus on baseball practice. Making these crucial decisions and learning from the consequences really helped shape who I am now and the decisions I make today.

High School Identity

When I first entered high school, I was labeled the resident "small kid" Not only for my stature, but also because of my maturity as well. I was only 4' 10'' as a freshman and my short temper and ego did not help my case. However, I found that through sports, I gained more and more respect as the months progressed. When I beat out a senior for a spot on the wrestling team and later earned a spot on the baseball team, my popularity began to take off. By my senior year, I had learned to make decisions better, and treat people with more respect, mostly because of the values my coaches had instilled in me over the past four years. Though I have had both rough and great experiences throughout high school and high school sports, I really learned learned some valuable lessons, ones that I wouldn't trade for the world.

Sports groups

When I was growing up I played soccer and baseball, which were during the same seasons. These two sports are very different from each other. In soccer you are running a lot, while in baseball there is not as much running. My soccer teamates naturally thought baseball was boring and my baseball teammates thought soccer was "girl" sport. I continued to play and practices began to get longer and the sports began to overlap and my teammates would be upset with me for missing games and practices. Eventually, i decided i needed to pick a sport. I chose soccer and gave in to the social pressures that were on me. I beleive i made the right decision by choosing a specific sport, but i think that the pressure put on me by my teammates definitely affected my decision.

My High School Group

My main group in High School was a mix of a few kids all in different groups. There were a few nerdy kids, a few athletic kids, and some that I’m not sure which group they belonged to. I think it was a mix of all of their identity that shaped me to who I am now. The smarter kids in the group really helped me to try and work hard at school and made me competitive to try and beat them in tests. Our athletic friends got us all into paintball and doing stuff outside. It was really cool because we were all different friends who brought our own thing to the group. Through my friends in that group I would meet friends in other groups which I also believe defined my identity.

I Am The Product Of Many

My identity is shaped by the many subcultures and collectives that I associate myself with. As a member of a United Methodist youth group, the Christian values and standards have a large effect on my own opinions and morals. The strong examples of people inside of that specific group represented what I aspired to be. My beliefs and values on respect, religion, and self image came from the roll models that went before me. Each part of my character can be traced back to the different groups that I have been affiliated with in the past and present. I feel that my identity is the product of strong roll models within those groups that have shaped me by simply expressing their beliefs.

Identity and Membership

This is definatly a difficult topic to answer and speak on. I guess a group that I associate myself is being a skateboarder. I like to think that my identity is not shaped by this collective, but when looking at it realistically it has shaped me how it wanted me to be. The images that are associated with this are generally kids that look like social out casts of society with piercings and tattoos along with beanie hats that make them look like delincuits. Society as a whole normally sees us as criminals that do drugs and commit vandalism a long with a laundry list of other crimes. I defiantly look like a skater. I wear all the skate close and shoes as well as having tattoos and piercings. Also I can't go anywhere without my beanie hat, I love that thing. My identity defiantly defers from the path of skaters which society has assumed. Yes I do look like a skater as well as skate. On the contrary tho I do not do drugs nor do I committee crimes of vandalism and destruction. Just because someone does something does not mean they are like all other members of that group. I do really well in school and I work hard at whatever I do, which is definitely not how people see skaters. It is hard to live the proper life you want to live when people already define you by the way you look and in reality you are nothing like what you look like. I love meeting parents of the people I hang out with. They always have a terrible first impretion of me because of how I look, but then after having an intelligent conversation with me they are bewildered at the thought of thinking I was a bad guy. I love proving a point to people that judge.

Image of an Architecture Student

I have wanted to be an architect since the beginning of high school. Every college I applied to had architecture cause I knew that was what I wanted to do. Once I was acceppted to Virginia Tech I was so happy cause I knew their architecture program was top ranked. However, I didn't realize the image that architecture students were given by other students. Kids would say how architect students have no social life and just work in their studio all the time. I really didn't like that image for a couple reasons. One, I wasn't too happy about the fact that I would have a whole lot of work to do and two, I like to go out and chill with my friends and didn't want to be stuck in a studio.

After being in the architecture student group for a couple of months, my identity has somewhat been shaped. I have definitley had a lot of work to do but not nearly as much as the image suggested. I have also learned how to organize my time better so I can go out with my friends while being successful in my classes. I know that I am only a first year student and that I will have more work in the later years of my major. However, learning to organize my time will benefit me in my upcoming years so I am not too worried.

Soccer Player or Athlete

Being athletic is shared by many people, some feel that one can develop it but I feel that you either are or not. Skills in sports can be learned or taught that is why many who are not athletic still are good at certain sports. This is also a reason why many choose to teach athletes because even though they cannot perform the skill they know exactly what should be done. I feel that I can be groups with the athletes which does not mean I am great at any one sport but I am able to pick up the physical aspect easier than some others. An example of this was when I went out for the soccer team in high school, I had never played soccer before but I was willing to give it a shot. Although I can do the work physically I could not grasp the concept of plays and moves. This made my teammates upset at me because I still got playing time. Although I fit in the group of athletes I am not one that worries about that kind of stuff because I can get away without using it. Is this a good thing no not really but it is something that I have always done. This was a conflict within my teammates and friends because I belonged because could do it but didn’t belong because I didn’t want it.

One of the girls or one of the guys?

In high school I was a very diverse person and still am today. I like to do a lot of different things and belong to many groups, sometimes though they clash so much that I don't feel as if I actually belong in any of them.

The 2 most contradicting groups that I belong too was the football team and a group of my friends and I who went around and did 'girly' things; Example: pageants. I never really took them seriously and really didn't like doing them. I consider them really egotistical and hate the idea of people judging people based on their appearance. Anyways the real reason I did them was so I could have something to do with my friends over the summer and it was kinda fun to spend a couple of hours getting dressed up, which I normally didn't do because of football.

At the beginning I knew things weren't going to work out. I had done pageants when I was younger and knew the judges don't really like girls with huge bruises covering their arms and legs. I wasn't doing it to win but my friends would get made at me and say I wasn't taking it seriously, which I wasn't. I didn't care what a group of strangers thought about my appearance I just wanted to have something in common with my other friends since I spent so much time with other football players. Needless to say my friends didn't want me to play football.

The football team thought it was kinda cool at first but after a while they got concerned. Surprisingly they didn't like the idea of me being judged based on beauty. They didn't like the fact that I couldn't hang out with them on pageant days and thought that it was giving me low self esteem. At the same time my female friends thought football was giving me low self-esteem. Either way they both began to hate each other.

I was able to continue doing pageants throughout high school, in the end I realized that I really hated them but they were constructive, I am no longer afraid of public speaking or being in front of a large group. I actually won a few awards mostly personality awards and I did have fun being with my friends before the pageant. I would have never given up football though, and I'm glad that my guys never made me choose sides and just let me be one of the girls for while instead of always being one of the guys.

Heaven and Hell

Through my first three years in highschool I was heavly involved in my church. I went to sunday school eveyr week, youth group, and many events sponsored by the youth group. I loved it and had so much fun whenever I went. I was a chance to hang out wiht people my own age and do that in an appropriate and Christian way. The people there were my friends and the people I hung out with all the time.

But as my Junior year came, I began to hang out with one of my now best friends, Sarah. She was a blast and so crazy to hang out with. She introduced me to a lot of her friends, including her cousin, my best friend, Lexi. We did a lot of crazy stuff together and nothing was off limits when we were hanging out.

After a while though things started to conflict. my friends from either group never told me that I could not or should not hang out with hte other, but the ideas that ran our groups were different. With my church friends, it was all about wholesome fun and worshippign God. However, with my other friends it was about doing crazy things, that were not always so wholesome. I found the conflict between these groups within myself and had trouble deciding whether I was wrong for doing some of the stuff that I did with Sarah and the rest of the group or whether I was too goody goody when I was with my church friends.

This problem was solved, although maybe not for the best. In my senior year I did not go to church as much and I stopped attending youth group and the events they sponsored. So i guess in the end I just decided to only hang out with my other group of friends. I dont know if what I decided to do was the best and still to this day i wish I didn't stop attending youth group and could have learned to balance my "double-life". But I guess I learned a leson: it is really hard to follow to ideas (groups) at the same tiem and not being lieing to one of the groups.

Country

All my life I've loved to be outdoors on the farm, playing in the back yard or wandering through the woods. The majority of my friends have always been guys, and good old country boys at that. I belong in a group with them. We hang out together just as me and any of my female friends would except we're a little more reckless and tend to have conversations about hunting, fishing, trucks, and four wheelers. I am truly one of the guys. Mom always nags me about being more feminine and wearing dresses and hanging out with girls. She always wants to go shopping and all of those things just don't seem like much fun to me. I'd rather call my friend Dallas and tell him that we're going four wheeling tonight and he needs to get all the guys up. We go hunting and fishing- sometimes we go together but a lot of times we are alone, enjoying the outdoors. We are good friends back home. Since I've been at VT, I've met some other good old country boys who are just as nice and fun as my guys back home are. We enjoy doing the same things and kick back on Friday and Saturday nights and just hang out, the same as I do at home and the same as they do where ever they're from.

Collective Response

When I was nine years old, I had been studying Tae Kwon Do for five years and I had just received my first black belt. Being a black belt meant a lot more opportunities in the future if I decided to continue studying martial arts, which I did. There are two different kinds of black belts, the ones that don't take it seriously but go to class regularly and the ones that live at the karate school studying privately with the head instructor and starting to learn competitive martial arts. I was the second type.

At the age of ten, I was traveling to twelve different tournaments. I loved competing. It was the best experience of my life. I loved being on stage with my teammates and when we won, we celebrated and had a great time. We worked hard in between tournaments and got to know each other all really well and I have memories that I will never forget. They taught me a lot when I hung out with them - dedication, hardwork, reliability - skills that I would be able to use throughout my whole life.

When I entered my freshman year of high school, I was forced to give ALL of this up. High school marching band was a big committment and at my high school, it was part of your grade in advanced band. Most of my end of the year karate tournaments (the MOST IMPORTANT) were the same dates as band competitions or mandatory practices, fundraisers, etc. I was so upset. My teammates told me to quit and my band directors told me I would fail if I missed any competitions. I was so torn. It took me forever to decide. I really didn't want to give up music because it was also a passion of mine and I thought it would be the better choice for my college applications. My parents even agreed that I had been competing for the past 5-6 years that it was time to give it up.

Band taught me a lot of different skills that martial arts probably would never teach me but I'm still sad that I couldn't belong to both groups. It's kind of funny to think that I retired from the martial arts circuit at the age of 15. I miss it and always will.

Throughout all my life up to my freshman year here at Virginia Tech, I really have been part of many collective groups. However, two in particular really stand out in my mind because they placed a double bind on me. As a freshman in high school in Richmond, Va, I began to play football. I really loved the game, dispite how hard practice was. I also played baseball for my high school team because I had been playing all my life and loved the game. I continued to play on both teams for all four years at high school.
I also loved to snowboard. It was a passion of mine which I would never was to separate. I used to skateboard back when I was younger and now was really taking off in snowboarding. However my coaches hated it. They thought the risk of injury was too high for the team. They didn't want me to ride, and it often caused me to have to wait till the end of the season to start the snowboarding season in the middle of the winter.
My friends who also rode often got mad that I couldn't go up because I had football practice. They would have to wait a good month into their season for me to make my first trip. I would also have to quit my short season earlier in order to train for baseball.
This double bind has hanted me all of my life, but I really feel like I belong to both subcultures and collectives.

group

I have the hadest time trying to figure out what group or collective I belong to. I like to believe I'm a mix of lots of things (which I am), but I know there is only one main group. When I joined the Virginia Corps of Cadets it brought me into a world I never knew before. I have learned things that go back farther than most can remember and there is a tradition that now I am a part of. It's easy know to think of the big picture of the group I belong to. My parents and family talk to me about it and my friends and I talk about it on occasion. However, I feel like I am the exact same kid I was in middle school. I don't feel the change in me, but I am always reminded that it's there. My point is that I believe strongly that you can be a part of a collective or group, and not be aware of it. I've read in some magazines that even some famous rock stars never have thought of themselves in the stature they are displayed as. I find it difficult for a person to define themselves accurately because it is just something most of us don't even think about.

nbier

Having just begun a new chapter in our lives as freshman at Virginia Tech University, chosing a group we know we belong to can be quite difficult. I believe I'm apart of a group of students who have a job, as well as maintaining the status of a full time student. Lots of freshmen don't have to worry about getting a job because their parents want them to focus on school and not have to be concerned with any financial struggle. In my case, my parents decided three years ago that I needed to start becoming financially stable on my own.

So right now, I deal with fifteen credit hours of class and 24 hours of working per week. I am constantly managing school work, a job, and time for myself. Even though it's more difficult than simply being a student like everyone else, I find sense of maturity in handling a busy schedule on my own. Lots of students who learn that I have a job think it would be impossible for them to deal with everything. Although my job takes me away from doing some things with my friends, I am still able to keep up with school work and I have made new friends in the process.

I like to know that I am apart of a group who has aspirations pertaining to the future; maintaining an income while focusing on school as well will give me experience for the future in dealing with multiple tasks. Also, since I make money, I am able to save it and manage it according to my needs.

Just like how Steele explained being apart of a subculture as "embracing a polarity of positive and negative images", I have come to realize the good and the bad about my group. When students think of other students with jobs, images such as "no life whatsoever" pops into their mind. The same image occured to me before I applied for a job here in Blacksburg, but I tried to look past that and see the benefits, or positive images. Making money and establishing and maintaining a busy schedule are positive images to me that come to mind when I think of my group. I know that I am apart of this collective because I am aware of the good and bad things of what it entails. Every day, I experience effects from my decision to become a working student, but I am thankful to be apart of this group.

Military Brat

How is your identity shaped by your membership in a particular collective? I decided to answer this question using my Formal Paper 3 topic because I specifically put this issue into my paper and I thought it would be best to stay in the same mind-set. How is identity shaped by being a military brat? This is simple. When you are a part of a military family, there are certain aspects of your life that you have to deal with. You move a lot. You don't really get to put roots down anywhere. This kind of constant change requires a certain personality. You have to be an extrovert, basically. You have to be out there and will to accept the change and the challenges that are associated with it. If not, military life is extremely difficult. So, many people who weren't born as extroverts, but as introverts, change slightly. They become more willing, over time, to accept those changes and meet those challenges. They become people who can make more friends quickly and be more open and social. It also becomes easier for them to say goodbye to the familiar and say hello to the different, but not completely easy as it still is hard no matter what to say goodbye to that which you know and say hello to that which you dont. But these people have become use to it and can handle those changes better. Now, personally, I am a natural extrovert and my personality is well suited for military life. But I have met other military brats who both have needed to become extroverts or stay introverts and military life is very difficult for them.
Basically, what I am saying is that Military life will either force you to change your personality if it is not suited for the life, or you will have a very difficult time.

Brittany

Topic 3: Identity & Collectives

In his essay On Being Black and Middle Class, Shelby Steele wrote, "It seems to me that when we identify with any collective we are basically identifying with images that tell us what it means to be a member of that collective. Identity is not the same thing as the fact of membership in a collective; it is, rather, a form of self-definition, facilitated by images of what we wish our membership in the collective to mean. In this sense, the images we identify with may reflect the aspirations of the collective more than they reflect reality, and their content can vary with shifts in those aspirations." [p. 737, italicise my own]

Step 1: Read the above several times. It contains some pretty heady thoughts, and you'll need to read it consciously to really understand it.
Step 2: Think about some groups/collectives that you belong to.
Step 3: Respond to one/some of the following questions: How is your identity shaped by your membership in a particular collective? What images does your collective associate with, and what aspirations do these images reflect? How does your identity vary from or conflict with the aspirations of a collective to which you belong?

Please post your responses by 11:55 p.m. on Wednesday, October 31.

Society and Fashion

Society’s expectation of what a beautiful male and female should look like has been completely manipulated by advertising. The Dove add did an excellent job at showing what the models have to go through to appear as beautiful as they are. If the media is using high tech computers to make their models look perfect, then how is a typical person supposed to look as perfect as them? Fashion ads can have serious affects on people especially teenagers to try and make themselves look as good as the models in the advertisements. They may starve themselves to try and look as thin as the models that are practically fake. More and more kids even in middle school are more interested in making themselves look beautiful when they should really be worried about having fun outside.

Its All About The Money

The media has a major impact on today’s society by branding us with their ideology. They control our perception of perfection and affect our judgment of what is right and wrong. The media uses this power over society to make a profit by selling their views. Everything we buy is a result of conditioning by companies through the media, whether it is a cosmetic company selling products through so called “perfect” models or a soap company trying to sell their products through a campaign of natural beauty. Either way the media is controlling the way we think in good ways and bad, but in the end their goal is to turn a profit.

Conform! Because everyone else is doing it...

It's so hard today to be your own, unique self. You could intentionally chose an outfit that doesn't match or seem stylish, but no one will care because somewhere, someone has already done that. You can try to "act yourself" but where are you picking up your habits and characteristics? From TV, movies, magazines, ect. The media is exploding with endless kinds of personal traits to pick up, even if we seem to pick them up unintentionally.

I feel like once you get to know someone, of course you'll have an idea of who they are, apart from anyone else you've ever met, but first impressions of people you pass by on campus can be surprisingly similar. You see a girl with leggings on and big sunglasses and you think, "poser". But then you could see a guy with tight pants on and skater shoes and think the same thing. Just because people like the style, does it mean they're a copycat?

Lots of styles now-a-days have people on a shopping craze. They MUST buy those boots that every magazine says are the "season's most fashionable". This internal desire to conform and become what the media wants you to be is a side effect from the media's powerful illness, that many people (our age, especially) suffer from. Unfortunately, there's not much any of us can do about looking like we're trying to be someone we're not. As long as we know who we are, deep down inside, then we can become more in touch with our true identity, and be that much closer to resisting conformity.

Perfection

We strive for perfection in everything we do. We have been taught to do this our entire lives.. take a bath, brush your teeth, make good grades, play sports, have friends, be active in the community, go to college, be rich and retire early.We've been taught to be the best. As we grow older, theres no wonder why we strive for perfection in the way we look too. It's not like we can control our physical appearance but by so much but TV and advertising has led us to believe we should be perfect. We want to look as good as the girl on TV because she's the one getting all the attention from that sexy man. Hello- It's TV.. It probably took that woman years and a lot of painful surgeries to look that good. Her looks don't make her any better of a person and personally I think she's an idiot for allowing people to mutilate her like that. It can't have a positive effect on her self esteem that they had to go through all of the transformations to make her pretty and it doesn't have a good effect on any other woman's self esteem either. We shouldn't strive for beauty, hygiene yes, but beauty no. Media, TV, and advertising have screwed up our perspective of beauty. Beauty is based on flaws because that is what separates humans as individuals.

Video Response

To me, the video really illustrated the scewed sense of reality our society currently has. I had seen the video before in a WING seminar class earlier this year, but when I saw it the first time I thought that woman was fake, (they played the video in reverse) in fact, I think most people you see on the front covers of magazines look incredibly fake. To me, they aren't even that appealing. Its terrible that our views of beauty as a society would come to this, but many people's jobs at fashion companies and the like depend on that odd view of beauty. I dont care for any of the fashion mumbo jumbo, but some people have become so obsessed with the pursuit of beauty that it consumes their lives. Maybe this video could open those people's eyes to the fact that beauty is based on perception. You can never be perfect.

Video Response

I thought the video was quite refreshing in a way. I'm glad there's a video now on the internet showing the real truth about advertisments and how many adjustments have to be made for a particular "real" woman to look overly beautiful. Unfortunately, I think there are two different responses for this video.

One, I think a lot of women will see it and react in a kind of shocked way. This is how I reacted. I pretty much questioned, "why would you have to do that in the first place?" Dove and Johnsons & Johnsons are two companies that are trying to change the face of beauty by showing natural women untouched by plastic surgery and literally pounds of makeup and I really like those commercials. Those two companies are really making an effort to show that not all women have to wear tons of makeup to be beautiful and it's the truth. "Beauty is in the eye of its behold." Beauty is based on opinion really and it's a shame that so many young teenage girls think beauty is throwing up after every meal and wearing loads of eye shadow. Beauty isn't skin deep and I truly believe that. I just wished more people believed that and stuck by that saying.

On the other hand, I think some women, after watching that video, may think, "Wow! With just a few adjustments, I can be that beautiful!" Plastic surgery seems so common these days but I really think it's a waste of money. So many things can go wrong with it and it depresses me when women really are so upset with the way that they look that they have to go spend tons of money and be under bandages for months. I understand if it's like scars on the skin or someone just lost tons of weight and they want to get rid of extra skin, but honestly, why else would you want plastic surgery?

I loathe the media for always changing the image of beautiful and what it is currently just sucks. If the media wouldn't press one type of image on the public, then I'm sure a lot more women would be happy with the way they look and young people wouldn't be so caught up with their image. The media leads to their unhappiness.

Anti-active

The way the media portrays women as being is unrealistic and and terrible. The media casues women to beleive that they are not good enough being the way they are. so many commercials talk about improving the way people, especially women, look and how it wil imporve the value and everyday of someone's life. Commercials like the Por-active and weight-loss commercials only add to self-doubt that women have about themselves. In these commercials people talk about how the product changed their life. The Pro-active commercails are the main commercials that drive me crazy. The people talk about how before they used this product they were always self-conscious about themselves when they went out in public and they never felt comfortable in public becasue they didn't feel good about the way they looked. But when they go Pro-active they all of a sudden felt amazing about themsleves and comfortable in public becasue they no longer have any pimples. Give me a break! That is so ridiculous. By putting these messages up on tv the companies are putting the idea that they way a person is is not acceptable and they should by the product so they are not so vile. I can barely stand to watch these commercials becasue the message they send is so shallow. Women and even men should not feel that if they are not beautiful. The media has sends a horrible message and women and men need to learn how to ignore these ideas before the world is completely full of people who are depressed simply about their exterior.

The Media and Me

I guess what I have to say is that I pretty much expected what the dove ad video proved. Expectations for beauty in our society have reached an all time high. Women and men a like are putting themselves in danger trying to sculpt their image the way the media said they should. Also the counter part for this argument is that the consumer should also have some level of self esteem. People need to take it into their own hands how they view themselves. Part of the harm that individuals cause to themselves come due to their own doing. Yes the media sets unrealistic standards for beauty, but people should also be happy with themselves and not let other people control how they feel. If you are happy with yourself the media will not affect you. I must say I have not been directly affected by the medias standards for beauty, but I have known people that have been diagnosed with eating disorders trying to meet an unrealistic weight. I do think that the media holds some sort of responsibility for setting realistic standards of beauty, but I also believe that the individual themselves have a responsebility to realize that these expectations are unrealistic and in return develope self-esteem. Today's society immediatly wants to blame others for their problems, this case is no different. Individuals need to take responsibilities for themselves.

Effects of Advertising

Advertising that attempts to elevate models because of their beauty have multiple negative effects on society. They either claim or imply that using their product will make you beautiful just like their model. However, most of the time acheiving this "perfection" is impossible due to the use of photoshopping as shown in the Dove ad. In addition, the media is trying to convince society that looking like a model is the only way that one can be happy. Because everyone knows that girls must be pencil thin and walk like they are walking on burning coal and guys need to have a six pack and have a look like they are smelling something bad. Or else no one will ever like you. The very profession of being a model also sets a bad example for kids. They are told to stand in front of a camera, look happy, and then they get paid more than most people who actually have to work for a living. I, for one, don't think that is a great message to send to our youth. However, I believe it is up to the consumer to let the media get to them or not. Because if we chose to not let the media shape our opinion, then we take away much of the power that the media has.

advertising raising the standards

All advertisements have people in them that society would define as good looking. I mean, if you are trying to sell a women's cosmetic product and the woman in the commerial is not one of the most beautiful women you have seen then then why would you want to buy that product. When the woman is beautiful you think, wow, that product will make me beautiful so i want it. So women will buy the product and then will look more like the model in the advertisement. Then the rest of the women who didn't buy the product are suddenly less beautiful. It is not the advertisements that raise the standard of what beautiful is... it is the competition between women. Just like men try to get more muscular, women try to become more beautiful. Advertisements don't define beauty, society does. Advertisements are only a refelction of what society sees as beautiful.

Advertising Affects

Advertising has had many harmful affects on our society. I think everyone has had their self esteem lowered because of the unrealistic expectations that we have placed upon our selfs. We all want to be attractive but we are allowing our idea of attractiveness be manipulated to the point that it's unattainable to reach. Young people everywhere are searching for ways to make themselves look the way that many advertising companies have defined as beautiful. In my opinion beautiful should be natural not computer enhanced.

Many young people have turned to plastic surgery a not so natural approach to looking beautiful. In the past even I have contemplated how much more "beautiful" I would be if I had some sort of cosmetic surgery. In my opinion there's a reason we look like we do. We shouldn't force ourselves to fit the mold of a few advertising agencys consider beautiful.

Pressures on Women

In our society, beauty is what women are expected to achieve. When a special event comes up and women have to dress up, they are expected to find a nice dress, do their hair and nails, and put on makeup. On the other hand when men have to dress up, all they have to do is put on a suit. However, i do not believe men are the ones who pressure women to put on makeup. Beauty is stressed so much by ads and models that women are pressured to put on makeup just to go to the local pharmacy. The women who do not choose to put on makeup to go out are obviously comfortable with their natural beauty and don't let the ads pressure them. Some girls try to copy the models in ads and put on way too much makeup making themselves look terrible. I believe, the pressures on women by ads to look beatiful are out of control. In my mind the beautiful women are the ones who do not put on makeup just to go outside. They are the ones who show off their true natural beauty and don't listen to ads in society.

Advertising

Isn't it ashame that society has put beauty on a pedistool. Unless you look like a model, especially for females, you are not considered beautiful. I however disagree with the way society has been changing. I do not wear make-up or designer clothes. I am simply me being myself and that is beautiful enough. Through advertising the media has falsly sold thousands of cosmetics and beauty products which are to make you look like a model. After believing that what they were saying was true, I gave up on their products. I am happy with the way I am and I feel that other people should be happy with themselves too. People should not need to alter their image to go out in public, they should be happy with the beauty that is within them.

I have actually seen that exact video once before, but I still have the same responce. I think women today put too much pressure on themselves to look like the models. What they don't understand is how unrealisitic is really is. These models take all day to prepare themselves to look like they do in the magazines. They also have touch-ups, and in this case extreme photoshop work done. It is irrational to expect a normal looking girl to wake up a look like this. However most girls think this is the real truth. It is not, nothing like the truth. Honestly in my opinion I like a girl , dont get me wrong, to dress up and prepare themselves, but i don't like how they take hours to just go out to the store. I would like to see a girl who believes more in themselves than just their looks, after a lot of makeup, hairwork, etc. This video shows how the models really look.

The Female Mind

When I saw that ad in class, my first reaction was "aw". It was sooo cool that I could see how they made the models that pretty. I always thought that they were just really lucky with finding beautifully shapped models and adding lots of makeup. But after I saw it, and thought about it for a moment, I realized how much of an effect it had, knowing that it was actually all fake. I thought, it shouldn't have THAT big of an impact, but it did, and I tried to figure out why. That's when I realized that I envied the beautiful models in the magazines and billboards. I thought they were gorgeous. Not that the fact that they were beautiful made me buy their products. I knew that the products didn't do the trick of making them beautiful, they were just models for these companies. I just felt really bad that I couldn't look like them. Now that I realize it is all fake, it really makes me think differently about those models and their beauty. I have always hoped to say as different from society as I could, because most of the time I don't like how they run things, or their opinions that they are trying to spread far and wide. This makes me realize that no matter what, society has an impact on you, as do your peers. There is no way to escape it, unless you turn into a hermit. It's just human nature, I guess, to follow the crowds sometimes. Somehow, you will always follow someone else's lead, even if you are a leader, if that makes any sense. It happens because you are human, and I don't think you can change that haha.

My first response to the video that we saw today was nothing but aw. I completely agree with everything that I saw happen to her and it upsets me that that’s the way life is. Everyone has to get pretty and fixed. I hate the fact that almost all people including myself have this image that they think they must achieve. That video made me look at myself and say wow why do we do this each morning? Why do we want to be artificial? The worst part about this even though I know that things are fixed with computers and people get professionals to do them up, people still want to achieve that look of perfection. What upset me even more is many people want to or do it unnaturally with plastic surgery or pills.
I thought that it was a really good clip to show teens because even if it made just one of us realize that people on TV and magazines don’t really look like that then maybe they will rethink some of the decisions they want to make. Also for a split second it is a boast of confidence because you could see it as I looked better than that person before she got professionally “fixed”. I think that it also really effects what people buy. If a good looking girl is wearing something we can’t help but think that we will look good, same with having and hair products even though we are all completely different. I think it all falls back to what is seen as the perfect person and we all try to obtain it. All of the drama of beauty is overwhelming and wish that I could understand why it exists so strongly.

sick humans

The way we look at models and fall for this advertizement is terrible. It has an ill effect on men, women, and sadly our society as a whole. I think the expections guys have for girls is changed due to the commercials and billboards. Their fatancy girl is dramatically changed to a fake girl that doesn't exist. This truely makes me sad that men have such terrible judgement and thought. Worse of all the effect on females is worse. I know in my own heart and mind that I think a girl looks her best when she is in normal clothes and hair just in a pony tail. I even think sometimes girls look worse when they dress up, but with these fake women on tv and everywhere else you can think of, girls believe they have to rise up to meet a social standard. I think there should be more advertizing where there girls and boys are just themselves. All though the low moral jerks who pay for these commercials will never change, the society we live in today will just start to go downhill. I know the commercials work because I have friends who are stupid enough to follow them (although they claim they do not). One girl I know is so gorgeous when we are all just hanging out and sitting at someones house, but the second we go out on the town or to a party she just goes to town on herself and I think she loses half of her beauty with make up. The sad truth is I know their are more girls in the world just like or worse than my friend and it breaks my heart. I hope though that the more people are aware of what is happening in our society the more level headed and "real" we start to become.

- NBier

Topic 2: Gender Neutral It Ain't

The Dove ad showed how photographs of models can be manipulated. Companies want you to buy their products, and they want you to believe that their products can make you look/feel/move/etc. like the people in the ads. Having seen the digital manipulations of a photo, though, we know this is not possible.

The real question is, what effect do these ads have on Joe and Jane Consumer? How have society's expectations for the common man been manipulated or controlled by advertising? More importantly, how have you been affected?

Please write a response that examines your views on one/some of the following: Femininity; Masculinity; Social expectations of men/women; Effects of the media on you/your peers/society; Personal experiences you've had that either conflicted with or adhered to social expectations; Other similar topic. Posts should be made by Monday, 10/15, at midnight.

Being Different

At Atlee High School, drinking seemed to be a social norm. Everybody seemed to drink, with the exception of the group of people I hung around. Every Monday, like clockwork, everybody would be talking about the great party that they went to and how wasted they got. The problem came one day when somebody asked me what I did over the weekend. When I did not reply, they asked if I went to any party and if I got wasted. When I said that I did not, that I did not drink at all. They looked at me like I had ten heads.

During high school, I did get picked on a lot because I did not drink, but worst of all people tried to belittle me because I did not drink. They tried to make me feel bad about myself and less of a person because I did not drink. Even though it hurt to get picked on because I didn't drink, I did not pay much attention to it. I felt that if people were going to ridicule me for not drinking then they didn't deserve me giving them the time of day by getting angry. When people would pick on me, I would just turn to my friends because the ones that really mattered to me would not pick on me.

I completely understood why I got picked on. I didn't do something that most high schoolers thought everybody did. I was the different one. I did something that society didn't do. The "society" to which I am refering was the majority of the student population and I was made fun of because I didn't follow their "rules." It was just like any person being ostricized by the "in" crowd because they weren't pretty enough, skinny enough, rich enough, etc. It was something really petty in the real scheme of things. Hence, it really did not bother me.

judgment is human nature

Every once in a while i feel that adults judge the younger generations by what they have seen on the news. We are always vandalizing, stealing cars, committing felonies, and disrespecting our elders. When i went on a church outreach trip i got some weird vibes from the home owners. The adult leaders expained to us that they were judging us based on the news shows they had watched. Eventually we changed their points of view and they realized that we aren't all ust "hoodlums." Everyone has steriotypes that they can't avoid though. For example, if you see a kid that looks exactly like someone you know, you will already have a first impression of the new kid. It is human nature to judge people and to analyze them. As people we need to avoid judging people based on their looks, and only to judge them based on their actions.

Tips

I can not remember any specific event and reasons for a case in which I have been discriminated against, but I have discriminated against someone else. I worked and still work at a Mexican restaurant named Chevy's as a hostess, in which I basically take people to their seats. One night I was working by myself and it was my job that night to care of the to-go orders that people had. This oneman came in to get an order adn right when I saw him I knew that I could not expect a tip from him. On to-gos it is not common for someone to tip but it is very appreciated. He had the look of and was dressed like a working man, as in he probably was a construction worker or garbage man. But that mgiht again have been my discrimination telling me that. None the less I did not expect a tip from him because I have not received tips from working people in the past so I did not expect one now. However, when I got his food together and gave him the bill he gave me a $20 tip on a $40 check. I felt terrible. He said that I was really nice and and payed special attention to him and he appreciated it. I could not believe that I made such an awful judgement. I guess I jsut figured that he was a rude man that just wanted his food and leave. He did not seem like he had much money so I figured that he would just pay what he needed to pay and leave. I should not have made such a bad judgement becasue he probably understands how hard I worked and he wanted to thank me for it. Since then I try not to judge whether or not I will receive a tip before I get the money even though I still do. But that moment has made me try to look at how I judge and to not do it in a wrong and pre-mature way again.

New Faces, New Places, New Me

I grew up with the same people all through elementary school and middle school. At the end of eighth grade, my parents decided they wanted to move. Unfortunately, they had their hearts set on somewhere outside of our school district, which meant I would be starting high school, which was a big deal in my life at the time, with totally new people.
Of course I was upset, but being an emotional teenager, I became very dramatic that summer. My parents did all they could to comfort me, but I didn't want to have to make new friends; I had plenty of good ones already, so I thought. So as my parents dragged me for my first day of high school, a rush of unfamiliarity struck through my body and I searched for a friendly face.
I felt so out of place and it seemed I was being looked as if I were an alien. Everyone knew each other, or at least everyone had someone to talk to. I found my homeroom fifteen minutes before class was supposed to start and I just sat there, wishing I knew someone or that someone would start a conversation with me. As people began to file in the room, I searched for eyes glancing my way, maybe to hint my desperation. Still, no one.
When lunch time came, I dreaded the upper commons area where I would have to find a place to sit. The tables were filling up and I was certain no one would just let some stranger sit down at their table. I saw a girl from my geometry class, so I asked if I could sit down, but she declined. My heart started to beat really fast as the rejection seeped in and depleated any confidence I had. I ended up eating outside, which was against the rules, so halfway through my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the security guards made me go inside. I went back to my third block class for the remainder of the lunch period.
This new school was so big, that the amount of students intimidated me on that first day. They all knew each other, so my attendance wasn't important to them. I decided that isolating myself was getting me nowhere so finally, on the second day I decided to step out of the box and talk to someone. I ended up meeting tons of people that day, and was even invited to sit at a lunch table. One of the advantages to making new friends, was that they had no idea who I was in middle school or before that. So I could become a new person with no flaws or history to everyone I met. It felt good to be a "new Amber" because there was no way to be judged. Once I started to meet people I didn't feel apart from the group anymore. I began to learn the latest gossip and found that this school was alot like the one I used to attend. There were similar people who reminded me of my friends back home which was evidence that even though we grow up in different places with different people, we share similar interests with similar goals. Our culture is so interesting because as different as people are, what we experience and feel seem to coincide which tie us all together. I appreciate the experience I had as a newcomer starting high school because I learned who I was, as well as how to become more of an extrovert and put myself out there.

Homecoming Heifer

My senior year my group of friends and I decided to have a huge homecoming group. All the people from CV, my school decided to invite people from SF, a neighboring school. The girl that dated a boy form SF just asked who wanted to go then we just matched boys and girls up. We were all just going as a big group of friends. All that we were going to do is get pictures with our dates. One problem was that one of my friends is big and when I say big I mean she is very tall and she is heavy. But she is the nicest person that you would ever meet. She is the type that would go out of her way to help someone that she didn’t even know.
So we all had our dates from SF “supposedly”, and everything seemed okay until my two best friends and I found out that her date did not know about her. One of the boys had just told him that the person he was paired with was a heavy, really heavy, a heifer. Although the boy that was paired up with her was really nice, everyone had something to say to him and none of it was good. But this girl already had her dress and was so excited to go out with people her own age. So we called him and practically begged him. He ended up agreeing to go to the dance with her. After the dance he got made fun of and during the dance none of the boys wanted to dance with her. I felt horrible for her but there was nothing that I could do. She was different than us in her appearance. But I couldn’t get over how the nicest person in the world could be treated so badly just because of her size.

North VS South

I moved from Ohio to Virginia when I was 3 years old. I moved back to Ohio for a six month period with my mom and brother when I was 5 and started kindergarten up there. Around October, we moved back to Virginia. I was making new friends at my new elementary school and one of them happened to be my next-door neighbor. Through hanging out with her and her family, I soon realized I was a tad different. Nobody said pop down here. They called it soda. It wasn't a couch- it was a sofa. Kids would make fun of me so I stopped saying pop but my family in Ohio would make fun of me when I said soda so I just call it a drink. My family in Ohio already made fun of the way I talked from living in Virginia for so long. When I go to Ohio to visit, I'm a southern girl to them but when I'm home some one will bring up me being a yankee because I was born up north. It's not as bad as it used to be but it still gets on my nerves because I'm not an uptight yankee or a stupid southern redneck.

music

One time I was playing in a band that covered a lot of Southern rock type music. We were playing in this bar and things were going as well as the could. We were having plenty of cheers as we played big southern hits and we thought we were pleasing the entire crowd. However that was not the case, during one of our breaks we were approached by to African American males. They accused us of being races towards black people, and celebrating a history they hated and thought was terrible. We truly had no reaction to the situation. To us we were just playing music that was popular in our area. We had no intention of affending anyone, everything was suppose to be in good fun. The two men didn't seem to by our story. The entire conflict however did'nt last very long because security was tight and took them away from us. The problem I have with the situation is I think that the men were to quick to judge us. They said we were talking about an evil past but we were just playing the only thing we knew and loved. I am proud of my history and proud to know I have grown up in Georgia. I am not proud of how things were during the time of slavery. But just the same I think that was a long time ago and we shouldn't let the past get the best of our future. And any race should never be to quick to judge another. -Nbier

A Skier on a Snowboard

My story doesn't have anything to do with my race or my beliefs, but rather an activity that I tried. I have been skiing since I was about 10 years old. Over the years I have gotten to be very good at it and would even consider myself an expert. One day my friends decided to go snowboarding and asked me to come. Because I wanted to fit in, I decided that I would try snowboarding for the first time. I didn't think it could be too hard and without taking a lesson I went to the top of the mountain with my friends. It was a huge mistake. I was so bad at snowboarding and on top of that I got lost on the mountain because I was so far behind all my friends. I felt so out of place because people were going by me making fun of me and telling me to get off the mountain because I was so awful. All I kept thinking about was how badly I wanted my skis. I eventually found my friends but when we finished I decided I would never try snowboarding ever again.

Even though my issue wasn't on the same level as someone getting ridiculed for their race or religion, I still felt I got a taste of what it is like and realized how horrible it can be.

Being a girl

I'm caucasian so there are fewer issuses on the racial side, but I am a girl, so that can be pretty rough. I am a person who will push forward no matter who is trying to stop me, even if I am a girl. I have tons of guys friends, probably a ratio of 2:1 in favor of guys, and I know that I can't be completely considered one of the guys because I clearly am a girl, and I'm treated differently. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. I know that I don't get invited to do as many things as the guys, and I am left out of secrets because I am a girl and they are "guy issues". The good things about it though are that people come to me because girls are considered to be the "comforter" and that we "understand" emotional pain. I do, and I like helping. But other than the few small things, I like who I am. I like being a girl, most of the time.

A Change-up

In the cut-throat world of high school baseball, sometimes the competition and the will to win can go to your head. Nearly every single game we played our entire focus was on winning the game. In our district of 8 teams, 7 of them were pretty evenly matched from year to year. However, there was one team that never had a chance to win beacuse the school had a low budget, and many of the kids on the team were underprivileged. They did not have batting cages, top of the line coaches, brand new bats or gloves, a great field to play on, or the talent to even compete with any of the other teams in our district. In addition, nearly all of their players were African-American while the other teams usually averaged only one or two black players per team. When it came time to play them, some of the teams in our district considered that game to be a "stat-pat", meaning that they would run up the score, sometimes scoring 30 or more runs, to boost their overall stats for the year. However, when we played them, we would first make sure that we scored enough to win, then we would slow down by putting in our back-ups and stopping at every base instead of going for doubles and triples, so as not to run up the score. We always respected them, and we also tried to joke around and make friends with many of them. What we learned was that even though they had no chance to win, they always had fun in what they were doing, just having a good time until the game was over. If they made an error, they would'nt get pissed off about it, they would just shrug it off and try their best the next play. We learned that it was just a game, and everything wasn't always about winning.

Five

When I was five I had my first job. I was not a deprived or tortured child, but people automatically said my parents were taking away from my childhood. Not only was this a conflict but the fact that I was a little girl, men that were working with me also assumed I could not do the work. I was not doing the same type of work they were doing, but I was still working. Things such as "you don't belong here, go play with your dollies" were said and I usually just brushed it off my shoulder. I felt that I was being judged because of my age and my gender and not for the strong hard-working individual I was. A few years later I was working at a rod and gun club pulling trap (clay target shooting) and they were looking for two more people to pull trap. I had brought someone younger with me who I thought would be a great employee because he was younger than me the committee members of the trap squad felt that he would not be able to fill the expectations of the job. I reacted by saying you had hired me at the age of 13, just one year older than him. Why would he not be able to work here? He is more than capable of actually doing the job.
Eventually my younger friend was hired and did work for a while there until he found another job where he was not judged immediately because of his age.

samantha

Typicall RVA

Growing up in Richmond, Va, one very red state on the political maps, proved to be very hard for me. I arrived at my political opinions from my own knowledge and my own thoughts, however I do happen to share the same beliefs as my parents. This has always make it hard becuase I never exactly fit in with the same political views as my most of my peers at my high school. I often felt left out becuase there were special activies which a large part of my friends participated in, but these events often tied in politics along with it, often leaving me out. If anything I was descriminated because of the way I felt towards war, etc. I have always been one to listen to everyone's opinion, and to never interrupt, however very few people will listen to something that clashes their own personal beliefs and not interrupt, unlike me. I feel like this kind of discrimination happens everyday, and if everyone was more open minded, better decision making would evolve there would be less disagreements and wars.

Heritage and Discrimination

A lot of people can not tell just by looking at me, but I am of iranian heritage.(I know it is a suprise, everyone thinks I am mexican)After the events of September 11th pretty much all people of middle eastern decent were viewed as the "bad guys". At this time I was in seventh grade which was already a tough year for all preteens. As children do they immediatly want to place the blame and harrass others. So because I was from a middle eastern background I immediatly caught rude remarks right off the bat. At first I was extremely upset about catching crap for something that I had no part in, just for being born with middle eastern blood. After awhile I realized that the remarks I was getting was no less then the remark I was handing back. Eventually it all became one big joke as things started to blow over. All in all I was not really affected by it cause I see myself as strong individual, but I can see how discrimination is a huge subject with people in America.

High School Discrimination

In high school I had two friends who were Asian twins born in Korea and were adopted by a family from America. They had spent their entire lives in Blacksburg and even had a southern accent. They weren’t very good at school and one of the twins had a very high temper. During our sophomore year we were in the cafeteria and about 6 upperclassmen began to toss things over at one of the twins named Cody just to see him get angry and start yelling at them because they thought it was funny to see him act like that. Before that day I was cool with Cody but even I didn’t really understand him; however, after what had happened I understood where he got his high temper. It was from his entire life of people not understanding him and even making fun of him for who he was. They weren’t picking on me or anyone else at that table they were just singling him out. I was totally disgusted by the way they were acting towards Cody, and after that day I really respected him for who he was. I would have completely changed my appearance if people had made fun of me like that, but somehow he was able to go on the exact same way as before, which I thought was impressive.

Post

When I was younger every year I would always show sheep at the Virginia State Fair for 2 weeks. During the weekdays everything was fine and the exhibitors were free to do what ever we wanted during times we weren't showing but during the weekends especially at night the police would ask us to leave early and go to our hotels before it got dark. When I was younger I never questioned why we were supposed to leave early but as I got older I began to wonder why. When one of my parents friends told me I was shocked. Gangs would come onto the fair grounds and look for exhibitors and would harass and torment them calling them names and throwing things and create a big ruckus. Apparently many of the African American gangs associated farmers and stocks men with the south and would target them. Every year there was usually at least one gun fight and the cops eventually sent out armed cops to patrol the fair grounds to try to keep order.

Apparently the gangs thought that all the showsman were from the south and held a confederate attitude, which was not true at all. The exhibitors come from all around the state and I have never met a single one who was racist they all are friendly people who are fun to be around, yet many of the gang members associated farmers as raciest and would target us. I think it is a shame that they felt that way but changing an entire groups opinion is a lot harder than changing a single persons opinion.

Meghan S.

September 27, 2007 11:13 AM