Gender and The Military March 29th 2015

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of gender in the military is the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. This simply means that you shouldn't ask anyone about their sexuality, and you shouldn't be talking about your own. In retrospect, the idea of not discussing sexuality should be connected to the fact that something as trivial as this should have nothing to do with the way people preform their duties. If all people are trained the same, and tested the same, and can preform at a level that is consistent with all the others in the military, then there should be no reason to reject or dismiss people. This same idea goes along with women in the military. We see far less women in the military because this is not where the gender stereotypes want them to be. They want them to be at home with the family, being a military wife. When a father is at home, being a military husband, gender stereotypes come into play again. This role reversal is not so common, as well as judged based on the gender stereotypes. Is a man going to have a harder time at home with his children when is wife is away? The immediate answer to this question should be no. Stereotyping men as military fathers compared to military wives is not fair. It goes hand-in-hand with the ideas of single parenthood. This is less of a role reversal and more of a surviving based on the situation you are in. Which should go for all military families. Media plays into these stereotypes all too often. There are always commercials on TV and the internet about a military wife and her children waiting and worrying about when her husband will come home. BUT, there are commercials in the media that portray female soldiers returning home. Here is one example that comes to mind. In this commercial, a woman is coming home to a dog, rather than a family. This can be taken a few different ways. One way beings, hey look they are finally showing women from the military returning home, or two, why not show her returning to a family. Does she not have a family yet? Etc. I also understand this is a commercial for dog food, but it still raises important questions. There is so much debate and discussion revolving around gender in the military. I think it is important to allow people to be who they are, as well as work together to fight for our country. There should be no reason why people who are different should be penalized for trying to defend our country. 

Sound & Fury - Fred Phelps and Life inside Westboro March 27th 2015

Pictured above Westboro Baptist Church, founded in 1955 by Fred Phelps. This church has no affiliations with other Baptist churches or Calvinist conventions. Phelps founded this church express his radical opinions on controversial topics. He was involved in drugs in the 60's and drastically abused his 13 children. He beat them, shaved their heads, and forced them to sell candy as the families sole income at some points. He would make his children run 5 to 10 miles a day. His wife attempted to flee in 1964 but returns to Westboro because she couldn't support her children. Many of his children attempted to flee, fled and returned, or managed to get away and cut ties from the family in Westboro. Fred rarely approved of his children's significant others, and he proceeded to taunt and threaten them. Some of the children fled for these reasons. Some did as they were told. He caused his son Freddy's girlfriend to commit suicide in 1972, then went around proclaiming, "the whore is dead." He lead an extremely cruel life. As well as founding this church, he was a lawyer, but he was prohibited from practicing law in 1979. More recently, in the 1990's, Phelps and parts of his congregation, which is made up of a majority of his children and grandchildren, actually protested local funerals. In 1994, Nate and Mark Phelps provided an inside look into growing up in the Phelps family.

Intelligence vs. Icon March 22nd 2015

Isn't she beautiful? Doesn't she have such sex appeal? Pretty, slim, blonde, ideal. But does anyone consider how intelligent Marilyn Monroe actually was? I personally didn't even realize this until I read this article. Why did she portray herself as such an airhead then? I think the simple colloquialism "sex sells" is the answer to that question. She wanted to be popular, famous, and well-known, and the only way she saw fit to do that is to be that dumb blonde that society wanted. And guess what, it worked. She did say though, "I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me." So, is this the sign of a good actress? Maybe that's exactly what she was. A great actress. Marilyn let society, consumers of her industry, believe what they wanted about her. So I guess that she never really hid her intelligence, she just chose to showcase her beauty more.

Another beautiful actress. I think Emma Watson's case differs from Marilyn Monroe in quite a few ways. Emma was known for her bookworm role in the Harry Potter franchise. She was not afraid to pursue her education. She decided to attend Brown University and her classmates were the ones who set her standard. I assume they saw her just a pretty face, because they teased and taunted her in class yelling out things such as "THREE POINTS FOR GRYFFINDOR!" when she correctly answered a question. She questioned pursuing her education after the first few days of this, but she overcame the bullying and graduated from Brown. I think this is similar to Marilyn Monroe because society decided for these women what they should be like. Marilyn played into it, where Emma went against it.

Reference:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/emma-watson-teased-taunte_n_852115.html?

Christy Mack March 22nd 2015

The only word I can used to even begin to summarize the article about the attack on Christy Mack is brutal. Just brutal. I think a lot is to be said about any person that can do something like that to a person they once loved. From the way the article made it seem, this attack was really unexpected. We don't know the private details of the lives of Christy Mack and Jonathan Koppenhaver. So we really don't know what instigated the whole ordeal, but it is unbelievable to see the images of what Christy looked like post-attack. This type of thing calls into question the character of her MMA fighter ex-boyfriend Jonathan, and the relationship that they had. She says that he hit her previously, but obviously it was never to this magnitude. She feared for her life, and her body definitely showed the damage he caused. From an outsiders perspective, I question some things based on what little I know about these two people. Did he have expectations of her because of her profession? Was he this violent because of his own profession? What did he expect to gain from doing this to her? I think most of these are open ended questions because I don't foresee myself sitting down with either of them and asking these things. But I do think they are important things to be questioned.