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Is Gender still an Issue?

LittleItaly's picture
Submitted by LittleItaly on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 8:38pm

So I remember in the very beginning of this semester the topic of gender popped up in class. The question 'is gender discrimination still an issue' was brought up but we didn't have time to discuss about it in depth. So here is a link to the  video my friend showed me that I thought would be interesting for everyone to watch.

It's a trailer of one of the films that are in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival - 'Miss Representation'

http://vimeo.com/18985647

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Utitofon's picture

Thanks for the link

Submitted by Utitofon on Fri, 10/21/2011 - 3:24pm.

It hurts me when i see the way a number of our female music stars, models and actresses help wittingly or unwittingly to perpetruate the idea that women are sex toys through their graphic dressing and extremely sensuous dance moves. It would help if they could be convinced to showcase their voices not their bodies! We wont love them any less. A swim suit is a swim suit and should in my opinion belong on a beach not a music stage.  Just as Meggie put it, a large proportion of today's music basically features porn and sometimes violence. The emphasis is no longer on the beauty of the rhythm or lyrics but on the video content which is rarely upbuilding. Where did our self esteem go?

meggiekate's picture

I've seen this on Facebook -

Submitted by meggiekate on Thu, 10/20/2011 - 10:10pm.

I've seen this on Facebook - thank you so much for bringing it into our conversation.

I adamantly believe that gender (or rather our socially constructed ideas of gender) is a central force that defines and informs our behavior, characteristics, and interactions with one another. Being at an all women's college definitely has made me much more aware of gender, not only in daily life where I see a wide array of gender expressions among the students (from just this college/not including students from the co-ed colleges near by) but also when I leave campus and enter the outside world. Actually, because I'm at an all women's college, I would say I'm even more aware of gender in the outside, co-ed world than I was before.

When watching this trailer, I was reminded of a movie I watched in my Women's Literature class in high school called "Dreamworlds 3". It's a movie about music videos and other aspects of the media and how they inform our understanding of gender and what it means to be a woman or a man. (By the way, it's '3' because it's the third movie the person has made on this topic). It's still one of the most terrifying movies I have ever seen. Much of the movie is music videos, but with narration about the "dreamworld" music videos create instead of the actual music. I was disgusted with what I saw and with myself as I watched these music videos I had seen before as I realized they were really soft-core porn with overt tones of violence toward and domination of women. Before, I had viewed these images as misogynistic, but simply dismissed them as "what the music industry is" instead of seeing how they affected everyday life. I had contained them in one aspect of the media, and therefore society, without seeing the overall media's influence in every aspect of my personal life and general society.
Here's a link that has a short trailer about the movie: http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=223

I'm also really interested in hearing others' views on gender and how others have seen gender play on around campus and the outside world!

S. Yaeger's picture

Thank you for sharing this.

Submitted by S. Yaeger on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 10:03pm.

Thank you for sharing this.  The film looks pretty awesome.

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