ARE YOU ARE A PARTICIPANT; THE ODDS ARE THAT YOU ARE

As a nation we’ve progressed a long way regarding negative race and gender issues.  Uncle Ron has been around for a few days, and I’ve witnessed a great deal of change in my life time. However, we’re still dogged by some of the old stereotypes, gender, and communication norms that hamper the agency of others.  With some new found enlightenment, at least to a degree, why are we still participants in a system that hampers equality and affects the agency of others? 

Right now you’re likely saying I don’t participate in that!  Well my friends it’s time for another chat, or reading for you, with Uncle Ron.  

I will say now that if you watch TV, movies, read, or play video games you most likely are a participant.  I only say “most likely” instead of slapping you in the face and stating “you are” to allow for some wiggle room and perhaps make everyone a bit more comfortable and willing to chat. After all with this type of issue a person must first realize they are a participant, understand how they are, and then come to a form of self-realization, and change from within if required.  I can’t do it for you, or force you to understand.  All I can do is present information, and then you my friend must come to your own conclusions.  Now the question you’re begging to shout out is, ok assuming I am Mr. smarty pants, how am I a participant in stealing the agency of others?

Do you even know that you are?  My friends most people would not say that they are racists, or participate in rape culture, or sexism in any way.  However, due to cultural/societal norms, most of us do participate but it’s become transparent to us.  This is particularly true within the hegemony of mass media, and this is how we become agents affecting the agency of others.  

We indirectly steal the agency of others by supporting movies, TV shows, books, and video games that depict others in demeaning ways.  These things we watch and read do affect, over time, our judgments and thoughts.  

Yes, our good friends’ pop culture and cultivation theory are back. 

To rehash from my last blog:

pop culture is a means of engaging in everyday life; it’s how we interact with the world. It’s our fashions, fades, tastes, likes and dislikes and shapes our thinking.  Cultivation theory generally focuses on the cumulative influence of consuming media.  In other words what we consume in the way of media influences, over time, our thoughts and beliefs.

Since we’re now in school house mode, I’ve been saying agency like a broken record, so what is agency?  Go ahead and click on the link to read Wikipedia’s definition of agency.  Really, click on the link now! Listen to me now and understand me later.      

click on the link: Agency

Now that you’ve got the definition of agency, in Uncle Ron’s words it’s a person’s power within society.  In yet more words, agency is a person’s power/ability to conduct and accomplish what they wish in their lives and in a way their value. 

We should also take a brief look at cultural gender norms.  In a nutshell, cultural gender norms are how we expect a person to act/speak within their roles.  Men are supposed to be manly men, and women soft spoken and loving, right? WRONG!  We’ll get into these a bit further into our chat today.

Now that we’re all schooled up on some definitions we’ll be touching on today, and some ground work has been laid, let’s get to it.

The objectification of women is still prevalent in our society, and in this humble heterosexual guys world it’s more open than in past generations at least media wise.  What I mean by media wise is that female dress codes, if you will, on the screen have gotten sexier.  Moreover the female body is portrayed in a much sexier way than previously shown.  This is one area where I think we may have gone backwards.  Although I would say sexist talk in the work place has decreased to an extent, at least openly, but the portrayal of women as sex objects in media has increased in my opinion.  Sex sells, and Hollywood is capitalizing on this.  Check out these film clips: 

  

Marilyn’s subway scene was very sexy and risky’ at the time, but did you notice any difference in clothing items between the two clips?  The clothes got smaller, less of them, and the increase in provocative postures? This day and age we accept more “skin” and provocative gestures than in previous generations. I would argue this is cultivation theory in action.  

Sexier clothing and actions were slowly introduced and seen more often, so over time we as a society began accepting it.  It’s caused the objectification of women to become transparent to us.  This had the effect of causing women to be viewed as sex objects, and in a large portion of female media roles displaying sexuality is expected.  

It would be in response to what the audience wants, what we want, or media producers wouldn’t portray women in this way as we wouldn’t watch the movies and they’d lose money.  Simply stated, they are giving us what we want. 

Now this plays into rape culture which was a really hard pill for me to swallow personally when I came to the realization I participated in it.  Yes, that’s right Uncle Ron is guilty as charged.  I enjoy the look of a beautiful woman, and in a way that’s ok, but when these women are reduced to nothing more than their body parts therein lays the problem.  

When women are reduced to nothing more than sexuality it robs them of their agency in society.   Men take on the idea that women are for pleasure only.  This line of thinking takes from women their ability to be seen for their brain power and abilities outside of the bedroom.  It limits their prospects at being taken seriously for many roles outside of sex.  

As a guy, at first, it seems like it would be great if the roles where reversed and I were objectified by women.  However, I think I would grow tired quickly at being viewed as nothing more than a penis with legs and therefore not taken seriously about much.  I’m sure women are tired of this form of objectification if not downright angry over it.  

I can’t help to mention here that in the majority of female movie roles they don’t have much in the way of serious roles with conversation.  Have a look at this article: Female roles in film.

Apparently most female roles are for attractiveness, or window dressing so to speak, so what’s that got to say about how society views women as objects?  As soon as we dehumanize someone, it becomes OK to harm them which is why this objectification of women is part of the rape culture and therefore so dangerous to them.  It makes women objects for pleasure not people with feelings and intelligence.

Another area for me that relates to men is the emotional repression of males.  How men are taught as boys not to show emotion.  Come on fellas, how many times did you hear growing up that “big boys don’t cry?”  Other fun sayings such as “act like a man”, “take it like a man”, “grow some balls” along with others have created a society of male repression.  It’s still prevalent today that as a man it’s not ok to show emotion, other than anger, and these types of emotional repressions have caused a lack of feeling and emotional anesthesia, or numbing, of men.  

With that numbing in mind, half of our society doesn’t feel or rather can’t show what they feel, now is there any surprise at the level of “acceptable” violence in society today?   More of cultivation theory here with the emotional repression and the acceptability of violence towards others; go ahead and say you don’t see that from films and shows.  Say it!!!  Check this clip out, it’s funny but sad in a way: 

If you’ve said some of those things, as I did to my boys, then yep you guessed it, you’ve participated in taking agency away from others. 

Communication and gender norms are part of why we do these things.  These few things I list are far from complete, and just meant as a very quick over view.  Women are expected in their roles to speak softer, be more relationship oriented blah blah blah.  

Men are supposed to be straight forward, hard, strong of character, and non-emotional.  These are accepted U.S. American roles that we are taught as we grow and are ingrained in our society and thereby our psyche.  Here’s a link where you can read up a bit on gender roles:  Gender roles.

These roles can change and are different within different sub-cultures, but are a broad sweeping brush stroke to some of our gender roles in the good old U. S. of A. …Murika…

I know Uncle Ron is rambling on a bit here, but this stuff is important to all of us and I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t at least touch on racial stereotypes.  

Thanks to Hollywood, what’s the first thing you think when you see a group of men of color walking towards you?  Is it danger?  

How are most men of color depicted in media?  I bet more often than not you’ve seen them depicted as thugs, criminals of some variety, or just general trouble makers.  Here’s a clip of some popular films that do just that:   

How about some song to go with it: https://youtu.be/cpGbzYlnz7c   

Now some more school time, so put on your thinking cap.  

There is a thing called the looking glass self which in general talks about how people shape the idea of themselves out of what others think of them.  Check out the Wikipedia definition just in case you think I’m still off my rocker: Looking glass self.     

Ok, with the looking glass self in place, if you were viewed as a “gangster” or thug do you think you’d start taking on that persona?  The odds are that you would.  Therefore, if we are projecting that image onto those of color are we not in some way contributing to those that do develop this way?  That’s one way we are robbing them of their agency.

Hard questions aren’t they?  This plays into some societal views of both men and women of color.  They have been viewed as hyper-sexual, so back to women and objectification for a moment.  A woman of color in the work place, with objectification thrown on top of it all, then isn’t it easy to see how they may be viewed as sex objects?  

Are you participating?  A lot of questions here I know, but that’s part of self-realization.  Self-realization requires you to ask a lot of hard questions of yourself and when I asked them of myself I didn’t like my answers.

Reflect on your thoughts and reflect on your actions.  

Folks, it’s not my place to say you do or do not participate in taking agency away from others.  However, with what I’ve laid down for you I think it’s hard to argue against it.  In my humble opinion we all participate in stealing the agency of others through the media we consume.  Grant it most of our participation is not intended, and in my case I didn’t even realize it. However, one wise old professor relayed to the effect of: it's not the intention so much as the impact of what's said or done.  

As mentioned during the talk regarding the objectification of women, so many of these things are transparent to us and therefore most of us don’t know we’re participating.  It took the hands of a professor and an awesome group of class mates to help peel my eye lids back so I could REALLY see what was transparent to me.  This from the perspective of a guy that thought his eyes were wide open.

I have to say that sometimes education is painful, and my realization that I was an indirect participant in rape culture hurt and shocked me to my core!  In my particular case, this was the right kind of pain in that my awareness was increased. 

My friends, it’s my hope that this little chat we’ve had today has helped to make you just a bit more aware.  One thing’s for sure, once you’ve seen and heard the truth you can’t un-see or un-hear it, but you can choose to ignore it.  Now the only question that remains is what will you do with the knowledge?  After all it really doesn’t matter what I think; what do you think?

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influenced by Ideologies . . . .

How do you link identity to ideology?

Race and gender are some identities that are the most visibly seen. Society has constructed a list of rules and ideologies for how one should act if you are that certain identity.

This week in class I thought that ideology was an important concept that needed to be more defined and covered, so I chose to focus on how identity influences the ideologies we belief . . .

 “Ideology” is basically an intellectual belief system imposed upon reality, while “Identity” today is not something given by nature or tradition but something chosen.

•       Identity is a socially and historically constructed concept. We learn about our own identity and the identity of others through interactions with family, peers, organizations, institutions, media and other connections we make in our everyday life. 

•       Keyfacets of identity—like gender, social class, age, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity—play significant roles in determining how we understand and experience the world, as well as shaping the types of opportunities and challenges we face.

•       Social and cultural identity is inextricably linked to issues of power, value systems, and ideology. 

•       The media uses representations—images, words, and characters or personae—to convey specific ideas and values related to culture and identity in society. 

According to Karl Marx and Engels, ideologies perpetuate the power of the elites. Ideologies are often used with politics but there are also gender and racial ideologies. If Western civilization continues to use these traditional ideologies, then this favors the heterosexual white male identity, thus keeping them in a power position.

“I say keeping men in a power position because in the great chain of being, the white man was the being next to god, then is woman and then animals. Transgender were not even considered.”

Gender role ideology

Gender role ideology is defined as the attitudes and beliefs about the proper roles of women and men in the family or society.

Does gender ideologies harm children?

In March of this year (2016) the American College of Pediatricians released a statement saying that, it is child abuse to allow children to belief that they are the opposite sex if they have normal XY and XX sex chromosomes.

Why would some say yes?

Some critics that say gender ideology is harmful to children would argue that No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.

This is saying that if you don’t meet the standards of what constitutes “being a man” or “being a woman” then you are wrong for thinking the way you do. They also bring up how children that believe so, may have gender dysphonia, formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID). Summing it up to saying you have a mental disorder for thinking you are the opposite sex, because of your make up biologically. So making a child act a certain gender role leads to oppression.  This is saying that our sex is the only one valid identity we can associate our self with because that is how we were created.

Why would some say no

Some people criticize the credibility of the American College of Pediatricians; they say it is not a legit organization, but it is just a group of people spreading their biases to public. Another argument given proves that usage of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are harmful. (It is possible for someone to be completely accepting of this gender ideology while also opposing the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.) According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.

This document came from the American College of Pediatrics, which can  commonly be mistaken for the American Academy of Pediatrics. There are clearly differences between the two organizations of Pediatrics. Some say that the college is a hate group! Even in the document it states that a great percentage of individuals will often eventually identify their sex. To me this says that you can let the individual believe what ever they want to believe and they will still turn out the way they are supposed to be.

(Below is the American College of Pediatricians

 versus The American Academy of Pediatricians)

^^^

The argument some may have is that The American Academy of Pediatrics is more distinguished than The American College of Pediatrics.

Racial Ideology

Racial ideology is a set of fixed beliefs about one or more races. It's almost always utilized to promote racial superiority over others, rather than just discussing racial characteristics. This can also relate to how we (humans) divide the human species into races on grounds of physical characteristics and behaviors. Within some racial ideologies comes hegemony and colorism.

Using hegemony, an example of race superiority would be the Ku Klux Klan and how they believed that the white race was the superior race and all others could die. They even did the killing them selves using bible verses to justify there doing.

Colorism is very complex because these racial ideologies that one may have determines how they might treat some one based on race. An example of this could be the ongoing “war” between light skinned blacks versus the dark skin blacks. Proving which of the same race is more authentic by acts of masculinity, relationships with women and skin color.

  

^^^^

In this video above this woman goes on a "rant" about how there is colorism within the black race and further talks about what it means to not be black enough . . .

Dark meaning you are more masculine (tough) and authentic

Light meaning you are soft and not really black

This is another example of hegemony that happens within the same race with the darker skinned blacks believing they are more superior than the lighter skinned blacks.

Sometimes this leads to kids acting tougher than they really are to fit in and “hang”. Leading them to a path of trouble and mistakes made. 

What makes this so complex is that this could even apply to the white race, like if the environment you grew up in is made up of a mostly black population. The white kids only friends would be blacks and in order for him to 'hang" he has to talk a certain way and act a certain way.

Another example of colorism could be successful men of color (no matter the shade of skin). If you make it and you are surrounded by the opposite color (whites) that are also rich, then you “sold out” on your race and you are a “uncle tom” for conforming to white standards.

There is also race gender roles and each culture has different norms on the roles that man and woman play. Some things are masculine and feminine to other cultures. Western ideologies often mistake the exception for the norm(ideologies).

In a podcast we listened to in class the ladies mentioned that slave owners created these “ideologies” to turn slave against each other. Since mentioning the slave mentality the term “uncle tom” was also used during the slavery times often referred to blacks that turned against their own kind and conformed to the slave master. This brings me to my question

Does one’s identity influence the ideologies they believe in or should gender and race ideologies be enforced?

I think that this is becoming an interesting time in history when the traditional ideology of western civilization is slowly being changed, but not just with race but also with sex and gender. 

From a previous psychology class that I took I learned that no matter what you force on a child, the child would grow up to be what they are meant to identify with. The environment does have a factor in your human experiences, but also so does the role you look like you play; is often how one will be treated in this society. Therefore creating and living through their own personal ideologies.

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