Social Justice Event Paper

I attended a presentation about how women are portrayed in media. Ultimately, the presentation explained how women are not portrayed negative in media. They are portrayed not as equals but instead as less than equals. The whole presentation connected back to gender roles and gender equality. This presentation connected to three of our readings throughout the semester. The first reading I connected it to is by Christensen, “Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us.” This author Christensen argues that as children we learn through media, which mostly teaches children all inaccurate stereotypes. Christensen explains how usually books, movies, commercials, TV shows, ADs etc. always play women as dependent, caregivers, emotional, stay-at-home human beings, whereas, the men are strong, independent, non-emotional, powerful human beings. Gender inequality is just one of the many areas that Christensen focuses on in her article. Another reading that the presentation connected to is by Alexandra Allan, Elizabeth Atkinson, Elizabeth Brace, Rene DePalma, and Judy Hemingway, “Speaking the Unspeakable in Forbidden Places: Addressing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equality in the Primary School.”  This author explains how certain, sometimes controversial, topics are not discussed in school and whether they should be or not. Although a lot of what the author discusses is more about LGBT issues, gender equality is still a controversial topic that should be addressed more in school, I believe. As a child when things are never discussed it is typically because people want to hide you from it or it is not widely accepted. Issues like gender equality should be talked about in school so that our youth learns and grow for their future. The last reading I connected to was by Meier, "Why Can't She Remember That?" The reading explains how children need to be able to connect to something in order to grow and learn. Children learn life lessons and connect to things like books and movies. But when books and movies do not connect to children because of race, culture, beliefs, technology, backgrounds, etc. then children will not be able to draw from them. This presentation and reading also connect to an outside source, a TED talk called, "The Danger Of A Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie. (https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en) They connect because in the reading, as well as in the TED talk, Meir and Chimamanda discuss how important it is to be able to relate to a story. Chimamanda would always read stories as an African American little girl and the stories would never be relatable. The stories would be of little white girls with blonde pony tails who drank ginger beer and talked about the weather. Meanwhile, where Chimamanda was from, the little girls were black with curly black hair that was hard to fit into pony tails and they did not know what ginger beer was and did not find it important to talk about the weather. So because Chimamanda could not relate to the books she was not able to grow, use her imagination, communicate, and learn life lessons through the books. Maybe if the books had characters that fit Chimamanda she would have been able to connect and learn through the stories. Meier addresses the same problem. She discusses how books can be a great lesson and teaching tool but only if they can be applied. The first, most important rule about teaching using books is making sure the characters are connectable to the students. When the students feel like they are a character in the book they become engaged. Books are a great resource to teach children about life, including topics on; relationships, adventure, education, decisions. Ultimately, it all starts with the student being able to relate and connect with the book and characters. Then they will be comfortable, trustworthy, and engaged. This connects to the presentation I attended because if the children are only getting negative information about women, gender roles, and equality then women are going to feel less than equal and men will continue to have the upper hand. Media like movies have the power to make or break a child’s outlook on gender roles. A second outside source I would like to discuss is the swearing princess video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqHYzYn3WZw) This video discusses how women are still inferior to men, even in present day society. The video discusses issues like image, pay, and abuse. It connects to the presentation because if people are seeing how women act in media, in a belittling way they will continue to treat them as less than.  This video is a fun, powerful, and informing piece of media used to empower women. The last outside source I would like to discuss is a Dove commercial. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE) This piece of media is a commercial by Dove that is very empowering for women. It shows how women should be focusing on everything they have to offer rather than negative aspects about themselves. The commercial takes the nontraditional route to remind women about all their gifts. A lot of media portray women in a negative light but that is all an unrealistic stereotype. Ultimately, media is not always accurate, especially when addressing gender roles and women, with that being said we need to address these issues to improve equality in the future.