Of all my twenty years of life heterosexuality has been the dominating norm. When I think of love and intimacy the first thing that comes to mind is a man and a woman. Growing up in Catholic school, from grade school to high school I was taught that marriage was between a male and a female. God made the two sexes to fit each other perfectly in order to procreate. Of course, I wasn’t just being taught this topic everyday in religion class but I was also experiencing it. I had never met a gay person until I reached high school where there where assumptions that two of my classmates were not like the most of us. I found the fact that these two girls were gay disgusting and repulsive. When the love affair was made public the two students were suspended and eventually left the school by the end of the year. The no tolerance policy for homosexuality was all I had ever known.
College, as many can agree, opened my eyes to a whole new “real” world. Freshmen year was the time that most of my high school friends ‘came out’. Although it shocked most of us, as we IMed each other as soon the news broke, gradually our reactions became more open. I had finally broken out of the Catholic bubble and saw the other side. However, I still lacked the exposure with others who strayed away from sexual orientation norms.
The fact is it took me years to become comfortable with others different than myself. The movie “Broke Back Mountain” came out around my freshmen year of college and one of my suitemates forced me to watch it with our group of friends. She warned me ahead of time to be open to the love story. In reality, I still wasn’t ready to accept the foreign love of homosexuals. After viewing the movie, I was not moved, showed little to no emotion, and at some points was completely grossed out. Although I wasn’t able to justify attraction between a man and another man as ok, this film was my first introduction into understanding that all love is the same.
Not until recently have I come to fully comprehend homosexuality. One of my close friends went to Belgium last semester, coming back with a new group of buddies. One of them happens to be gay, although he hasn’t admitted it yet. I can see our many differences but for the first time I’m fine with them. I no longer believe gays are abnormal and inhuman. They are just like the rest of us, heterosexuals. My step-father recently did some home improvement work for two gay partners and instead of avoiding them like the plague, I was drawn to them. They were openly gay, making a joke about something inappropriate every two sentences, and I found humor in their ‘gayness’. Sometimes approval takes time, in my case years. But it is not until you accept someone for who they really are, can you then appreciate them for all their differences.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
My personal experience with Ableism
Think about the different processes you go through during your day. Now focus just on the morning activities after just waking up. You sit-up out of bed, walk to the shower, clean yourself, brush your teeth, dress yourself, make breakfast, feed yourself, and drive to work or school all in, usually, a timely manner. Now think of yourself as disabled, not having use of your legs or even just one arm. Would you be able to do all or even any of the same daily activities in the same amount of time? The privileges of physical and mental ability are one of the most taken for granted capabilities. Even I never knew how good I had it until I was forced to live a month in a disabled shoe.
In the summer before the eighth grade I was home babysitting my younger sister when I decided to go for a joy run through the house and literally took a turn for the worse. As I rounded a corner in the hallway my left foot hit the love sofa with blunt force. Being a dramatic pre-teenager I screamed bloody murder and begged my younger sister to call 911. Knowing my theatrical tendencies, my sister just laughed as I crawled across the floor in pain. Once my parents came home and got out their laughter too, it was decided that I wouldn’t be making the seven hour bus ride to Ellis Island, New York the next day. Thus, after a night spent with my left foot propped nearly 90 degrees in the air I went to the emergency room to assess the problem. Just as I thought, and no one else believed, my left foot baby toe was broken.
My last month of summer before entering the eighth grade was pure misery. About a week following the broken toe diagnosis I used my mother’s crutches around the house to keep my weight off the foot and keep the swelling down. I soon received a special shoe to wear because my foot was too sensitive and large to fit in close-toed-shoes. However, when it came to attending the annual end of the summer pool parties I was not a happy camper. I never realized how difficult it is to watch your friends play in the sun and splash in the pool while forced to happily sit there and smile. But what I found even more difficult was when school began for the new year. I wobbled around in my Velcro hospital shoe always barely making it to class on time. When I told my peers it was just a broken toe, they would laugh at me. For once, this time the pain was real. The first day back to gym class I forgot my doctor’s note and my PE teacher threatened to fail me if I didn’t participate in soccer practice. By that time I had had enough of my minor disability.
After a quick and unexpected reset of my toe and hundreds of calcium supplement pills my left foot baby toe was good as new. I learned my lesson about inside joy runs the hard way. My greatest frustration of it all was not being to keep up with my friends, and the pace of life around me. However, before that dreadful day I never appreciated my ability to run, walk, or even just stand without assistance or pain. Maybe ableism cannot be fully understood until it is lost, or like the saying, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”
In the summer before the eighth grade I was home babysitting my younger sister when I decided to go for a joy run through the house and literally took a turn for the worse. As I rounded a corner in the hallway my left foot hit the love sofa with blunt force. Being a dramatic pre-teenager I screamed bloody murder and begged my younger sister to call 911. Knowing my theatrical tendencies, my sister just laughed as I crawled across the floor in pain. Once my parents came home and got out their laughter too, it was decided that I wouldn’t be making the seven hour bus ride to Ellis Island, New York the next day. Thus, after a night spent with my left foot propped nearly 90 degrees in the air I went to the emergency room to assess the problem. Just as I thought, and no one else believed, my left foot baby toe was broken.
My last month of summer before entering the eighth grade was pure misery. About a week following the broken toe diagnosis I used my mother’s crutches around the house to keep my weight off the foot and keep the swelling down. I soon received a special shoe to wear because my foot was too sensitive and large to fit in close-toed-shoes. However, when it came to attending the annual end of the summer pool parties I was not a happy camper. I never realized how difficult it is to watch your friends play in the sun and splash in the pool while forced to happily sit there and smile. But what I found even more difficult was when school began for the new year. I wobbled around in my Velcro hospital shoe always barely making it to class on time. When I told my peers it was just a broken toe, they would laugh at me. For once, this time the pain was real. The first day back to gym class I forgot my doctor’s note and my PE teacher threatened to fail me if I didn’t participate in soccer practice. By that time I had had enough of my minor disability.
After a quick and unexpected reset of my toe and hundreds of calcium supplement pills my left foot baby toe was good as new. I learned my lesson about inside joy runs the hard way. My greatest frustration of it all was not being to keep up with my friends, and the pace of life around me. However, before that dreadful day I never appreciated my ability to run, walk, or even just stand without assistance or pain. Maybe ableism cannot be fully understood until it is lost, or like the saying, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Media's affect on body image in relation to MY life on SB 09
Over my Spring Break I observed several issues pertaining to our recent studies in Women Studies.
It’s Spring Break ’09 and seeing that I am not on an exotic island baking in the sun I decided to go on a shopping trip on my one day off of work. I started off in the mall in my town, with a rather small selection of shops. However, the same problem I usually encounter was waiting for me at the door. I can search through piles of clothes, ask the attendants to look in the back for more sizes, and I can even try to squeeze into the extra small to test the waters. But in the end, the clothing sizes that most regular sized women are, are NEVER there. You would think clothing stores would realize that the medium-large sizes always seem to go the fastest and the oversupply of extra smalls would be a good indicator that the average woman isn’t built to be a twig. But every shopping trip and every store visit, it’s the same deal. I fall in love with the shirt, skirt, pants, etc. and what do you know, my size is already sold out.
So I continued on my hunt to find something that fit at another mall. Walking into Forever 21, one of the stores frequented by most girls my age, I get all excited when I look at the manikins wearing the clothes and accessories so well. However, what I have come to find is that a size 0 manikin looks better in a strapless, body-skin tight dress than I do. Why not get models who look more like the a real woman, with hips and a real bottom? What’s the point of faking us out? Now I understand the store’s no return policy. They probably save thousands of dollars that way.
Finally, my last encounter with issues we are currently studying in Women Studies was during the filming of a DVD orientation video for my mother’s work. I was volunteered to be the inappropriately dressed employee. I had to stand in front of a camera and was the product of “Male Gaze”. The camera even had a setting that glided the lens from the feet up . I felt mortified. I guess you really don’t know what ‘the gaze’ feels like until you experience it yourself.
Now that I have studied many issues related the media’s portrayal of the female body, I am able to relate such topics to the outside world and in some cases realize when I am product of my environment.
It’s Spring Break ’09 and seeing that I am not on an exotic island baking in the sun I decided to go on a shopping trip on my one day off of work. I started off in the mall in my town, with a rather small selection of shops. However, the same problem I usually encounter was waiting for me at the door. I can search through piles of clothes, ask the attendants to look in the back for more sizes, and I can even try to squeeze into the extra small to test the waters. But in the end, the clothing sizes that most regular sized women are, are NEVER there. You would think clothing stores would realize that the medium-large sizes always seem to go the fastest and the oversupply of extra smalls would be a good indicator that the average woman isn’t built to be a twig. But every shopping trip and every store visit, it’s the same deal. I fall in love with the shirt, skirt, pants, etc. and what do you know, my size is already sold out.
So I continued on my hunt to find something that fit at another mall. Walking into Forever 21, one of the stores frequented by most girls my age, I get all excited when I look at the manikins wearing the clothes and accessories so well. However, what I have come to find is that a size 0 manikin looks better in a strapless, body-skin tight dress than I do. Why not get models who look more like the a real woman, with hips and a real bottom? What’s the point of faking us out? Now I understand the store’s no return policy. They probably save thousands of dollars that way.
Finally, my last encounter with issues we are currently studying in Women Studies was during the filming of a DVD orientation video for my mother’s work. I was volunteered to be the inappropriately dressed employee. I had to stand in front of a camera and was the product of “Male Gaze”. The camera even had a setting that glided the lens from the feet up . I felt mortified. I guess you really don’t know what ‘the gaze’ feels like until you experience it yourself.
Now that I have studied many issues related the media’s portrayal of the female body, I am able to relate such topics to the outside world and in some cases realize when I am product of my environment.
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