Hiya folks! I come to you today with a really great list of posts from tumblr about tone policing and "hate breeds more hate" and the like. http://unicornwithaflamethrower.tumblr.com/post/83424645464/kinglers-a-really-great-powerpoint-that-shuts?utm_campaign=SharedPost&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=TumblriOS
We have been learning about how men and women (there are more than 2 genders) are socialized to think and act according to their gender.
Women are socialized by the media, family, and friends that they must look, behave, and think a certain way. They are told they MUST have long, straight hair, be a size 0, be dangerously skinny, have large breasts, wear makeup, and dress to please men. If they're a WOC, they're told that only white women are beautiful so they must deal with hair relaxers and skin lighteners. This is a dangerous set of qualities that only a small fraction of women actually meet. As a result, there's an eating disorder epidemic, and women and young girls learn at an early age to hate their bodies and starve themselves. My 10 year old cousin already hates the way she looks. She's already gone through a diet where she lost a dangerous 30 pounds too quickly. I'm extremely concerned about her. Last year, my younger sister spent a semester abroad in Israel. She did her Junior research paper on Israeli vs. American media guidelines and found that in Israel and much of Europe, models below a certain weight and/or size are not allowed to model, so as not to give girls an unrealistic idea of beauty. The US has no such guidelines. The media is even allowed to photoshop pictures without telling us. It's horrifying and extremely disheartening to watch my sister and little cousins suffer. Even looking at those Dove "Love Your Body" commercials is disheartening. Dove isn't doing it because they truly care about the fragile and often attacked self-esteem of women and girls, they do it to make money, which makes me feel sick. It's disgusting to profit off low self-esteem.
Boys are also socialized. They're told by media, family, and friends that an ideal man is a violent man who takes what he wants, gets what he wants, and feels entitled to a woman's body without her consent. Being gay is shamed and often leads to being beat up and mocked heartlessly. Yet boys aren't observed with the same amount of societal scrutiny that women are. Even looking at instruments it's clear what's aimed at women and what's aimed at men. Men are encouraged to play a loud instrument like the trumpet or trombone. Women are encouraged to play a quiet and meek instrument like the flute. Which is why if you look at bands, you see a disproportionate amount of men on trumpet and a disproportionate amount of women on flute. When we watched the video about Disney and masculinity, it reinforced the idea that men must be burly, strong, and vocal. We also watched a video called "Tough Guise 2" about the male socialization process to be more violent. The rate of violence in young men is becoming disturbingly more and more common, as school shootings multiply is the face of a lack of gun control, while nearly every shooter has been a white man.
Society behaves in a very transphobic and homophobic way when encouraging and enforcing gender roles, trying to push the clock back to the 1950's.
Unfortunately I was unable to be on this year's LGBT+ panel, so the class didn't get a trans person's point of view, but if people have (respectful) questions, I would love to answer them.
My abridged story is that I always knew what I was, even when I was little and didn't have a word for it. But the hell really began when I hit puberty and my body was transformed against my will into a body that I never belonged in. All that pain and misery could've been avoided if I had been taught about LGBT+ issues at a young age. The boiling point was sophomore year during health, when they divided up the class by gender and sent the boys into another room to talk in a very transphobic way about genitals in disturbing detail. I couldn't take it and had to sit in the hall, which I was mocked for, thanks to someone who is supposed to be my best friend saying loudly enough for all the girls and boys to hear, "Hey <birth name>, why're you going to sit in the hallway?" I cried myself to sleep that night. My parents always said they'd love me no matter what, but then why didn't they teach me it was okay to be different? I was picked on in school for years, bullied to the point where I attempted suicide. And yet people still don't seem to realize that their ignorance hurts and kills people like me on a regular basis. The murder rate for trans people is 1 in 12. But for trans women it becomes 1 in 8. I've experienced more bigotry and hatred because of my hideous crime of daring to exist in my 18 years of life than most people ever will. I've lost friends over it. One of my friends is a freshman who's parents won't let him hang out with me only because I'm trans.
I know I can come across as cold or vicious, but that's not my intent. My inability to properly control my facial emotions and tone of voice comes from my autism, a whole different experience to be discussed at a different time. I hate yelling at people and being angry. It makes me sad and drains my energy, but sometimes it truly is the only way to make people see the light. If people won't listen when I kindly and politely educate them, maybe they'll listen to my anger and frustration. And if they don't, then they'll never listen. As Aang from Avatar: the Last Airbender said, "Words won't solve problems, action will."
I sure have a lot on my plate. I have mental and developmental disorders, I'm transgender, and gay. Oh boy it just keeps piling up. But I've got the mental strength to keep fighting, and will never surrender, if only to spite the people who want me dead. I don't care if you love me or hate me. I'm not here to make friends. I'm hear to make a difference in the world.
Toodles!
24 April 2014
07 April 2014
A Whole Generation of Zombie Children
Hello audience! This week we learned about nature versus nurture and socialization.
Nature is more like our genetics and DNA, which is part of what makes us ourselves. But nurture is how we're taught to behave. So feral children, children who have been abandoned by their parents and raised by wild animals, behave like the animal that raised them rather than like a human, for example the child who behaves like a dog because she was raised by dogs. But isolated children, or neglected children who had no love or contact with another living animal, behave like an infant because their brains are missing the critical connections and learning that normal babies get. These are sad cases because these children will progress, but not enough to be able to ever live on their own.
We saw a video in class on a rescued isolated child named Danielle who was adopted by loving parents. When they adopted her she couldn't speak, eat solid foods, swallow, or use the toilet, and wanted to be carried everywhere, even though she was about 6 years old or so. She had the mental capacity of an infant. Now, she is mentally about 2 years old. So there's definitely been some improvement, but the damage done to poor Danielle will likely be permanent.
We also read about a study done to discover just how much nurture shapes us. It was done in an orphanage with 25 children followed from infancy to adulthood. 12 of the children were the control group, raised in the orphanage, given the basic needs but never loved, cared for, or played with. The other 13 were given to women in a mental hospital. Each woman was assigned to a baby to love, cherish, care for, and play with. The results were astounding. The control group had a hard time holding down a job, most dropped out of high school, and didn't go to college. Only one of them got married. In the experimental group, all of them flourished. They all graduated from high school, most went to college, and all held down jobs. Most of them got married. So even though they were raised by mentally ill women, they blossomed because they were given the love and attention babies need to build up their brains.
People are also affected by socialization. It tells us how to behave, what's right or wrong, and what to like. Things called agents of socialization are the main sources of our socialization like peers and family. Family raises us to behave a certain way, to have certain values, and to be a certain religion. Peers influence us to like a certain brand or toy, dress a certain way, and talk a certain way. In a vulnerable young child, this can have bad consequences.
What's disturbing is just how vicious and immoral companies will be to enslave the innocent, moldable mind of babies and young children by selling them toys or treats and teaching them what brands to buy. The media is probably the most affective way of socializing a person because we're bombarded with these media images from birth to death. Look in a toy store, the only toys available are from brands children are told to love like Disney, Sesame Street, Barney, etc. In that disturbing video we watched about media socialization of babies and children, they said that they know if they can get a child to buy their products, they will probably have a consumer for life.
Just yesterday when I was at my cousins' house, I noticed a child's birthday party invitation bearing images from "Frozen." Scattered all over the house are brand name toys like "My Little Pony," "My Littlest Pet Shop," "Barbie," etc. When I watched Spongebob with her, the only commercials coming on were for Lunchables, Sketchers, and McDonald's. There are literally no advertisements for non-brand name products, so my little cousin grows up believing what she hears and sees on the TV. She's too young to realize that the companies are trying to scam her.
I would say even my 6 year old cousin's older sisters (9 and almost 11) are too young to understand exactly what the companies want. I don't think I realized what they were doing until I was 13 or even 14. I don't think some adults realize it either. Because we're not taught in school to be smart consumers. We're not taught to think for ourselves and be self-aware. We're taught to conform into mindless zombies. Advertisements are everywhere, even schools. Nowhere is safe. Nothing is sacred. Not the innocent, pure, loving minds of babies and young children, not the education and wellbeing of young people, nothing.
When I was little, growing up in the late 90's and early 2000's, none of my shirts had characters on them. They were all plain, single colored, striped, or other patterned shirts. But now, I go into a store to buy birthday clothes for a little cousin, and I can't buy a single shirt without some character on it, it's impossible.
Nature is more like our genetics and DNA, which is part of what makes us ourselves. But nurture is how we're taught to behave. So feral children, children who have been abandoned by their parents and raised by wild animals, behave like the animal that raised them rather than like a human, for example the child who behaves like a dog because she was raised by dogs. But isolated children, or neglected children who had no love or contact with another living animal, behave like an infant because their brains are missing the critical connections and learning that normal babies get. These are sad cases because these children will progress, but not enough to be able to ever live on their own.
We saw a video in class on a rescued isolated child named Danielle who was adopted by loving parents. When they adopted her she couldn't speak, eat solid foods, swallow, or use the toilet, and wanted to be carried everywhere, even though she was about 6 years old or so. She had the mental capacity of an infant. Now, she is mentally about 2 years old. So there's definitely been some improvement, but the damage done to poor Danielle will likely be permanent.
We also read about a study done to discover just how much nurture shapes us. It was done in an orphanage with 25 children followed from infancy to adulthood. 12 of the children were the control group, raised in the orphanage, given the basic needs but never loved, cared for, or played with. The other 13 were given to women in a mental hospital. Each woman was assigned to a baby to love, cherish, care for, and play with. The results were astounding. The control group had a hard time holding down a job, most dropped out of high school, and didn't go to college. Only one of them got married. In the experimental group, all of them flourished. They all graduated from high school, most went to college, and all held down jobs. Most of them got married. So even though they were raised by mentally ill women, they blossomed because they were given the love and attention babies need to build up their brains.
People are also affected by socialization. It tells us how to behave, what's right or wrong, and what to like. Things called agents of socialization are the main sources of our socialization like peers and family. Family raises us to behave a certain way, to have certain values, and to be a certain religion. Peers influence us to like a certain brand or toy, dress a certain way, and talk a certain way. In a vulnerable young child, this can have bad consequences.
What's disturbing is just how vicious and immoral companies will be to enslave the innocent, moldable mind of babies and young children by selling them toys or treats and teaching them what brands to buy. The media is probably the most affective way of socializing a person because we're bombarded with these media images from birth to death. Look in a toy store, the only toys available are from brands children are told to love like Disney, Sesame Street, Barney, etc. In that disturbing video we watched about media socialization of babies and children, they said that they know if they can get a child to buy their products, they will probably have a consumer for life.
Just yesterday when I was at my cousins' house, I noticed a child's birthday party invitation bearing images from "Frozen." Scattered all over the house are brand name toys like "My Little Pony," "My Littlest Pet Shop," "Barbie," etc. When I watched Spongebob with her, the only commercials coming on were for Lunchables, Sketchers, and McDonald's. There are literally no advertisements for non-brand name products, so my little cousin grows up believing what she hears and sees on the TV. She's too young to realize that the companies are trying to scam her.
I would say even my 6 year old cousin's older sisters (9 and almost 11) are too young to understand exactly what the companies want. I don't think I realized what they were doing until I was 13 or even 14. I don't think some adults realize it either. Because we're not taught in school to be smart consumers. We're not taught to think for ourselves and be self-aware. We're taught to conform into mindless zombies. Advertisements are everywhere, even schools. Nowhere is safe. Nothing is sacred. Not the innocent, pure, loving minds of babies and young children, not the education and wellbeing of young people, nothing.
When I was little, growing up in the late 90's and early 2000's, none of my shirts had characters on them. They were all plain, single colored, striped, or other patterned shirts. But now, I go into a store to buy birthday clothes for a little cousin, and I can't buy a single shirt without some character on it, it's impossible.
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