second shift working

I begin by referencing a video shown in class from youtube called "magic coffee table"

Within this short film, if it could be called a film, we are introduced to a heterosexual couple who we assume are dating. The opening of it shows the male sitting on the couch, where he potentially could have been for hours asking his female partner to cook him dinner because he's starving.
Firstly I feel the need to really push the thought that it is a heterosexual couple where the MALE is asking the FEMALE to cook him dinner. Just like every other gender role in the past the female is almost expectant to serve the male.
After this is asked the female proceeds into a long speech about how she has just worked another job like him and why can't he cook his own dinner, it's been a long day for her as well. The male of course interrupts this speech and tells her it will be alright and that it will work out, to which the female responds how?

Here we are introduced to a basket sitting on the counter where the male tells the female that it was magic how no matter what dirty clothes you put inside this basket they are magically cleaned and folded piled onto your bed the next day. As if this supernatural power never fails to clean his clothes and that it's been happening since she moved in but he had not wanted to jinks it.

Are you serious? you're kidding me right? The "magic" basket gets all your clothes washed and folded.
Which is actually the woman doing so after she gets home... her actions go unacknowledged and underappreciated.

Then the male tells her about the magic coffee table. No matter what kind of crap you leave on it, it is always cleaned up the next morning. Again, of course this is the female doing so.

It is here we see a very obvious ignorance to the amount of work females do around the home. Not only is she expected to contribute to the income and be independent but also she is expected to load the dishwasher, unload the dishwasher, wash laundry, fold laundry, grocery shop, cook dinner, pick up trash, all while still having time to maintain their health and be there for their significant others.
A subservient gender role portrayed in a humerous way is in no way wrong from the standards women are still held to today.
This video is probably only one example of such a couple making a joke to get the point across maybe it should be more acknowledged how much women do.

Pink think adolescence and the magic years/children and their compliments

Seeing young girls dressed in dresses and ribbons in their hair. The initial reaction is to say that "aw you're so cute do you want to be a princess when you grow up?" and to the young males we lean towards "what a big boy you're growing up to be, what a heartbreaker you're going to be"
We encourage girls to have unrealistic goals of being a princess and then we encourage men to be cops or firemen or variations of heroes.

Regardless of how in adolescence we fuel certain paths to the different genders we can address how it was marketed to adolescents that sex needed to be saved for marriage and that if a girl was defiled beforehand she really wasn't worth marrying.

I believe the term Flinging the Woo created almost a comical outlook on teenage sex in the 20th century.

The pubescent teenage years proved to be challenging for parents messing with teenagers wanting to practice what they learned in sex ed rather than hearing about it in theory.
So to fix such a problem pink think began marketing marital sex as fun but not too much fun.


There is a point at which females values begin to change because your reputation can be tarnished if you are more tomboy or hang out with boys "heading down the road toward lesbianism" which should be something that we address and are beginning to in society today.

A letter to society

Please tell me how I should love myself even after I have been defiled time and time again.

How am I supposed to feel empowered when my worth is reduced too what was given to me between my legs.
The only power I have in this life is being manipulative and I am the one expected to accept blame when I am no longer found fascinating by those who claim to love me.
How can I be expected to feel successful when the only task I am asked to do involve cooking, cleaning, or taking care of children. I am not a perfect essence of housewife and I do not find it my duty to look after others, because I can supply for myself.
Do not shame me into the shadows of a man. You break me down and melt my will to fight for myself to build be into a mold of what you expect me to be.
You cannot tell me I am beautiful then paste pictures of girls with unattainable unnatural beauty on every street across the country.
You cannot play innocent when it is you who has made me into the shell of a human,
It is you who has crushed me
into the ideals of "femininity"
- A letter to society

Pink think

"Pink think is a set of ideas attitudes about what constitutes proper female behavior,..." - Pink think, Lynn Peril

Girls are born female, femininity is an acquired trait. The thought of femininity being taught to us, is actually not one of new origin. As we are kids (young females) we are given dolls to practice taking care of a baby just like mommy, and we are given kitchen sets along with tea parties, stuffed into dresses or skirts and given play makeup to make us into "women" that could be wantable by men.

Hail the V commercial by Summers eve was pulled because it brought a "private" matter into a public light but commercials for male sex enhancements run nearly all the time and aren't pulled. Furthermore Viagra and other male sex enhancements are covered by insurance but birth control isn't.

As a female there's so many double standards held to women instead of men. If a guy has sex with a ton of girls he's a legend, but if a female is to do so she is suddenly a slut, a whore.
It is preposterous to think that a women would even want to have sexual relations outside of pleasing her husband.

I relate this to my own life. My sister, who has been dating her boyfriend for over 2 years now, moved in with him a little after a year if I remember correctly. My mother made a comment to me one day that she didn't approve of what my sister was doing, it was unheard of a couple living together without being married, so why is it allowed now? Society is an ever changing hierarchy and my generation, and that of my sisters are now more accepting of relationships without the marriage certificate. In fact more children are had out of wedlock rather than in a marriage.

We visit after WWII, after working class women's husbands return from the war what is supposed to happen? Do women return to the home and retake the positions they held before instead of enjoying their steady paycheck and supporting themselves. Women are told that being sent home from work (being fired) you get NEW appliances that free up your time to take care of other household things.

It is necessary to address that these are thoughts developed BEFORE the second half of the 20th century and that we still face them today

Can men be feminist?

Ultimately the title of feminist is awarded to a group of power hungry females who believe that they are better than males in every way and deserve to have more power.

This however is one of many negative connotations that surround what being a feminist is. Feminism is the idea that men and women should be EQUAL. Not one having more power than the other or vice versa.
An argument can be made that men will never understand what it is like to be female and wouldn't be able to support the cause of being a female and wanting to be equal.

Personally I find that I would agree that men have a full capability of being a feminist. Should they support the cause of feminism (not radical feminism) then they can be allowed the title of feminism.

There seems to be the idea that we need to have a strong sisterhood because we are women? Why is it necessary that we need a sisterhood when it's even a disagreement within our groups of what women need to be better... could men be allowed into the sisterhood?
Generally if you share values you will form a bond with others, if men agree with that why shouldn't they be allowed to join and support the sisterhood.


We were also given a list of famous men who are known as feminist and why we should allow these men to define themselves as feminist? Their fame can help them reach more of the population and can express and promote more  of the ideals of feminism.

And as the conversation turns to who is anti-feminist of course none other than the Donald comes up. Why is it that more of positive feminist are being publicized instead of the negative? because more people could be coming out as pro feminism in an effort to gain more followers because then if they hadn't already most of the feminist group would support them.

Opposing the binary genders

Strictly speaking for myself, growing up I was taught that there were only 2 genders: Male and Female.
Yet in my GWS class a topic was recently brought up, what if we reject the binary genders that are defined for us. In our modern culture it is becoming more and more common for people to be "transgendered" or even "Intersex" for those of you who don't know an intersex baby is that of which is born with both sets of genitalia.

The question arose if you were the parent of an intersex baby would you choose which organ your child kept and raise it as that gender or would you let it grow and choose which it felt as it should identify as?

At what age is it appropriate to let your child decide how they identify? When are they old enough to know whether they are a boy or a girl... more importantly how do you raise your kid allowing them to choose but explain that they will be constantly outcasted.

Gender separation starts at a young age. In preschool we separate to boys bathrooms and girls bathrooms or we play in our separate groups. Girls typically with dolls since that's most likely what they have at home and boys with trucks and cars. How is it that as a parent you could allow your child to grow up confused and ridiculed practically forced into making a gender decision based on society itself.

I know personally that if I hadn't been called a girl or been raised knowing I was a girl, I would probably have identified more with the male side of things: blue was my favorite color, and I wore pants instead of skirts or dresses all of these seeming to be defining factors of how we recognize boys or girls.

There was an interesting case of which parents had decided to have their newborn son circumcised and something went dramatically wrong, it was then as a result decided that the best course of action was to mutilate the rest of the male genitalia and give the child female parts to raise it as a girl.
The problem with this being that the chemical balance in the brain is difference between males and females and that simply giving him a doll and growing out his hair using female pronouns will not make him a girl.
The amount of flaws within our society, which is just now beginning the process of rejecting the binary system, is monumental. Which is why it is more so up to parents to educate their children and to decide if they want their children to decide who they are, which ultimately they will do anyway.