Beauty and the Beast

Killing us softly is about beauty and the images of women and how our lives are represented.  The most influential way to illustrate the image of women is to take a look at advertising and how we are constantly immersed "foundation of the mass media".  It sells values, romance, success, of normalcy.  This was the quote that really stood out to me while listening to the clip.  Killing us softly explains about how advertising surrounds us with ideal beauty, what is female beauty and what it takes to succeed in this ideal.  Cultural climate illustrates how women are becoming things, seen as objects rather than actual human beings.  Within this process, violence starts to become an increasing issue because of this type of objectification.  The extent that advertising will go to to sell a product further objectifies women by dismembering the woman's body in order to sell products, most focus is on the breasts and a woman's butt.  Obsession with weight loss and being thin and beautiful becomes an endless issue in advertising and what is acceptable to be in advertising.  Visual images speak louder than anything that is said.  All of the ads illustrates active men and passive women.  On going issue especially from young age and what we are teaching our children to live up to.  What is the line we draw between eroticism and asking for violence?

A call to men is about the collective socialization of men.  "man box" this is the highlights of being a man and some things that are twisted that aren't right about being part of manhood.  These are all the things that we have to hold up as being part of a man, expectations and requirements of sorts.  He speaks through his own experiences and things he sees around him about the characteristics of building up themselves to become men and how it is appropriate to act. Being extremely rough on boys to "grow up" and "don't act like a boy, be a man" can lead to men learning to disrespect women, but not realize that is what they are doing.  "disrespect, mistreatment and abuse of women and each other."  Within the society, men have this constant competition of who is better, achieves the characteristics outlines in the "man box" better than anyone else.  Men are just as involved in violence in the problems and well as the solutions. It is okay to be equal with women, work together to help one another not make it all a competition.  Tony Porter talks about the way to truly be a man and the best man you can be, most well rounded and respected is to break free of the "man box."

Both of these video clips talk about socialization in the ways of what is expected of each gender in society and how we express ourselves.  Illustration of masculinity and femininity through words, images and personal experiences.  The speakers in both videos told their audiences about what is expected as a man and as a women in society and what happens when we go against those expectation. A common issue in both videos was the link to the relationships between men and women and between  men and men and women and women and how it all relates back to issues with violence.  Domestic, physical, sexual abuse and the messages that we send between the sexes in advertising and actions.

This is the photograph that I chose to represent how girls and boys are socialized in everyday society.