https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKeCDabW89g

Keeping Up with The Kardashians has been on the air since 2007. It is viewed by millions of viewers every Sunday. If you frequently click through the television stations and pass through E News then you will see many reruns of the past seasons of the Kardashians being played. The Kardashians consist of a family of five girls (Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, Kendall, and Kylie) and one boy (Robert). The Kardashians have been on air for over eight years, which you can see through how much they have changed compared to the original seasons. It was inevitable that the family would change because they are getting so much older but watching the new season that aired this past Sunday night made me realize how much fame has got to them, especially the youngest, Kylie.

Kylie Jenner started the show at the age of ten. Now being eighteen, you can see how fame has not only matured Kylie physically beyond her years but also made her a sex symbol in todays’ pop culture. Kylie has had a lot of work done over the past year, such as; her lips and boobs. She has changed her style and became a lot less innocent than she once was. Kylie recently started dating rapper, Tyga, and has become part of a different crowd.

I understand that Kylie is maturing from a young girl to an adult in front of the world but I think that way she is going about it might be giving the wrong idea off to girls that watch her show. She has changed her appearance and to an extent objectified herself infront of national TV. Kylie was naturally stunning and a lot of girls looked up to her. By getting more and more work done, Kylie is making a lot more girls insecure and feeling as if they need help being pretty. She has became a different person since the beginning of the the series and transformed physically to become unrecognizable. At age 17 she looks far beyond her years. 
In the article, The Body Politic, by Abra Fortune Chernik, the author talks about how magazines, television shows, and celebrities influenced her decision to become anorexic. I find this article heartbreaking because I do not think that celebrities realize how much influence they have over some of their fans. Many young girls see Kylie’s transformation and think that getting work done will be the only way they can achieve success and become more beautiful.              

Gender Wage Gap in Families

In society family is scene as nuclear with a father, mother and children. The father is usually the breadwinner, while the mother takes care of the house and children. The reality is that not every family is nuclear and there is a variety with single mothers, divorced parents, women being breadwinners and so forth. Women are expected to leave their jobs to take care of the children, but some women stay at their jobs. Those mothers who decide to still work are affected by the gender wage gap. In the article by www.nwlc.org, it calculates how much the difference of the wage gap would add up at the end of the year to 10,876. They break down what that money could have paid for over the course of the year. The article states how if the wage gap could close it would improve finances because women hurt economically more than men. Finances could be more focused on to the families and being able to pay for daycare or groceries. Single mothers who are the breadwinners face more of a hit in the wage gap because they are the sole provider of the children. According to Susan Lhrer, in her article "Family and Women's Lives" she discusses how the Industrial Revolution causes a shift for women to start working outside the home. She states, "Although male workers were not well paid, their wages were expected to support a family; women were expected to be self-supporting, let alone able to support anyone else." (Pg. 252). This difference in wage gap for mothers has been at the start since the Industrial Revolution because of the roles women used to do. Since women have started to work outside the home shouldn't the be compensated for the childcare they have to pay for to be able to still work? In Michael Kimmel's article he states, "Working outside the home also increases women's self-esteem and sense of personal efficacy and well-being, so working mothers tend to be happier in their marriages-which divorce less likely...both nationally and in each family, the solution turns out to be greater gender equality-not women working less outside the home, but men working more inside it." (Pg. 302). With more men helping inside the home it could help out women more and encourage them to go to work. All in all, the gender wage gap is important because it affects the families economic earrings. If women were paid the same as men would more work outside the home? Would women not have as many barriers or stress to have the pressure to take care of the family if the gender wage gap was solved? What solutions could be use to have the gender wage gap be solved? 
Sources: http://www.nwlc.org/resource/how-wage-gap-hurts-women-and-families  Lehrer, Susan. 2003. “Family and Women’s Lives.” Pp. 251-256 in Women: Images and Realities: A Multicultural Anthology edited by Amy Kesselman, Lily D. McNair and Nancy Schniedewind. Boston: McGraw Hill. 
Kimmel, Michael. 2004. “The ‘Constructed Problems’ of Contemporary Family Life.” Pp. 301-308 in Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings edited by Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee. Boston: McGraw Hill.

Why Gender Diversity Could Be FIFA's Saving Grace

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fifa-women-soccer_564a1d82e4b08cda3489e54a

FIFA is an international governing body that holds the responsibility for organizing the world's largest soccer (football) tournaments. The World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world, and much money is at stake for all who are involved in the process. Countries that host this event stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars, and because it only occurs every four years, there is much competition to be a host country. This past year 14 FIFA officials were arrested under suspicion of accepting bribes during the bidding process for future World Cup destinations. Reformists are seizing the moment and see this as an opportunity for women. With only two of [FIFAs] 209 member association presidents being women, they only account for less than 1% of FIFAs voting population, and change is on the horizon.

This past week a letter has been written to FIFA demanding that at least, "30% of its leadership positions be filled by women." The letter is signed by athletes from six countries in 14 different sports, including recent World Cup champion Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe. "It's no secret that effectively run organizations, businesses, and entities around the world understand a critical component: women in a company, women on decision making boards, women at all levels bring positive dividends. And growth." said former US national soccer player Julie Foudy.

FIFA has an unique platform in which it can influence countries from all over the world. With this most recent corruption scandal, it is need of something to restore faith in its many fans. I believe that the increased implementation of women in leadership roles is the answer and will set the stage for immediate change. The impact FIFA has on the world is immense, and because of this it has the responsibility of setting the standard and acting as an example of how other organizations should run. This clear imbalance of leadership in gender is unacceptable and frankly way outdated, and until this is changed, FIFA will never be restored.

The Problem With Speaking Up For Each Other

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lpPASWlnZIA

I came across the video above in a Huffington Post article and immediately recognized it's relationship to the topics of oppression and privilege that we had discussed in class. In this powerful presentation, a white woman and a black man deliver a spoken word poem titled "Lost Voices." Instead of telling stories of their own experiences, they switch roles and speak up for each other. The white woman addresses 4 separate days that "she" realized she was black, while the black man discusses different occasions that "he" experienced the repercussions that male privilege have on the life of a woman. The two deliver a line together that says, "But to tell me you know my pain is to stab yourself in the leg because you saw me get shot. We have two different woulds and looking at yours does nothing to heal mine." This targets their main point of the ways that people make assumptions about what it means to experience oppression in our society.

This related to the article Oppression written by Marilyn Frye. She describes oppression as being pressed. Those that are oppressed are restricted, restrained, and prevented of their motion or mobility. The black man and white women who delivered this poem tell about the ways they have been molded, immobilized, and reduced, just as Frye explains in this article. The two later deliver another line together that reads, "You speak no pain; you only fathom it because we told you it was there. You know nothing of silence until someone who cannot feel your pain tells you how to fix it." This reinforces their feelings on being immobilized, and the fact that others are only concerned about their lack of privilege because they have made its existence clear. The black man and the white woman have been placed in a cage because of the oppression they have experienced. Upon first glance people wonder why they are not moving forward, but when a step back is taken, it is clear that they are trapped because of their circumstances. When a black man speaks up for a white woman about male privilege, and a white woman speaks up for a man about race privilege, the oppression that both parties experience is clearer than ever. The final line of the poem reads, "The problem with speaking up for each other is that everyone is left without a voice."

Who do we really consider family?

     Today in class we discussed families.  I thought it was very interesting how at the beginning of class Professor Whitson had us sketch a picture of our own families.  Almost everyone, including myself, drew just their parents and siblings.  Many people did not think to include members outside of their immediate families such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Although I do consider everyone outside of my immediate family as part of my whole family, they are not the first people I think of when someone asks "how big is your family" or "who is in your family".  For me, all of my family besides my parents and siblings live over on the west coast, thousands of miles away from me.  Although they live far away it doesn't mean that they aren't a part of my family.  I am still close with them but I consider my family to be the people that I grew up with, the ones who raised me.  Being the youngest child I had a lot of influence from my older brothers and my parents which is why I consider them more of my family as opposed to my aunts and uncles.  I thought it was really interesting how almost everyone drew their families the same way. After then discussing it in class, I realized that we all portrayed our families the same way because that is how society has structured families.  However in the "Family and Women's lives" article, Lehrer mentions that only 25% of Americans reflect the nuclear family; also know as married couples and their children.  Now, work plays the most important roles in families.  It is not as important as it used to be that people have nuclear families.  In class we talked about how families are there as sort of financial support.  This wasn't very surprising to me especially because of the economy we live in now where money is almost more important than anything else.  In Lehrer's article, she mentioned a very interesting statistic that I was actually a little surprised by.  She said that in 2000, both parents were employed in 64.2% of married-couple families with children under 18, while the father, but not the mother was employed in only 29.2%.  I would've thought that the scenario where the moth is not employed for children until 18 would've been much higher than 29.2%.  I know a lot of parents, including my mother, that did not want to work while their children were younger because they wanted to care for them and take care of the housework and chores instead.  Overall, I thought it was interesting how much the definition and purpose of family has changed so much and a lot of it having to do with money and also how people's definitions of family can differ so much from one another.

The Truth Behind the Facade of Social Media

Anna Benson

http://www.elle.com/culture/news/a31635/essena-oneill-instagram-social-media-is-not-real-life/

                  Above is a link to an article/video about social media and the negativity that it brings into peoples lives, especially young women. Essena O'Neill is a 19 year old Australian girl and formerly "insta famous" with more than 500,000 instagram followers. She amassed this following with "fitspo" pictures along with some selfies and style pictures. Essena reveals that her social media life is a completely fake world with entirely staged and edited pictures. Essena admits to not eating all day so 50 pictures could be taken of her at the beach with the perfect flat stomach and thigh gap as well as being paid hundreds of dollars per post to advertise products such as clothing and detox tea. Her experience is a phenomenon at the moment in social networking. It seems like every new page you click on is a girl who has thousands or even millions of followers and the only things she posts are pictures of her bikini bod or pictures of her new purse or jet setting expedition.
                 These accounts really are detrimental to young girls and women around the world. They plant the seed of inferiority in our minds : "she is so skinny wow I'm not eating today" "I would die for her wardrobe" and other equally harsh thoughts can often times be hard to quiet when you are perusing through the orchestrated life of someone society deems essentially physically perfect. All of these accounts for the most part show fiction: a post paid for by a company for a girl to wear on social networking that makes other girls want it and in turn, they buy it. \
                In the article, Essena states that about a month ago she had enough with this fake world and all of the negativity it brought into her life and the lives of the girls who followed and envied her. She lifted the veil of "insta fame" and exposed the ugly truth about her struggles with eating disorders and inability to be present because she was so caught up in the fake social network world. She posted pictures of her without makeup and edited the caption of every previous picture stating what really was going on behind the scenes like "I got paid $500 to post this" or "I yelled at my little sister all morning in order to get the perfect picture where I liked how my stomach looked". These revelations to me are a breath of fresh air and I am curious as to whether or not other people feel the same way. I applaud Essena for exposing the truth behind this social networking fame; it's more or less a construct of companies that subsidize a couple hundred girls lives in order to make the masses buy things. Unfortunately, the young girls are the biggest victims of this with often times fragile self esteem and the horrendous media constantly trying to tell them what they should look like. In my opinion, the world needs more Essenas, more people to be truthful and helping build up girls, not tear them down.

Victim Blaming

In today's society, rape is a big problem that is not really handled properly. In these situations, the victim (who is usually female), is indirectly blamed for the rape. Questions such as "What were you wearing?" "Did you say no?" and "What did you to provoke them?" arise instead of asking the rapist what they did. In the article "The Rape of Mr. Smith", the story of Mr. Smith is a metaphorical representation of a rape case; he got robbed, the police came, but then he was asked the above questions instead of what actually happened. It is almost like the police officer was blaming Mr. Smith for his robbery, instead of focusing on the actions of the robber.
Today, there are so many rape cases because there are so many blurred lines about what constitutes rape. Is it still rape if you are in a relationship? Can you give consent while under the influence of alcohol? What is consent anyway? These are questions that should be discussed more to prevent the rape cases that are happening in America today. There also needs to be a shift in the double standards when it comes to rape. Typically, the female is blamed for the whole situation because she is seen as looking or acting provocative. People judging the case often ask what the situation was, and if she said no before everything happened. Girls are taught to not wear anything too revealing or tight, to always walk in packs, and to never, under any circumstances, get too drunk, because God forbid, something might happen to you. I am not sure if there is a solution to rape culture today, but one thing that is very important is to teach potential rapists not to rape, and to teach victims that it is never their fault.