Response to The Role Religion Plays in Politics

This is a response to http://textsofchristandpc.blogspot.ca/ entry, The Role Religion Plays in Politics.  I agree that religion plays an important role in politics, but I think the role is intimate, and when it is it can turn on a candidate such as Santorum.  For example, Mitt Romney is a Mormon, although christian, Mormons are the outcast of the religious world.  However, his religion still conveys  human values endorsed by the Bible, values that conform to societies values and can form the backbone of a moral society.  The point is while I feel religion does play an important role in presidential elections, its because of the ideas that are attached to religion also become attached to that president.  When candidates such as Santorum demonstrate that their religious values are fanatical it no longer helps them but rather becomes a hindrance. 

http://textsofchristandpc.blogspot.ca/2012/04/role-religion-plays-in-politics.html

Response to Issues in Gender and Sexuality

This is a response to http://smc305h.blogspot.ca/ entry, Issues in Gender and Sexuality. The video you attached of the girl trying to figure out if she's pretty or ugly actually broke my heart. Unfortunately it's not only girls who feel like this.  Boys growing up often think that they have to have arms like Norman Reedus or they aren't considered manly.  The worst part of these boys and girls feeling this way is that they haven't hit puberty yet.  Not only should they not have to be worrying about these issues, there's nothing they can do about it because their bodies cannot physically rival those of grown men and women, and thats who they are comparing themselves to.  I know there are programs out there like that Dove campaign that attempts to elevate women's body image but these sorts of things highlight the facts that society finds these people ugly.  I wish people could find true happiness with who they are.

http://smc305h.blogspot.ca/2012/04/issues-in-gender-and-sexuality.html

Teen pregnancy shows have exploded over the past few years.  When I was a child, Maury would do paternity tests on his show but they were not exclusive to teens and didn't emphasize the theme of teenage pregnancy.  Now however, we have Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, and multiple other shows dedicated to the documentation of young mothers.  This abundance of programming on the matter of course led me to believe teen pregnancies were up, so when Professor Harris told us they were in fact down, it made me question why these juvenile moms have taken our culture by storm. 

This is my favourite teen mom

When I looked into the subject myself I found that not only had teen pregnancy dropped but teen motherhood rates were at their lowest in 70 years.  Of course there are negative connotations with this misrepresentation of teen pregnancy.  Most of these shows portray the mother as passive and the male as dominant, when education on the matter should empower females about their sexuality.  This gender stereotyping portrays a class of female victims who are unable to do anything about their current situation, something that just isn't true.  These shows say at the end that teen pregnancy is 100% avoidable however, how it's avoidable is rarely discussed in the show.  Furthermore, abortion, while controversial, is always an option but certainly not discussed in these shows.  Although I don't have any personal experience in the matter, I'm sure abortion at least crosses the mind of expecting teen mothers, so the issue should be addressed.  Professor Harris explained why abortion topics are avoided but it seems irresponsible to completely exclude an intense and intimate topic from programs that aim to help teen mothers.  Furthermore, the absence of abortion reinforces the perception of passivity for the female in the teen pregnancy shows and supports the image of a teen mother dealing with something that has happened to them.  Often the men are reluctant to deal with their children choosing to do things such as rodeo (yes this is a specific example from one of the shows) while the mother is left to deal with the pregnancy herself.  These narrow views of gender roles hinder faithful representations of relationships and promote stereotypes.

This is the teen mom who's boyfriends in the rodeo.  Yes, I watch these shows way too much

Despite these issues, I feel that these shows have contributed to the reduction of teen pregnancies.  Abstinence education, condoms, and other preventative measures have been around for a long time.  However, the presence of these shows, I believe, have created a generation that is hyperaware of how hard it is to raise a child as a teenager.  Education in our commodified was a big theme in the lecture this week, and California even thanked reality shows themselves for educating teens of the struggles of teen parenthood. (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/02/teen-pregnancy-record-low-rate-california-.html)  However, the toy of education made available is not sufficient in dealing with the issue of teen pregnancy and sexuality.  Education needs to focus on equipping teens with the tools to understand media and avoid distorted views of sexuality. 

Response to: Role of The Behemoths

This is a response to http://wordofmouse999.blogspot.ca/ blog entry, Role of  the Behemoths.  I also found this lecture to be one of the most thought provoking of the year. Using real and imagined challenges to develop our ethical convictions is a vital role monsters play in our popular culture. I had always personally thought that the employment of monsters for these roles were generally used in ancient and medieval times, an often failed to serve their purpose as many people began t believe in these monsters.  However, as you pointed out not only are they not exclusive to medieval and ancient times, you used the example of Where the Wild Things Are.  Regardless of whether or not people believed these monsters were real or not they still played an important role in peoples understanding of ethical convictions.  Monsters created a means of hypothetically rehearsing trials and tribulations that people struggled with themselves.  The importance of monsters were not in whether they actually existed or not but rather in their role in illuminating our ethical convictions and developing our societal and personal values and morality.

To see the original article click here: http://wordofmouse999.blogspot.ca/2012/03/video-games-monsters-and-death.html