32. One More Thing

There's one more very important thing that I learned in ENG101, and I'm sure I'll benefit from what I've gained, and that is producing some work on a regular basis, instead of trying to finish things in the dying seconds, panting. Credit must be given to Sonja for that, thank you.

Btw, this maybe one of the reasons why I felt a bit lost in the exam yesterday, 75 minutes cannot possibly represent 14 weeks, just as 3 hours and 15 minutes cannot decide the rest of your life, can it?

Oh, one more - I love metaphors and ironies. A reason that makes academic writings challenging maybe?

And thank you for your help as a "tavşan atlet" Sonja =)

This has been a big big semester for me. (I'm not a big big girl)

31. Real Self Evaluation

Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2876065&id=716822197

If our previous presentations were only for practice, then the evaluation was for practice as well. I had evaluated my practice presentation before, so here I am ready to make the real one, for The Full Monty.

First of all I'm glad Hasan and I were partners. He just kept making things easier for the presentation, never was lazy, and we really could get along. I'm shocked with his comment on lagger bloggers post, but I'm proud of my partner. Everything about the presentation would be much more challenging without him. So cheers mate!

As to talk about the presentation, the thing that kills me is my fluency. I know it is a common problem (and is very very normal) among almost all of us students but still it affects the presentation. Congratulations Maude, really.

I think cutting and showing some scenes from the movie was a good idea. It helped the audience in general and made a funny atmosphere.

We could, however, talk more about the destruction of industry in Sheffield, and some more about the personal relationships, especially between Gaz and Nathe.

All in all we made a good job I think, and it certainly was a good experience.

30. Spin the Bottle

It was nice to see that Katz finished off his video documentary Tough Guise with suggestions and hope. I think those suggestions were strong and tough (yes) ones, and were probably hard for some to accept and apply immediately to real life.

I thought he had to go further, that Tough Guise couldn't be his only effort, and that he should not be alone in "educating" people. So I made a quick research about his other works and found quite an interesting one (he had others as well of course), although not directly relevanto to gender: "Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies & Alcohol". The more interesting part is that Jackson Katz and Jane Kilbourne worked together on this documentary! Forces in unison!

I watched the trailer and figured its relevance to the gender issue and to the advertisement problem. I could write until morning about drinking and how it effects boys and girls as I had the opportunity to observe them for millions of times, but not here.

For the interested parties, here's the link of the trailer.

29. Driving Recklessly

R.I.P. by IceBone made available under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License

"What's going on in broader cultural environment that suggests driving recklessly and dangerously is cool and manly?" Jackson Katz enquires. One of the numerous issues he mentions in Tough Guise 2 is the driving attitude of men, although discussed briefly. I didn't scrutinize his resources really but he claims that statistically men cause much more drinking and driving accidents than women (86% to 14%). On the other hand, I very often hear men blaming and mocking women for their lack of driving and parking talent, but when you have the Ricky Martin driving example to follow as a man, you prove you lack much more important things than driving talent, and may experience really unfortunate incidents.

Please, please follow the link to see IceBone's comments about the accident. Bruised ego? Shit. That's what Jackson Katz is talking about.

Btw, happy 2010 everyone!

28. Transvestite

Retrieved 30th December, 2009 from http://users.lmi.net/buddha/Images/People/PrideManPinkDressBIG.jpg

Compfight couldn't serve me well enough =)

I'm surprised actually to realize that no one has mentioned anything about transvestism, as far as I could see.

Yesterday in our TLL class our teacher had a word about this issue, without comments. He only shared his observations, indicating that if a woman showed signs of transsexuality (dressed like a man and acted like a man) it wouldn't be so annoying for people. (he gave an example like "think of a girl stepping into this room saying "kalem var mı lan!?") Yet if the vice-versa happens, for instance, if a boy steps into the same room with flashy girly clothes and attitude, saying "ayol kalem var mıydaaaa" then the majority of people would mock him etc.

Our teacher finished his words about this topic saying that it is intrepeted differently according to genders, but I had already begun to think about this a bit more.

I think this example has a lof of underlying issues about the gender differences, and even about the inequality of them. Both situations are a bit weird but that's because they both are unusual. However, a masculine behaviour of a girl is sometimes liked as she's imitating the superior one - this may sound strange and hard to admit but that is the situation. It's more convincing if we take on the opposite example - a boy with girlie mirlie acts is regarded as a more serious thing, and an embarrassing one. And that is because that act is considered as going down to the level of the inferior, how come can a tough guy do this?

I personally don't recommend both, and I don't like to experience these scenes indeed. Yet there are two major things that are more important than (dis)liking - first, if something's weird, then it is so because of gender changes, not level changes. And second - whether you like it or not, you have to respect both. At least say "that's their mistake".

27. The Second Sex

I found a brilliant article in our SPS book "Civilization in the West" concerning gender. It was written in 1949 by Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), one of France's leading intellectuals. Her famous article, The Second Sex "has served as a call to arms for the feminist movement, provoking debate, controversy, and a questioning of the fundamental gender arrangements of modern society." (Kishlansky et al., 2003, p968). Here are some thought-provoking quoted passages...

"...Woman has ovaries, a uterus; these peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity, circumscribe her within the limits of her own nature. It is often said that she thinks with her glands." (p968)

"(Men) thinks of his body as a direct and normal connection with the world, which he believes he apprehends objectively, whereas he regards the body of woman as a hindrance, a prison, weighed down by everything peculiar to it." (p968)

Until now it may seem that she has been exaggerating the gender conflict, but...

" 'The female is a female by virtue of certain lack of qualities,' said Aristotle; 'we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.' And Saint Thomas for his part pronounced woman to be an 'imperfect man,' an 'incidental' being. This is symbolized in Genesis where Eve is depicted as made from what Bossuet called 'a supernumerary bone' of Adam. " (p969)

Her criticism is not limited to "men-the-sovereign" (p969):

"...Woman may fail to lay claim to the status of subject because she lacks definite resources, because she feels the necessary bond that ties her to man regardless of reciprocity, and because she is often very well pleased with her role as the Other." (p969)

Whether she has reason or not, she definitely is not very well pleased with her role as the Other, is she?

Any reactions/comments?

(Kishlansky, M. & Geary, P. & O'Brien, P. (2003). Civilization in the West. USA: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.)

26. Error Correction Continued!

I'm pleased to be realizing that I completely forgot about the B part in the grammar sheet. Tüh, more trouble for Sonja =)

Wrong: Dept, mascularity, masculanity, standart, prefessor, cloths, blacklases, nomaniee, violance, eccestric, fourty-five, rituels, deterioated

Correct: Debt, masculinity, standard, professor, clothes, backlash, nominee, violence, eccentric, forty-five, rituals, deteriorated

And it's sesımi, not sıseym =))

Posted by Beri (/berry/bury)