Monday, February 9, 2015
Too Fat, Too Feminine...
The two essays both have their separate points, yet overall
bring attention to the same problem, essentially. In the essay Fat Is a
Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach she focuses a lot on the unhealthy behaviors
caused by the media. Susie mainly focuses on how media and culture are to blame
for specifically young girl’s unhealthy lifestyles and women changing who they
are just to “fit in.” Most of her examples are of famous people and because of the
people she chose her essay lost readers relatability to the point she was
trying to get across. When I was reading her essay I was picturing women from
New York or Los Angeles. I don’t believe that Orbach was aiming for readers
from Hollywood, I would imagine she was trying to reach young girls in their
awkward pre-teen years because that is when girl’s insecurity is at its
highest. So if she would have used different examples I believe her essay would
have been more effective and persuasive. Now in Carrie Packwood Freeman and
Debra Merskin’s essay, Having It His Way much of the beginning is focused on
why and how men are in relation to meat and have been since thousands of years
ago. The first pages or so did not draw me in because honestly I do not really
care why men like meat, I think it is pretty obvious… it tastes good. However,
Freeman and Merskins believe there is a more sexualized and macho reason for
this. They provide many examples of fast food commercials that degrade women,
show them as objects and the men in these commercials are shown as masculine
and if a man is seen being “feminine” he quickly grabs something “manly.” Both
of the essays inform readers how the media is portraying how men and women
should act. They both believe that these stereotypes are harmful to behavior
and peoples thoughts towards others and themselves. Even though both of the
essays included some content that I believe was unnecessary or in some cases
not true all the writers got their points across and informed readers in an
effective way.
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I agree. Both essays bring different points to the same issue/topic. I liked Susie Orbach's take more because she highlighted how it feels and not just what happens. Her perspective struck home and I really admired her way of approaching the subject and delivering it. Because men and women need to "act" a certain way according to society, I liked how realistic both authors talked about the subject. They took all views into consideration and I believe the message was clear and well written on both ends.
ReplyDeleteI agree. All authors, Susie Orbach, Carrie Packwood Freeman and Debra Merskin, were able to deliver their message in a very effective way. Both articles are mainly about how the media tells different sexes to behave and look a certain way. For Instance, a woman whose appearance might have been ideal in the 60s (flat chest, long straight hair) would not be the picture perfect look of a woman today. Women are constantly being badgered to look a certain way and act a certain way, and this problem is definitely explained as a feminist Issue in Orbach's article. Freeman and Merskin also touch on how the media objectifies women, but mainly in the sense of appealing to men. In Freeman and Merskin's article, "Having It His Way: The Construction of Masculinity in Fast Food TV Advertising," they explain how the media makes certain objects, for instance food, seem more feminine rather than masculine (tofu vs. meat) so men have to purchase or like certain things to actually feel like a man. Both articles were very relatable because the authors gave plenty of examples that everyone has experienced first-hand. The readings were clear and easy to follow, which made them more enjoyable, so they were very effective
ReplyDeleteI agree with this. Both articles seemed to get the point across but Fat Is a Feminist Issue Susie Orbach was definitely more clear and more to the point. Orbachs message was easy to relate to because it was directed towards teenage girls and young women so it is easy to understand. Although, I think she could have used some better examples. Now in Carrie Packwood Freeman and Debra Merskin’s article, Having It His Way, I too found the beginning uninteresting and hard to engage in. But eventually the author gets to the point. This article has quite a bit of support, which makes it seem more reliable. But at the same time some of the information is very unnecessary and could be taken out. Overall, both articles effectively bring the issue of social media depicting how men and women should act to people’s attention. They both use examples that are for the most part easy to relate to and prove how harmful these gender norms can be. These articles are coming from different gender perspectives but they are basically arguing the same issue. Social media and society have certain gender norms everyone is supposed to “fit” into but people often time forget how diverse this world is.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brianna, the passage Fat is a Feminist Issue focuses more on the women while the other passage, Having it His Way... focuses much more on the men. many points were made in the latter passage that made me feel even a little embarrassed that all these commercials subtly put women down and put the men in the spot light in many ways. It seems as if every commercial was aimed towards men, and created for men, which I never really picked up on when just watching tv at home or wherever. I believe these two articles opened my eyes in a way that bothers me some. I just have never realized how much they all revolve around the men while the women are kind of lingering in the background without many lines or personality. Another example that took me by surprise is in the first passage, Fat is a Feminist issue, Susie tells us about the fads and fashions for women back in the 60's and 70's how they were literally the exact opposite from one another in just a mere 10 years. She says that in the 60's women had to be flat-chested, skinny, and straight haired, then just a few years later they were supposed to be big breasted, curly hair and skinny. It's just crazy to see that women were supposed to conform to these standards when they change so drastically. Either way, both articles, i feel, were towards quality of genders but like I said before, Susie's article focused on that of a women, while the other focused on the men.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree as well. In “Fat is a Feminist issue” I would like to elaborate by saying that Susie speaks to several audiences. She does this by trying to firstly in power women. Her end goal is that women should read this essay and not feel obligated to fit in a mold created by society. She uses “Fat” to illustrate a person who doesn’t care what others think and decides to do what makes them feel happy. She points the finger toward Society, such as media and men. By giving examples of how the media portrays the “it” look of whatever time, and how women feel like they have to change themselves to fit that look. The look that is portrayed by society is what men want. In “Having it his way” Merskin has her own central theme as well. Meat equals masculinity and women are viewed as meat by men. Merskin believes that commercials emphasize how men should consume there for targeting straight men into a fantasy. Where they can have everything but they don’t have any responsibilities.
ReplyDeleteI agree, in both articles the authors are talking about two things we associate with feminism and masculinity. The men like meat and women are not supposed to be fat because its not how we are supposed to be seen if we look different from everyone else. In these essays I liked the “having it his way” article more by Carrrie Packwood Feemond and Debra Merskin, due to the fact that I have never really paid attention to how sexist the ads are towards females liking meat. I may have picked up on certain things like how females were just props but I never noticed that they were selling the women along with the meat. I take offence to this, I as a woman don’t want to be treated like a piece of meat for a man I want to be treated with respect not just something that looks good. As for the “fat is a feminist issue” I think Susie Orbach did a wonderful job at seeing that media does make women see the things portrayed as goals for women. If we were to deal away with media and social figures I wonder what we would do? Would we all be fat, vegetarian, obese,? What would society do if we got rid of media today how would we dress and treat one another? It’s a tricky situation if you think about it, if we have gotten used to selling meat to men and selling skinny to women what if it swapped and women were sold meat while mean were sold skinny?
ReplyDelete