Trendsetting Project

           When deciding on a topic for our assignment, we discussed Steven’s cousin Sam.  Sam is gay, but had a very hard time coming out to his parents.  They never really seemed to accept him.  Even after his brave coming out, he did not feel like he fit in well with his family.  Sam felt like an outcast at school, and at home.  Home is an especially tough place to not fit in because it is supposed to be the place you fit in no matter what.  I never met Sam, however, after speaking with Steven about him, we decided we wanted to focus our trendsetting assignment on him.  We chose the hashtag BeTrueBeYou because we basically wanted to help spread some love.  “In 2014, an estimated 2.8 million adolescents aged 12 to 17 in the United States had at least one major depressive episode in the past year” (NIMH.NIH.GOV).  We think this number is about 2.8 million too high and it needs to change. 

Steven and I are known as by our friends and family as pretty goofy and smiley people.  It is very hard for us to hear about young people who are struggling with sadness and depression, especially when one of those people is Steven’s own cousin.  #BeTrueBeYou is a movement we hoped we could get trending where people just posted a picture or story about what they love to do and what makes them who they are.  If the hashtag would help Sam or others cheer up even a little bit and be happy with who they are, then we would consider it a success.

Our target audience for our project was high school and college students, but really anyone could take part in it.  We hoped to reach people through social media, such as Instagram Twitter and Facebook.  Our goal was to have our hashtag mentioned/used 100 times over all 3 social media sites.  We believed this to be a reasonable number based on who we knew.  We thought being at a smaller college would help us spread the hashtag to a decent amount of people.  However, our finals numbers came up short after the four weeks ended.  We only totaled 44 hashtags (28 on Instagram, 3 on Facebook, and 13 on Twitter).

Our main objective of this project was to impact as many people as possible with our message.  The message was for people to be happy to be themselves, which is the same message we want for Sam to understand.  The biggest challenge was simply getting people to use the hashtag.  Some people are very picky about what they post and may think that using the hashtag may affect their profile/popularity.  Another challenge we foresaw occurring was what happened with the ALS ice bucket challenge.  The more the challenge spread around, the more the meaning of it got diluted.  We did not want people just posting #BeTrueBeYou for no reason.  We wanted them to understand the purpose behind it.

In a CNN article, about teen depression and social media, it states how people who share their struggles/successes online help other people combat the same struggles (CNN.com).  We wanted to use this project as a way for other people to see that the best person they can be is themselves.  At first, we just tried to promote our hashtag online, but it didn’t go well because we are not that popular on social media.  Eventually, we got it to start spreading more through the help of our baseball team and my sister’s sorority, DPhiE of Adelphi University.  However, despite out efforts, not many people used the hashtag.  Most people liked the idea of our project, but would not post anything.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/major-depression-among-adolescents.shtml

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/05/health/teen-depression-social-media/index.html

Modern Family, The L Word and telling our stories

     This article is about gay couples on TV and in modern media.  It begins by discussing the show Modern Family.  On the show, there are two gay dads, Mitchell and Cam.  They adopted a young girl named Lily.  Dana Rudolph discusses one episode where they have to try to get Lily into a prestigious preschool in their town.  This seems like just a normal story on a TV show.  However, Rudolph points out that another show revolving a gay couple did the same thing in 2008.  The show was called the L Word.  The two moms on the show were gay and tried to get their daughter into a certain preschool. 
     This article discussed how television shows only seem to show LGBT characters that are white and upper middle class.  The problem with this is that the majority of LGBT people are not white and upper middle class.  These types of people are not represented on TV or in movies.  Rudolph says that we, the audience, must do what we can to change this.  Also, people of the LGBT community need to keep telling their stories however they can.  TV show writers need to realize their mistakes eventually.
     To be honest, Cam and Mitchell are the first people I think of when I hear about a gay couple.  I just do not know any gay couples.  I agree that there needs to be more realistic representation on TV shows.  I am not sure how this will get accomplished, though.  People are not going to stop watching Modern Family just because of this.  Writers need to start to do a better job of accurately depicting their characters.

Media Screening

     In a World and It's a Girl, were two films that really pointed out how females are looked down upon in different societies.  In a World was about a woman who wants to become a movie trailer voice over person.  At the beginning of the movie, she was just a vocal coach.  However, she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and do more with her voice.  She wanted to follow her dream, but the movie industry and even her own father did not believe in her.  She was looked down upon because she was a woman.  People did not believe a woman could do voice overs for movies.
     It's a Girl pointed out more serious issues involving the way females are viewed in some societies.  It's a Girl was about how in certain countries, including India and China, having a girl is seen as a terrible misfortune for the family.  For many reasons, having girls in these countries is seen as burden to the family.  Most of these reasons revolve around the fact that women do not usually make money or own land.  When they are married,  they leave their families and go live with their husband to raise their kids.
     Women are just not perceived as valuable as men in these societies.  It is for this reason that parents in India or China are killing their newborn babies if they have a girl.  It is simply a horrible situation.  Baby girls are seen as so much of a burden on their families that they are killed instead of being raised.  The situation in the film, In a World, is no where near as deadly as the situation in India and China.  However, it still points out another example of how women are looked at.  Once again, a woman is looked down upon because people do not think she can do as good of a job as a man.  The thought of even giving her a chance to do it makes her father uneasy. 
     Both films showed examples of how women are still not treated as equals to men.  There are still many places throughout the world, including the United States, where women are still respected the way men are.  Women, in India and China, have an uphill battle to climb, as they are still seen as the inferior gender.  Women in the United States need to keep fighting for the right to be treated the same way as men do in every scenario, as they so deserve. 

Cultural Stereotypes and Personal Beliefs About Individuals With Dwarfism

     This article discussed the stereotypes people have about individuals with Dwarfism.  Dwarfism is a rare condition.  It only affects 1 in 25,000 people.  However, many stereotypes still exist for people with this condition.  Social psychologists decided to do a study on people without Dwarfism in order to find out what people really think of dwarves.
     The study began by giving people stereotypical words people associate with Dwarves.  They were asked to pick the words they thought were culturally thought about dwarfism.  The next test, they were asked about personal beliefs about dwarves.  The study showed interesting results.  The stereotypical portion of the test resulted in mostly negative traits being picked.  These words included weird, incapable, and childlike.  However, in the personal beliefs portion, the words were mostly positive.  The words used here included capable, intelligent and kind.  A third test was also given, though, through an open ended method.  These results were much more mixed between positive and negative thoughts.
     Personally, I do not know any people with dwarfism.  The only things I know about them I saw on TV.  Little People, Big World was a show my mom used to watch.  It showed the lives of a family where the mother, father and one son were dwarves.  It was interesting to watch and showed a lot of people that they lived life pretty much the same way as anyone else.  However, some TV shows and movies can show dwarves in a stereotypical light (oompa loompas for example). 

Gender Neutral Children

     Sasha's story was very interesting.  He was raised genderless through the first five years of his life.  His parents let him wear whatever he wanted.  They also let him play with whatever toys, too.  They said they were bringing him up to be "gender neutral."  From when Sasha was born until he was 5 years old, his parents called him "the infant."  This was to keep his gender a secret from most people.  The parents claim that Sasha knows he is a boy.  They basically said that they just want their son to be comfortable doing whatever he wants. 
     Storm is another story of a child being raised as genderless.  Even after the birth of Storm, the parents did not even ask what the gender was.  Both Storm and Sasha could be seen in dresses or playing with toys supposedly made for girls.  Both parents, of Storm and Sasha, want their child to be raised without anyone putting labels on them.  However, while Sasha apparently knows he is boy, Storm's situation is a little more confusing.  Some experts believe that because of the lack of gender in Storm's life, Storm is likely to become an outcast. 
     I, personally, do not believe fully in this type of parenting.  While I do think there are good ideas behind this style, I do not think it is best for the children in the long run.  I agree that children should be allowed to play with whatever toys they like.  However, at a certain point, a parent wants his child to make friends and fit in.  If my son wanted to wear a dress to school, I, honestly, would be very worried.  It would not be because of the choice, but simply because I would want him to fit in at school and not be made fun of.  I want my children to truly be who they are, but it will be my job to make sure they are protected.  A lot of the sources I looked at said that while raising children genderless is a good idea in theory, it can lead to many problems in the future.  Most of which include not fitting in well and not making friends.  Also, not making friends hurts their progress as they grow up. 
    

Gender/Sexuality Equality Talks

     The first talk I attended was How Men Benefit From Women Equality.  The speaker was a man named Michael Kimmel.  He is a prominent male feminist.  The talk, as told by the title, was all about why men should care about gender equality.  Kimmel challenged many views certain individuals have toward gender equality.  This challenge was mostly targeted at white males.  Kimmel spoke about why males should pay more attention to these inequalities and ultimately, bring an end to them. 
     Kimmel spoke a lot about gender inequality in the work place.  For example, he pointed out how even after attending gender equality seminars, men seem to only respect women for a week.  After a week of treating women like equals, the men go back to their usual ways.  A big point he made that really seemed to stick with the audience was about men's sense of entitlement to jobs.  He discussed a segment he once saw on a TV show that was about men whose jobs were stolen by women.  On the show, these men claimed that women stole their jobs.  However, as Kimmel points out, who's to say that the woman wasn't more deserving.  To assume the jobs were their own is not right.
     Kimmel also spoke about marriage and how men should help their wives do chores around the house.  Kimmel swears that it will lead to a happier marriage and more sex.  He also adds that men who assist around the house tend to be healthier.  Their kids also benefit from them helping with chores.
     The second talk I attended was Queer Africa.  The speaker was Dr. Betty Wambui.  She is a feminist from Africa who specializes in different philosophies.  The first thing she discusses is about gender inequality and sexual inequality in Africa.  She discussed a homosexual Kenyan couple who made headline news for getting married in the United Kingdom.  Wambui talked about the hate the couple received for their actions from other African countries.  She described the outrage that could result from these types of situations and gave her case for a new set of laws that increase all people's rights in Africa.
     Wambui also discussed more about sex and gender in Africa.  She brought up a female Olympic runner from Africa who broke numerous world records.  However, she was born a male.  Rules revolving around this sort of thing are very unclear and caused numerous debates.  Women have less rights in Africa than they do here in the United States.  A lot of the problems that occur there are not being solved quick enough.  Wambui hopes that more African countries can becoming more accepting of all people and help solve the gender and sex problems that occur there.
     The common theme that I picked up on from attending these two events is marriage.  In Kimmel's talk, he discusses how gender equality in marriage can be extremely beneficial to the couple.   He talks about how important it is for a good marriage.  The theme focused on how in the United States, we worry about men showing women more respect and helping out more around the house.  We focus on gender equality in a way that people in Africa can only dream about.  Women in some parts of Africa have zero rights.  When it comes to marriage, women have to take the man's name.  Also, same sex marriage is basically unheard of.  There are so many issues with equality in the world, but it is good to see changes are starting to be made.  Whether it is men doing more household chores here in the United States or same sex African couples starting to be able to get married, change is on the way.  Hopefully, sometime soon we will have to discuss things that should be basic human rights.

"Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted"

     This article starts out by describing the famous sit-ins that happened in North Carolina.  They occurred during the Civil Rights Movement.  They were started by four college freshman at North Carolina A&T.  What started out as a normal lunch, turned into an amazing protest for social change. 
     The point of this article is to argue that social media cannot provide what social change has always required.  This refers to the fact that social change started on social media does give people the same feeling as a social change started in person would.  Social media is not super personal.  Most of the social movements seen online are started by someone we do not know.  It is much easier to get behind a cause when you know the person starting it. 
     The argument is that the reason the sit ins were so successful is because all four freshmen who started the protest were all friends.  They all knew each other and were willing to get in trouble for each other.  The author says that social movements created by people who do not know each other are never as successful because of the lack of "friendship."
     I agree with this article for the most part.  I think that I would definitely be more willing to protest something if my friend wanted me to.  I would also be more willing to accept the consequences doing it with a close friend, rather than strangers online.  Protests can get very heated.  Fights break out all the time.  Most people would rather have their friends and family there to back them up than strangers.
     I do, however, think social media can help social change.  It is much easier for everyone to see your message by doing so.  I think using social media can be a good and bad thing.  There are ways it can help, but there are also going to be people who are so against your view.  Someone must be able to deal with the negative when dealing with social media.