Saturday, November 30, 2013

Thanksgiving: Moms, The Heart of the Family


           Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving!


                           
This year my family celebrated Thanksgiving at my Aunt and Uncle's house; while we enjoyed each others company and stuffed ourselves endlessly. Although everyone else enjoyed this day off, I noticed their was one family in particular who was having a hard time enjoying the holiday many people don't work on.

The mom was a good family friend of ours and she was overwhelmed with taking care of her two young daughters. Her morning started off with cooking a few dishes for our Thanksgiving dinner, making sure the girls get out of bed, dressing them, picking out their clothes, styling both of her daughter's hair, finding matching shoes, and the list goes on. As she was explaining her very busy morning, I couldn't help but wonder what her husband must have been doing. If she had a list of things to do, her husband could have lighten up the work she had to do.

Well, why is it always the mother's job to get the girls ready for the day. I can understand if he might not be good at cooking, but he should be delighted to help his daughters get ready. In this society, there are too many married couples, especially women that are cultured, where they play these gender roles. Women cook, clean and take care of their children; while men work their nine hour shift, come home, and rest.

 Isn't it fair to say that these women work from the morning they wake up until the moment they go to sleep?


I found a video on Vimeo, respecting these mothers because they deserve to be acknowledged as hard workers. I am thankful for all of the moms out their working overtime taking care of their children.

Watch the video below to see this wonderful video of moms working in their "office" (home) and being everything that they are.

Mom's are superhero's who will do anything for their children. Moms are the heart of their family.


Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Building blocks are for girls too.

Upworthy article

Women are constantly underrepresented in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics occupation than men. According to the 2013 census bureau report, growth in women's share of science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations has slowed since the 1990s.


In this Upworthy article, it was said that fewer than 3 in 10 graduating in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are women. And barely 1 in 10 actual engineers are women.

This great article from Upworthy highlighted an ad targeting to girls. We see the stereotype of girls all the time in ads, especially in toy commercials.  We can all recognize that any object that is coated with the color pink is automatically a girls toy, while blue is for boys. It’s the way society has determine the color of gender.  But, what if there was a toy that utilizes skills from the mind of a young girl, instead, of playing with Barbie in her dream house and having handsome ken to save the day. We see it all the time with Legos and Knex for boys. Yet, we haven’t seen a company that made something similar targeting young girls to invent and build.

Below, I put the 2 minute video for everyone to watch. It encourages young girls to use their creative minds and brings out an unforgettable message to everyone. GoldieBlox is a toy company to inspire young girls to become young inventors and engineer their own playground or another set of pretty much anything. 


Meet Debbie, the CEO of the toy company, GoldieBlox.
Hear her story below if you want to know more about how she came up with this amazing idea.

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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

How would you respond if this question was thrown at you?

  


Does anybody watch the show Scandal? My roommate talks about this show more than anything and I have been thinking about binge watching this show for awhile now. I watched a clip on Youtube and I just want to say, Lisa Kudrow's guest starring role is powerful. Her strong female character in this show is known as congresswoman running for president and she makes a very strong statement to a sexist question,
"You lack the experience to be president of United States?" - Watch Here!


Her remarkable response is pretty inspirational, in my opinion, because you don't see many strong female characters on television. Additionally, she points out one of her biggest achievements. As the congresswoman served in  the army for seven years; the journalist never acknowledged her as a brave soldier. There are so many of us out there that are involved in a situation where we don't realize gender inequality takes place. It takes a strong woman to put herself out there and speak her mind to say a question like that is offensive. It is unfortunate that we see it all the time.
I think everyone should watch this clip  and maybe it can inspire you to stand up and speak your mind, or maybe even be more cautious of what you say.  



Wednesday, October 30, 2013

A Picture Is Always Worth More Than A Thousand Words

Sometimes its better to create an artwork and draw pictures of how you feel about certain issues. It can get people to think about the bigger picture that words cant even describe. Here are some powerful images that I found in an article that these cartoonists had drawn from many different countries. The artwork focuses on the subject of women and women's rights.

Bannerman: USA

Aghael: Iran

Hurwitt: USA

Boutin: France

Nardi: Italy

Feggo: USA

Donnelly


A New Way to Educate Children On Women's Rights


                             Read about which Facebook games are educating children on women's rights!


Some parents tend to stay away from letting their children play video games. Other parents may think its a great way to take advantage of letting children do what they love and get a learning experience out of it.

Well, in this article above, there are mothers out there who believe in letting their children play social games in order to gain knowledge about real issues people may face in their lives. To be very specific, this article focuses on social games involving issues that women face.



These social games include games that are available on Facebook which mother's introduce to their kids. It turns out to be a learning experience for children, no matter what age your children may be. I found this very interesting and helpful because children need to gain more knowledge on serious issues like women's rights. We're all exposed to advertisements and certain situations regarding to gender inequality issues at an early age. As a result, young children start seeing the wrong message and it could effect the way they think about themselves or other people as they get older.

I support mothers who are letting their children play these social games. Playing these games on Facebook are not harmful to children and should be exposed to them at an early age to educate them more on issues that women face today and even culturally.

Douglas Rushkoff: Programmed Or Be Programmed

In today’s society, we take advantage of what we have learned and mold it into something better. Douglas Rushkoff explains, “As we move into an increasingly digital reality, we must learn not just how to use programs, but how to make them.” He calls it, in simple terms, known as programmed or be programmed. Digital technology is starting to control all aspects of our everyday lives. He argues that digital technology is going to control us without even knowing it. If we don’t control the digitalized culture, the culture will control us. In addition, so many of us rely on the internet and that may cause problems socially. An example in the book used is students are suddenly utilizing the internet, but relying on Wikipedia for answers. Instead of taking the time to research the answers of what you need, we are taking the most convenient way out and suddenly using Wikipedia. We can agree Wikipedia is not a reliable source as it comes from many different opinions from numerous amounts of people. In this digitalized culture, we need to be cautious as Rushkoff explains, we need to be more aware of our choices; therefore take action or you will be controlled.
He points out ten commands that explain reasons to avoid being the victim of getting programmed.  Time is known as one of the first commands. Rushkoff states, “We live in a continuous “now” and time is always passing for us. Digital technologies do not exist in time, at all.” As a result, time flies by in this fast paced culture. He further explains back into time when the internet was connected through dial up, time was very slow. People were actually patient to respond to each other in a thoughtful way. Conversations were known as asynchronous, which meant that having an online conversation took time. You actually had time to think about how you were going to respond online without responding as quickly, like you would in a verbal conversation. It becomes a problem because people are not thinking things thoroughly before they respond and were not even aware of it. We need to be more aware of the changes going on in technology and learn to control it.
Rushkoff also explains how Gina is another example of one of the ten commands. She is described as the social butterfly who is always trying to find the latest parties to attend. As she puts too much time utilizing her social networks on her phone, she doesn’t acknowledge the people she is with now. She is known as being “everywhere at once,” the girl who is at the party without being at the party. Rushkoff describes it as having an “always on relationship” with her phone and social networks. Gina is too busy taking pictures with her friends, on networking sites chatting and texting on her phone; she removes herself from the place she is at disconnecting herself from everybody else. Ironically, the most social girl with many friends is physically not social at all. Rushkoff explains, “Digital networks are decentralized technologies making it suitable for long distance communication and activities- but rather awful with what-or who- is right in front of us.”  As these social networks are intended for people to come together and engage themselves in each other’s lives; it is almost doing the opposite. It’s putting girls, like Gina, in a situation where they are disconnecting themselves from everyone, physically. Gina was not taking the time to engage with everyone at the party she attended. Instead, she used her phone to find the latest place to be at, while being on networking sites, texting, and taking pictures.
Rushkoff also argues, “The digital realm is biased towards choice, because everything must be expressed in the terms of a discrete, yes-or-no, symbolic language.” In this digital culture, we love making decisions and having the option to have a choice; but we do also have a choice to say no. He discusses, “Choice is less about giving people what they want than getting them to take what the choice-giver has to sell.” An example would be shopping online for clothes, and based on what you have been looking at, they suggest more style similar to what you are looking for. As convenient as this may be for us, technology has become more advanced as we are becoming more predictable by the choices we make. Although they are appearing to be giving us choices, in reality, they are making the decisions for us, based on their research. We revolve ourselves and focus on the websites we visit, applications we download, and companies we subscribe to. We make choices and filter what we want to see in the “digital realm”, but also have the decision to choose to not make a choice at all.

Although Rushkoff argues that you can have the choice to not make a choice at all, I slightly disagree with his arguments. I believe that keeping up with the trends and utilizing social networking sites is important in this society. We do live in a digitalized culture where technology is always taking the next step and is constantly advancing. Although, I do believe it is important to take control of how we use it in order to become more cautious and aware. By being aware and more cautious, those in power making the decisions will not have total control. 

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Women Shouldnt

                                                                 Women Shouldnt


A link to this article came across my newsfeed on facebook and it became a trending topic for all of my friends to comment and discuss. “Would you expect these results to appear when you Google women?” is the title of this article. It asks you to type in “women shouldn’t” or “women can’t” and see the results that appear on auto-complete suggestions. It is pretty shocking to see the gender bias toward women, as I see the results that appear. When I type in Women shouldn’t, these three topics show up on auto-complete; Women shouldn’t work, Women shouldn’t run, and Women shouldn’t wear pants.  I also typed in Women Can’t in Google search, and these four shocking topics appeared; Women can’t have it all, Women can’t drive, Women can’t vote, and Women can’t live with them. Google offers these suggestions based on the popularity search that many people type.

I just feel it is very discriminating against women because it does show we are still stuck in these stereotypical roles that will never change.  Women can’t drive and can’t vote is a perfect example of gender discrimination.  Where is the respect we deserve? 

Two ad agencies known as Ogiilvy and Mather Dubai made a powerful ad shown in the article, which had been recognized by Adweek. It presents a headshot of cultured women with their mouths covered as a search engine.  Several gender bias topics toward women appear, as it would show up in a search engine on Google. 


I believe the ads are extremely powerful because they display a powerful message. Below the ad, they display a message of all of the things women should have the right to do and shouldn’t be perceived in a certain way. For instance, “Women shouldn’t suffer from discrimination anymore” and “Women should have the right to make their own decisions.” This is a great step to send out a message for people to become aware of these gender bias topics because Google is a search engine that many people use every day. It’s almost as if we are taking a step back from all of the discrimination, when we should be taking a step forward and respect women, as we have come a long way.