Winter Break Assignment

Link: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/if-gender-is-fluid-what-about-race-and-age-1.11839317

Throughout the recent years, gender identity has been defined as "an individual's internal sense of gender". In the article, the term gender is determined by individuals while the term sex is given by society. This is became the term sex refers to specific parts of the body that will determine whether one is female or male. This also extends to race as shown recently when a "white" woman identified herself as an African American. I understand that such things shouldn't be determined by society but I don't think that things that can be seen such as physical features and race can be denied just because the individual does not identify themselves as such. If a person was born with male body parts, then their sex is male because it is based off of their anatomy. The LGBT community is a different story because people that are transgender believe that they are trapped in another body and not denying their sex or gender. I believe that depending on our word choice, people may perceive us differently and the way we view each other changes.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!

Gender Neutral Products - Commercials

We have all seen commercials for products such as shampoo and conditioner before. However, despite being gender neutral, these commercials target a specific gender as their audience. For an example, the Pantene commercials use Selena Gomez as the spokesperson to appeal to women about how Pantene shampoo and conditioner would help make their hair shiny and smooth like Selena's hair. The shampoo brand makes shampoo and conditioner for both men and women yet in their commercials, their main audience are women. Not only are commercials like this but so are advertisements. Have you ever received a booklet in the mail from a clothing store? These booklets tend to advertise gender neutral clothing such as t-shirts, jackets, and even socks depending on the season. However, when it comes to female merchandise, words like "slim" and "fashionable" are used and for men, words like "muscular" or even "boss" are used to appeal to a specific gender party. Even advertisements for daily necessities such as shavers and deodorant used different words to try to appeal to certain people. If there was an advertisement for women's deodorant, you would never hear words like "strong" and "power". Despite products being gender neutral, companies market to specific genders and the reason is unclear as to why they would do such a thing. 

The Pillow Angel

When we were young, our parents tend to make all the ecisions for us. These decisions can cause controversy since it causes people to question their morals an ethics. Morals refer to one's personal standards or what is considered right an wrong. Ethics refer to the behavior that is customary in our culture or society. An example woul be the article, Pillow Angels where it talks about a young girl who has been diagnosed with a illness that causes her to not be able to grow mentally. Due to her illness, her parents decided to make her go through a procedure that would make her stop growing. In addition to that, her parents also decided to have her vagina and breasts removed. Her parent's justification was that keeping her short woul make it easier to include her in family activities and the removal of her vagina an breasts woul allow her to be more comfortable while strapped to a wheelchair. This raise controversy because people believe her parents violated her rights as a person and that it wasn't ethical to have her go through those procedures. Another example would be when we were all still toddlers and our parents had to decide which school to enroll us in . The decisions made by our parents in this situation wouln't be considered unethical and a violation of our human rights. In my opinion, when a child is young and doesn't have the mentality to know what is best for them, the parents should be able to decide for them and not be judged for it.

That's it for now, see you all next time!