For my final project, I will be creating a magazine that will focus on the lives and experiences of Muslim women in America. The magazine will consist of articles, poems, interviews, and artwork created by these women. My goal is to create a safe environment where Muslim women are allowed to express themselves and show who they really are.
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I want to highlight the diversity of this group of women and their individual perspectives on the world to show that the Muslim woman is not oppressed by her religion or culture. This oppressive Muslim woman is the only narrative that is given mainstream media coverage (Essay on this) and that is something that I want to challenge. The magazine is intended for a general audience above the age of 16. I want the non-Muslim audience to be able to read through the magazine and understand the complexity of the Muslim women’s identity. For the Muslim audience, I want this magazine to be something that they can relate to as a form of media where they can see themselves in a positive light.
I intend to create the magazine in Adobe InDesign and link the PDF to our class Blog. The content of the magazine will be created by friends, family, and colleagues that I know. I will try my best to reach out to a wider variety of Muslim women in order to create a more diverse magazine. On November 1st, I will be sending out emails to everyone with the requirement of their specific parts. We have agreed that then they will have two weeks to get back to me with their stories, poems, art etc. Within those two weeks, I will focus on creating the structure and outline of the Magazine including the cover page.(I need help with the title, if anyone has suggestions please let me know). After I receive all the content I will then start to curate the magazine. I am planning on using this magazine as a part of my graphic design portfolio.
What
I find amazing is that in 2017, we still see ads that are both sexist and
racist.Some of these are often in plain
sight.We’ve discussed the ad on the
subway which shows a woman holding up lemons in front of her chest with a sad
look and then next to that picture is the same woman holding up melons with a
big smile.Below the photos is an
advertisement for breast augmentation.Considering how many people take the train everyday, it’s very
disturbing to think how many young girls either in middle or high school seeing
this and getting the message that they can only be happy with big breasts.That same advertisement has been used to
promote going to the beach in the summer.
As was said by Naomi Wolf, “Women
are mere ‘beauties’ in men’s culture so that culture can be kept male.” (Wolf
59).This is a very clear-cut truth
about advertisements as men are always seen in masculine positions in ads
whereas women are sometimes seen in sexual and submissive positions.There is an old Kellogg’s ad, which features
a husband hugging his wife from behind with a quote that reads, “So the harder
a wife works, the cuter she looks.”Not
only is this incredibly sexist, it was the norm during the 1950s and 60s.Ads like these would not get any kind of
criticism during that time period.
Even something as simple as a coffee
ad could not resist using a controversial ad, which shows a man putting his
wife over his knee to spank her for not testing the coffee to see if it’s
fresh.Gloria Steinem in her article, Sex, Lies & Advertising gave a
perfect example of how certain advertisers view women in general.The Silva Thin cigarette company once
released an ad with the theme, “How to Get a Women’s Attention: Ignore
Her.”How anyone thought this was an
appropriate ad is amazing.This kind of
thinking basically says that who buys those cigarettes should see women as
inferior. (Steinem 171).
When it comes to television, movies,
magazines, etc., there is a target audience that is being reached.Unfortunately, the most common theme is the
saying, “sex sells.”There is almost a
guarantee that many men will buy products or watch something on television or
the theater if there is an attractive woman in scantily clad clothing.One television show that is not only sexist
but continues to live on and promote unrealistic fantasies is The Bachelor.The premise is for 26 women to compete for
the affections of one man.Why would
this even be a concept people would enjoy?What’s more is that it spawned an equally successful spinoff called, The Bachelorette, which shows a role
reversal as there are 26 men competing for one woman.In the end, it merely promotes expectations
about your partner that are often too fictional to be believed since the show
provides many exotic and glamorous places to have dates that most average
Americans could never afford to go.
As far as movies are concerned, I
believe the most sexist director is Michael Bay.His movies often trade compelling stories
with young women who wear very little clothing that is very prevalent in the
first two Transformers movies since
actress Megan Fox is merely seen as eye candy and a prize to be won.Those movies show racism with the
transformers themselves as some of them represent racial stereotypes and even
speak in a stereotypical way.Even actor
Bernie Mac has a line in the first movie where he says the word, “Mammy.”I believe that alone says everything a viewer
needs to know about a Michael Bay film.
Advertising images present decades
long problems with its view of women as objects to be attained.One ad in particular for “Broomsticks Slacks”
features a young woman in her underwear surrounded by several men playing a
game of “Ring Around the Rosie” with her which treats her as if she’s some kind
of trophy.It seems like male
advertisers are afraid of showing a woman in an ad that is independent and not
sexualized.In Sex, Lies & Advertising, Leonard Lauder who is the president of
Este Lauder speaks with Gloria Steinem who tries to arrange to have his
advertisements in MS Magazine but he said no because his company was trying to
sell “a kept-woman mentality.”This
surprises Ms. Steinem as she feels he would be selling the exact opposite since
it was his mother who started the company and was very strong and
independent.It seems that after taking
over, Mr. Lauder wanted to shy away from what his mother started and it’s
incredibly sad because even when his own mother was not a kept-woman, he still
believed that’s what his customers would want.
My semester project is a generational family collection of stories and poems about the women in my family. I want the themes to focus on women’s issues and immigration. Although I plan to take stories from each of my female family members I also plan to take creative liberties in order to make the stories complete and very personal. I know many of my female family members, especially my mother and my grandmother are not very open about their issues so as a result I will have to insert my own opinions about how they felt and make sure it’s a complete thought.
I plan to make the stories and/or poems in sections depending on time period so it would start off with my great great grandma who was brought over from India, and then my great grandma, my grandma, my mom, and me. I plan to ask my family members about their own personal stories and use the information to write these stories/poems in first person. I was planning on maybe writing a section of each family member and in the end talk about my life and why it has brought me to study media in order to bring women of color and women’s issues into the light, because all my life the women of my family had to suppress it.
I want to make the book mainly for the women in my family and any other immigrants and first generation women who feel like they have to conform to a rigid societal structure. I want to publish the book on a website, I was thinking either Yumpu.com or medium.com. Writing short stories has always been a hobby of mine but I have never actually published anything, it would fit into my portfolio for work because I want to focus more on writing in my future career. I understand this will take time so I plan on writing a chapter or a section each week until the due date and then publish it with a short paper.
For my short paper outlining the deeper messages, I’ve planned to talk about the migration of Indian indentured servants to Trinidad and then Trinidad to America. I also plan to highlight the lives of Caribbean women in those countries and tie in the issues of feminism and violence around women and relate that to my family personally.
“Since the era of Indian indentureship, the narrative of the jealous Indo-Caribbean husband has been used to justify the brutalities of gender-based violence. In 1881, the Protector of Immigrants in Trinidad declared, “Chastity is almost unknown to the class of woman indentured from India to this colony.” Branding the indentured woman as sexually licentious set the stage for devaluing the life of an Indo-Caribbean woman and justifying the brutality of her murder. The “jealous” husband, the “crimes of passion,” and the proxy language of inevitability continues to perpetuate the mistreatment, abuse and murders of Indo-Caribbean while refusing to name its core: a pernicious cycle of victim blaming with culturally justifiable rape culture at its core.”
This relates to my great grandmother and I’m going to use the abuse and mistreatment following her several husbands through the decades of her life
Women Protesting the Manhattan District Attorney's Handling of Weinstein accusations.
Source: Holly Pickett for The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/opinion/columnists/weinstein-harassment-witchunt.html
My semester project is
about sexual assault in Hollywood and the message powerful men are teaching are
teaching young men and boys how to act around women. Following the Harvey
Weinstein accusations, the debate around sexual assault was revitalized. Several
prominent actresses have spoken out against him and have joined the
conversation to prevent this from happening again. Clearly it is an uphill
battle, since many of the media organizations are owned and operated with men
at the highest positions. Of course, sexual assault occurs in various career
fields but I choose to study it in Hollywood because it is a field of
importance to me because I am entering this field and as a woman this is an
issue that directly affects me. I wanted to look at several examples of the men
in Hollywood who have been accused of sexual assault and rape and try to
determine a motive. With this portion of the project I would rely on studies
that focus on gender roles and the harm they cause to young boys. My initial
reasoning is that it has something to do with the socialization of young boys
and how harmful the imposition of strict gender roles can be on them; in addition,
it is important to discuss the patriarchy and how it gives men more power and
privilege.
I would create a children’s
book (using Photoshop and Illustrator) directed at young boys, similar to a
choose your own adventure story, in which the young boy would be faced with
these sexual assault stories in the media and have a choice about what to do
with his own life. Would he let his parents, father figures, and/or peers
socialize him into thinking gender norms are acceptable and he as a man has all
the power. Or would he enlighten himself through diverse media forms and
feminist icons to challenge the patriarchy. This project would be take a lot of
time so the timeline I have in mind would be to create a page every week or so
and by the end of the semester I would have enough time to make revisions and
take in feedback from my peers. This storybook would be something I would
publish on Yumpu.com and share on my social media to spread the word about the
project. My reasoning for making this stems from the fact that sexual assault
is a prevalent issue in our society and won’t go away until people take action
whether it be through legislation acts that protect women in the workforce, or
having men use their privilege as a way to speak up about these issues.
What I find most common is getting unpleasant stares or comments directed my way. When I told one of my guy friends: “those men in the deli have been staring at me and my friend for the past five minutes that we were standing here,” the reply I received was “but aren’t you used to that?” Used to that? That’s exactly the issue. Why do I feel like I am getting undressed in their mind and I can do nothing about it but feel uncomfortable? “Yeah, I can’t relate, so I don’t know how that feels like,” says my male friend. Most men don’t. This is why I will put together a book that include short stories, alongside digital illustrations, explaining different scenarios of sexual harassment, bullying, and unfairness women face. I want to be able to put readers into the shoes of a woman and have them visualize what it may feel like to be female for a day. My inspiration came from a quote from Telyn Kusalik found in the book Gender Outlaws, "I am confident that if the man behind the counter had read me as a man, he wouldn't have said those things to me. And certainly, the vast majority of my friends who had been sexually harassed were also read as women or girls when they were harassed" (55). Therefore, I intend on writing short stories based on the unpleasant encounters other women and I have experienced to shine light on what is hidden away in media and what is (possibly) not being discussed between adults and teenage girls who may be beginning to experience this side of the world.
Using my Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign skills that I have learned from taking major related courses at Hunter, I will incorporate my own graphic designs into the book. I wanted the left page to be for illustrations related to the experience blurbs that would be on the placed on the right page. Thus, this fits into my line of work in graphics and I hope to use some of the pieces as potential portfolio pieces. I was planning on publishing the completed book on www.issuu.com; however, if I run into issues, I have a backup list of other sites that I could use. Possibly, if my book meets the requirements of Amazon Kindle direct publishing I will attempt to get it published on there as well. Since there is almost about a month left until the presentation date, I plan on creating a pair of pages per day. I also need to make sure to take out time for sketching, rough drafts, proofreading and creating the full document in InDesign.
To reiterate, I do have a lot of stories to tell and I plan on including a few told from friends’ perspective and even potentially my mom. My ideal message is to show other women and young girls that they are not alone and be able to give them a voice to speak up about their experiences. I intend on a male audience to read this in hopes that they could understand how their actions may affect us. I am not speaking for all women, nor am I directing this at all men. I am also not purposely excluding other genders or sexualities in this work; I will only include the perspective(s) that I have background in. The purpose of the book is to spread awareness of the issues by discussing mine and others’ personal experiences; thus, I am also not attempting to claim that my experiences are more important or worse by any means than another persons’. This project may grow to reach a larger audience and I hope to strengthen my graphic design skills and add the final product to my portfolio. Additionally, it would be interesting and beneficial to learn more about designing a book and its content. Overall, I do hope my stories could enlighten people on what a day in the life of a women is may be by demonstrating some scenarios women have to deal with on a daily basis.
Works Cited
Bornstein, Kate, et al. “Identity, Schmidentity.” Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Seal Press, 2010, p. 55.
Teen pregnancy is a socioeconomic issue dealt with mostly in developing countries. The rate of teen pregnancy is significantly lower throughout the developed world. However, teen pregnancy is still an important issue in United States, in particular. The United States, like other developed nations, attempts to minimize the rate of teen pregnancy by implementing school programs (health classes) to teach students about contraceptives. Despite the effort, the national rate of teen pregnancies remains high when it is compared to the rest of the developed world. Even though the United States is the wealthiest nation economically, in terms of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), it also has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the developed world. Based on my research, there's a fascinating negative correlation between teen pregnancy and educational attainment. However, do social backgrounds have an effect on the educational attainment of pregnant teenage girls? In this project, I will investigate the educational attainment of girls that get pregnant during their teenage years. Then, I will compare the educational attainment of girls from advantageous backgrounds that get pregnant as teenagers to that of girls from disadvantageous backgrounds.
Methodology
First, I will gather evidence from published research articles on teen pregnancy and its effect on the educational attainment of those teens. Second, I will interview a few former high school mates of mine who were pregnant during their teen years. I will ask them a series of questions and, then, I will compare the results I get to the data I will collect from the research articles.
I will ask them the following questions:
Was your pregnancy planned or not planned?
Did you drop out of high school? Did you graduate high school on time? Did you need extra time to graduate?
Did you attend college after high school? If not, explain why.
Are you planning on attending college at any point in your life? What type of degree are you planning to acquire? How far are you planning to pursue your education?
Relevance and Contribution
This topic is relevant to me because I attended a minority-based high school in which teen pregnancy was a common occurrence. Learning to what extent the academic goals of those girls were altered by their pregnancies is interesting to me. Also, it will contribute to the knowledge of my peers and the general public by introducing a new perspective on teen pregnancy and all the variables affecting it. I will create a presentation (in the form of a power point or a YouTube video) that can be accessed by anyone. It is important to understand why the wealthiest economy of the world has the highest rate of teen pregnancies among developed nations, and how it is affecting the educational attainment of girls from different socioeconomic backgrounds. In the end, I will suggest methods that the United States can use to decrease the rate of teen pregnancy across girls of different backgrounds.
Works Cited
Coyne, Claire A., and Brian M. D'onofrio. "Some (But Not Much) Progress Toward Understanding Teenage Childbearing." Advances in Child Development and Behavior 43 (2012): 113-52. Print.
Kearney, Melissa, and Phillip Levine. "Why Is the Teen Birth Rate in the United States So High and Why Does It Matter?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 26.2 (2012): 141-66. Print.
Kumazawa, Risa, and Michael Seeborg. "Teen Mothers and Their Educational Attainment: Some Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth." The Journal Of Economics22.1 (1996): 95-104. Print.
Singh, Susheela, Jacqueline E. Darroch, and Jennifer J. Frost. "Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Adolescent Women's Sexual and Reproductive Behavior: The Case of Five Developed Countries." Family Planning Perspectives 33.6 (2001). Print.
My final project will be about a woman whom I believe
every media and film student should learn about, Lois Weber.She was one of the very first female
directors in film and stood out for her willingness to tackle issues considered
taboo at the time.From showcasing the
horrors of child labor to nudity in the face of censorship, Lois Weber set the
framework for many future filmmakers to build upon.My project will highlight her career and
contributions to our artform.
What I plan on doing is a short documentary on Lois Weber
as opposed to a top ten list which is what I originally planned on doing.However, the more I thought about it, I
realized that the best way to honor her would be with a documentary.What I hope to achieve is to generate
interest from mainstream audiences to look up her work as some of her movies
are considered lost.Over half of all
films made before 1950 are considered lost as they were destroyed, degraded
beyond repair or simply have gone missing.Some of Lois Weber’s films have thankfully been restored and preserved.
I will be uploading the video on my personal YouTube page
under the title of my show, Big Rob’s
Classic Cinema.This video is my
tribute to a woman who thrived in a male dominated profession, even when this
profession was in its infancy.Lois
Weber paved the way for female filmmakers both in front of and behind the
camera to stand out and shine. I
encourage everyone who sees this to share on all of their social media accounts
to reach more people.
I decided to take a step away from consuming and commenting on media platforms to develop my own perspective. I have not actively used social media or contributed in any meaningful way in the past 2-3 years. Prior to this decision, I actively commented and posted on Facebook, Instagram and started my own blog, Women’s Empowerment. After taking this course, I realize I must be vocal and share my specific point of view. I plan to first further research and discuss the illusion of choice in media and the ever-present male gaze in our society. My finding will be posted to the class blog and I will put the link on my social media accounts.
My next objective is to post on my old blog and explain why I stopped posting. This may be in the form of a short blog post and a video. I will do this by the end of November. I’m not sure if I will continue posting on that blog or if I will rebrand myself and start an entirely new blog. I previously participated in the Miss America organization on the local level, and one of the requirements was developing a platform. My platform was Women’s Empowerment: Strengthing the Girl Within, and initially, that is why I started blogging. However, my current goal is for there to be a balance between my identity and my message to encourage others. My blog lacked personality. This time around, I will focus on my perspective and not spread a “universal message.” I realize as a Black female living in NYC I cannot speak to everyone’s experiences, just my own. So I would gladly appreciate suggestions for specific ideas for blog posts! J
Right now I’m considering blogging/vlogging on 3-5 different issues.
Fortunately, I still have a small audience that has not unfollowed my platform Facebook page so I will use this as a platform to promote the blog. I enjoy writing and encouraging others so starting up my blog again has always been on my list of things to do. But I have not been able to get to it. I’m confident making the blog my final project will ensure that this task finally gets checked off.
Why are advertisements so important? And what do our ads say about our collective understanding of gender and sexuality? These are the questions that can be answered when thinking about the readings we have done in the last few weeks. In a general and very brief way, we can say that advertisements and the media that is attached to it are important because of the messages that are being sent to the public as a whole. Which impacts how individuals see themselves, how they spend their money, and how they interact with others in the public sphere. Media and advertisements play a major role in socializing and projecting certain perspectives onto the public which then impacts how we see gender and sexuality.
When we look to see who chooses these perspectives we see that the large majority of individuals are White heterosexual males. These White heterosexual males have been dominating the media industry and have projected their narrative throughout various forms of media, whether that is TV, news, magazines, and ads. Although we may believe that times are changing, this change is not reflected in the media. If we look at the facts in June of 2016 Forbescurated a list of the 15 billionaires who owned the news media. The list included names such as Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Media, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp, Jeff Bezos of The Washington Post. All 15 of the billionaires are White heterosexual males who have the power to choose what content is shown to who. This same pattern is occurring in the upcoming wave of digital media. Digital media advertising is growing rapidly, an increase of 60 Billion dollars in revenues from the previous year (Pew Research Center). So, all forms of our media is being sent through and approved by this small group of individuals. This then limits our understanding of the world through the filter of these few people and their associates. This concept is explained in Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire. Where the author states “The cultural matrix through which gender identity has become intelligible requires that certain kinds of identities cannot exist- that is, those in which the practices of desire do not follow from either sex or gender. “Follow" in this context is a political relation of entailment instituted by the cultural laws that establish and regulate the shape and meaning of sexuality.” (Butler 24) The author explains how the way we see gender is limiting because there are more ways to see it but we are only shown one way and this creates a system that is regulated and much more difficult to break from. When we look at our advertisements we can see the objectification of the female body and this is done to prohibit female agency.
Google Images
If we look at ads we can note how the female is always portrayed through the male gaze even if the product that is being advertised is for women. In this ad for Miss Dior, Natalie Portman lies barely clothed in a provocative pose in order to elicit a wanting or desire to be like her. John Berger says it best when he states “The promise of the commercial is not just “You will have pleasure if you buy our product,” but also (and perhaps more important), “You will be happy because people will envy you if you have this product.”(Kilbourne 123). Women are bombarded with images of other women acting as only sexual beings this creates an understanding that the women’s worth is in her beauty as perceived by the male. So, women are being sent messages that they need to buy products in order to achieve a certain status above other women. This type of mind-frame when it comes to advertising is harmful for several reasons first it pits women against each other and secondly it creates an environment where we need to look a certain way to be accepted by society. In Hunger as Ideology, the author discusses how commercials regarding food can be harmful. She states the following, “In these commercials, food is constructed as a sexual object of desire, and eating is legitimated as much more than a purely nutritive activity. Rather, food is supposed to supply sensual delight and succor - not as metaphorically standing for something else but as an erotic experience in itself. Woman are permitted such gratification from food only in measured doses.” (Bordo 112). Further down on the same page the author gives us an example of how food is described in ads targeted for women i.e “ “Refreshing dip” into Weight Watchers linguini”. These messages allow for an environment where eating disorders are prevalent amongst all age groups. Kilbourne states that “Advertising images do not cause these problems, but they contribute to them by creating a climate in which the marketing of women's body - the sexual sell and dismemberment, distorted body image ideal and children as a sex object- is seen as acceptable.” (Kilbourne 125) Although advertisements may not play a direct role in the creation of eating disorders and other societal issues, I do believe that the presence of the white heterosexual male perspective creates a narrative that erases the diversity of the real world and invalidates these individuals from being. As media consumers, we should all try our best to be aware of the messages that advertisements and media companies are sending us.
As someone who thought they could spot promotional and sponsored content easily I was very shocked to find out some of my favorite media websites and influencers creating content that was sponsored. It was very interesting to see how interconnected media and ads are. The first form of media that I consume often is Youtube specifically beauty channels. The large beauty community on Youtube can advertise in various ways. They can create videos featuring products, mention products in hauls and makeup tutorials but the way we recognize these advertisements is through the affiliate links that are put in the description box.
One of the influencers that I often watch is Zoella. She had posted a PO Box Opening and within the description, there were 10 affiliate links. Which means that revenue made from these links were given to her and these 10 links were found in just one video. The second form of media that I consume often is the GoalCast page on Facebook. The GoalCast page creates short motivational videos that encourage their audience to accomplish their goals. So, when I looked through their page to see how they were advertising we see they have their own merchandise. They also promoted a MasterClass session with a motivational speaker. In the post, they had a short video of the said individual and offered a discount code for their audience. The third form of media that I follow is an Instagram account by the named of Dina Tokio. Dina is Hijabi fashion blogger whose Instagram consists of pictures of her outfits, travel snapshots, and her family. One of her Instagram posts was of the new Google Pixel.
Dina Tokio Instagram Post
In the caption, she states “Converted to #teampixel today & so far LAAVIN it! yupp those are my initials engraved on the back ThankYOU @google” So, we see that this was obviously given to her by Google and she was paid to promote it on her Instagram. Dina also shares outfit details by tagging brands on her posts. A news website that I visit often is CNN.com. When looking to see the advertisements we have to scroll all the way down and there is a section literally titled Paid Content, which consists of articles related to cars, insurance, and credit cards. My last example is the TNT channel where I watch Basketball games. The ads that are shown on this channel largely consist of cars, alcohol, and the official merchandise of the NBA.
We can see how drastically different the last two forms of media advertising. This shows us that with traditional media it is more likely for advertisers to project ideologies onto the audience. With this in mind, we can say ownership structure greatly influences what advertisements are being used and what content is being displayed. With traditional forms of media, there are a specific set of ads that target their audience. Meaning if the owner feels that his audience is male-dominated the ads that will be played will consist of cars, insurance, and credit cards as seen with CNN and TNT. However, with the rise of digital media there is a slight change although a few brands own the majority of these Social Media platforms there is an individual that has control over their niche content. Advertisers then have to reach out to these individuals and give general guidelines as to what they want to portray to their audience. I don’t know if the advertising industry will change its power dynamic I am hopeful that it does. But the only way I see it drastically changing is when more people of diversity are put in power.
Overall, we can say that advertising plays a major role in the development of our society. It impacts every individual on various levels and creates an environment that needs to be challenged in order to cater to the diverse audience that is present in modern-day America. Jac Vanek once said “You are the books you read, the films you watch, the people you meet, the dreams you have, the conversations you engage in. You are what you take from these...” This quote signifies the importance of our interaction with media and advertisements it leaves us to question how we will change our mentality and our media consumption in order to become the individuals we want to be.
Citations
Bordo, Susan. Unbearable weight feminism, Western culture, and the body. Univ. of California Press, 2013.
Butler, Judith. Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge, 2015.
Kilbourne, Jean. “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising .” pp. 123, 125.
Stocking, Galen. “Digital News Fact Sheet.” Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, 7 Aug. 2017, www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/digital-news/.
Vinton, Kate. “These 15 Billionaires Own America's News Media Companies.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 2 June 2016,
