The controversy surrounding abortion stems from the inability of the state to separate itself from the church. Abortion, the induced expulsion of a human fetus, draws forth activists from two opposing parties. Pro-life, a position in which abortion is strongly argued against, resists the actions of the pro-choice party, a position that argues for the legalization of abortion and the expansion of women's rights. Dissimilar to most topics debated in government, abortion weighs more heavily on our own ethical, moral and philosophical stand points.
Pro-life and pro-choice opinions are shamelessly displayed in the media and plastered upon once faceless billboards. This political debate certainly has its fair share of publicity. Pro-choice advertisements tend to focus on nationwide legalization of abortion and on the need for acceptance of the surgical procedure. Like so many other subjects debated in the stalemated battleground of politics, abortion is merely a personal matter that got swept up into the games of government. Misrepresentation of the bible and meddlesome people can be partly to blame. Seeing as how abortion can be traced back to ancient times, I can only conclude that the majority of this recent and high-powered debate can be linked to a sudden surge in advertisements fighting both for and against abortion.
The first picture is an anti-abortion cartoon displaying the grim reaper holding a baby with the words, “The Choice” spelled out threateningly in red blood. The baby is fully developed and appears to rest peacefully in the arms of death. The baby is unaware of the grim fate that awaits. While the ad doesn’t use words to disagree with abortion, the picture certainly does. Even the most liberal of people may feel a small twinge of guilt upon seeing a helpless and innocent baby being ripped from its womb and thrown directly into the hands of the infamous dark soul with the sickle filled hand. However, take away a woman’s right to abortion and prepare yourself to see resurgence in ads of a different disturbance. The hypothetical illegalization of abortion would lead to cartoons depicting the absence of civil rights in a so-called democracy, the grim poverty ridden futures waiting the babies of pregnant teenagers and images of rape victims forced to birth the spawn of their attacker.
The second ad displays a black baby curiously peering out into the eyes of our culture. The words spelled out across the top and bottom of the billboard read, "BLACK CHILDREN ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES. TOOMANYABORTED.COM.” This anti-abortion ad, sponsored by CBS, is a slap in the face to women and African Americans. The words. "endangered species" imply that the topic being discussed is animals. As seen in a myriad of other ads, African Americans are portrayed in animalistic poses and appearances. More often than are any other ethnicity, black people are portrayed in the uncivilized manner of animals. The last thing a minority group needs is to encourage the depiction of their race as part of the animal kingdom. Arguments against abortion stem from citizens not wanting their tax dollars to finance abortion procedures to the belief that life begins at the immediate fertilization of an egg instead of at birth. However, the public arguments against abortion are rarely based off of racial tension. Ridiculous arguments like these will not help the pro-life party to advance further in their endevors. However, the race issue is an interesting take in the ideals behind the actions of a pro-lifer.
Somewhere between the sanctity of life beginning at fertilization and the abortion of fetuses past the 6-month mark, I fall into that inevitable gray area of indecision. No one knows for certain when life begins just as sure as no one knows what takes place in the afterlife. The tax dollars going towards abortion turn the debate into a political quarrel. Pro-life and pro-choice feed of off the publicity surrounding them. Fighting for a cause is never as pure and righteous as it sounds. Violence, ignorance and egos so often get in the way and cloud the real problems at hand. Abortion has been hit hard with the smog of many activists who remain surprisingly uneducated on the matter of which they are so passionately fighting for.
From an early age, I was aware of who I was supposed to be. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to become that person. Even at the tender age of 8, both my parents encouraged me to wear make-up on my face, small heels on my feet, ruffled dresses on my body and glitter on any part of me left exposed. From this description, one might assume I resembled an 8-year-old prostitute or maybe one of those small pageant children that are forced to live out the fantasies of their parents who selfishly thrust them into a vicarious state of living.
My parents, both of them working as hairdressers, appreciate the aesthetics of everyday life. Instead of seeing my make-up and glitter as a superficial attempt to limit the boundaries of my already sparse terrain as a female, they saw it as a lifestyle that simply emphasized physical beauty. I don’t believe they had underlying motives to secure my being in this world as the submissive and self-conscious female American society so often tries to mold impressionable young women into. I believed this not out of ignorance but based on the fact that my parents were equally as accepting when I dressed my brother up as a girl and when I dressed myself up as a boy. While my parents are influenced by their work in an extremely superficial environment, they have given me as much of a leveled platform as possible in which to form my own opinions regarding womanhood and manhood.
Living in America, one might think that the most relatable and mesmerized human is the white working class male. This leaves all non-white working class males to fall into smaller subcategories. These subcategories are minorities and subject to unsubstantiated scrutiny. If you’re a man but of a different ethnicity, if you are white but a woman or if you are a white male but gay, you have something unchangeable working against you in this American culture. If you happen to be a homosexual woman of a different ethnicity living in America, it is crucial that you have tough skin and an arsenal of pre-concocted comebacks and defense mechanisms.
It’s no secret that men and women are biologically different. This biological difference alters the way we think, act, feel and look. The media as well as centuries worth of discrimination have destroyed any remaining similarities between men and women. Women in society are taught from a young age that the men do the physical labor and the women wash the dishes. Men are aggressive, confident and the master of their domain while women are passive, self-conscious and fall subject to the changes made by a man. In the science experiment of life, women are the dependant variable. These stereotypes have softened in the 21st century but not nearly enough.
For as long back as I can remember, I have worked to be considered an equal. I never settled for any stereotype thrown at me from men or women. Until about 5th grade I tried to match the physical strength of my male class mates and when I could not longer do that, I tried to match them in any other way possible. If a woman leads her life powerfully, aggressively and/or confidently, they risk being called a dyke, a bitch or misinformed of her duties as a woman.
Lost in a mangled timeline of events, I came to the epiphany that I could not escape some parts of my demeaning culture. Sunday night dinners at my grandmas always end the same way. The men sit in the living room to relax and watch TV. The women remain in the kitchen scraping half masticated food and cold leftover hunks of meat off their plates and into the garbage. No man at Sunday night dinner has ever asked us to clean a plate. sadly, they have never asked because they know they don’t have to.
America, it's not only the melting pot of the world because of its vast array of ethnicities, but also because of the myriad of social and economic groups that exist within it. The gap between rich and poor, straight and gay, moral and financial success seems to widen everyday, allowing innocent victims to fall helplessly into the crack. This crack serves as the evidence of America’s failing policies. In attempts to explore the mysteries of America’s growing list of differences, all of which the American people have created, I will be focusing on the wealthy. After all, they may be the most interesting,sought after and envied percentage of people in America.
To examine the differences between the rich and the poor and the ways in which these socioeconomic classes are represented in America, it is vital to know exactly what “rich” and “poor” mean to the American public. According to Gallup, the public’s median definition of “rich” is an income of over $120,000 per year or assets worth 1 million. To be considered poor, the provider of a family of four must make under $20,000 a year. Poverty has countless causes. Many of its causes also mirror its affects. Drug use, violence, gangs, cyclic behavior, poor education and overpopulation are some factors that serve as both the cause of poverty and the outcome.
Celebrities masquerade as the depiction of rich people in American culture. Unfortunately, this is not an accurate portrayal. Stereotypically, celebrities make up the minuscule percentage of a spoiled, lazy and dysfunctional populace living in America. The most well known celebrities are the ones that make the cover of “Star” magazine due to their shallowly lived existences fueled by the mental exhaustion of dealing with pet spas, personal shoppers and paparazzi. Basically, the term “rich” or “wealthy” surfaces images of celebrities. The most well known celebrities are the ones who are plastered upon magazine covers due to negative life decisions. Therefore, our idea of the rich goes hand in hand with the words famous and juvenile.
Many times celebrities are not as rich as they are portrayed. Lindsey Lohan is swimming in debt while the cast members of “Jackass” scour the streets of their previously abandoned hometowns for jobs that pay just above minimum wage. The hardworking and the truly talented are rarely seen on the covers of magazines or on sets of “reality” shows. They are underrated and unaccounted for. The American public views the rich as superficial and sees their fortune as a result of old money. The public often sees wealth as a product of success. Because our prespective of the rich is greatly ascew, so is our vision of success. in ordert o be successful, it is essential that an individual first must know the path.
Since the September of 2006, I have been trying to avoid the plague. The social pressures hounded me and provoked me until I was undermined of all my nonconformist efforts. October of 2009 I gave in and got a Facebook. I tried to fool others and myself by saying I didn’t want to lose touch with people in college and I needed a place to store my pictures. Though those excuses might have been partly true, I was aware that my true desire to join the 500 million others already addicted to the site was a general feeling of curiousity. Three months after I’d created a name and password, I lost interest. Logging on began to feel like part of a routine. I would find myself creeping like an outlaw from person to person until I knew every detail about someone's life before ever having met or talked to them. This stalker like behavior began to embody the internet version of island hopping. The whole concept was confusing and eerily disturbing. I decided to delete it.
Technology takes shape in different forms. Since the invention of the wheel, it has been apparent that the advancement of society relies heavily on the production and the use of technology. However, one must wonder what it is that Twitter and Facebook are trying to accomplish versus what they’re actually accomplishing. The Harvard grad and Facebook patienter, Mark Zuckerberg, wanted to use Facebook as a foundation on which to stress the importance of networking as a means of bonding and togetherness. I wouldn’t go as far as to say his plans backfired, but they certainly took an alternate route.
Facebook and Twitter are dangerous in that they increase the need for human dependence on one another. Members of Facebook update status after status looking for the feedback of their “friends.” Twitter, the most unnecessary investment of time spent on the Internet just behind porn, transforms our youth into a bunch of egotistical busybodies. The technology out there is persuading teenagers to think that people really care what they’re doing on a Wednesday afternoon. The root of these social networking pages are attention and nosiness. while dependence on one another is inevitable and even healthy, it is reaching a level filled with abnormalities in which members of facebook rely on eachother for attention instead of support.
Whether you do or do not have a Facebook says nothing about you as a person. What you do with your Facebook is what tells all. Looking for friends to constantly comment and care about what you do and what you think on a day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour, basis is insanity. Our ability to live independently without the constant support and attention of peers, who many times are not even close friends, threatens our ability to function as a uniquely configured entity. Elizebeth Cohen, journalist for CNN references Facebook addiction by stating, "More and more people have crossed the line from social networking to social dysfunction." Paula Pile, a therapist interviewed by Cohen, voices her opinions on the matter saying, "It has turned into a compulsion. A compulsion to dissociate from yourself from the real world and go live in the Facebook world."
The advancement of technology is inevitable and it is highly in favor of society as well as myself. It is the ways in which these technologies are handled that leaves me asking what lies in store for the dependability of ourselves as well as those around us.
READING AND RE-READING AMERICA.
THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE OF ABORTION IN AMERICA.
The controversy surrounding abortion stems from the inability of the state to separate itself from the church. Abortion, the induced expulsion of a human fetus, draws forth activists from two opposing parties. Pro-life, a position in which abortion is strongly argued against, resists the actions of the pro-choice party, a position that argues for the legalization of abortion and the expansion of women's rights. Dissimilar to most topics debated in government, abortion weighs more heavily on our own ethical, moral and philosophical stand points.
Pro-life and pro-choice opinions are shamelessly displayed in the media and plastered upon once faceless billboards. This political debate certainly has its fair share of publicity. Pro-choice advertisements tend to focus on nationwide legalization of abortion and on the need for acceptance of the surgical procedure. Like so many other subjects debated in the stalemated battleground of politics, abortion is merely a personal matter that got swept up into the games of government. Misrepresentation of the bible and meddlesome people can be partly to blame. Seeing as how abortion can be traced back to ancient times, I can only conclude that the majority of this recent and high-powered debate can be linked to a sudden surge in advertisements fighting both for and against abortion.
The first picture is an anti-abortion cartoon displaying the grim reaper holding a baby with the words, “The Choice” spelled out threateningly in red blood. The baby is fully developed and appears to rest peacefully in the arms of death. The baby is unaware of the grim fate that awaits. While the ad doesn’t use words to disagree with abortion, the picture certainly does. Even the most liberal of people may feel a small twinge of guilt upon seeing a helpless and innocent baby being ripped from its womb and thrown directly into the hands of the infamous dark soul with the sickle filled hand. However, take away a woman’s right to abortion and prepare yourself to see resurgence in ads of a different disturbance. The hypothetical illegalization of abortion would lead to cartoons depicting the absence of civil rights in a so-called democracy, the grim poverty ridden futures waiting the babies of pregnant teenagers and images of rape victims forced to birth the spawn of their attacker.
The second ad displays a black baby curiously peering out into the eyes of our culture. The words spelled out across the top and bottom of the billboard read, "BLACK CHILDREN ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES. TOOMANYABORTED.COM.” This anti-abortion ad, sponsored by CBS, is a slap in the face to women and African Americans. The words. "endangered species" imply that the topic being discussed is animals. As seen in a myriad of other ads, African Americans are portrayed in animalistic poses and appearances. More often than are any other ethnicity, black people are portrayed in the uncivilized manner of animals. The last thing a minority group needs is to encourage the depiction of their race as part of the animal kingdom. Arguments against abortion stem from citizens not wanting their tax dollars to finance abortion procedures to the belief that life begins at the immediate fertilization of an egg instead of at birth. However, the public arguments against abortion are rarely based off of racial tension. Ridiculous arguments like these will not help the pro-life party to advance further in their endevors. However, the race issue is an interesting take in the ideals behind the actions of a pro-lifer.
Somewhere between the sanctity of life beginning at fertilization and the abortion of fetuses past the 6-month mark, I fall into that inevitable gray area of indecision. No one knows for certain when life begins just as sure as no one knows what takes place in the afterlife. The tax dollars going towards abortion turn the debate into a political quarrel. Pro-life and pro-choice feed of off the publicity surrounding them. Fighting for a cause is never as pure and righteous as it sounds. Violence, ignorance and egos so often get in the way and cloud the real problems at hand. Abortion has been hit hard with the smog of many activists who remain surprisingly uneducated on the matter of which they are so passionately fighting for.
For more on the issues of anti abortion, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/style/surprise-mom-i-m-against-abortion.html.
GROWING UP MALE/FEMALE IN AMERICA
From an early age, I was aware of who I was supposed to be. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to become that person. Even at the tender age of 8, both my parents encouraged me to wear make-up on my face, small heels on my feet, ruffled dresses on my body and glitter on any part of me left exposed. From this description, one might assume I resembled an 8-year-old prostitute or maybe one of those small pageant children that are forced to live out the fantasies of their parents who selfishly thrust them into a vicarious state of living.
My parents, both of them working as hairdressers, appreciate the aesthetics of everyday life. Instead of seeing my make-up and glitter as a superficial attempt to limit the boundaries of my already sparse terrain as a female, they saw it as a lifestyle that simply emphasized physical beauty. I don’t believe they had underlying motives to secure my being in this world as the submissive and self-conscious female American society so often tries to mold impressionable young women into. I believed this not out of ignorance but based on the fact that my parents were equally as accepting when I dressed my brother up as a girl and when I dressed myself up as a boy. While my parents are influenced by their work in an extremely superficial environment, they have given me as much of a leveled platform as possible in which to form my own opinions regarding womanhood and manhood.
Living in America, one might think that the most relatable and mesmerized human is the white working class male. This leaves all non-white working class males to fall into smaller subcategories. These subcategories are minorities and subject to unsubstantiated scrutiny. If you’re a man but of a different ethnicity, if you are white but a woman or if you are a white male but gay, you have something unchangeable working against you in this American culture. If you happen to be a homosexual woman of a different ethnicity living in America, it is crucial that you have tough skin and an arsenal of pre-concocted comebacks and defense mechanisms.
It’s no secret that men and women are biologically different. This biological difference alters the way we think, act, feel and look. The media as well as centuries worth of discrimination have destroyed any remaining similarities between men and women. Women in society are taught from a young age that the men do the physical labor and the women wash the dishes. Men are aggressive, confident and the master of their domain while women are passive, self-conscious and fall subject to the changes made by a man. In the science experiment of life, women are the dependant variable. These stereotypes have softened in the 21st century but not nearly enough.
For as long back as I can remember, I have worked to be considered an equal. I never settled for any stereotype thrown at me from men or women. Until about 5th grade I tried to match the physical strength of my male class mates and when I could not longer do that, I tried to match them in any other way possible. If a woman leads her life powerfully, aggressively and/or confidently, they risk being called a dyke, a bitch or misinformed of her duties as a woman.
Lost in a mangled timeline of events, I came to the epiphany that I could not escape some parts of my demeaning culture. Sunday night dinners at my grandmas always end the same way. The men sit in the living room to relax and watch TV. The women remain in the kitchen scraping half masticated food and cold leftover hunks of meat off their plates and into the garbage. No man at Sunday night dinner has ever asked us to clean a plate. sadly, they have never asked because they know they don’t have to.
To learn mor on the topic of sexism in the family, please visit http://library.adoption.com/articles/sexism-in-the-family-.html.
REPRESENTATION OF DIFFERENCE.
America, it's not only the melting pot of the world because of its vast array of ethnicities, but also because of the myriad of social and economic groups that exist within it. The gap between rich and poor, straight and gay, moral and financial success seems to widen everyday, allowing innocent victims to fall helplessly into the crack. This crack serves as the evidence of America’s failing policies. In attempts to explore the mysteries of America’s growing list of differences, all of which the American people have created, I will be focusing on the wealthy. After all, they may be the most interesting,sought after and envied percentage of people in America.
To examine the differences between the rich and the poor and the ways in which these socioeconomic classes are represented in America, it is vital to know exactly what “rich” and “poor” mean to the American public. According to Gallup, the public’s median definition of “rich” is an income of over $120,000 per year or assets worth 1 million. To be considered poor, the provider of a family of four must make under $20,000 a year. Poverty has countless causes. Many of its causes also mirror its affects. Drug use, violence, gangs, cyclic behavior, poor education and overpopulation are some factors that serve as both the cause of poverty and the outcome.
Celebrities masquerade as the depiction of rich people in American culture. Unfortunately, this is not an accurate portrayal. Stereotypically, celebrities make up the minuscule percentage of a spoiled, lazy and dysfunctional populace living in America. The most well known celebrities are the ones that make the cover of “Star” magazine due to their shallowly lived existences fueled by the mental exhaustion of dealing with pet spas, personal shoppers and paparazzi. Basically, the term “rich” or “wealthy” surfaces images of celebrities. The most well known celebrities are the ones who are plastered upon magazine covers due to negative life decisions. Therefore, our idea of the rich goes hand in hand with the words famous and juvenile.
Many times celebrities are not as rich as they are portrayed. Lindsey Lohan is swimming in debt while the cast members of “Jackass” scour the streets of their previously abandoned hometowns for jobs that pay just above minimum wage. The hardworking and the truly talented are rarely seen on the covers of magazines or on sets of “reality” shows. They are underrated and unaccounted for. The American public views the rich as superficial and sees their fortune as a result of old money. The public often sees wealth as a product of success. Because our prespective of the rich is greatly ascew, so is our vision of success. in ordert o be successful, it is essential that an individual first must know the path.
for more on the topic of Lindsey Lohan's increasing debt, please visit http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2010/04/lindsay-lohan-debt-and-dr-drews-idea-to-make-it-better.html.
AMERICA'S ADDICTION TO TECHNOLOGY.Since the September of 2006, I have been trying to avoid the plague. The social pressures hounded me and provoked me until I was undermined of all my nonconformist efforts. October of 2009 I gave in and got a Facebook. I tried to fool others and myself by saying I didn’t want to lose touch with people in college and I needed a place to store my pictures. Though those excuses might have been partly true, I was aware that my true desire to join the 500 million others already addicted to the site was a general feeling of curiousity. Three months after I’d created a name and password, I lost interest. Logging on began to feel like part of a routine. I would find myself creeping like an outlaw from person to person until I knew every detail about someone's life before ever having met or talked to them. This stalker like behavior began to embody the internet version of island hopping. The whole concept was confusing and eerily disturbing. I decided to delete it.
Technology takes shape in different forms. Since the invention of the wheel, it has been apparent that the advancement of society relies heavily on the production and the use of technology. However, one must wonder what it is that Twitter and Facebook are trying to accomplish versus what they’re actually accomplishing. The Harvard grad and Facebook patienter, Mark Zuckerberg, wanted to use Facebook as a foundation on which to stress the importance of networking as a means of bonding and togetherness. I wouldn’t go as far as to say his plans backfired, but they certainly took an alternate route.
Facebook and Twitter are dangerous in that they increase the need for human dependence on one another. Members of Facebook update status after status looking for the feedback of their “friends.” Twitter, the most unnecessary investment of time spent on the Internet just behind porn, transforms our youth into a bunch of egotistical busybodies. The technology out there is persuading teenagers to think that people really care what they’re doing on a Wednesday afternoon. The root of these social networking pages are attention and nosiness. while dependence on one another is inevitable and even healthy, it is reaching a level filled with abnormalities in which members of facebook rely on eachother for attention instead of support.
Whether you do or do not have a Facebook says nothing about you as a person. What you do with your Facebook is what tells all. Looking for friends to constantly comment and care about what you do and what you think on a day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour, basis is insanity. Our ability to live independently without the constant support and attention of peers, who many times are not even close friends, threatens our ability to function as a uniquely configured entity. Elizebeth Cohen, journalist for CNN references Facebook addiction by stating, "More and more people have crossed the line from social networking to social dysfunction." Paula Pile, a therapist interviewed by Cohen, voices her opinions on the matter saying, "It has turned into a compulsion. A compulsion to dissociate from yourself from the real world and go live in the Facebook world."
The advancement of technology is inevitable and it is highly in favor of society as well as myself. It is the ways in which these technologies are handled that leaves me asking what lies in store for the dependability of ourselves as well as those around us.
For more on this topic, please visit http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/23/ep.facebook.addict/index.html.