The video called “Killing Us Softly” by jean Killborne was
interesting for me. However, what caught my interests was the view she put
together to portrait mostly women as decorative objects not human beings. In
her video she discussed one of the most important agents of socialization “The
Media”. The Media is taking over our lives that many of us cannot control it
because the roles played in it are bigger than us in general. Because this so called
Agent of socialization is so powerful that it is almost harming us without
knowing. Jean explained how women learn
the value of beauty at an early age by becoming beautiful at all cost. I mean many
of these women tend to think that beauty is all about being thin or white to
become attracted to the men around them. However, what she was more focused on
was the health problems surrounding this “Beauty” ideal. She also added that
among these women on either the advertisement or real life tend to lack of
self-esteem if they happen to fail to become beautiful as they portrait it
shiny or thin. Jean as well emphases that Men are mostly not judged by their
body images than women, because the stereotypes are different. The way men are
viewed in our society is different to how women are viewed. Further, jean goes
on to clarifying that these women may go through depression and eating
disorders as a result of becoming too thin to fit in the category of beauty. Being
said that she also claimed that the norms are been changed which is also
affecting the public health as beauty changing the environment.
I definitely I agree with Jean’s video and what she said in
the video about women being sexual seeing as objects rather than human beings.
I admit that the world has changed to the extents that every person wants to be
on the top which is impossible to me, because one can only be the best at a
certain time. Like in the article “Retro Wife” describes how women are nowadays
embarking on a journey of taking men’s position as the Bread Winner than men
typically do as society and culture demand. It’s also mentioned how women are
good when it comes to nurturing their kids than would men do, because there is
bound that connects a mother and a child biologically. However there are other
women too who do not care for their children due to several reasons, I
guess. Whereas there are good fathers
out there doing just fine as nurturing their kids than a mother would have done
it. So, in this case I think both parent can play a role in this particular
case. Moreover, I see all these in the sense of values, Beliefs, and norms
associated within our society.
this shows how some males are dominant over the others.
All of them almost have the same weight.
As I was reading the article “Parent’s Socialization of
children” I directly saw the category where own parents stand at. The article
presented three types of parenting, authoritative, permissive, and
authoritarian parenting. In my own view my parents are authoritarian parents.
The demand obedience from us and impose their rules that we should follow in
order to avoid punishment. However, my parents were applied this type of
parenthood because of our culture and the religion we practice. They expect us
to behave as well as one can imagine to avoiding breaking the norms. Even
though, my parents were little forcible but we the kids have benefited from it
because we respect our elders and have no issue with outsiders and even mood.
Although, it says that children of authoritarian parents tend to be fearful,
moody, aimless, unhappy, etc. However, this is not in our case. We are very
happy for the fact that our parents did enforce their power of parenting on us.
I must admit if they had not parented us in this manner many things would have
gone wrong in my family. This is why I am saying that parenting is associated
with religion and culture. We knew this was what our culture and the authority
in our religion expect our parents to raise us. Therefore, we didn’t question
it or objected it. As the article implied, society expect parents to take full
responsibilities to nurture their children.
I did enjoyed reading the articles and watching the
video. I found all these connected in
some way around to the chapter and the class discussions we have been doing
lately in class. It is true, that when we experience more things your identity
change as you move from one place to the next. Socialization is very crucial in
our life because we all have rite of passages that are unique for every
individual which also tend to shape our life based on the norms, beliefs, and
values. Women having their sense of self about beauty is alarming nowadays one
should love and appreciate what he/her has as a gift. Trying to objectify yourself
can lead a person into serious effects.
