Teaching the Conflicts

Teaching the Conflicts - By Love & Helmbrecht
Connection Post



Before I even started reading this work I immediately recognized the lyrics so I googled them. Upon doing so, I looked up the youtube video for Pink's "Stupid Girls" video, and was taken back. This whole video was exactly what Orenstein was talking about, with gender roles in children. Throughout the whole video, "good" and "bad" Pink are trying to convice a little girl to be overtly feminine like everyone else or be herself. It's about the Tomboy in a sense vs. the Girly Girl. In the end, she chooses the football over barbie dolls, but that was just the first glance at the paper, then I started reading.


They begin speaking about the different waves of feminism. In this is where I thought I found the "conflict". Each wave was a dofferent set of women, working in different ways. The article also talks about the fact that there are 57% of college students are Women. She also says that women who work full time jobs, are only said to earn 77% of what men in the same position earn.  But then is when she brought up the true "conflict".  "We want students to know the difference between feeling empowered... and being empowered" (47), this quote stood out to me alot. This brought about the thoughts of feminism, and how being a feminist doesn't mean you hate men, you just want equality for all. She continues to talk about how "grandmothers" have mixed views on feminism because they have negative views towards feminist icons. Well if your a feminist, and your family and ancestor is opposed to it, then it's kind of like not knowing how to accept yourself. I learned about my culture from my grandmother, and if she didn't like what I belived in then I feel like my whole culture was against what I believed in. This brings me back to Gloria Anzaldua. Her work was about not knowing who you are, and believing in just being yourself. Anzaldua wanted everyone to just be themselves, and be open minded to all.


Another good point that is brought up in this work had to do with consumerism. Consumerism is a disease that engulfs the nation, and was a major point in Orenstein's work "Cinderella Ate My Daughter". Media and pop culture are teaching not only our childen, but all of us in general that consumerism is a good thing. "Gender Politics have become conflated with consumerism" (Page 52) this quote was exactly the point Orenstein made. Gener roles and consumerism walk hand in hand corrupting the minds of our children to brainwash them into thinking they should be a certain way other than themselves.

Lastly I would like to end this post with the feeling empowered and being empowered note. Popculture can portray empowerment and make women and men feel empowered, but it isn't changing anything to the point of making equality for all. I look at it like a bistander and an ally. An ally might go out and participate in activism. A bistander might buy a feminist magazine once in a while. This work related mostly to Orenstein with the ideas of gender roles and consumerism. However, it also relates to Anzaldua and Ayvazian in the idea that you should just be yourself, be open to all, and be an ally not a bystander who falls into consumerism. I agree with this text, I thought it was very interesting.