#12 "Reflect on Peer Review"

For my peer review, I received a constructed series of questions and answers, along with a letter regarding my paper.  They were helpful in a sense that the editor picked out several sentences were that were hard to read.  They were also insightful as to what points I should really emphasize and talk about more.  Both editors said that I need to strengthen my transition sentences.  I struggled with this in my previous essay.  

 

#10 "Conducting an Interview"

For my research essay, there is a variety of people who I could potentially interview.  Because I am discussing an issue dealing with communication, business, corporate America, grades, emotional intelligence, ect, this gives me pretty open leeway on who to interview.  In my paragraph about Facebook being a productivity killer, I discuss how grades are decreasing due to consistent use of Facebook, how people are choosing jobs that allow internet access to use Facebook, and how Facebook use is causing companies to loose millions.  I can interview guidence counselors, teachers, professionals in admissions or even parents for information about academia.  

In the section about communication, I discuss how people interact with each other and how Facebook is challenging people's psychology.  I can interview professionals in psychology and use the guidance counselor again and overlap his or her knowledge/opinion.  

The paragraph about putting negative material on Facebook can pretty much include anyone.  Since my paper speaks directly to getting a job, the most likely person to interview here would be someone in corporate America.  I have contacted someone from P&G, however they have responded and said they are unsure if they can help me.  They have graciously given me contacts of a guidance counselor who does in fact deal with Facebook issues, so hopefully this goes well.  

#5 Response to Brain Candy and peer edit

Gladwell's "Brain Candy" was well written and effectively talks about Steven Johnson's proposal.  It shocked me that the average IQ is increasing 3 points per decade.  I appreciated the in depth exploration of why this could be.  I agree for the most part with all of Gladwell's points.  I agree that video games are innovative and exercise the brain in ways that reading a book cannot.  Many of the computer games I played as a younger teenager involved strict problem solving and as the mystery game progresses, the greater of the story being told and worked through is revealed.  I agree with Gladwell's opinion that video games cannot replace the importance of actually reading a book.  Part of the language downfall with younger people now is the lack of reading.  Constant online chatting, or "web talk," texting, and ways of talking faster and using as few words as possible has evolved the language of the 90's generation and up.

However, I disagree with the idea that reading books teach children to be passive and feel trapped in a world that they have no control over.  That is like stopping story telling, which is one of the most beautiful things passed down to us from even before humans developed language.  Everything in life is a story.  History is a story.  Video games can not override books and language.  Especially because the video games being marketed to preteens and teens contain explicit and mature material.  I disagree with Johnson's statement claiming that reading encourages children to be isolated.  Yes, video games are interactive ways for multiple people to play and socialize together, but every time I played my games, because I am an only child, I played them alone.  

The peer edit was not useful to me.  I got no real negative feedback, nor positive feedback.  I found that Gladwell's setup of "Brain Candy" was effective.  It was impressive to see how he showed both counteracting sides equally, however he still made his point and made it with persuasion.  

Other sources I may want to look into is actually interview Women's Studies majors myself, or watch documentaries of the psychology behind the topics I'm discussing.

#3 Outside of class: Argument chart

Viewpoint:  Raunch culture not only stands as an ambassador of objectifying women, but encourages women to objectify themselves for societies acceptance.

Support:  There is unrelenting raunchy material in every advertisement, in entertainment, and product.

  Excessive increase in plastic surgery from 1997 to 2007.

  Booming sex industry.  Women support and work for companies like GGW and Playboy.  

  Many examples of women pointing out sexual things such as Katie Curic announcing her breast look great and that they are real on the Tonight Show.

  Woman exposing themselves for a brand (GGW) as opposed to being compensated for footage the company is

making a killer off of.

   Women wearing symbols and icons of raunch such as Playboy.  (This associates women with the brand)

   Women using "slut" and "whore" in their friendly vocabulary towards each other--this only makes it ok to label 

women with these names

Other View Points:      Stripping and Pole dancing is liberating and empowering

Women feel that it is their rite to express their sexuality the way they wish (they way they do it suggests 

whether or not it is objectifying women as a whole)

"This is what our feminists fought for."  (The women who burned their bras fought for equality.  I dont see 

men running around naked arguing that it shows equality.)

It is up to one's moral whether or not to let Raunch Culture affect them.  (If one women chooses to pose  nude or simulate masturbation, it is her choice but as soon as the footage is published, that one  woman has represented women holistically.  What men see becomes the epitome of what they expect and want, and with more and more women succumbing to the stereotypes of what our culture says is "sexy," it is a challenge not to fall astray to RC.  These ads and entertainment are exceptionally targeted at young teenagers  and preteens.  Many of these girls find themselves yielding to the overpowering pressure to look like these women associated with sexy.   There is an overwhelming desire to be beautiful and desired, therefore, if men are responding positively to the girl's actions on girls gone wild, women are going to see this and associate these raunchy acts with acceptance and approval.  Here is where girls and women give up on developing their own sense of what beautiful is, and focus on what is expected of them.  Women compare themselves to other women because it is the only self accurate measurement of how attractive they are.  Comparing body to body, face to face, object to object. 

#4 Response to "Most Likely to Succeed" and essay topic

In Gladwell's "Most Likely to Succeed," I found the way he set up his argument was very effective.  Although it was risky, I enjoyed how he proved his point about the questionable ways teachers are hired with Dan Shonka's first hand experience of scouting and selecting players for the NFL.  That was his strongest research point because strategies are different from a college game to an NFL game, or a student teacher atmosphere to the real thing.  This makes a great deal of sense to me.  Honestly, what do a whole bunch of names beginning with Dr. or lists of numbers that will never be remembered do for the common day person reading this?  I care about real life facts and facts that do relate to what I understand and what I deal with.  It allows Gladwell's message to hit home and mean something.  It was interesting to see what a group of professionals in the education field had to say about the class recording of a normal teaching environment.  You would not normally think that teaching seven year olds required quick strategical thinking, like throwing a ball "through a broken spread" with little reaction time.  It almost has to become instinctual.  Gladwell's statement, "what does it say about a society that it devotes more care and patience to the selection of those who handle its money than of those who handle its children," put a smile to my face. 

"Raunch Culture and the End of Feminism"   My take on following Raunch Culture in order to appease society.

Raunch Culture is the current deflection of changed values and the cultural and social acceptance of sex and pornography.  It has emerged from the feminist movements and many many women claim it to be liberating.  "Sexualized Culture," another word for Raunch Culture, effectively views pole-dancing and stripping for men as a means of liberation, sexual expressiveness, and empowerment.  Real feminist view Raunch Culture as an end mark to feminism (women's movement that demands equality to men politically, socially, culturally and sexually).  The debates surrounding the rise of RC focus on increased accessibility of the sex industry, openness of crude sexuality, and the immensely profitable industry of sex.  Many women who strip, pole dance, or flash excessively defend their reasons for engaging themselves in these acts on the premise that it is empowering to show your body to the world (by world they mean primarily the eyes of men -Girls Gone Wild films prime example of soft core pornography) and being comfortable with the act and expressing their sexuality.  Others argue it is a social and fun engagement, or strictly fitness prone.  The rise of RC is a "dangerous blur of empowerment."  Stripping on a pole for the male gratification is merely masculanised empowerment and not self empowerment or expression of female sexuality.  It is objectification and stands only as commodities consumed by men.  Women who wear the playboy bunny symbol or engage in casual sex disgrace the ideals behind feminism.  When feminism started in the early 60's, it was an up-roaring cry for change and equality.  Many movements were born and fought to "take it to the man."  Play Boy was created originally to break tradition.  Hugh Hefner wanted to give people something new, however his brand and new take influenced the new social standards which is sexuality.  His brand is everywhere and that is your first clue as to what our culture is now.  Raunch.  Wall Street journal puts it as “How did feminists end up in bed with (Playboy boss) Hugh Hefner?” Hugh Hefner is as famous as JFK.

#3 Inclass: Ideals behind raunch culture

Opening idea:  Concept of watching flipping through channels and finding long lost shows of the 90's.  I loved watching these shows so now it has become a hobby of mine to find these shows.  (Full house, Family Matters, Dinasours, Rosanne, Step by Step, sister sister, ect.)  The TV shows i grew up with centered around moralistic values and imporance of family.  Now these shows are looked on as cheesy and in their place stands TV shows like Girls Gone Wild, The Real World, Pussycat Dolls Present: Search for the Next Doll, The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman, America's Next Top Model, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, and The Girls Next Door, Stepford wives, ect.  All of these are shows where women (mostly refered to as girls) compete for the approval of the men on these shows.  It is focuse solely on their bodies, sexulity, ect.  Its funny that I will be watching Home improvement on an ABC channel and then one channel up from it is an add for girls gone wild and soft core pornography.  

There are so many debatable issues i can use.  There is the idea that raunch culture is spread by the media, it is continuing because of women's lack of respect for themselves (why is this?), you can debate whether or not it should be accepted, you can debate how the acceptance of this free trend affects people my age, etc.  This topic is so rich in content and personal opinion that I could continue pages of solid debatable topics.  Some of the quick research topics I found were statistics on how many women would offer themselves freely to shows such as girls gone wild claiming it is the ultimate way of women's liberation.  One girl interviewed by philosopher Ariel Levy responds to the question of "why would anyone want to be in GGW?" with "The only way I could see someone not doing this is if they were planning a career in politics."  This girl got naked for a cheap blue hat.  Liberation and empowerment is about equality.  If all things were equal between men and women, would women necessarily still want to be stripping away their clothes for the soiled pieces of paper shoved down their G-string or thrown at them by men who more than likely are married?

#2 Response to "The Talent Myth" by Malcolm Gladwell

I was significantly disturbed by the Enron hierarchy star system discussed in the reading.  Going into the reading prior to discussion, I was already somewhat biased on corporate America and how people are employed and kept in the system.  I feel that if a department is only putting out mediocre work and performance, that employees should not be let go or it be assumed that the lack of IQ has anything to do with it.  In my career field, IQ and book smarts has nothing to do with whether or not you get a job.  In Industrial Design, you are hired solely upon your portfolio, communication skills, and personality.  DAAP (School of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning) is a top level school which has very high acceptance standards, in other words it was required to be top 15 percent of the graduating class, exceptionally high SAT & ACT scores, and a rich resume of each individual accepted into the program.  In high school I was an award winning artist and very good at what I did.  Had I not spent a year in Fine Art with nothing less than a 3.8 grade point average all year plus several impressive awards after graduation, I probably would not have been accepted into my major currently.  My portfolio was impressive and I just barely fell under a 3.5 in high school.  So you're probably thinking that I am contradicting myself, where I originally said I don't agree with the performance corresponding with scholastics, then I attend a high performance school and emphasize the importance of grades, however I am not.  After acceptance into Industrial Design, grades no longer matter.  Only your developed portfolio holds the weight.  The reason DAAP filters out the less impressive GPA is because most jobs and businesses correlate good grades with good work performance.  According to Malcolm Gladwell, Enron expressed this same connection.  However, DAAP uses it as a test to see whether or not someone can handle the amount of work load. This is where I found the article uncomfortable.  Enron consistently gave raises and praise to those who had the top education or documented intelligence.  They referred to this as "talent" yet grades are only learned and acquired through one's own sense of studying, or shear fact of natural intelligence.  

I believe that grades show commitment to your learning or profession.  But in a business environment, people should be focusing on what they are good at, their real talents rather than world wide intelligence to keep their position.  In many fields of business people are required to constantly be learning new things, things that are relevant to that field.  People should always have a craving to learn as much as possible, but it should not be to impress "the man."  As a human being, we should have the opportunity to do what we do best everyday.  How are we going to figure that out if we are under constant pressure to advance our education in any or every field just to keep a job?  All to often natural talents go unnoticed or discovered.  Businesses and companies are all to focused on fixing their shortcomings and developing the strength of the name of the business.  These are all key elements to success, however one cannot expect the company to flourish if only the A group is acknowledged for their intellectual success.  According to Gladwell, this was Enron's own personal road to failure.  

A company should be a community of communication, responsibility, and an interaction of healthy idea sharing and networking.  Not this segregated A group B group C group nonsense.  It does not take a scientist or a person with an outstanding IQ to figure out why the companies who followed this system failed.

A couple ideas I am throwing around for the Classical Argument assignment go as follows:  Ideas behind the American teenager and issues concerning thier lack of moralistic values, loss of religious values, mannerism, cliques, and so forth,  the whole genre of understanding racism, understanding human sexuality, the question of is it learned or inherently natural, the media and how it affects the American Teenager (facebook, advancing technology, role models), thoughts on pornography and how it relates to the dominance of men across the globe (women on girls gone wild claim it liberating like the women of 60's burning bras when I question the ideals behind that statement, these women are not gaining any liberation or even compensation from performing nude on GGW, the feminists of the 60's burned their bras to gain equality with men in work rights and constitutional rights.  Performing in soft core pornography is not exuding confidence in equality in sexuality with men.  Is there a Boys Gone Wild?  If so I would like to be informed about it.  Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy).