Blog #5

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Last week we were given a presentation about outlines. Julian went over the basic steps on creating an outline and even showed an example using someone’s topic idea. I think it was a good reminder of how to format our essays. The thing that I found useful were the pointers we were given on how to include a counter argument in our introduction. But i had a question about counter arguments in the body paragraph. Can i place a counter argument after presenting a topic? I had forgotten about how much better essays turn out to be when using an outline, but maybe that is the best way to get a paper done. Last week’s class was fun. We were all divided into groups and we all had to do an activity on what it was like to have a certain type of disability. Each experience was different but at the end of the day having to use a wheelchair or any other kind of walking aid was the one that was most challenging for me. Like I mentioned in class to me it felt like being in a wheelchair might cause someone to become more aware on their space to know that they have not come across a situation that might affect their mobility. I feel that sometimes people tend to take mobility for granted, and when we are exposed to someone who does not have the privilege we usually get stuck not knowing what to do. On the other hand, I think people with disabilities should try to change the way they perceive others when someone is offering help. If they get offended once, the person might not want to help someone who needs help again. It’s a cycle that should be broken. I feel that it would be a good thing if people with disabilities spoke up to tell the communities and even the government about how we can help them achieve their full potentials.

This week’s reading focused on gender inequalities in the U.S. In the article lipstick and lab coats, were given insight to the discrimination that females face when pursuing a degree in science. Some of the women in this study talked about some examples of how men are still not used to seeing women in the STEM field. The lack of knowledge leads to making the women feel like they have to adjust their behaviors to not offend anyone who was not pursuing the same major. This was coined as “playing down”. In the article “Beyond a Binary: The Lives of Gender- Nonconforming Youth” we are presented with a notion about youth who do not identify themselves as part of a certain category when used to describe their gender orientations. These people become targets to society norms because they are not viewed as accepted. People who identified as queer, gay, lesbians, and bisexuals sometimes transformed themselves completely into the body they felt most comfortable with. After having been harassed and attacked by others they became transgender and it made them feel good because they were finally able to be accepted for who they truly were on the inside. Gender stereotyping huts many not just some. For both females and the LGBT communities, it is difficult to try and break the stereotypes but it is not impossible. Maybe one day in the near future women will finally be able to break that glass ceiling and the LGBT be acknowledged for their individuality.

Episode 4

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On the fourth episode we come back with the result that John has been voted off the Island. People in the opposite tribe seem happy and surprisingly his girlfriend mentions that she is fine. If we go back to the text it explains how gender roles have a big part in how you deal with conflict and the different in male and female in reacting to it. In this case it was a female, Julie, meaning that they are more likely to avoid conflict. She spoke peacefully in how she had to focus on her two feet and be with her tribe.

In the next challenge presented to them John goes against his girlfriend and wins the challenge sending her to exile accompanied by Drew. Being in exile Drew finds his inner competitiveness and promises himself to do what it takes in his mind to win the game and throws the next challenge on purpose. He feels as if hes the leader and that his manipulations will help him to reach the top.

Once everyone is back together the girls notice that the boys are in complete confusion of who to vote in, the girls in a way see it as a chance to show that they can possibly change the game by getting rid of a male whose negative towards the team. This shows gender, the girls being underdogs in a way, slowly making a play that can help them out in the long run. Voting comes up and they manage to get Drew voted off the Island, giving the girls a victory.

 

 

 

Blog#6

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I wasn’t able to make it to class last Friday because of a knee surgery I had two days prior to that class. My surgery went better than expected, as I did not have to have the major ligament   reconstruction as the doctor had expected to do.  I still had a major meniscus repair and something about a bone chip. I’ll know more at my appointment with him next week. From reading the other blogs, it sounds like I missed some interesting classroom activities. Maybe I can get Julian’s outline tips  during his office hours, as he has already offered to look at some of my essays I have been writing, and struggling with, for another class. I’m really missing my stem courses! Although this class is pretty cool. The activities I missed regarding some of the obstacles disabled people have to overcome would have been given me some additional appreciation for our disabled brothers and sisters. I already have the utmost respect for disabled and handicapped people. I have no idea what it is like to navigate through life without something such as eyesight, hearing, use of legs, or mental issues such as dyslexia, and the hundreds of other physical and mental disabilities that we are all susceptible to. I think I can speak for a lot of people that we often take our health for granted. It was nice to read about the disability act of 1990 and that the department of education in Washington D.C. is implementing programs to make it easier for the disabled population to feel welcome in our schools.

Lipstick and labcoats was an interesting read for me. As I mentioned in the first part of my blog, I prefer science and math classes over most other types. I have taken many STEM type of classes over the years and now that I look back and think about it, there was an equal amount of women as men in my STEM classes the last few years at Ventura College. However in the early 1980’s at Moorpark College there was definitely a much higher percentage of men than women in the LET (laser electro-optics technology) program I was in. I think things have changed as far as women entering the STEM fields, but just as we have learned in the other weekly readings, there is work to be done to make it just as equal for a women to feel welcome and to be encouraged to enter these STEM fields as men do today. I think stereotypes have gone down somewhat as far as what sex a person should be to do any particular job, but as author Goldman points out, that as of 2006, only 26% of our nations engineers were women. She also found research that pointed to a lack of role models for women as a significant reason for the gender gap.

I know very little about the LGBT community, and apparently I am not alone, as the authors on this reading point out that “The vast majority of college students, classroom faculty, student affairs educators , and administrators have a tremendous amount to learn about gender diversity. I have learned in a few different courses that all populations in this world have a certain percentage of androgynous people in their society. That is a person who was born neither a male or female. How a society accepts these people have varied. I learned that many American Indian cultures accepted these people as a third gender and treated them with equal respect. I agree with the authors suggestions that colleges and universities expand the “gender” category on the application forms to enable gender-nonconforming students to self-identify, and also to implement a gender identity harassment policy similar to the sexual harassment policies that are in effect.

As far as Chick-fil-A vs. Ventura High School, I will say I like them both a lot. The owner has a right to his religious beliefs and his franchised stores have come out publicly to say that they do not necessarily share the owners beliefs and they have no public stand on same sex marriages. The principal of Ventura High is an awesome lady who I have met a few times. Ventura High has a very diverse population, rich, poor, and representing most cultures. It has a very friendly, peaceful and tolerant culture, and it starts from the top. There was a front page article in the paper, comparing Ventura with other similar schools and Ventura had an extremely low number of problems and incidents compared to the other schools. Principal Wyatt didn’t like the way Chick-fil-A went about getting into the stadium, as an outside vendor, behind her back.