Miss America Master Race

Guilty Pleasure: watching beauty pageants.

It is something my mom and I have always done. We each try to select the winner and compare our notes with each elimination.

Miss America is on tonight :)

Clarification, I watch; I do not "do" pageants. I may be a Southern Belle but I am quite klutzy and the one time I took part in a pageant in high school, my goal was simply not to fall ;)

I realize there is not a huge focus on intellectual aspects (I am from SC, remember Miss Teen USA 2007!?!) and they show off the women's bodies more than I would like, but... old habits die hard.

One of my favorite parts of the show is always the Evening Gown section. I was pleased this year that the dresses were fairly classy and didn't show too much skin.

One terrible thing I've noticed though (note: I am aware the whole concept of pageants, i.e. breeding female competition, focusing on looks/body image, materialism, the fact that it is not done for males, etc. is not fantastic BUT this blog post is in reference to this particular pageant, on this evening, not pageants in general) is the lack of skin color variation.

Every single person on the stage - host Mario Lopez included - are the same tan/light brown color. You can't really tell who is what ethnicity. The black girls are really pale; the white girls are bronzed beyond belief, and the asian/hawaian women blend in somewhere in between...

I suppose it is a true representation of the "melting pot" cause all the separate identities blended together and they all look as though they could be sisters - all the same Miss America Color.

Strange. Striking. Sad.


That is all.

Perks of Having a Penis: You get to keep your name

Upon returning to school after Christmas break, I discovered several of my friends had become engaged. It got me thinking "Will I take my husband's name?"

As a child, I always planned to - cause I never knew anything different.

In high school, of course I did (!) - because that is what you did: doodle your name with the last name of every crush you had. In high school, I not only doodled the name but planned the wedding to my high school sweetheart.

Oh yea, I failed to mention, he became engaged over break as well; weird. Now, I can rest assured I will never take his last name.

But will I take the name of the guy I do end up marrying?

Why does anyone take a husband's last name?

I recently read an article by Lynn Harris called "Mrs. Feminist." According to Harris, 90% of women take their husband's name, though this was lower in the 1980s after the second wave of the feminist movement.

So why do women take a husband's name? Not because they are conservative, Patriarchal-obeying, oblivious idiots. I can assure you.

Some reasons listed in the article included: their husband's last name simply sounded better than theirs, they wanted to, it would be easier for the kids, it was the norm, it promoted more of a family feeling.

Similarly, women who chose to keept their names were not all doing it as a political act. Some simply liked theirs better or feared an identity crisis or were known publicly by their maiden name.

Just for clarification, if you think about it, your maiden name is really a man's name anyways. If by not taking your husband's name you think it will spare you the title of a man's possession or it will prevent the loss of your personal feminine identity, I hate to break it to you but your maiden name technically represents you as belonging to your father.

BUT, this was not always the case.

Up until the middle ages when women began to lose their rights to own property, gentry had trumped gender as Harris points out. A.K.A. if your mom had more money or fame or property than your dad, the maternal line would be the family name and it was given to the children. But, soon the paternal line began to dominate regardless, once the courts created the idea of "coverture" (a male and female become one entity in the eyes of the law - that entity is male and he has all rights of the property, children, and wife).

The first women believed to have bucked that system was Lucy Stone in 1879 when she tried to keep her own name. According to Harris, when she went before the courts claiming that there was no law requiring her to take her husband's name, they drafted one.

Harris also points out that until the 1970s, US laws required women to take their husband's name in order to vote or get a driver's license!?!

But, not all women - myself included - view taking your husband's name as a bad thing. It is not necessarily losing your identity and becoming a "Mr. Him" as Lynn calls it, but instead it can be positive:

"for some women now, it's an assumption, rather than a loss, of power -- shared power. 'Instead of feeling like I 'belong' to my husband now that I have his last name, I feel like we are on equal footing,' says Amy Owings, 34, a executive assistant in Overland Park, Kan. 'We are both Owings, so now I claim him as much as he claims me.'"

But, basically, I believe it boils down to a choice. Harris shares this in her article:

"And the Lucy Stone League, an organization dedicated to fostering equality in United States naming practices, has a point when it says: 'Until naming practices are equal, women will not be considered equal to men in the U.S.'"

Is this true?

Would your future husband ever consider taking your name?

Are you considering not taking his?

Will you after reading this?

Special K Craziness

Let me start by saying that I have a box of Special K in my kitchen right now and I am not hating on their product. Vanilla Almond is delicious.

BUT, their messages are disgusting. I just saw the Christmas one where the mom is doing a craft with her daughter; the phone rings and she stands up with the kiddie chair stuck to her behind. Cute, yes, at first.

However, when you really think about it, what kind of message are they sending? This woman is HARDLY overweight. She looks perfectly fit and healthy but the viewer is supposed to think she is in need of losing weight!?!

What about a woman who is really overweight? Why not show a woman who looks like she might actually need to lose weight?

HOWEVER, I want to repeat my initial statement when I started this post. Kellogs Special K is not awful in taste or intention. In researching this post, I came across a great article of some very positive ads for women. Sadly, I haven't seen any in everyday life, magazines or on tv. The website lists that ad campaign from 1996.

Kellogs, I hope you return to that more positive message. Let's have some more of those become the norm... I agree with your tagline from back then: A Healthy Body Weight Looks Good on Everyone.

Well, your newest Special K commercials show a seemingly healthy body weight. By plugging the Special K Diet, you seem to suggest to your viewers that they should actually be thinner; this is NOT healthy.

Just a Little School Update :)

A new year, a new semester, new opportunities.

I love to learn and I am super excited about my classes. I will likely be sharing fun facts or interesting topics that are brought to my attention in my classes cause they are just that cool, trust me.

So, here is a little school update:

1. The class I am MOST excited about is The History of Fashion and Manners. We will be covering the beginning of man until today - just a little bit intimidating, just a lil bit ;) My teacher, I believe, is a Feminist but she wears fashionable clothes, does her hair and her makeup. It is very encouraging to see someone who looks like me but also THINKS like me too :) Also, we have a guy in the class; he isn't even gay. I look forward to his input and to see if he had a motive involving finding a date when he signed up for this class. Most boys I mention it to are disgusted and would prefer a needle in the eye to this tedious coursework.
2. Another cool class is Gender and Communication. I have taken this before so now I am serving as a Teaching Assistant. My professor is fantastic and a feminist and I am really thankful I have the chance to be around her another semester.
3. I'm also excited about Sociology. It will help me understand all of these social institutions I have realized influence gender identity so much.
4. Human Sexuality will be interesting... to say the least. This is, of course, my class with the most boys in it because that is my luck in life. This is, also, the class where my professor began the first day by discussing a clitoris, masturbation, and the G-spot. Yes, my Southern manners and modesty will influence my participation while in this class - primarily in turning my pale face blood red during a lot of the discussion. However, I think it will be a great challenge for me to be more open with my sexuality and discussion of some of these issues. I have progressed to being able to say "penis" and "vagina" instead of "potty spot" thanks to my previous Women's and Gender classes so I feel confident that new growth awaits me this semester ;)
5. I am also taking Communication Research Methods (not excited but it is required)

So those are the topics I will be exposed to regularly this semester and likely will strongly influence my postings. I hope they'll be just as interesting to you as they are to me...