Bibliography Report:

"Mixed Plate Report: A Look at a Variety of Topics:

By Lee-Jake K. Strunk

Spring 2003--Generation 18

In this research paper I will examine what I consider to be a "Mixed Plate" of topics. I will cover TV and Sexism, Gender Roles, Sexist Jokes, Female adolescent conflicts, Cartoons and Commercials, and Aggressive Driving while hopefully adding in my own experiences in these topics using them to shed a little light on not only the topic itself but on my own strange psyche.

In modern American society, we have many influences on our culture, beliefs, and societal structure. None, however, has played more of an influence, or exerted more power over Americans than the Television. I used the MSN.com search engine, as I always do, to research this topic and came up with a large variety of "hits." Each of them expressed their own views and allowed me to formulate my own opinion on the subject matter. I try to focus primarily on one area, and that is sexist television’s effect and orientation to children.

While I could go on and on about this topic, I will supplement what I have found so far with some personal experience. I work with elementary children in an after school care style program. When it is rainy they get to watch videos, instead of play outside, and every single time, they end up watching a more "boy" oriented cartoon and not a single child complains. Both the boys and the girls will sit there and watch Power Rangers, Dragon Ball Z, or something similar, and be entertained. Other options are offered, more feminine ones, but each time it is the boys who get what they want and the girls really don’t show any signs of caring.

gave interesting points of view, they were not nearly as interesting as the first one I mentioned. They both offer their own points of view on the topic and are worth reading.

I believe that it has been well established that there is a huge amount of sexism and gender differences in the programming of television. But I really wonder why it is that we make such a big deal about it. Television does have a large impact on society, but we mustn’t forget it is just entertainment.

This sight dealt a lot with the competition between the sexes and how they compete and cooperate against each other. It makes many references to the fact that men, in general, will try to compete for the top and women will be more concerned with communal issues. I think we have heavily asserted this fact already. My major issue is WHY is this such a big deal?

Is the fact that men and women so completely wrong? In my research I have not found anyone address the issue from a "yes we are different, but who cares?" angle. Men compete with one another, and even against women, because that is the way nature has made them. Women are concerned with communal issues and the well being of the people around them. These are the things that have made the human species successful, the fact that men and women are different, yet totally compatable.

This same site does go into the cooperation of men and women, and I think that this is where we should really be concentrating our efforts. Instead of trying to figure out what are the differences and how to change them, we should concentrate on how to make those differences more compatible with each other. If the differences between men and women are so horrible, then it would stand to reason that we would not be "made for each other." Working together, and fitting together like pieces to a puzzle, is where the true use of our knowledge of gender differences should lie.

This portion of my research paper is basically just one long conclusion of the issue at hand. "Why are gender differences so bad?" I believe that they aren’t. Granted we could all learn a little more about each other and how to live together, but we should not be trying to change each other.

These two sites are just the top of the iceberg. They both entertain the notion of the different standards that feminists have between men and women. Feminists are very quick to complain about an add, comment, movie etc, that portray women in derogatory manners, but will happily turn the other way when we see adds such as the one in my second link or with jokes and chain mail like the ones in my first link.

Equality doesn’t seem to be the real driver behind these feminist issues. Evidence has been brought to the table that it is, in actuality, just the hurt feelings and frustrations of women that drive all the rallies and debates of feminists. Yes, men are cruel, but if it is equality that is really being sought after, why not attack both sides of the equation? It has become evident that no matter what men do, women will always want to argue against it and fight it. My second link has several reference links of its own that show exactly what I’m talking about.

So, why all the fuss about men making jokes around the workplace about women? There are equally as many jokes out there about men. The pure difference is that men are willing to take what they give, and women really just can not handle the truth. When a man cracks a joke about a woman in a work environment it seems to be more likely that he will be pulled by his boss and reprimanded, whereas a woman who cracks a similar joke about a man will not even face a dirty look by her employer.

We are different, we (men and women) are cruel to each other with humor, but the truth of the matter is we are both FUNNY! We need to learn to just deal with it. Women are funny just as much as men are. The sex differences are hilarious, we just need to learn how to deal with it and accept it!

In our ever-evolving society there is one thing that seems to remain constant, and that is the fact that it is essentially harder on girls to grow up than it is for boys. Girls have to deal with so many more things as they mature, their rapidly changing bodies, the outlook that society has on how girls should look, and how girls should act. As our society changes, and the problems change, the fact of the matter is that there will always be more problems for girls to face than boys.

One of the biggest problems that girls seem to have to face, that boys really don’t, have more to do with their physical selves. When you look around at every advertisement that portray a female in them, the female is always a size 0, with decently endowed breasts, perfect skin, long body-full hair and a beautiful smile. What we don’t realize about these advertisements is how they are affecting our young and impressionable girls. They begin to feel that this is the only way they will be viewed as attractive. This idea forces them to feel that they need to look like this, pushing them into diseases such as bulimia and anorexia. This is a very sad thing since girls do NOT have to look like this to be beautiful. Yet, this is a huge problem that girls need to face that boys really don’t.

With society’s pressures to look a certain way, pressure from parents to be strong like her brothers, and internal struggles to decide who she is, girls in society have many more problems to deal with than boys. We don’t often think about how we affect young girls, and how many more issues they have in life than boys. It seems that it is time we began to discuss these problems, and make sure that we are doing everything possible to level off the playing field for young boys and girls. I think that we will find more successful girls in the future if we can better address the problems that they face as they mature.

In this topic I attempt to assert that, while it is an important part, commercials are not completely to blame for children’s play habits and what they want for Christmas. In my own experiences, and through my research I have discovered that there are so many more variables than just television.

In my research through many of the web sites that address this situation, I have found that no matter what we do, children will want what they want…simple as that. There are many sites, some of which I’ve read, that suggest banning certain types of commercials from children’s programming, or limiting the amount, or not allowing toy/video game/entertainment commercials to even be played on television. One site even goes as far as telling parents that they should not allow their children to view most TV programming period. This is completely foolish, unless you can get EVERY parent in America to follow this rule 100%. Children have so many more influences than just what they see on television.

An example is a child that I work with. His parents do not allow him to watch more than half an hour of television on regular cable networks, any more than that is done on the History Channel. However, when he is at our after school care he knows just as much as every other kid about the newest fads, the modern video games, and every trend that exists today. How is this? This happens because he is really only with his parents for a small portion of his days. He spends the other large chunks with other children, and hearing what they know and what they are playing with. Trust me, he suffers no disadvantage when he plays with their portable video games, or engages in conversations with them about "Yu-Gi-Oh."

Children, no matter how we shelter them, will fall prey to society and its marketing agencies’ advertisements. They will want the newest toys, and they will find out about the latest crazes and fads, no matter how "R" rated or unhealthy they may be. The solution I propose is NOT banning them from the television, or banning these things from the television. I propose that parents converse more with their children, and explain to them about what they are seeing. This will make them more intelligent about what is going on, and less likely to fall prey to something unhealthy that they may have seen on television.

Whenever we get into our car, turn on the engine, and pull out of our driveways, we submit ourselves to a shooting gallery filled with careless drivers out there who have every opportunity in the world to kill us. Getting mad at these "idiots" won’t solve anything, however. All it will do is make situations worse. What will help the situation is being more alert when we drive, and making sure to not do the things that irritate us.

In my research I decided not to focus so much on the "road rage" portion of this topic, but more on how we can become better drivers. After all, we all could use the help, and we all know about road rage.

This site details how someone should prepare before they even learn how to drive. In fact, they offer pre-driver’s ed in many of their schools and universities. I found some tips on better driving such as (something that I found very important) being relaxed and calm as you drive. All too often I’ve found myself tensed up as I turn on the ignition, from an argument with my girlfriend, parents, or work, and it has a great and adverse affect on the type of driver I am.

My father was an instructor for the DoD’s deffensive/offensive driving courses. He taught me to drive exactly the way the military personnel have to drive with hazardous materials, and dignitaries. So, I usually have pretty good driving habits (he wouldn’t allow me to get my permit if I didn’t). However, when I’m mad at something before I drive, oh boy does that ever change! I’m aggressive, fast, don’t blinker before changing lanes, in other words I’m fairly dangerous. That’s why the tip on "being relaxed" is an important one to me.

There are many reasons to get upset on the road, but instead of concentrating so hard on how others make you upset, we should all be more concerned with our own driving. If everyone were more concerned with how WE are irritating someone else, no one would drive as badly as they probably currently do.