Author: chenny
Analysis 3-Data Collection for Raising Great Kids On Your Own
The book Raising Great Kids on Your Own provides guidelines for single mom and dads on how to raise kids. The authors not only teach single moms and dads how to treat children, they also share with the readers about how to adjust parents’ own mood and instructing them to continue their life after divorce.
Not claiming many feminism terms, the book provide some example and opinion which can be related to feminism as the following.
First, one standpoint that can be related to the book is From Hook’s article. According to Hook, “Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Its aim is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege woman over men. It has the power to transform in a meaningful way all our lives. Most importantly, feminism is neither a lifestyle nor a ready-made identity or role one can step into.”(p29). Either single mom or dad can be a good parent according to the authors. In the book, the guidelines are provided in a neutral way such as “Express your love to your kids generously and frequently”, “Try to keep a clear, informed picture of how each of your children is adjusting to the challenging new reality of living in a one-parent home”. These words show that raising kids is difficult to both single mom and dad.
Usually, people consider that single moms experience a more difficult time than single dads do thus they should be much stronger. Actually, most single parenting books pay attention to single moms such as The Successful Single Mom. The Complete Single Mother, etc. Thus, this book is consistent with Hook’s idea of feminism, which is more gender equality.
Furthermore, although the target audience of the book are single moms and dads and tries its best to focus on both mom and dad, the stories in it are almost about single moms and state the difficulty of women who just got divorced.
For example, “Alone with two children under age five, Carla didn’t have the income to rent even a small apartment in her expensive Southern California locale. “
“Not yet 30, Bryanna didn’t feel young. She felt old, incompetent, and totally incapable of raising her two young children. She had no idea where to begin looking for work. If she did find work, who would watch the kids?”
“There is a fairly typical progression that occurs in many persons, most particularly among women, in the aftermath of a divorce. It begins with this realization: ‘I am a person who has experienced a failed marriage.’ They may identify their own family experience as being part of a ‘train wreck’ because their single mother or father believes this and behaves as if it is true.”
The above content in the book can be directly related to Hook’s idea of “family” (p37). According to Hook, “most people witness and /or experience the practice of sexist domination in family settings.” He points out that “the traditional western family, with its authoritarian male rule an its authoritarian adult rule, is the major training ground which initially conditions us to accept group oppression as the natural order”.
Hook considers family male-dominated. It is kind of true because most women in the book used to depend on husband to raise their children and once divorced, they experience a much harder time than divorced man because they have no ability to earn money yet they have to. The book also mentions several stories of single dad. However, these stories focus more on how single dads feel not good and hard to adjust their mood. Actually, they didn’t experience physical hardness as single moms.
Analysis 3 – Raising Great Kids on Your Own
Raising Great Kids on Your Own: A Guide and Companion for Every Single Parent , by Dr. David and Lisa Frisbie
The target audience of this book is single mom and dad. Since One–parent households frame the new landscape of American family life, how to raise kids in these families becomes an issue.
In this book, Divid and Lisa Frisbie provide a practical and proactive plan single moms or single dads can use to nourish their own souls, nurture their children, manage their households build a future they can enjoy.
In the first part of the book, the authors teach the audience how to care about themselves. According to the authors, parents have responsibility to create a healthy environment for kids, including healthy community and healthy parents. Thus, parents should focus on their own support system, their networks and their diet and lifestyle.
In the second part, the authors provide some techniques on how to communicate with kids and on how to read kids. In this part, several stories are told from single mom and dads.
In the third part, the authors focus more on one-parent family’s future such as what they can do to make life better. The third part covers many issues single parents may face in real life and give many suggestions. How to start working after being a housewife for a long time, how to make budget. What’s more, the authors discuss whether to remain single or look for a new relationship.
PPT for Teach-in 6
Assessment 6
Please read the 3 readings required for Week 9.
There will be an open note in class writing assessment.
For Frye’s article “The Necessity of Differences”
1. Find out her definition of a positive category of woman.
For Macdonald’s article “Muslim Woman and The Veil”, be prepared to answer next questions,
2. Why Muslim women veil themselves according to Qur’anic injunction?
3. How does the meaning of “veil” be reconstructed, especially in the wake of 9/11?
For Echchaibi’s article “Gendered Blueprints”, be prepared to answer the next question,
4. What is the author’s definition of “The modern Muslim man”?
You will have 15 minutes to complete your in class writing. Feel free to either bring in notes or write down your answers and bring them to class
Thank you !
Chenny
Chenny: Analysis 1- The Big Bang Theory
Analysis 1
The characters I decide to analyze is Penny and Amy in a situation comedy: The Big Bang Theory(TBBT). TBBT airs on CBS and was created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The sitcom premiered in 2007 and will begin its 6th season this fall.
TBBT shows the life of several scientists who have high IQ, which is centered on five characters: roommates Sheldon and Leonard, Penny, Raj and Howard. The sitcom brings lots of fun to the audience due to the main characters’ identity, which is scientist.
TBBT is a very popular show not only in the US but also all over the world such as in China. The characters in TBBT show several gender stereotype including blonde and female Ph.D. Penny and Amy are two important female characters in TBBT. They are two person who are totally different from each other. Penny is a blonde who is not well educated and had many boyfriends in the past, while Amy is a Ph.D. and know little about how to get together with people. Penny is a normal pretty girl in the US, however, she is really special in TBBT because all other characters are well and highly educated. On the contrary, Amy is similar to other character is TBBT, however she is not that normal compared to ‘normal’ US girls.
I choose the last two episodes of season 5 and first episodes of season 6 (the latest season) as my content to conduct the analysis. Each episode lasts about half an hour. In the two hours I’ve watched, Penny and Amy are good friends and they have common friends such as Sheldon and Bernadette.
Penny shows up as Leonard’s girlfriends while Amy is Sheldon’s girlfriend. The two characters of the sitcom showed up in different ways. Penny comes from a small town. She is a blonde who lives across the hall from Sheldon and Leonard and is in a romantic relationship with Leonard. At the beginning of Season 5 episode 23, Penny offer to have sex with Leonard when kissing each other since she thinks that “You know how we’ve been taking things slow”.
In the next plot, Sheldon and Amy are going to have a date at Amy’s home. The topic they are talking about are totally different from Penny and Leonard. In other word, they do not seem like the normal couple. They love to talk about issues in a professional way. For instance, Amy says that “With our friends moving forward in their relationships, I have decided that we should make progress in ours as well.” Or “I’ve designed an experiment that I believe will increase your feelings for me.” These words are weird during couples.
After watching the two hours of the show, it could be figured out that Penny and Amy are two different person. Linking them with Lotz’s studying of “post feminism” would be interesting. According to Lotz (2001),post feminism refers to “a retreat from feminist ideas challenging women’s traditional role in the family, and instead marks an increasing openness toward traditional notions of femininity and feminine roles.” Penny and Amy are not traditional women. They are not the typical “new woman” who are capable of balancing a successful career and conventional family life which liberal feminism indicates. Penny doesn’t have a successful career and Amy doesn’t seem to have a conventional family life with Sheldon. However, they can illustrate Lotz’s view of post feminism. Even though totally different, low educated and high educated; beautiful and boring, Penny and Amy are honest to express what they want in terms of love or sex, which build them another kind of new woman.
In another article, Marcellus(2011) looks at office machine and office wife. According to her, woman are often seen as office machine in offices. They are considered no thoughts and can only do machine work. However, television shows today are breaking this type of stereotype. In TBBT, although Penny is only a waitress working in the Cheesecake Factory, she is still perusing her dream which is becoming an actress. She is independent, optimistic and attractive. Penny has her own view of love and sex, knowing what she wants and don’t want. As a new woman, she wants to make love with her boyfriend and refuse to marry Leonard just because she doesn’t want. In other words, women are no longer being passive.
Amy is not an office machine at all. As an female Ph.D., Amy has professional knowledge and is doing a good job in her field. She thinks independently, although kind of different from others.
Setting up the two different stereotypes, TBBT well illustrate how post feminism is and how woman differently seen compared to earlier time. Women are free today regardless of their job or education level. They are free to do what they want.
Imre’s article gives the audience more connection between feminism and television. According to Imre (2009), television, as an industry and as an object of study, has been gendered from the start. Today, feminism is not only an academic approach, it also becomes a social movement, which makes us live in a post feminism era. Thus television programs are becoming feminism inevitably. However, recent scholarly and industrial efforts to resurrect television as a distinct medium and object of study tend to disavow its gendered aesthetic and the feminist grounding of television studies. (Imre, 2009). Thus, Imre introduces the term “quality television” and points out that both television studies and the television industry requires “remasculinizing” the medium by disavowing its “feminine.”
The journal article interests me for its linking with Lotz’s concept “post feminism” and “new woman”. According to the author, current scholarly discussions of postfeminist culture and its central figure, the “new woman” are not as important as in earlier times. On the contrary, the author uses the term “quality television” to identify current television shows. He points out that both masculine and feminism are need to make the show more quality. Feminism should not be paid much more attention.
For me, TBBT is a quality television because it is nither masculine or feminism. Male characters are funny although kind of weird in the show, and female characters are pleasing such as Penny and Bernadette. All the people in the sitcom is equal and make the audience feel comfortable. Although having no high IQ and education, the female characters in TBBT are not looked down.
Overall, Penny and Amy are two important characters in TBBT, which fulfill the sitcom and help it more “quality” in a post feminism way.
Reference:
Lotz, Amanda. (2001). Postfeminist television criticism: Rehabilitating critical terms and identifying postfeminist attributes. Feminist Media Studies, 1(1), 105-121.
Marcellus, Jane. (2011). Business girls and two-job wives: Emerging stereotypes of employed women. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. (Ch. 3 office machine, office wife)
Imre, A. (2009). Gender and quality television. Feminist Media Studies, 9(4), 391-407.
Analysis Paper 1: The Big Bang Theory-Penny&Amy
I will analyze the fictional character penny and Amy from the television sitcom The Big Bang Theory (TBBT). TBBT airs on CBS and was created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The sitcom premiered in 2007 and will begin its 6th season this fall.
The sitcom brings lots of fun to the audience. The reason I choose it to analyze is that TBBT is a very popular show not only in the US but also all over the world such as in China. The characters in TBBT show several gender stereotype including blonde and female Ph.D. The sitcom shows, or imagines the funny life of scientists, which is unknown and mysterious to the audience.
Penny and Amy are two important female characters in TBBT. They are two person who are totally different from each other. Penny is a blonde who is not well educated and had many boyfriends in the past, while Amy is a Ph.D. and know little about how to get together with people. Penny is a normal pretty girl in the US, however, she is really special in TBBT because all other characters are well and highly educated. On the contrary, Amy is similar to other character is TBBT, however she is not that normal compared to ‘normal’ US girls.
I think it will be very interesting to analyze Penny and Amy in a gender perspective.