Presentation: Gender Identity

     I think that this presentation was the most useful out of all so far because it dealt with a subject that most people are still in the dark about. You constantly hear things in the media about rights for the LGBT community but for most of us that means people who are homosexual. Transgendered people, who make up the "T" in the acronym are often times forgotten. I don't want to lay blame for this to people in general. It may not be that people don't care so much as they simply aren't aware of the issues. Because we do not often see transgendered issues in the public media, it is hard to become educated and aware of the subject. For example, I consider myself a very open minded person but I had little to no knowledge of the troubles that transgendered college students experience. When I came to college I met Andie and that is how I learned what I now know. I think that she was extremely brave for coming in and speaking to the class. The best way to get answers for the subject on is to talk to someone who is transgendered.
     I really liked Toria's new model for gender identity. I think it makes more sense than the dichotomous or separate spectrum models. The part that I liked the most about it was that it combined both what you think and what others think about you. I could sit her and say that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of you but the truth is that it does. I am cisgendered and there are still times where I find myself being influenced by the gender box that people want to prescribe to me. This is because everyone thinks about gender differently. It can mean many different things to many different people. Toria's new model however, takes this into account which I think makes things easier to understand. People in class seemed to be very confused by this new model of gender identity but I thought it was easy to understand and practical for how society works. Overall I thought it was a good presentation and my only disappointment was that there wasn't more time to ask Andie questions.

All my single seven year olds? And the Cultural Presentation

     During the presentation about gender across cultures we watched a video clip of a group of seven year olds dancing at a competition. Th video seemed to shock people; the girls were dancing rather suggestively and in very little clothing. After a moment I realized that their dancing was most definitely sexualized, I would not want my seven year old daughter dancing like that on stage. In fact, I danced for fourteen years and I never remember my childhood dance routines to be nearly so sexualized. However, there was something that I recognized from my dancing years, the skimpy outfits. For nearly every year that I danced I had at least one costume that I felt somewhat self-conscious in. This was usually because of the lack of fabric that I felt it had. The girls in the video were wearing very short shorts with a small black tutu and a lingerie style top. However, I remember one of my first costumes, I was younger than seven, being yellow spandex shorts with a yellow sequined tube top that didn't even reach the bottom of my rib cage. Dancing often involves little or very tight clothing for a reason. Dancing very often is about the movements and lines you make with your body. In order to get the full affect, you have to be able to see the body. Within the "culture" of dance, this lack of clothing is not only accepted, but necessary.
     I thought that the presentation on culture was interesting and informative. The articles were relevant to the presentation and the multiple video clips really helped to illustrate the points that the authors were making. I also really liked the fact that they used relevant examples that we see in popular media today. For example, the article about Latina women referenced Ugly Betty, which recently finished it's last season and was very popular. On top of this they also mentioned the Glee character Santana Lopez and how stereotypical of a role it is. I think it is always good to have a modern and relevant perspective on concepts that are discussed in class.