Rough Draft (Paper #2)

Santa Cruz, CA 95060

November 26, 2012

Jean Kilbourne

1234 Kilbourn Ln.

Jeantowne, MI 11111

Dear Ms. Kilbourne:

It’s true that all throughout human’s civilization, at least in the majority of western culture, females have been the underdog of society. This is a tragedy to say the least; the influence that women could’ve generated all throughout the progression of human civilization could have been not only a positive one, but it could have also prevented some of the great tragedies throughout our history or it could have caused some new eras of transgression or achievement that we haven’t already achieved as the human race. For women to have only just recently been bestowed with the power to influence society and to and make choices that are their own is indeed something that would make sense for every woman to feel unjustified and infuriated. Any person who had been put through so much injustification would not be wrong in feeling anger and frustration towards those who caused them said injustification. But at what point in time have arguments that were lead by anger and frustration been the correct and appropriate way of dealing with a heated issue or a problem, or, at least, when has been the best way in which neither parties were left disadvantaged or hurt.

            In the struggle regarding women’s rights, it’s important to realize that it’s not just women who have been disadvantaged by the struggle for power and equality between the sexes, and the disadvantage that has been endured by our male counterparts should not just conveniently be glazed over. It’s true that by stamping out a woman’s voice, any and all of her opinion goes left disregarded, unacknowledged, and void of having the ability to take control over her own life, but to counter that argument, what if your voice not only spoke for your own personal well being, but also spoke for the well being of those that you cared about and all of their futures and the future all those to follow you. Even more so, what if your significant other, the person that a one typically becomes closest to in their life, isn’t someone that can be depended upon to assist as an equal during hardships and failures or as someone who can support you when times are hard, but is instead a dependent of whom you are responsible for along with yourself and all others you might take care of. Any failure that you make is not just your own, but is also a failure for those around and those you care for, and to deprive one’s self of such a responsibility, would be to deprive one’s self of some of the most gratifying and happiest aspects of one’s life.

In Joan Morgan’s piece, From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos some of these points are more heavily touched upon. Although veered more towards the black community and the struggles encountered by black males in the rap industry, Morgan argues that to counter the injustices and misogyny directed at women in rap music, us females cannot simply point the finger and say “What you’re doing is bad! You can’t say those things or us women we’ll condemn you and hate you!”, no, Morgan states that to deal with such misogyny we have to do what our opposition not; we have to learn to understand them. We have to learn to view our male counterparts as more than just the generalized other and  the demon that feminism sometimes seems to preaches them to be, but we have to view our fathers and brothers and friends, that the male race tends to be in our day to day life, as being just as dispositioned as us women have been, to be to act and think a certain way in which society has lead them to believe is an alright and acceptable way for them to be. Who’s to say that any of our male counterparts wanted to be thrust into a position of power and dominance in which they have to be completely responsible for those they care for and love? I don’t think it’s just by chance that the rate of male suicides in the US alone is 1 to 4 with males taking the lead, and yet we women preach that we've had a difficult time with our societal pressures, by these statistics I think it’s safe to assume that were not the only ones who are being potentially cheated by our society. The fact that this argument has been going on for as long as it has is another clear indication too, that something in the struggle between male and female equality isn't working out quite right. If females are still arguing for their equality and finding injustifications within the media, news, and the regulations that are constricting them, and then, on the other side of the argument, the male portion of our society is killing themselves at four times the rate of the females, then what about this argument isn't working?

The fact that this argument for equality is even just that, an argument, is probably the best place to start in terms of find a solution for that equality. How can equality be found when each side of the struggle is pointing fingers and making accusations?

Annotated Bibliographies (Formal Paper #2)

Curtis, Carole. "Powerful Women, Sound Advice." Westchester County Business Journal 48.11 (2012): 2. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 20 Nov. 2012


This is an article interviewing several very successful women (women who own their own business or are in positions of great responsibility and power)


Kilbourne, Jean. “‘Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’: Advertising And Violence”. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. By Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 1992. 575-600. Print.


This exert from Jean Kilbourne's book Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel is Kilbourne's reflection on the effects that the media's portrayal of females could be having on the females of the US.


Morgan, Joan. "From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos". Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. By Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 1992. 575-600. Print.


This essay by Morgan describes what she describes as a need for an understanding of the male stigma towards the degrading of women prior to condemning them and judging them for said degradation.

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

This website contains statistics of suicide rates in the til up to the year 2010.

Proposal Formal Paper #2

Proposal Formal Paper #2

Title: Undecided

Author: Me J

Date: 11/18/12

Topic: Women’s power in the modern world. Equal with of man?

Analysis of Argument

Exigence: To demonstrate all the forms and sources of power and influence that women hold in the modern world, in comparison to those possessed my men, and in doing so to prevent from the somewhat one-track mind set the feminist movement can sometimes tend to have.

Intended Audience: All females! And specifically to Jean Kilbourne in response to her exert in the Rereading America textbook. I think it’s imperative for all women to understand the advantage that they truly do have in our modern society; women who waste time talking about how they could have more power instead of taking advantage of the powers they already possess and being the example of the kind of woman they say they stand for, and women who just simply aren't aware of the power’s they've always possessed and just need to be made aware, not told that they are just a product of a society in which they are helpless, weak, and victimized, like Kilbourne made them out to be.
Purpose: To allow Kilbourne to know that making statements that confirm that media is having an impact on society which is suppressing and negative towards women is hardly enough in the process of fixing that problem, and is just as good as pointing a finger in blame, and then walking away with no means of making a solution or finding a compromise with what/who it is you're pointing the finger to.

Logos: For the logical reasoning in the essay/business letter I will compare both Kilbourne and Morgan's pieces, and elaborate on each their arguments so as to to draw out the pros and cons of each and eventually explain how Morgan's reasoning is more realistic and effective than Kilbourne's at generating empowerment for women, and finding a real means to equality of the sexes.
Ethos: For the ethical    reasoning of this business letter I will use the examples of women who've achieved great success to back what I have to say, and I will also describe my position as a woman and, at that, a woman who also envisions a path for success.
Pathos: For the emotional appeal of this piece I will describe a need for understanding on both sides of the spectrum, for both men and women, and how this understanding will lead to better harmony and happiness for both men and women.

RR#3: Kilbourne

                In an exert from Kilbourne’s 1999 piece, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, Kilbourne describes the effect that media and advertising have on female’s in  America; she explains their effect on how a woman views her sexuality, and how we, Americans, view sexuality in general. Kilbourne employs well used and well known arguments to describe the adverse effects mass media has on American culture, demonizing America’s media and marketing industries, stressing their corruption, immorality and their devaluation of family values. However, Kilbourne specifically stresses how the utilization of sexuality by large corporations in mass media is objectifying and dehumanizing to the role of women in society, and is an unjustified means for selling a product. Kilbourne uses a lot of primary source ads to demonstrate her cases; she interprets said advertisements in very perverse and negative ways, making sure to demonstrate how each image and slogan could be taken to have very negative and insulting implications towards the female gender, and plows through a number of advertisements in an identical and similar manner.

Kilbourne describes the appeal of using bondage, sexual aggression, and rape in advertising as attractive due to its ability to link these things with the possession of the product being advertised, or, as Kilbourne puts it, “…it fetishizes products, imbues them with an erotic charge-”, along with the charge put upon the product being advertised, Kilbourne also suggests that the roles that each gender portrays in the advertisements that sell said product are, in a way, being sold as well. Kilbourne suggests that the advertisements that are being put out in which the sexualization of both males and females are included in pursuit of selling a product, are, in fact, condoning certain behaviors of said males’ and females’ sexuality, making those behaviors more sellable and appealing whilst doing similarly for the product. Kilbourne suggests that these advertisements, by displaying women in such weak and submissive ways, and by being as successful as they are in selling their product by doing so, are also very successful in their ability to sell women aspiration to become weak and submissive and to acquire those attributes just like they were able to acquire the product that was advertised.

          The pictures of ads Kilbourne put alongside her writing were irrefutably suggestive of male dominance and exploitation of women’s sexuality and bodies, and included incredibly violent and shocking images of women at gun point and looking vulnerable, scared, and weak. My original reaction to the pieces was that the images were ludicrous, indecent, and unacceptable. For the most part I felt disassociated and very objectively towards the ads, I not feel as if I could relate to the women in the ads and their air of absolute powerlessness and defenselessness. That’s not to say that I wasn’t able to understand the origin of those feelings, but my predisposition to the effects that advertisements and media are intended to have on the individuals that they’re directed at.

RA#2

Title: From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos

Author: Joan Morgan

Date: 1999

Topic: Causes and effects of sexism in hip-hop music and culture

Exigence: To create a better and deeper understanding of why sexism is used in hip-hop music/culture.

Intended Audience: The general public, but possibly more specifically, females and feminists, and white people.

Purpose: To enlighten people as to why African-Americans might use derogatory language and action towards females in their culture.

Claim: To establish the healing and progress of females in the Black community, it will take more than simply stating that the misogyny of woman in hip-hop music is wrong and inappropriate; it will first take the acceptance and emotionally distancing of females from the presence of black male misogyny, and, second, the understanding of the origins of said misogyny before any other action towards healing can begin.

Main Evidence: Morgan states that, “As a black woman and a feminist I listen to the music with a willingness to see past the machismo in order to be clear about what I’m really dealing with” and that, “…good time in most of hip-hop is really alcoholism, substance abuse…they have no expectation to see their twenty-first birthday…” Morgan clearly sees that there is a lot more going on in the realm of hip-hop music and black men then just the objectification of the female gender, and the it truly is useless to just say, “Don’t speak like that about your sisters; it’s bad,” when the problems behind the objectification is rooted in problems that stem from things that go much deeper.

Pathos: Morgan made an emotional appeals to her audience by using direct and first person questions like in her writing that she states are meant for her hip-hop writing brothers; “ Why is disrespecting me one of the few things that make them feel like men? What’s the haps, what are you going through on the daily that’s got you action so foul?”(603). Morgan says these questions are intended for her “brothers” but seeing as it was audience that were the ones who ended up reading the questions, it was her audience that were put in the position to answer those questions, or at least to consider what it would mean to answer those questions, instead of the hip-hop singing black men that Morgan says the questions are for.

Logos: Morgan brings logic into this exert by making a direct quote from an actual hip-hop artist, Biggie Smalls, or Notorius B.I.G., stating, “I don’t wanna live no more/Sometimes I see death knockin’ at my front door…”(603) making it irrefutable for her audience to deny that the hip-hop artists that are accused of objectifying women are simply just that, and proving her point that there’s much more to them than just their objectification.

Ethos: Several times throughout her piece Morgan states that she is both a feminist and black female, “…Being black and a woman makes me very fluent in both isms…” (605). By make this statement, she makes her audience aware that her words is on that has a first person, non objective view, of the argument that is being made and is therefore on to be taken very seriously and without question.

My Response: Morgan did a beautiful job at drawing attention to an issue that I think is definitely one that is a sad reality of the world we live in today; males in the black community, like most other males all communities, has been made subject to many expectations and requirements as to what it means for them to be a man and to be made worthy by their peers and society. As well as being made subject to these expectations Morgan’s brothers have also been made subject to the oppression of America and all of its past, and existing, prejudices and racism, which demeans them as humans and provides them with even more difficulties and hardships to face on top of trying to be the machismo man that is expected of them by their own community. With this combination of oppressions, I’m sure that the demeaning of their sistas is one of the only ways present for the black male to feel like they are the man they feel like they need to be, and I think it is this that Morgan makes a beautiful point of drawing light on for her audience’s better understanding of her brother’s struggles.

RR: Kimmel

                In an exert from a Michael Kimmel’s piece “Bros Before Hos”: The Guy Code, Kimmel describes some of the pressures and expectations surrounding man-hood and what it means to be a man. In this piece he starts out be describing what young men themselves think it means to be considered a true man, and what they believe is expected of them to portray true masculinity. He states some of the basic statements he receives from these men such as, “Boys don’t cry,” “It’s better to be mad than sad,” and “Size matters”. From these statements he goes on to describe where these phrases and beliefs stem from, and who imposes them upon each man; he describes how each man is afraid of one another's judgment, and how every man is looking for signs of weakness in one another, and how each man fears be portrayed as gay, or, in reality, portrayed as a weak, or as a failure in “Guyland”.        

                For Kimmel, some of the rules associated with “Gut Code” things such as, never expressing emotion or enthusiasm, not showing interest in things like art or music, not taking too much interest in what a woman has to say, not dressing too nicely, and showing an unquenchable sexual interest in women. For me, I feel like this is a lot of what I witness in men and their interactions with one another;  they always tell stories of their achievements and successes, they don’t necessarily always talk about women in an itemizing and material manner, but it is certainly rare when you hear a man talk about how emotionally connected and in love they are.

Final Polish: Proposition 30 Op-Ed

Arianna Brown

October 9, 2012

English 2

Op-Ed: Proposition 30

            On November 6, 2012, a very important Proposition will appear on this year’s California electoral ballot; Proposition 30 will be a monumental landmark in determining the future of what California’s public education system will become or will continue to be. This coming fiscal year, the state budget will have to begin making either a continual $6 billion dollar cut that will initiate the balancing of the state budget, or it will have to generate that same amount through the increase of tax revenues. The current proposal for these revenues that is being made by Governor Jerry Brown, is to instigate new tax increases that would take effect almost immediately. The tax increases would include raising sales tax by a quarter percent for the next four years, until the end of the 2015-16 fiscal year, and raising the personal income tax of people who earn over $250,000, annually, for the next seven years, until the end of the fiscal year 2018-19(Attorney General of CA). Combined, the public and higher education programs of California make over half of the state’s budget, so it would, inevitably, be the first system to see a decrease in funding, and at that, it would also be the system that would see the greatest decrease, hence making it absolutely necessary for voters to come together this election day and vote yes on Proposition 30 to save California’s educational system.

            In the  Attorney General summary of Proposition 30, the general spending reductions for 2012-13 state that, if voters reject Prop 30 the cuts to be made will be as follows (in millions): schools and community colleges will receive a $5, 354 cut, UC’s a $250 cut, and CSU’s a $250 cut. With these sorts of cuts, public education, K-14, would be forced to make compensations for lack of funding by the state, which is about 60% of what makes up for the budget for community colleges. These compensations would come in the form of acts such as shortening the instructional school year, reducing the number of staff employed at educational facilities, and reducing enrollment. Actions such as these have already taken place in the San Francisco school district, K-12 public schools have already suffered a $500 decrease per student per year with the past 5 years, and without the passing of $6 billion revenue generating Prop 30, they will have to cut 10 days of their 2013-14 instructional school year and, inevitably, much more in the years to come(Garofoli). With these kinds of reductions the amount of attention received by each child will decrease, opportunities for asking questions and receiving the necessary amount of help will, most definitely, deteriorate; the children who already struggle in school, and who’s families don’t have the means of giving them an alternate education, or the appropriate kind of help they need to succeed, will fall behind the scenes, and go unattended to. They will be unable to get what they need to move up in the world and know what it means to be well educated and to possess a to understand what it means to be an effective, participatory member of society, able to obtain a fulfilling and satisfying career and lifestyle. In a system with minimal services, it will be the child who is deprived the most that will continue to be deprived; they will be the ones who find it the most difficult to break the cycle of poverty and will never know what it means to have the power of enlightenment.

           

            Mr. Lowenthal, a former professor at CSU Long Beach, stated that, “… he too longs for the days when the quality and affordability of California’s public colleges helped make our state ‘the West Coast version of Ellis Island’…” and he stated that, “We don’t have unlimited resources…That paradigm is gone” (Blumenstyk). When someone with this much insider knowledge of our educational system states that our schools are facing a time of crisis, it would be foolish not to take his opinion with the utmost amount of gravity and severe amount of importance. The opposition would argue that government is not to be fully trusted with more revenues of any sort, due to its poor spending within recent years; spendings such as the funding of things like the $68 billion bullet train that’s started being built, of which only $13 billion dollars of its funding identified, and also spending like that of the $54 million dollars that was held onto by the state parks, system while in the face of many of their sites being shuttered (Skelton). The opposition to Proposition 30 would also argue that is selective and unfair for the government to raise income taxes, strictly the rich, and that doing so would be a form of segregation, preaching that old as time argument that the rich should not be punished for their success and, potentially, hard work. For those who are better-off and have benefited the most from California educational system, it would be in their best interest, and, hopefully, their better nature, to give something back to the future of California, and to help provide that that has clearly helped provide for them in such an abundant way.  Likewise, it would be a silly prospect to sacrifice our educational system under the pretense that the public has not been copiously satisfied with what the government has spent some of state revenues on in the past and therefore use that as a reason to disregard Prop 30 and the non-relating benefits it will provide. Although both of the opposing arguments made have definite elements of truth to them, but, as Mr. Lowenthall stated, we’ve moved past the time in which we have the choice to not take action to save the best resource we have to offer our children because the reality is that the state of California, like the majority of the United States, is in a severe economic crunch.

As a student of the California public educational system, I know firsthand that the schooling I partook in during my K-12 experience could’ve been far more interactive, and could have done a lot more outreach to children who had a hard time with getting distracted and staying motivated, such as I did. Being an older sister of both a child who’s attending public high school and is excelling incredibly, and of another who’s finding hard to find any motivation whatsoever to do well and succeed, I am given a very clear view as to how it’s success and prestige in the class room that’s acknowledged most, and how it’s the children who are considered “failures”, that is in an academic and social outlook, who are the most unacknowledged, and, instead of being acknowledged and offered assistance, are left to remain as “failures” before being given any appropriate help to succeed. In my youngest brother’s case, it is the proactivity and knowledgeability of my mother that has kept him from going unnoticed by in his academia and by his schools, which would have otherwise let him remain unacknowledged while putting him through the system without helping him find a way to become truly successful so he can get by in real society and in life. My brother turned out to be very lucky in that he was fortunate enough to have a mother who works in county jobs that allowed her access to programs offered within the school districts where we lived that she could use for his success, but his situation makes me realize that for children whose parents don’t have as much direct access to the recourses my mother does, it would be very difficult for that child to obtain the help that my mother is providing for my brother. With the potential loss of so much educational funding and backing it would be the children like these that would be left almost hopeless to receiving the resources they’d need to obtain a better education and better life.

California is no longer a state that possesses the liberty to debate whether it’s right or wrong to exclusively tax the rich, or whether the state has done a good enough job with previous spending in the face of the future election and Proposition 30. Gov. Jerry Brown, states, “This is not about any other issue. It’s not about the environment, it’s not about pensions, it’s not about parks. It’s about one simple question: Shall those who’ve been blessed beyond imagination give back 1 or 2 or 3 percent for the next seven years, or shall we take billions out of our schools and colleges to the detriment of the kids.” (Skelton) Gov. Jerry Brown realizes we can only ask ourselves if it’s really come to that time in which the direction that California and its citizens choose to take at this fork in the road is either the one in which we abandon our values, and stop ensuring each child in California as much opportunity as we possibly can, to move away from a life of poverty that they were potentially born into, or to take the direction in which we let that opportunity demise. He realizes that we are confronted with the opportunity to either save the future of California’s schools and the futures of the children who attend them, or to let them go short funded, forcing them to demise in such a way that they would not be able to provide full opportunities and benefits that an education can provide to our children the future of our state of California.

Work Cited

Blumenstyk, Goldie. "If Prop 30 Fails, Then What?" Editorial. The Chronicle of Higher Education [Washington D.C.] 17 Aug. 2012: 31. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://0-web.ebscohost.com.library.cabrillo.edu/ehost/detail?sid=9210a729-1f3f-4358-9578-471c5b7fd39c%40sessionmgr15&vid=5&hid=11&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWNvb2tpZSxpcCx1cmwmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db=a9h&AN=78857634>. Garofoli, Joe. "Teacher Contract Tied to Tax Measure." Editorial. The San Fransisco Chronicle [San Fransisco] 3 Aug. 2012: PC1. Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://0-web.ebscohost.com.library.cabrillo.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=11&sid=072ac2eb-b458-457d-a5c8-e1255104a2b2%40sessionmgr14&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWNvb2tpZSxpcCx1cmwmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db=n5h&AN=78248093>. Skelton, George. "Taxes Just Part of Picture; Voter Perceptions and Pensions Also Tie into Brown's Push for Prop. 30." Editorial. Los AngelesTimes [Los Angeles] 30 Aug. 2012: A.2. ProQuest Newspapers. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://http://0-search.proquest.com.library.cabrillo.edu/nationalnewscore/docview/1036835499/1391857C40328DE6F49/9?accountid=39584>.