Makeover Feminism Essay -- Social Sociology Feminism Essays

Makeover Feminism Most viewers of commercial television or consumers of popular magazines have seen striking images of women whose appearance has been dramatically altered. Many of these â€Å"made-over† women changed their body image through diet and exercise regimes, skillfully applied makeup, or elective cosmetic surgery. Possessed of higher education, prestigious careers, and families, these successful women often report that they felt some aspect of their appearance prevented them from reaching their goals. Responding to criticism from feminists, they defend the choice to enhance their appearance as a tactical effort to win power in normative society. Drawing on popular media interpretations of third wave feminism, women compelled to politicize a personal decision to â€Å"improve† their image have wrapped this act in ideological jargon. Makeover Feminism is a cheeky new slogan meant to express the idea that conformity to cultural norms of physical beauty achieved through artificial and sometimes extreme means asserts female power. These women deny submission to patriarchal fantasies of the feminine ideal, claiming agency in the choice to alter their faces and/or bodies. Significant numbers of females submit to costly and dangerous, deforming, and potentially lethal procedures in an effort to claim power through beauty. This trend is visible in the annals of medical journal statistics that demonstrate an increase in the number of elective surgeries undergone by women in the last ten years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Year Total Annual Procedures ----------------------------------------------------------------------------... ...ted, feminism is basically a shift from woman as eternal Other—always defined from outside—to woman as Self. Makeover Feminism, despite its sincere discourse within the tradition, cannot accomplish the goal of female liberation. Works Cited American Society of Plastic Surgeons. â€Å"National Clearinghouse of Plastic Surgery Statistics.† 2004. 12 Aug. 2004. . Donovan, Josephine. Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions of American Feminism. New York: Continuum, 1992. Franzoi, Stephen L. Social Psychology. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Laing, R.D. The Politics of Experience. New York: Ballantine, 1973. Lotz, Amanda D. â€Å"Communicating Third-Wave Feminism and New Social Movements: Challenges for the Next Century of Feminist Endeavor.† Women and Language 26.1 (2003): 2-9.

An Argument Against Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve

An Argument against Drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve By: James Andrew Whitten Government Economics Heath Vincent March 5, 2013 America’s rank as the world’s leading superpower gives the nation unsurpassed clout throughout the rest of the world, but as the old saying goes â€Å"With great power comes great responsibility. † Many other nations not only rely on America’s economy for their own country’s survival, but they also look up to America with a hopeful sense for the future.The founding fathers of this great nation had excellent insight into the authority that America would one day possess, and thus they attempted to set many precedents that would lead the way for the nations that would choose to follow America’s example. Still today, every move that the American nation makes is carefully scrutinized by the other nations of the world. So, it is crucial that the United States ensure that as it moves forward, it does so with a noble and future oriented perception of its goals.Thus, drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve would be a colossal mistake for the United States, because drilling would be detrimental to the pristine indigenous environment, it would have little or no beneficial impact on the American or Global economy, and would poorly exemplify the ambitions that America should have. For the past century, the global dependency on oil has progressively increased each and every year. Now, the world’s need for a steady oil supply is at an all-time high, but oil supplies are slowly dwindling day by day.Oil prices have sky rocketed, the environment has been irreversibly damaged, and it is evident that this rate of oil consumption is completely unsustainable. So should America not be avidly searching for new sustainable alternatives to oil, rather than attempting to destroy land set aside for the very purpose of protecting it against such damaging procedures as oil drilling? The Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) is one of the many wildlife preservation efforts that great men in America’s past developed in order to preserve both the natural beauty of this great land, and the natural environment and its resources.Humans are one of the few species that contribute nearly nothing to ecosystem in which they live, yet they devour gargantuan amounts of the resources around them. Gasoline is an excellent example of this. Americans are consistently obliterating the ozone layer through their emission of toxic pollutants from the gas they use every day in their cars. Yet, rather than address the unmaintainable way of living they have adopted by attempting to lower their consumption, they just expect more gas.The American government should not allow this mindset to continue, and should aid its people in having a better understanding of their effect on the environment. This same greed carries directly over into the economic side of this situation too. R ather than accepting that ANWR only has enough oil resources to last for six months if the nation were to rely solely on it, and that the oil drilled would at the very most impact the oil price by three percent, Americans fool themselves into believing that ANWR can offer economic salvation.The American people would like to believe that this oil will release the country from its unhealthy dependence on foreign oil, but the fact is there is nowhere near enough oil there to have any such affect. And, the only people who will find true economic gain from the oil will be the oil companies. Instead of being blinded by greed, America should fix the real problem, the inflated consumption of oil by the American people. Finally, as previously stated, many nations admirably look up to America’s great influence in hope of a better future for their own nation.America should utilize this power to ensure that other nations also follow in a direction that will lead the world to a future tha t this current generation can take pride in. Drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Preserve would have the exact opposite effect. By drilling in ANWR, America would be making a statement that it is perfectly acceptable to further destroy the world’s unstable environment all for the sake of greed. It would set a pattern that said no matter the circumstances of the area, no matter that it is a safe haven for animal breeding, and no matter that the people of the world need o truly reflect on the rate of their oil consumption, it is acceptable to drill anywhere that oil is found. Would the American people have been so ready to drill if the refinery were going to be in Yellowstone and the magnificent Sequoias would have to be demolished? No, it would be an abomination to even consider, and so the same mentality should be set for ANWR. Americans have always taken an abundant pride in their country. The founding fathers of the mighty nation developed a country that is far beyond what anyone could have imagined two-hundred years ago.However, they too realized that all resources are not infinite and that there is great need to protect certain pieces of land for the sake of the future. Thus, they developed national wildlife reserves in the hope of setting aside land specifically for the purpose of preservation. The American nation needs to remember this, and maintain the ideals of those who came before them by looking to the future, not just the present. ANWR is meant for conservation, not more devastation.

The Wall - Picture Book About A Visit to Vietnam War Memorial

Author Eve Bunting has a gift for writing about serious subjects in a way that makes them accessible to young children, and she has done just that in her picture book The Wall. This childrens picture book is about a father and his young sons visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Its a good book to share on Memorial Day, as well as Veterans Day and any other day of the year. The Wall by Eve Bunting: The Story A young boy and his dad have traveled all the way to Washington, DC to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. They have come to find the name of the boys grandfather, his dads father. The little boy calls the memorial my grandfathers wall. As the father and son look for the grandfathers name, they meet others who are visiting the memorial, including a veteran in a wheelchair and a couple weeping while hugging one another. They see flowers, letters, flags, and a teddy bear that have been left at the wall. When they find the name, they do a rubbing and leave a school photograph of the boy on the ground below his grandfathers name. When the boy says, Its sad here, his father explains, Its a place of honor. The Books Impact This brief description does not do justice to the book. It is a poignant tale, made more so by the muted watercolor illustrations of Richard Himler. The boys obvious feelings of loss for a man he never knew, and his fathers quiet remark, He was just my age when he was killed, really bring home the impact of war on the families whose lives have been changed by the loss of a loved one. Yet, while the father and sons visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is bittersweet, it is a comfort to them, and this, in turn, is a comfort to the reader. The Author and the Illustrator Author Eve Bunting was born in Ireland and came to the United States as a young woman. She has written more than 200 childrens books. These range from picture books to young adult books. She has written other childrens books on serious subjects, such as Fly Away Home (homelessness), Smoky Night (the Los Angeles riots) and Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust. In addition to The Wall, artist Richard Himler has illustrated a number of other books by Eve Bunting. These include Fly Away Home, A Days Work, and Train to Somewhere. Among the childrens books, hes illustrated for other authors are Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and Katies Trunk. Recommendation The Wall is recommended for six- to nine-year-olds. Even if your child is an independent reader, we suggest that you use it as a read-aloud. By reading it aloud to your children, you will have the opportunity to answer any questions they may have, to reassure them, and to discuss the story and the purpose of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. You might also put this book on your list of books to read around Memorial Day and Veterans Day.