something positive?

I noticed that most of my posts have a bit of a "negative" tone / feeling/ ring to them... but actually the picture is not as bleak as it seems to be... I'll be expanding on this idea soon...

Actually it looks like I'm failing to keep this promise - too many things going on simultaneously... but I'd like to post this TED talk that is a very good reflection of how I feel about the issues:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome.html


Attitude - Awareness & Authenticity...

new legislation regarding guns

If you were in class you might remember that a few weeks ago I asked you to think about possible consequences of relative ease / difficulty of obtaining guns... ?

I don't know if you are aware of the new legislation that is underway in Turkey - not sure if it has been passed by parliament or not - yet, it's just a matter of time anyway... but I do know that instead of making it more difficult for people to obtain and carry guns, it's aimed at making it easier; for example certain guns that required you to get a medical board certificate will be issued by a single doctor's approval, if you're 18 you'll be able to carry a gun, etc...

I thought I should share this piece of good news with you... I'm sure you'll rejoice at this development...

HURRAY!!! let's all get a catalogue or browse the net? 

and start choosing which guns we want to get...

(see I'm so thrilled I'm getting poetic:-*)

subliminal effects

Özge, reading your blog entry reminded me of the following video (7 mins long) - it's quite fascinating and stunning that's why I'm posting it here rather than in response to your post... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg&feature=fvsr

enjoy :-)

society at large guilty of creating illusions regarding marriage

I've been thinking about this lately, and it seems related to our topic in a way - considering that married couples - conventionally - consist of one member of each gender, and also assuming that maybe part of the misery experienced in too many of these marriages might stem from unrealistic expectations of each other or the "self"...

What's bugging me about the concept of marriage is that it's not just media that often presents too rosy a picture of couples (so that some people like Cleofilias in "Woman Hollering Creek" by Cisneros live with the expectation that once they get married everything is going to be just great... and then they wake up (if at all) to the reality and at first feel paralyzed and can't do anything... ))) but it's the whole society - especially in Turkey - that when looked at closely seems to conspire together to fool singles to believe that they need to get married and that if they do they'll be happy (forever?)... you might not agree with me but I've started noticing that there are a lot of couples who are not really happy - but they pretend that they are; that everything is OK, especially in the presence of others, for example at weddings you see couples dance who might not even really talk to each other anymore when at home, at bayrams you see couples visiting relatives and faking a happy family, or when others come visiting them again you see a cheerful image ... all done out of a sense of a civic duty? not to worry the family unnecessarily?

As to the why? why does almost everyone play their part in this pretense? obviously not to trick poor singles into their doomed lives as couples - In fact, I think a lot of this pretending happens unconsciously...In some cases, at least, it seems like the spouses aren't even aware of how miserable they are - so you can't really blame them - they put on their masks when in company of others without even noticing it - or they are so happy to be with others that they forget about how unhappy they are about their supposedly most intimate relationships?

One reason might be that it is probably  hard to admit (not just to your family and your social environment but more importantly to yourself ) that you didn't choose the "right" partner for you, your true "soul-mate" so to speak; and since it's a rather complicated issue you can't walk away from a marriage even though you're not happy - so it might be easier to just pretend like you were happy... ? and hope that magically everything is going to get better?

Of course we shouldn't disregard all the media that report the negative face or possible negative events  that may occur in marriages such as domestic violence, but somehow these news don't appear to have the same effect as the more promising face of it - I guess people think sth on these lines "oh no, that won't ever happen to me/us", they somehow immunize themselves against these warning signs.

These kinds of news might also function hand in hand with the other "marriage = bliss" notion so that some couples even if they are aware of problems they might have in their marriage might think: "well, yes, we're not perfectly happy - but at least he doesn't beat me"... or " well, things could be better, but at least we don't fight / argue with each other" etc... So, in a way people accept settling for second best...which is sad.

Another reason why some couples might be staying together even if they feel disappointed or don't love each other anymore could be that they feel more detached from their parents like this and a connected fear that if they get divorced the parents will not let them live in peace. They might feel more independent than if they were considered single again, especially in Turkish society where your age and experience with life doesn't really matter so much from the parents perspective - they tend to be overly protective and feel that they need to interfere in their kids' businesses...? This could only be the case for couples where the partners don't interfere in each others lives too much, though...

There are probably more other reasons, but I'm getting a bit tired now... might add more to this later...

Don't get me wrong, I do not intend to tell you that you should never get married - or do I? anyway, I urge you to think it through carefully once you get to that point and don't buy into the "happy" families you see all around you:-) This doesn't mean that there are no happy families, but they seem to be rather the exception than the rule:-(

"codes of gender: id & performance..."

Some of you have asked how you could watch the documentary on your own - either to watch the sections we skipped or to analyse the bits we already watched... go to :

http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/search~S9?/reng+101/reng+101/1%2C2%2C4%2CB/frameset&FF=reng+101+electronic+copies&2%2C%2C3

and download the relevant link there...

if the link above doesn't work for some reason go through the following steps:
go to the IC website > e-reserve > course > type "Eng 101" > Eng 101 - electronic copies > The codes of gender: identity & performance in pop culture 

Actually you might also watch some of the other documentaries there if you like to get some more "visual" background on this subject: 

In fact I had selected some parts from
       Generation M: Misogyny and 
       Killing Us Softly 3 
to go over together but most likely we will not have time to cover them... there is evidently going to be some overlap between these but there are also some slightly different aspects in each of them. you can move on to another section if you feel like it's too much of the same stuff...

gender roles "prescribed" by ads or simply mirrors to our realities?

I found myself thinking about this question once more after class today, well yes it's obvious that so many of the positions we see the models in are totally unnatural so they couldn't really be reflecting real life if we stop to think about them just for a second- does that mean we shouldn't even be thinking about them since they are so ridiculous? silly as they are they might still be reflecting some value judgements that are pretty representative of how people conceive of the two main genders - mistakenly so, if you ask me, but nevertheless a lot of the gender stereotypes have a lot of believers/ followers... so, it seems worth questioning the whole thing...

If we consider more specifically our cultural context which is still a little different from the American mainstream context the differing standards for males and females seems to grow exponentially, especially since we live in a society where religious concerns used to play a significant role in determining appropriate and acceptable behaviour for considerable parts of the society - and even if the roots of those norms don't seem so obvious anymore the expectations they created seem to have persisted. Just to name a few  gender biased regulations that used to be justified in religious terms / circles: girls are not supposed to look around as they walk on the streets, they should keep their heads down; nor should they laugh or make their voice heard to men - the enemy who is so weak that even the slightest contact or sight would be sinfully tempting;- is this a bit contradictory?-  in married couples it's one of the worst sins for the woman to stand up for her own ideas and needs and it's not up to her to make any real decisions; and the list could go on... but I guess this is enough to get the point that a deeply rooted discrimination has existed in our society for a very long time...

now I wonder after all these years of conditioning  for the female gender to be the quiet, obedient good girls and for the males who are the decision-makers and protectors of their families the society approves of - could these images affect our population even more severely than it does in more western societies? If we look at the messages many current ads project, the quiet, good submissive girls are encouraged to also try to look as sexy and seductive as only possible - because that's what counts - while not appearing to be in control which in turn makes them ideal victims for assaults? And for the male population as if the glamorization of muscularity and the emphasis to be the protector were not enough, do they feel more pressure to be the cool guys always in control? Is that fair on either gender? Don't think so.

I feel that there is too much pressure for the untrained eye that does not see beyond the visible aspects of media messages and their social environment. I think it's crucial for people - especially young teenagers and adults- to realize the existence of these pressures and find the strength not to conform to these expectations but to find their own real self. And being aware of these unrealistic / unfair expectations based on their genders will help them see other kinds of expectations or pressures they are inundated with on a daily basis.?

Sensitive Male Models

As you'll (hopefully) remember we watched some sections of a documentary regarding the "TOUGH GUISE" that's expected of males. Among others we managed to watch the section which emphasized that men are pressured to be invulnerable regardless of the situations they might find themselves in. The next section consisted of some nice samples that stand up against this misconception, but I doubt that (m)any of you have watched it... so here it is once more...I think it's worth watching...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9632437500432634#

watch minute 40 onwards... and let me know what you think... I don't want to comment on it without you commenting on it first...


 

Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self & Woman Hollering Creek

Remember to write up your entries about these two stories - and especially the one we didn't discuss in class...

Give a brief account of what happens, 

relate it to the context in Turkey and add any other reactions...

I'm curious as regards your thoughts & evaluations of these stories - please analyse what they say about both genders, not just females even though they appear more in the foreground...

What's the use of it all?

Life can be depressing enough without us being aware of the pressures to conform to the "norms" of current day societies, all the subtle or overt messages we are subjected to on such a regular basis so that it all seems all too normal and we don't even realize - let alone question them... 

So what's the use of looking at how gender, for example, is represented and the expectations connected to that? Is it possible to reverse or  alter conventional perceptions at all, and if so - how? or are we all doomed to live a life that's not ours? a life determined by what others expect us to do and be like?

By the way - I would like to invite you to think about characters like "Lara Croft" and why they don't actually remedy the situation???...

I wonder why?

Not that I mean to compare classes against each other - but I just noticed something slightly strange - the class which experienced most technical problems when trying to set up their blogs (B6) seems to have written more blog posts than all the other classes so far and the class which didn't experience any technical problems (D6) seems to have set up and written the fewest number of blogs? Isn't that counter intuitive?!

I love to hate you!

Just a quickie : In line with the experience Sadık mentioned in his latest post, I've realised that ever since our class on Wednesday morning - when we were discussing Poniewozik's suggestion ( in Why Reality TV is Good For Us - 2003)  that "Reality TV owed its success to the masses hating it so much" I remembered a song from many years ago "I love to hate you" - and I couldn't get it out of my mind after one of the groups stated that they all agreed to love to hate Reality TV - I've been trying to remember who the song was by..  finally I did a "fizy" search and was reminded that it was "Erasure" who sang it...it's a bit cheesy, but if you'd like to check it out go for it...:-) 

Is it worth thinking about other things we might love to hate?

Having trouble writing your posts?

Check out the following  blogs if you would like to get some ideas on what your blog posts might look like.They are  samples displaying different ways to react to our class content: I hope this will make it easier for you to write your own blogs. Some of these posts might look  a little long - but that's Ok look for their content rather than the length. OK?

İdill (A6)

Özge( B6)

Selin (C6)

The fact that I didn't refer to all blogs doesn't mean it's not worth checking these out, too - the ones included in this post seem to have different styles worth becoming aware of.I might be adding a few more to this list soon...

2.I'd Pick More Daisies

If I had my life to live over,

I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.

   I'd relax, I would limber up.

I would be sillier than I have been this trip.

   I would take fewer things seriously.

     I would take more chances.

I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.

  I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

  I would perhaps have more actual troubles,

    but I'd have fewer imaginary ones...

And so on goes the poem.... There are many versions of this poem. In some sources it is attributed to Nadine Stair with an additional comment stating that she was 85 years old....Check out this address if you want to see the poem in full and an alternative version of it...http://www.devpsy.org/nonscience/daisies.html

I think we're lucky if we get a chance to examine our lives before we get 85 - so that we can actually implement some changes to our routine if we aren't too happy about how our lives seem to go, or if we are happy about it enjoy it and cherish it even more so - thanks to our increased level of awareness.

1.The Enormous Radio by John Cheever

As we have been analysing and discussing this powerful short story, the events, the potential underlying reasons and effects etc., some interesting observations came up in our very first week of classes.

One of these for example was about the point that people in general are curious about other people's lives and hence would find it difficult to give up a source that provides them with info about what happens in others' lives  - why else would we have Facebook? I think this is a very true comment and I'm grateful for the student who has made the link from the events in the story to a currently trendy way of engaging in a kind of voyeurism.

Another comment I thought was very valid and was glad came up was the fact that Irene might be engaging in this addictive habit of hers in order to escape (facing) her own problems - isn't it ironic that exactly this desire to escape reality might lead to a cruel awakening in the end?

There were many more good insights which I enjoyed hearing, I hope to see some of those come up again in your blogs...:-))

I hope we are off to a good semester and will have many different perspectives to explore :-)