Follow Up Post 3/1

Fausto-Sterling discusses the stereotypes of women who are going through menstruation and menopause and some of the historical aspects of this. She talks about how women were seen as in capable of doing many tasks because of this fact of life and how the symptoms of some women were extrapolated to all women, which helped to encourage these stereotypes. She also talks about the types of studies that were done on this issue and how they were biased throughout history until recently. These biased studies also helped to prolong stereotypes. I think this essay gives an important context to the types of thoughts people have and what the origins of these thoughts are. I think that stereotypes about menopause and menstruation are prevalent today and while people may now say that they know better than to say things about all women in general, these types of jokes are some of the most prevalent I feel about women today.

Douglas in Lean and Mean talks about the way that women today are given extremely thin women as idols and also how these women are voluptuous. This type of idol has women rushing to plastic surgeons and the rise of many reality TV shows about plastic surgery. She then speaks about the ways that the risks of plastic surgery are not showcased and therefore people may not know what they are getting themselves into. She talks about the rise of beauty products and the market for women in improving their looks to fit an unattainable standard. The most interesting part of this to me when when she dicussed Dove and their attempt to have models who were real life people, but that Dove was owned by the company who makes SlimFast. This to me showed just how bad things are because I had personally thought the ads by Dove were great, but to find out that they were still just a marketing ploy really can make you feel tricked.

Douglas continues to talk about the current fad of mean girls and how movies such as Mean Girls and shows like Gossip Girls made it seem like the world’s high school girls are all living their lives through hurting other high school girls. She talks about how ridiculous this is to think of in reality but how much people fall into the traps of these shows and how the portrayal of the mean girl is seeping into reality.

These readings were very interesting and had a lot of truisms. It is interesting to see Douglas’ perspective and see how she views the media and marketing world we are all living in.