Ethnographic Exercise

Ethnographic Exercise

So when I got this assignment and it was over gender and work, one thing came to my head immediately, sexual harassment.  After watching the clip of how women are viewed in the media in class this seemed like a fun project. This also came to my head based on what my sister does as a part time job and hobby. My sister, Danielle Armstrong, is a fitness competitor and a model.  Naturally with my sister being a fitness competitor and fitness model the idea of sexual harassment came to me.  So her job is to basically have the “ideal” body for a woman, a flat stomach with some abs, toned legs, and big breasts. So my question is sexual harassment really a common problem in work places?

First of all sexual harassment really makes me angry because it is extremely degrading to both women and men.  Women by they are usually being the ones being harassed, and I said men because sadly enough this kind of stuff is what gives all men “bad names”.  In order to do my study and observe my sister at work I went to the gym with her because that is basically her work.  This was actually more fun than anything just because I am a very big fitness guy myself so I go to the gym everyday anyways!  I how ever did not tell her I was going to be doing this study while there so she would not act any differently. 

So when we went to the gym I basically stood back and just observed everyone around the gym and stayed away from my sister and observed people who would come up to her and how she would react.  I had the typical questions lined up to ask her.  They were things like have you ever been a victim of sexual harassment?  If so how often?  How does it make you feel? Having a job like yours you must have known that you would be sexually harassed often? 

While at the gym, I observed all the people there working out.  Not surprising to me pretty much every guy at the gym was checking out my sister.  As soon as she would turn around or walk behind someone, the guys eyes or heads always turned around and stared straight at her butt.  I honestly do not know if this is considered sexual harassment because the whole time I was there no body ever went up to her and tried touching or saying anything inappropriate to her.  Actually the only people who even talked to her were other girls saying that she looked fantastic.

After our gym session I told her what this all about and began asking the questions.  Danielle said that she has been sexually harassed several times at the gym by guys coming up to her and saying inappropriate things to her.  I actually laughed when she told me what one guy said to her.  He said “ Every time you squat, think of me”!  Of course she did not think it was that funny.  She said that she really hates when she gets harassed like that because it makes her feel like an object instead of a person, much like the women in the video of how women are portrayed in the media said.  She said it does not happen that often.  She said that she knew that she would be somewhat harassed just because she has the “ideal” body of a woman.  I then asked her a question that she could not come up with a good answer too.  I asked her if she hated it so much then why does she dress the way she did when I went to the gym with her.  She was wearing a sports bra, a extremely tight shirt, and really tight short shorts.  She said that she likes it because it makes her feel sexy and that it teased men.  I then asked so are you not asking to be sexually harassed then?  She had no answer except that men are perverts!  

Obviously this was not a true experimental observation.  I would have to do this numerous times to get an accurate idea of how common sexual harassment is in her line of work.  If someone was wanting to do research on sexual harassment it would probably be best not to do the experiment on someone who makes a living based on being sexy.  So from what I concluded from this experiment is that sexual harassment definitely does happen but its perhaps because the women or men could be sending the wrong messages based on the way they dress and act.

Ethnographic Exercise

Ethnographic Exercise

So when I got this assignment and it was over gender and work, one thing came to my head immediately, sexual harassment.  After watching the clip of how women are viewed in the media in class this seemed like a fun project. This also came to my head based on what my sister does as a part time job and hobby. My sister, Danielle Armstrong, is a fitness competitor and a model.  Naturally with my sister being a fitness competitor and fitness model the idea of sexual harassment came to me.  So her job is to basically have the “ideal” body for a woman, a flat stomach with some abs, toned legs, and big breasts. So my question is sexual harassment really a common problem in work places?

First of all sexual harassment really makes me angry because it is extremely degrading to both women and men.  Women by they are usually being the ones being harassed, and I said men because sadly enough this kind of stuff is what gives all men “bad names”.  In order to do my study and observe my sister at work I went to the gym with her because that is basically her work.  This was actually more fun than anything just because I am a very big fitness guy myself so I go to the gym everyday anyways!  I how ever did not tell her I was going to be doing this study while there so she would not act any differently. 

So when we went to the gym I basically stood back and just observed everyone around the gym and stayed away from my sister and observed people who would come up to her and how she would react.  I had the typical questions lined up to ask her.  They were things like have you ever been a victim of sexual harassment?  If so how often?  How does it make you feel?  Having a job like yours you must have known that you would be sexually harassed often? 

While at the gym, I observed all the people there working out.  Not surprising to me pretty much every guy at the gym was checking out my sister.  As soon as she would turn around or walk behind someone, the guys eyes or heads always turned around and stared straight at her butt.  I honestly do not know if this is considered sexual harassment because the whole time I was there no body ever went up to her and tried touching or saying anything inappropriate to her.  Actually the only people who even talked to her were other girls saying that she looked fantastic.

After our gym session I told her what this all about and began asking the questions.  Danielle said that she has been sexually harassed several times at the gym by guys coming up to her and saying inappropriate things to her.  I actually laughed when she told me what one guy said to her.  He said “ Every time you squat, think of me”!  Of course she did not think it was that funny.  She said that she really hates when she gets harassed like that because it makes her feel like an object instead of a person, much like the women in the video of how women are portrayed in the media said.  She said it does not happen that often.  She said that she knew that she would be somewhat harassed just because she has the “ideal” body of a woman.  I then asked her a question that she could not come up with a good answer too.  I asked her if she hated it so much then why does she dress the way she did when I went to the gym with her.  She was wearing a sports bra, a extremely tight shirt, and really tight short shorts.  She said that she likes it because it makes her feel sexy and that it teased men.  I then asked so are you not asking to be sexually harassed then?  She had no answer except that men are perverts!  

Obviously this was not a true experimental observation.  I would have to do this numerous times to get an accurate idea of how common sexual harassment is in her line of work.  If someone was wanting to do research on sexual harassment it would probably be best not to do the experiment on someone who makes a living based on being sexy.  So from what I concluded from this experiment is that sexual harassment definitely does happen but its perhaps because the women or men could be sending the wrong messages based on the way they dress and act.

Week 8

Belkin's essay was about how many times women will stop chasing a job or advancement in a job to raise a family.  From what I read there were a couple different sides but mostly people agreeing with what she said.  Some people were upset that it tends to always be the women who stay home and take care of the family and not the men.  Others who were probably mom's themselves were agreeing with what Belkin said and agreed and enjoyed being the one's who stayed home and took care of their children.  Their was one response where a women basically said that she would love to stop working to raise her family but due to finances she could not be a stay at home mother.  My story is a little bit on both sides of the argument.  My mother was a nurse and my father was a doctor when I was born.  I was the third and final child in my family.  My mother worked until I was born and both of my sisters were fairly young so she decided to be a stay at home mom because my father made enough money to support us.  When I asked her how she felt about this she said she loved every minute of it and would not have wanted it any other way.  I was to young to realize what sacrifice she had made for our family.  She was a stay at home mom until I got to the third grade and I was now old enough to pretty much take care of myself.  I have been cooking my own food and doing laundry since I was in 1st grade so I pretty much knew how to take care of the little things for myself.  In 3rd grade my mother got a job at a karate school teaching kickboxing ( that was her and the rest of my family's sport, and she was really good at it).  This took up most of her time and I soon only saw her in the morning when she would take me to school because she taught classes till 11 at night and I was always in bed by then at that age.  I never really liked that because I seriously only saw my mom maybe a couple of hours a week.  As I got older my mom eventually became a dermatologist and then became a lawyer, so the whole women doing a certain job thing has never really attained to her.  I was old enough by this time for her being gone at the time to not bother me anymore, but I always wish I could of seen more of her when I was growing up through my childhood.

Week 7: Movie Review

The movie I am going to write about is Watchmen. The movie played a very big role in gender. The movie is about these people who are trying to save the world from nuclear war and there are 4 guys and 1 girl in the superhero group. There are 3 sex scenes in the movie. The first one being a rape scene. The male beats and has sex with the women after she refuses to have sex with him. Gender wise this is showing that men are more dominant and violent. That we get what we want even if it is against the women's wishes. The women says no when the man first comes on but she easily gives up after being smaked. To me this is showing that women are much softer and gentler because she in no way put up any kind of physical fight. The other sex scene was between this guy and his girlfriend. The guy had special powers and could make duplicates of himself. So when him and his girlfriend were having sex, and the girl is all into it by the way, he made duplicates of himself to have sex with her while the other half of him was working. This shows a big difference between men and women. Men tend to be more distant and dont look at sex as such a close and personal thing but rather as something that is fun. While women tend to view sex as something sacred and special. The final sex scene was between a guy and a girl who had just recently fallen for each other. This sex scene was very graphic and showed much more but always had the male on top. This again is showing that men are generally scene as being the dominant gender while women are there to support and help men. Its funny because none of the movie previews showed any sex scene or anything that you would think of having to do with a gender role. Instead the movie preview was all about fighting and action scenes. Personally I think that the movie was depicting gender roles in a pretty acurate way ; however, I do not agree with them. I am just saying that in general the man is usually looked at as the dominant sex.