Although it is already a heated debate, I would like to know what you think about this. One thing that was interesting from one of my classmates was she said it is ok for women to want to be men, but not ok for men to be women… WHOA!

This instantly caught my attention because of this class itself, and I wonder if it has to do with power/control, or just the fact that society would instantly judge a man becoming a woman more than they would a woman becoming a man.

One interesting story that I found on line about transgender teachers is from this website below, and it might be a surprise to some of you to read some of the comments and statements that people are making:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6414895n

The woman on the left (the transgender) talks about school systems and that gays and transgenders can be fired from their job if students don’t want gays and transgenders teaching them. She is clearly defended because this lady on the right said she had a MENTAL DISORDER…

There are laws being debated to protect these teachers and professors from this issue, but I am afraid that this negative stigma will never cease.

One thing I know is that I could never allow myself to even THINK about calling someone who is transgender “mental” or having a “psychological disorder.” I feel like it is a life choice and if someone wants to be a different sex, then it is their choice, not mine to make for them or judge.

I feel like too many women are not reaching out to the people that they need to talk to. It is easy to be scared of someone, especially if they are mad. I know that people can lose sight of what is really in front of them. For example, it is easy to think that someone else loves you because you want them to love you or because they may tell you that they love you. The truth could really be that they do not. I wonder if falling out of love is one of the reasons that men abuse their wives in this way?

I do not know about sexual abuse or domestic violence, but I tell myself that I would never be too scared to put up a fight. I also know that if someone said “If you do / don’t do ____ I will kill you,” then I would listen. I would rather not take the chance of being killed and just suffer through the violence. This is where I think most women choose to stay victims. The sexual assault is something that women are more likely to try to fight againgst, because they mostly is with strangers (but not always). It is the marriages that I think women feel like they have no choice but to stay.

This is a confusing and head spinning topic and debate, because I could argue reasons for why I would leave, and why I would stay.
What would you do?

I think that women today are struggling with all of the stereotypes, prejudice, judgements, and negativity that is going on. Women are constantly being looked at negatively when they are prostitutes and when they perform pornography. Many young teenagers and young adult women dream of having thier time of fame. BUT…. what I think that people fail to see is the fact that SOME of these women who have to “sell” their bodies to be able to support themselves or their family. Some women simply do not have a choice, and I know that sounds hard to believe, because everyone has a choice. What I am saying is that it is not easy to find a job, and it IS easy to get paid to have others enjoy your body through picture, video, or sexual pleasure….

One example that I have is a young mom I know who has young children, and she just recently resorted to stripping for money and her son is olde enough to ask, “is mommy taking her clothes off tonight?” when she leaves him… It is a horrible situation, but there is a song that I heard when I was in elementary school. I bought the cd, and the song is touching I think becasue it reveals a lot of truth….

Here is the link!: http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/City+High/What+Would+You+Do%3F–2154740

This week, I am going to tell you about a new situation with the same job, but a different manager. I have noticed that I have “had it easy” so-to-speak when this manager (a man) is the one working during the shift. He refers to me as “his little trooper,” and I just noticed that it is getting to the point where he will not even call me by his name.

He favors me (because I am a young woman, as opposed to everyone else who works my shift who are men and much older women).  He lets me choose what I want to do, what I wish not to do. He allows me to get away with certain things that other people get in trouble for. It is a HUGE double standard, but it is different than all of the double standards that I am used to.

Usually, men treat women in a negative way in a factory ( I work in a warehouse and do a lot of “factory” work). Therefore, I thought that all of the managers would make me do more work to try to pull my own weight. I am not complaining that I am being treated great by my manager, but I feel horrible that I am getting away with things that other people would get away with.

Has anyone else ever heard of a woman ACTUALLY being treated better and being praised more for her work than a man in a factory? Let me know what you think about it, and why you think he would treat me differently…. Thank you .

The fact that so many girls and women are being forced to grow up and live a life that they would never ask for is such a tragedy. Girls are supposed to be girls. They are not supposed to live a life full or murder, rape, pain, torture and abuse….

These poor girls are being starved and neglected, only being used for sex and abuse. They are experiments of drugs and addiction and have no control over the fact that they have to be sold into slavery and prostitution for no reason, other than the fact that those men are cruel.

I can not imagine having to live a life that is nothing but misery and questions. You know these young girls are going to have a million questions as to why this happened to happen to them. They do no understand why they were drugged and forced to live a life like that.

When I read that so many women disappear every year due to trafficking, and are never returned to their families, it made me realize how lucky so many of us are, but never take the time to appreciate it. So many of us take so much for granted, and we think we have it bad, when really we do not know ANYTHING the way these young victims know it. They have truly lived  and are living lives that none of us ever want….

I never knew they human trafficking existed until I was about 15 years old, when I watched a movie that I never should have seen…. I wish I never would have watched it because it hurts to know that so many innocent girls are going through that right now, in this moment.

When I was in high school ( just three years ago) birth control was a greatly discussed topic amongst the high school couples. The girls especially talked about it quite a bit amongst their female friends, about whether or not they should take it or not, and what kind is the most effective, and questions like that.

I never talked about it because I was the type of high school girl that thought that if I spoke about birth control too much or to the wrong people, that it was going to give me a bad reputation that I was “sleeping around.” Granted, I did have a high-school sweetheart, and we dated from when I was 14 until I was 18.

My mom decided that when I was a freshman in high school, she wanted to put me on birth control just in case. I was only 15! I was scared, embarassed, and I remember crying because I thought that my mom didn’t trust me not to have sex in high school. In the end though, I was 15 years old and I started taking birth control, and I am still on them. So, for the past 6 years, I have been taking birth control, and I always felt like I was too young when I started taking them.

To me, I felt like my body was still growing and had a lot of maturing still left to do, and yet, I was forced to take birth control that was making my body make changes before it ever had the chance to make its own natural changes….

I guess the point that I am trying to get to is knowing when the right age for girls to start taking birth control is. How young is “too” young to start taking birth control: when should young girls start taking the medication? Also, d0 you think that it is normal for young girls to talk about birth control like it is part of the normal lifestyle? I sort of think that high school girls are too young to really understand the significance of getting pregnant at a young age, so taking birth control is wise, but I also feel like birth control is asking a lot of a young highschool girl, on top of adjusting to the high school atmosphere. What do you think?

Normally, men have been known to want to have “perfect” muscles, “bulging” abdomens, and “huge” arms. Have you ever noticed or even known a man to not want these things, but to want the exact opposite?… One thing I have come to realize is that when you hear about eating disorders, people tend to think of women. Bullemia? Women. Anorexia Nervosa? Women…. But did you know that “1 in 10 cases of these disorders involve males,” according to The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (http://www.anad.org/get-information/males-eating-disorders/)

1 out of every 10 men! 10% is a really big number when you realize how may men there are and how LITTLE you hear about men not liking their body….

I am not talking about obesity or being overweight, but the men who think that they are too “fat” and do not eat at all… With numbers as high as 10%, that could mean that any given male in your family could suffer from an eating disorder of some sort, but it might be hard to notice, until you are aware of the major signs or symptoms.

I am really curious if any of you know any men personally or have witnessed men around you suffer from eating disorders… If so, how is it different than when women suffer from them?

Also, do you think that too much exercising to make oneself appear “too” large is considered an eating disorder? Men tend to overexercise because they want to gain muscle, but do you think most men are exercising because they are afraid to have weight be fat?

One day, this young man wore pink nail polish to school. Instantly, word got around at school, and everyone soon knew that this guy had pink nail polish. In high school, this is the worst scenario for young guys to be in. Of course, people started calling him gay and a fag. People had no real reason to call him these names, other than the pink nail polish.

Weeks went by, and with no notice, he stopped coming to school. It turned out that his mom had passed away from breast cancer, and the PINK nail polish was for his mom. I remember some people crying because they had no clue that this young man’s mom passed away. He was always a guy who stood out and he knew everyone, and everyone knew him. Yet, some how no one managed to find out that his mom had passed away. He was the kind of guy who just smiled and acted like this did not bother him, but I always wondered why he never told anyone about his mom, instead of just trying to defend his sexuality. The only reason we found out was because the principal of our school had to tell our class about it in the lecture one day when the whole class got called to an emergency meeting about bullying.

I do not recall him coming back to school, but I imagine that it had to do with him mom’s passing and the fact that everyone called him gay, when really, he just had his own way of sort of publicly acknowleging his mom.

It was something I never will forget because so many of us learned not to judge someone because they are doing something that another sex would do.

When men entered the gym, it was like looking at all new women. All of a sudden (when the men entered the room) the other women were running and jogging faster, lifting and working out with more weight, picking up their paces, and overall sweating more.

I do not have all of the answers or reasons as to why women would overall want to perform better in the gym with men than they would with all women are present. I believe that it is due to the feministic “bubble” that women have been placed into. I feel that men have been judging women and saying and believing that they are slower and lazier than men, that they do not have a place in the gym, so to speak. It feels like men laugh at and make fun of women when they work out and they really do make women feel like they have to give it their all when men are around to show what they can do.

It is awful that men have led women to feel intimidated in the gym, but then again, I do not know 100% if this is the reason why women would change their overall attitude in the gym. What do you all think? Do you think that men make women feel like they have no place to work out in a gym setting?

Lately, it has become quite a pet peeve of mine to come home after I had completely cleaned the home before I left, and find it extremely dirty. I am amazed how much mess one 24 year old man can make. However, I have been trying my best to maintain a positive attitude and not completely yell or get mad at him for constantly having to clean up after him. Last night, I  asked him if he could please help clean up a little bit and put his clothes away and any of his stuff that he wasn’t using. He said “I’ll try.” This instantly upset me, because what does that even mean? How can you try to do something that does not need any effort? So, when I woke up for school today, he was sitting on the couch watching tv and had not begun to clean anything at all. I was upset. I asked him why he had not helped, he said to me, “IT IS YOUR JOB. YOU ARE THE WOMAN.”

I never have heard anything like this come out of his mouth. I do not know if he said this becasue he knows I am taking this class, or because he honestly feels that way. I was hurt and outraged because this is a prime example of the feminists roles that we have become such a victim too. I am supposed to clean and cook and do everything else because I am a “woman.” I still am fired up about this because it just happened today and last night, but I can not believe that men still think that we have obligations only becasue we are women. I need help! Advice, please and thank you.