Final Smester Project Proposal

What are you making? What is it about? Why are you making this? Who are you making this for? How will you distribute/share this with your audience? Where will it be published? How does this fit into your portfolio of work? How can this grow and progress after the semester is over?
 


In the past, mainstream media has said that everything today is flashier, bigger, better, and more glamorous than before so why would women fall to any exception? For this reason, media producers believe that women on television can all play different roles because they all have one common denominator; their attractiveness. They think that the women we see on televisions are usually beautiful, thin, and primarily white. These are the types of women the media wants us to strive to be like because it boosts their ratings. But in my final project, my idea of alternative media will tell you the perspective of young feminists. 

I focus on Jessica Valenti's Femisting.com. Feministing blog was created in 2004, and has been covering stories from the perspective of young feminists. The purpose of this blog is to break stereotypes about young feminists, because mainstream media and culture excluded young feminist and ignore them from feminist discourse. This blog also provides a thoughtful and open-minded ways to discover and discuss the ideas of young feminists in today’s world. This blog cover the stories from young feminists. The contributors are not daily amateurs; they are feministing.com blog staff and faculty members who provide a refreshing young feminist perspective on political and societal issues. The contributors of the blog usually re-examine and re-think about articles that has huge disagreement particularly from different points of view. They also re-define many layers of young feminist ideals and even emphasize on the importance of them.

Both feministing.com is amazingly feminist because stereotypes still exist in today’s media world. This blog focuses and even critiques issues that deals with young women’s identities and shows a widely held but not oversimplified image or idea of particular group of young women. This way the blog teaches young women to learn how to protect their identities.

These two blogs address overwhelming issues and consciousness of danger on gender and sexuality. Furthermore, readers feel that the blog creates a voice of young women who would not normally be heard, since these blogs focus on the lack of rights within minorities and women.

To some degree, Feminist blogs like feministing.com and bitch magazine help with political activism through a number of ways. I probably characterize this blog as an activist blog even though there is no actual movement, it calls attention to the public and society; the blog seriously reports on issues that concern young women. I highly recommend this blog to my fellow classmates who are interested in news that is discussed with a sense of self-protection. Each blog posting is precisely written and presents plenty of watchful young feminist lens.

I once found a posting about a young victim of sexual assault. People never think about them and it’s quite unusual and heartbreaking to see it report that many were assaulted by the lack of self-protection. Feministing blog writes about how young women suffer from sexual violence due to the binge drinking and rape on college campuses. I sympathize with those young women being oppressed by the conventions of binge drinking and rape on college campuses. I think the public should not target those young women and their issues as a concern of “feministing” as they are pretty closely tied with the excessive alcohol consumption. It is now becoming a huge issue among young women.


Quick Hit: Alexandra and Mychal discuss rape, alcohol, and victim blaming in The New York Times
http://feministing.com/2013/10/24/quick-hit-alexandra-and-mychal-discuss-rape-alcohol-and-victim-blaming-in-the-new-york-times/

Illinois celebrates marriage equality http://www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2014/06/02/watch-illinois-celebrates-statewide-marriage-equality

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Evolving Gender Roles Explored at Anne Roe Lecture." Harvard Graduate School of Education. Anne Roe. Web. 11 Oct. 2014. <http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news-impact/2008/11/evolving-gender-roles-explored-at-anne-roe-lecture/>.  

"Gender Roles and the Media." InfoRefuge.com. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. <http://www.inforefuge.com/gender-roles-media>.  

Rolfes, S. R., K. Pinna, and E. Whitney. Understanding Normal and Clinical Nutrition. Eighth Ed. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Pub Co, 2009. 270.