Blog #6

The film "Killing Us Softly" is a four part series created by Jean Kilborne which focuses on advertisements portrayal of women. Jean Kilborne started collecting advertisements in the 1960's that for one reason or another stuck out to her. She began seeing seeing a pattern within these adverts, they were all sending a strong message about women within our culture. Messages that stated "If your hair isn't beautiful, the rest hardly matters" which was depicted in a shampoo ad, and "Made for a woman's extra feelings." which was expressed in an advertisement for deodorant. In the film, Kilborne denotes that women are simply portrayed as objects in advertisements and therefor often dehumanized in order to sell a product. I found her explanation of the connection to violence and the dehumanization of women valid. I thought that she brought up a sensible argument when she stated that "once a person becomes dehumanized that violence is the inevitable next step since you are stripping their rights." and this does not only occur for women. Our brains process advertisements as subconscious information, so it is inevitable that we are taking in these negative images whether we realize it or not, Kilborne refers to this as a toxic cultural environment.
          Advertisements increasingly have the power to tell us who we are, how we should look and what we should become. Which is terrible to stomach, since through out the film it is expressed that we are just setting ourselves up for failure in the sense that all of the images portrayed in advertisements are photoshopped and digitally enhanced. It was quite ironic to hear the supermodel Cindy Crawford being quoted as saying "I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford." Kilborne also sheds light on the fact that men and women inhabit different worlds and for women your worth depends on how you look. Almost every single glossy-page fashion ad will tend to focus on one aspect of a females body (breast, legs, stomach) while excluding her face completely. In these pages, women tend to be placed in provocative poses while the men portrayed in these magazines are shown as dignified figures that are standing tall and strong. Kilborne sheds light on the increasingly important rising statistic of cosmetic surgeries. From the year 1997 - 2007 cosmetic procedures such as lipo, breast enhancement, botox, and eye lifts, 97% were preformed on women have risen 457% to almost 12 million per year. Kilborne can be quoted saying "our popular culture seems to have the ability to make women anywhere and everywhere feel terrible about themselves.". Kilborne is optimistic in the sense that in places such as Germany and other parts of Europe they are taking strides to use only real women and not models within their magazines as well as having labels placed within the digitally altered images. Kilborne argues that people need to  become citizens and not consumers. We need to be more aware of these advertisements and distance ourselves from them.

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The TED Talk titled "A Call to Men" given by Tony Porter he recounts personal experiences and explains the details of what he calls 'The Man Box'. Tony Porter opens up the talk by expressing the norms of how he was raised to think; men are in charge, men are tough, strong, women are weak, less valued and seen as objects. Which he refers to as the guidelines of collective socialization of men, he further describes this as something called The Man Box. The Man Box lists all the ingredients of being a man; don't cry openly, don't express emotions except for anger, demonstrate power control, do not be "like a woman", etc. He shares the personal story of a time when he was younger and his brother had tragically passed away. It wasn't until after the funeral ceremony that his father was able to break down into tears, of course no one else was around to witness this except for Tony and even then his father commended him for not tearing up as well as apologizing for the fact that was breaking down.
          Porter also shared of a time when his young daughter would come up to him in tears for whatever reason and it would be okay for him to console her and allow her to cry on his shoulder, though if his son thought he had the same privilege he would reply with something such as "I can't understand you when you're crying" and "Why don't you come back and talk to me like man.".  He claims that after saying such a statement to his son who was only a year or so older than his daughter he was taken back by his realization. In the talk he argues that it is important for men to be able to deconstruct and challenge the ideals of manhood and that it is okay to break away from the norm of the equation of violence against women. He indicates that all men should be on board to change to norms and to work together to teach their sons that it is okay not to be dominating and promote equality, to have and express normal human emotions.


The video "Killing Us Softly" and "A Call to Men" both heavily relate to the concepts expressed within the socialization chapter, as well as having ideals that relate to each other. For example, the very definition of socialization states that it is the process through which people learn their cultures basic norms, values, beliefs, and appropriate behaviors. It is through socialization that we learn and internalize society's structures and expectations. After watching "Killing Us Softly" it became apparent to me that the images being portrayed within the advertisements and in magazines are being internalized as the norm for women. The sexual ideals that are emphasized through the images are being interpreted to girls at a young age and are allotting them to associate these obscured values as norms. We are taught that beauty will equate to success, especially at a young age. For example, high heels for babies are now a thing, as well as bikinis for girls ages 7-9 years. In "A Call to Men" Porter shares the story of his very different reactions that he evokes when each of his children began to cry. With his daughter he allowed for her to do so, but with his son he was forging the gender socialization of 'being a man' into his son at the age of 5 years, telling him to stop his tears.
     I found that both of these videos intertwined with each other in the sense that while Porter is trying to breakdown the norms of men expressing only dominating qualities that fit within The Man Box, such as Do Not be 'like a woman'. It is within the advertisements that Jean Kilborn is shedding light on that are geared towards young men, such as the cigarette advertisement showing a man's bicep of a tattoo of a woman with the quote "You're looking at my feminine side." that are reinforcing these negative norms.

If you have ever gone into pretty much any toy store there always seems to be different isles that are designated for boys and girls. This picture shows the advertisements that run in a Toys R Us catalog and how it expresses the differences that are associated with each gender. On the left side, the toys that are associated for girls are the princess dolls and dresses. On the right side, associated for boys,  the advertisement shows building blocks, trucks, and even a science kit.

This second photo shows how at even an infant stage toys are associated by gender. On the left is a diamond ring designated for young girls. I believe that the idea of a diamond ring is to instill the fact that women are supposed to aspire the ideals of marriage and hold hope for one day receiving a giant rock as an engagement ring. The right side of the photo is of a hammer rattle for baby boys. I think that this item is forging an idea that men are supposed to be strong and manly in the sense that they can build something and be handy with tools.

This advertisement made me laugh at first. It is basically stating that women are supposed to be familiar within the kitchen and that with the help of the easy-bake oven we are going to feel a sense of thrill and achieve that status, thanks to this product. When I was younger, I owned an Easy-Bake Oven and I can attest to the fact that a 40 watt light-bulb has not aided my abilities within the kitchen. I actually kind of hated using it since it was messy hassle to make something and definitely took well over an hour to bake a cake. That being beside the point, this advertisement is attempting to instill the idea that women are supposed to stay in the kitchen and bake delicious treats that are going to make the world a better place.

Blog # 5

When I hear the word oppression, I think of a powerful dictator who is subjecting a group of people to do something in an act against their own will. While this may be the case in some instances, oppression can take power in different forms. In the article titled "Five Faces of Oppression", the term oppression is defined and then explains the different forms of how, when, who, and where is becomes effective.

 Exploitation can basically be broken down to mean the utilization of something or someone in an unfair manor. The most common form of exploitation, that I have experienced, exists when pay wages are involved. Business owners or companies hire people to preform a task or produce/create a product for them and then that worker will not be justified in their pay or the conditions that they are forced to work in can be detrimental to their health. All in the name of increasing the profit for the business owner or company. For example, the shoe company Nike, has admitted to using child laborers in underdeveloped countries in order to manufacture their shoes. As many of us know, Nike is a powerful company and are able to retail their shoes up to $200 as well as indorse popular athletes to promote their company. So the fact that Nike can bestow the power to exploit their workers, especially children is a prime example of dehumanization. Marginalization is a form of oppression because it allows for a society as a whole to dismiss a group of people that are not considered within the norm. For example, the other day I read an article that stated the central government in Indonesia would be removing Balinese, a dialect of language, from the educational curriculum within this year. This would mean that the language would no longer be taught within schools. This arises the issue for people who are only familiar with Balinese as well as students who are currently studying the language in hopes to become teachers. Another example of people not being considered the norm are those that are obese. Society generally will look down upon the obese and they are often subjected to having to pay extra on airlines when traveling whether or not they can control their health issues.

Powerlessness as a form of oppression is considered exceptionally powerful because it allows for people to oppress themselves as well as others. The example given in the article summed the definition of powerlessness up for me perfectly. In the article, Harriet Tubman is quoted as once writing, "I would have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.". When a person believes that they are powerless they often do not realize or see clearly the negative effects that are happening to them, they only understand it as how it should be. Cultural Imperialism is a form of oppression that involves taking the culture of the dominant class, separating it, and establishing it as the norm. For example, the article references that although America has no official language, English is the dominant language. This allows for other languages to be looked down on, which is sad because America  is virtually a cultural melting pot of cultures which does not stop people from saying hurtful things, such as 'This is America, we speak English here'. Something that can be considered just as terrible is expressing these thoughts via bumper sticker, nothing says getting your point across like promoting it on the back of your car.

The sticker reads: "Speak English or go back to the sorry ass country you left."

Violence is the most visible form of oppression. Besides the fact that it can be observed in the form of physical harm it can also exist verbally as well as be self inflicted. All people should be allowed to pursue how and any which way their lives pan out. No single person, group, or form of government should be  allowed to oppress others into thinking otherwise or use physically use force in order to make them do such.


In 1961, a man named Stanley Milgram devised a test to see if ordinary law abiding citizens were able to administer an electric shock to other people in the name of science. The test included 12 participants who were led to believe that this experiment was about conducting a memory test, while it actually was created to test the power authority holds. The participants were designated as a teacher, the one giving the shocks, or the learner, the one receiving the shocks. The volts that the participants were to receive were between 15-450 volts, 450 surpassing the limit within the U.K. Within the video, the teacher was portrayed as the participant while the learner was an actor pretending to also be apart of the experiment. The teacher and learner were able to greet each other in the waiting room before the experiment took place as well as have the teacher witness the learner being strapped into the chair where the voltage would be initiated. This allowed for the teacher to have a first hand perspective of the situation the learner was being subjected to. To reinforce the severity of the test, the teacher was exposed to a 45 volt shock in order to understand what the learner was experiencing. The point of this experiment is ultimately to show if the teacher will stop the test or obey the professor who is advocating the test, even after the teacher is able to listen to prerecorded screams from the learner.

One of the first participants shown is a man who I thought that I identified with the most. He was apparently only 1 of 3 participants who could not continue on with the survey after hearing the screams from the learner. He compared the study to the Nazis in the sense that he was told to obey an authority figure while his morals would not allow him to obey the professor, thus putting an end to the survey. One of the other participants of the survey, a woman who was a personal coach, kept reassuring herself before pushing on to the next button/voltage. She would say something like "the participant signed a release form, right?' or 'We should stop before it continues up to the lethal voltage, right?' but then continue on once the professor insured her that it was all in the name of science.  When I was watching this video, I could not understand how or why the participants could allow themselves to continue. I understand that the professor was there to tell them that the survey was 'essential' to science, but if they were randomly selected then they could have easily found other participants to partake within the survey. After being confronted the participants who continued on with the survey were looking to blame the instructor while they themselves were the ones who allowed for the button to be pushed, controlling the voltage. There was no coercive power involved within this experiment, no would would have been punished, they were only helping out in the name of science. I think the power that was expressed was legitimate in the sense that they wanted to obey the scientists orders above all else, even if it constituted harm to another human being.