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Argument Reflection

Natasha Woodruff

12-3-2015

EN211

Argument Reflection

Reflection

For this essay I didn’t do any brainstorming for my actual writing process. I did brainstorm for my topic choice though. I spent time looking into several different topic choices before I finally settled on the topic of premarital cohabitation and the positive effects that it has on marriages in the long term. I only composed one draft and I actually did it very early, usually I put off writing until the due date is closer but with this essay I wanted to get it done and out of the way so I wouldn’t have to worry about rushing to finish it last minute. The most challenging part of writing for me was finding a balance between my argument and the facts that support it. I didn’t want to have the essay sound too opinionated I wanted it to have factual backup. The parts of my process that worked really well for this essay was working on my essay earlier than I would normally. This gave me time to research and find support for my argument along with work on the essay without being too pressured to get it done. I think that working on my essay earlier helped me to have a more clear and well written argument since I spent a lot more time researching and finding support for my argument. Workshop didn’t help me at all for this essay. The peer workshop we had wasn’t mandatory and I think this fact made the feedback more lacking. I wasn’t able to get much more than an “it sounds good to me,” on my essay. Due to this the instructor feedback was critical to my editing process and it was all I had to go off of. I took all of the suggestions very seriously and really reworked my essay more than I normally would. I was confused by some of the comments on my essay as it was unclear what they meant. For example, there was sentences that were crossed out, which I understood to mean that they needed to be cut out, but those same sentences had word suggestions added to them. This confused me a little in my editing process but I pushed through and I found the feedback helpful overall. The thing that surprised me the most was how motivated I was to get this essay done. I was supposed that I got the draft done so early when normally I put it off. The thing that didn’t really surprise me during this essay was that I didn’t write multiple drafts like usual. If I could change one thing about my writing process I would probably change the peer review part. I would have sent my essay to my sister or a friend to get additional feedback and to further better my argument and the flow and structure of my essay overall. I am a big fan of criticism and I always am looking for ways to improve my witting so that would have been the only thing I would have changed for this essay.

#argument #refleciton

Article Summary

Natasha Woodruff

11-6-2015

EN211

Article Summary

Cohabitation and Marriage

The authors main point in this article, “Change in the Association Between Premarital Cohabitation and Separation, Australia 1945 – 2000” is that premarital cohabitation doesn’t actually lead to divorce anymore it can actually reduce the likelihood of separation in couples. The purpose of writing this essay was to show the change in the perception of premarital cohabitation and to help dissuade the stigma of cohabitation before marriage. The author gets their point across effectively using data collected over a significant period of time showing and supporting that not only did cohabitation not show an increase with divorce it actually showed reverse effects and showed that cohabitating couples were less likely to end up divorced. The research even also found that noncohabitators were the ones who had an increased risk of separation. The author also gets their point across effectively by using other research to compare to and even to show how perceptions of cohabitation have changed over the years. The article is organized very clearly. The article starts off providing background and introducing older research before it moves into the current research and the result and how they disprove the old research. The article also uses statistics from the research and shows visual representations of the data that was collected. The author using a combination of research and data with visual representations helps the audience to have a more complete and clear understanding of the data. This article was written in 2009 so the research and the data is still fairly recent and relevant to the topic of premarital cohabitation. The only context that would provide some bias was that the research was done in Australia and not in the United States so the effects of the research may not hold as high of a social and cultural value to the United States as it does to the country that it was originally conducted in. The article overall does have usefulness to me, I would use this article to help support the idea that premarital cohabitation doesn’t have negative effects on marriage and relationships. I found this article to be very insightful and I was actually surprised that they research done found that noncohabitating couples where the ones who were actually more likely to separate than cohabitating couples. I am very interested with the research done by Belinda Hewitt1 and David De Vaus and I would definitely consider using more articles and research done by the two of them for my research and to help support my argument.

Hewitt, B. and De Vaus, D. (2009), Change in the Association Between Premarital Cohabitation and Separation, Australia 1945 – 2000. Journal of Marriage and Family, 71: 353–361. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2009.00604.x

#article summary #argument

Argument Topic Proposal

Natasha Woodruff

10-29-15

EN211

Argument Topic Proposal

The topic that I am considering for my argument paper is that couples that live together before marriage end up having a more successful marriage in the long run. Some background information on the topic of living with someone to whom you are not married to is that it can be viewed as a taboo. Many religions disapprove of the notion of living with a person that you are not married to. This religious reason could be why some couples choose not to live together until they are married. Also in my research on the topic of couples who live together before they are married I have found much of the time it is very young couples, usually early to mid-20s, who will opt to move in together before marriage. I think that I will be able to add to this topic with my argument that it is beneficial for couples to live together before marriage. This topic is particularly relevant in our society and culture today as we as a nation have a staggering divorce rate and are more recently seen as a “hookup generation.” I think that by evaluating the effects of living together before marriage I will be able to shed light on a big social issue in our society today.

My rhetorical situation as a writer and reader influenced have influenced my topic selection because this is a topic that I am interested in writing about and interested in learning more about. Due to this interest in the reading and writing aspect I think I will be better equipped and motived to compose this essay. The rhetorical situation of the text and the medium I don’t think will particularly affect me too much when it comes to writing my essay as I plan on being very clear and concise in my argument. Overall I think that my particular rhetorical situation, as an interested reader in the topic and someone who is curious and passionate about the topic, that will reflect in my essay and make my writing stronger and more engaging.

http://time.com/20386/how-shacking-up-before-marriage-affects-a-relationships-success/

http://www.yourtango.com/2012128381/5-reasons-you-should-live-together-getting-married

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/living-together-before-marriage/

#topic Proposal #argument

Analysis Reflection

Natasha Woodruff

10-27-15

EN211

Analysis Refection

Reflection

My writing process for this essay was very similar to my writing process for my research essay. I didn’t really do much brainstorming but I felt that my blog provided a means of collecting my thoughts and ideas for the essay in an organized way that allowed me to more clearly focus my topic and the information that I had gathered on it. I didn’t outline for this essay either, that is never something I have really done unless required to. I find it easiest for me to just start writing and see where my ideas take me. The blog in a way served as an outline though due to the content I posted about my topic, it narrowed my focus down and gave me a general idea of where I wanted to take my essay. The only prewriting exercises that I really did were my blog posts which related to my topic of skinny shaming. I only composed two drafts for this essay, the rough draft and the final draft. I personally don’t like to make multiple drafts I like to write and then edit as few times as possible. The process of outlining and prewriting thought the use of my blog posts I felt helped my essay and my writing. It allowed me to organize my ideas and to visual see the different ideas I had about my topic. It made writing my draft much easier because I knew what aspects of my topic I wanted to focus on and what direction I wanted to go when it came time to compose my rough draft.

The parts of the writing process that I found particularly challenging was deciding what aspect of my topic I wanted to focus on. Through my blog posts I found many different aspects of skinny shaming that were very interesting to me and it made the decision of choosing what to focus on a little more difficult. Having so much I wanted to say on the topic made it difficult to choose only one aspect to focus on. Overall though I feel that it also pushed me to choose the best possible aspect to analyze and therefore gave me the best specific topic for my analysis.

The part of my writing process that worked particularly well was also the blog and organizing all of my ideas in a single place. The blogging also helped me to see various aspects of my topic that I had not originally considered. Overall I thought that the blog posts helped me to decide on a topic and helped me when it came to providing examples that validated my claim and my analysis.

Workshop didn’t really factor much into my revision as I didn’t get a lot of criticism on my essay. My group was also the same group that I had for the workshop of the research paper. Both times the workshop provided me with little to edit or change and just praise.

The instructor feedback was much more critical of my writing than the workshop group and provided me with some edits that could be made. I appreciated and welcomed any and all suggestions on how to improve my writing and found that the instructor feedback was helpful in the few changes I made to my final essay.

The only thing that really surprised me during my writing process was how my personal interest in the topic reflected in my essay. I was extremely invested personally in the topic and I felt that that pushed me to write a better paper. I found that because I had a topic I was interested and passionate about my writing was more powerful and my analysis was far more extensive.

If I could change one thing about my writing process it would probably be to not procrastinate. Due to the prewriting and outlining that I did with the blog posts I felt that I got a little lazy with the actual essay writing. I had to force myself to sit down and compose the essay even though I already knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. Other than some slight procrastination that took place I really wouldn’t change anything about my writing process as I was very pleased and proud of the final product.

#refleciton

Biweekly Bog Post

Natasha Woodruff

10-17-15

EN211

Biweekly Blog Post

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20141030-researchers-science-says-girls-sexualized-halloween-costumes-are-scary.ece

Slutty is Scary

This week for my blog I decided to go with the theme of Halloween and look into some costume trends and how the sexualization of female costumes is promoted. I found an article about how researchers have found that while boys’ costumes allow them to take on nerdy, scary, funny, or even powerful personas girls’ costumes restrict them to a tight, small, revealing and over sexualized personas. The article made a really good point I thought saying that “social science has found that the exposure to sexualized messages is associated with body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, low self-esteem and depression among adult women. Although the solitary act of wearing a sexy costume is unlikely to affect adolescent girls’ development, a generalized interest in being sexually alluring to boys appears to be harmful.” I think that this is an extremely good point, young girls are being taught to be sexualized for the sake of acceptance and this can be damaging to them in the future. The article also shows that young girls who believe that being seen as “sexy” also performed lower in school and got lower test scores. This shows the connection that young girls are making between being sexy and being stupid. Young girls are accepting the idea that in order to be seen as “sexy” they cannot also be seen as smart which is extremely saddening to me. I also thought it was interesting that the article talked about an experiment that the researchers conducted about how girls who were exposed to sexuality reacted in specific situations. “Another study showed that when young adolescent girls came into our lab to film a mock newscast, girls with higher and lower scores on the internalized sexualization measure prepared differently: girls with higher levels of sexualization spent more time putting on makeup and less time practicing the script. What this means is that those girls who believe that being sexually attractive to boys is important invested more time and effort into doing just that. Because everyone’s resources are limited, the investment in sexiness comes at the expense of other things, including academics.” I found this to be very interesting and overall found the article to be relevant to our culture and society today. It also really made me consider my own Halloween costume choice.

#analysis

Biweekly Blog Post :Slut for Halloween

Natasha Woodruff

10-19-15

EN211

Biweekly Blog Post

Slut for Halloween

To continue with the theme of analysis for this unit I decided to analyze a popular quote from “Mean Girls” that fits with the upcoming holiday of Halloween. Many are familiar with the popular film “Mean Girls” and many can probably recall the scene where Regina is trying on her Halloween costume. In this scene Regina flaunts her body and provocatively poses for her mother who eagerly takes photos while her father sits back and sobs. During this scene the character Katy is saying “In ‘Girl World,” Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” This line really resonated with me especially being a college student. It isn’t uncommon for girls to dress more slutty than scary during Halloween especially when they are teenagers and young adults. The thing that really resonated with me with this particular scene was the part about “no other girls can say anything about it.” I thought this was interesting as we are a very critical and judgmental culture but there is an unsaid agreement that being slutty on Halloween is acceptable and even embraced. They say that the holidays bring out the best in people and I guess this is particularly true for Halloween, as it seems to make girls especially less judgmental towards one another. Halloween is a time to dress up and be something that you aren’t but I find it interesting that in a culture known for things like body shaming and slut shaming we easily throw that mindset out the window for one night a year. What is so special about Halloween? Why does it allow girls to not be so critical of one another and just become more accepting? Is it even real acceptance? Or are we just pretending to be something we aren’t?

#analysis

Biweekly Blog Post

Natasha Woodruff

10-15-15

EN211

Biweekly Blog Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gigi-hadid-body-shaming-comments_56096f6fe4b0af3706dd11c5

Model Takes a Stand

I read an article recently about the famous model Gigi Hadid and how she took a stand against body shaming specifically in the modeling world. The article explains that Hadid was in a fashion show in New York and after posting a picture from the show she received a lot of negative backlash regarding her body and size. After seeing the comments and letting them get to her Hadid then took to Instagram again to post another picture of herself with a powerful message to all the people who were body shaming her. Part of her comment was "Yes, I have boobs. Yes, I have abs, I have a butt, I have thighs, but I'm not asking for special treatment. I'm fitting into the sample sizes. Your mean comments don't make me want to change my body, they don't make me want to say no to the designers that ask me to be in their shows, and they definitely don't change the designers opinions of me.” Hadid also admitted in the post that she did let the negativity get to her at first but she is only human and that others opinions’ on her body doesn’t affect her perception of herself at the end of the day. I think that by taking a stand against body shaming Hadid did the right thing. Body shaming is a serious issue and many who receive it don’t have the mindset that Hadid does and can look past it and still be happy with themselves at the end of the day. I think that Hadid set a really good example for individuals who do get body shamed, showing them that just because someone says something negative about your body doesn’t mean it should influence or dictate your personal perception of your body. I also think her message was important because it shows that even models are subjected to body shaming and they make a living of showing their bodies.

#analysis

Biweekly Blog Post

Natasha Woodruff

10-15-15

EN211

Biweekly Blog Post

http://nobodyshame.com/about/

No BS

This week going with the theme of my topic for my analysis essay I looked at Whitney Thore’s campaign called “No BS” or “No Body Shame.” I first heard about her campaign when watching her show on TCL called “My Big Fat Fabulous Life” which chronicles Whitney’s life and her struggle with her weight. I was interested immediately when I heard she had a campaign dedicated to fighting body shame especially since that was the topic I was looking into for my analysis essay. I was curious to see if her campaign was like the other body positive campaigns I looked into during my research for my analysis essay. Many of the campaigns promote a singular body type and shame others, but I found that Whitney’s campaign seemed to be different.

The website she has for her campaign was very user friendly. I found it easy to navigate and the color scheme was very sublet and didn’t distract from the information that she had about herself and her campaign. She explains on the website that she has struggled with her body image since she was young and along with her other health problems has even battled depression. Whitney explains that her goal of the campaign is to “promote the idea of self-love and acceptance as a step toward total wellness.” Whitney also explains that she understands that body shame doesn’t just effect one specific group or body type it can and does effect everyone and every body type.

I found her campaign to be very inspiring and positive and much different than other body positive campaigns. Whitney doesn’t put any demographics down in her campaign, she just promotes acceptance and tolerance of all body types and overall wellness. I compared her campaign to another on that I looked at, “Say No to Size Zero” and that campaign shames skinny and small body types while Whitney’s campaign doesn’t. I think that we need more campaigns like “No BS” that just promote overall acceptance and wellness without putting any specific body type down.

#analysis

Ad Analysis

Natasha Woodruff

10-8-15

EN211

Ad Analysis

Make Your Move!

The ad that I looked at was an ad by the “Make You Move!” campaign designed to help raise awareness and prevent sexual assault. The ad is very focused and has just a guy in the center focus. He is in front of a background that is neutral and doesn’t distract visually. The male in the ad is front and center and takes up most of the ad. He is a young looking guy, attractive, tattoos and very typical looking for a guy in his mid to late twenties. He has almost a suborn look on his face. His body language is also very prominent in the ad. He has his arms crossed and almost looks angry. His eyes are also staring right into the camera so the ad makes the audience feel as if he is staring at them. There are words in this ad, half of which are very large and bold white font that stands out immediately, then there is much smaller white font next to it. The large font pulls the audience into the ad as it draws the attention right away. It says “She was on her own, so I made my move..” this immediately gets an emotional response from anyone reading the ad as it makes the model seem like he is the one who potentially assaulted a girl. The ad then goes on to continue with smaller print that reads “and told the guys hassling her to back off. They were really crossing the line.” This makes it clear this campaigns purpose is to capture the attention of the audience and also make them see that they can do something to stop sexual assault. The ad is trying to raise awareness that you can take action to prevent sexual assault. The contrast between the text sizes provides a great hook for the audience and captures their attention right away. The ad also makes men look like an ally not an enemy when it comes to sexual assault. They use a male model who looks like an average guy, while he does seem angry or intimidating though, he ends up being the one to take action and help a women out of an uncomfortable situation. Overall, I think that this ad engages the audience and sends a very powerful message about not only sexual assault but about making a move to help others when a questionable situation arises.

#analysis

Biweekly Blog Post

Natasha Woodruff

10-6-15

EN211

Biweekly blog post

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2013/aug/05/skinny-shaming-fat-size-appearance

I read an article this week about body shaming and why skinny shaming is seen as acceptable in our society while fat shaming is seen as inherently wrong. The author of the article actually struggled with an eating disorder herself and was shamed for being too thin throughout her life. She opens up about her experience with the body shaming and explains how it affected her, she also mentions how no one seemed to think that it was wrong to body shame her for being thin. The author also opens up about the backlash she received from the book she wrote based on her personal experience with body shaming. She said that she received numerous anonymous messages from other females calling her names such as “skinny bitch” and “fat-Nazi” claiming that she herself body shamed within her own book. In fact she didn’t. She only wrote about her own experiences and talked mainly about her eating disorder and the skinny shaming she experienced. She also never negatively portrayed any specific body type in her book or fat shamed at all and never used a negative context talking about other body types. She points out that this is exactly the point she was trying to make. People will shame and attack someone for being too skinny and see nothing wrong with it. Those same people though will also strongly advocate against fat shaming and body negative messages. This is a double standard that our culture has adopted. We perpetuate a body positive message in the media but only thought the attack and at the expense of a certain group. In society today skinny shaming isn’t seen as wrong due to this way of thinking. The media especially makes the body positive message unclear, we should love our bodies and be positive about them but if someone isn’t within a certain standard they will be shamed. I found this article very interesting and I think it makes valid points abbot how skinny shaming is seen as acceptable while fat shaming is seen as wrong.

#analysis

Analysis Topic Proposal

Natasha Woodruff

10-1-15

EN211

Analysis Topic Proposal

I looked at a variety of text and I think I might analyze multiple texts in my essay since they all have a similar theme that I want to analyze. I would like to analyze the effect of skinny shaming in pop culture and really delve into why there is a double standard when it comes to body shaming specific body types such as curvy versus skinny. I have some specific texts in mind already to analyze, they include the popular songs, All about the bass by Meghan Trainor, Anaconda by Nicki Minaj, and the popular body positive campaign "Say no to zero.” For the songs I would look at the artists’ intent behind the lyrics and for the campaign I would look into the founders intended message and overall goal. Then I plan to analyze the effects versus the intended purposes of these popular cultural movements and messages.

My rhetorical situation played a key role in selecting my topic as I am personally curious and interested in the topic of body shaming and the cultural acceptability of targeted body shaming such as skinny shaming. I selected this topic not only because of personal interest but also because of personal experience with the topic being someone who has a tall and thin body type. My rhetorical situation also played a role in selecting the type of text than I wanted to analyze. I am a young adult and pop culture and the media are influential in everyday life especially for myself and my peer group, so selecting text that would be popular and well known made the most sense to me.

I think that my specific rhetorical situation will positively effect the composition of my essay as because of my level of interest and personal connection to the topic I think that my analysis will be more insightful and mindful especially on the specific topic. I also think that due to my level of interest with the topic that will translate into my writing and make my essay more interesting, engaging, and insightful.

#analysis

Biweekly Blog

Natasha Woodruff

10-1-15

EN211

Biweekly Blog Post

https://youtu.be/fIOMzuAVwL4

I watched a YouTube video about skinny shaming in music. The girl in the video directly references the song All about that bass. I think that this video made some valid points about this popular song. The girl in the video mentions that while the song is body positive for bigger girls it degrades skinny girls. She mentions how the song has lines in it that say things like “I'm bringing booty back/Go 'head and tell them skinny bitches that/No, I'm just playing, I know you think you're fat/But I'm here to tell you.../Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top.” This is a backhanded way to be body positive. The song is overgeneralizing girls who are skinny into one stereotype. The girl in the video talks about this for several minutes. She explains that by saying that skinny girls are bitches is offensive and that on top of that when the next line of the song says that “I know you think you’re fat” is very overgeneralized and insensitive. Not all girls who are skinny are bitches. Similarly, not all girls who are skinny think that they are fat. This comment can also be very offensive to skinny people with eating disorders as they may struggle with healthy body image. I liked how the creator of the video explained that contrary to the overgeneralizations made in the song many skinny girls aren’t skinny intentionally, they are just naturally petite or small, and that many skinny girls struggle to gain or keep weight on and don’t think they are fat at all but in fact too skinny. I think that the girl in the video makes some excellent points about the skinny shaming in the song. I also agree that while body positivity is great it doesn’t make stereotyping and overgeneralizing a group acceptable.

#analysis

Biweekly Blog Post

Natasha Woodruff

10-1-15

EN211

Biweekly Blog Post

For my blog I looked at different visual ads and media that skinny shame. Some of the results I got for searching skinny shaming were very shocking. I selected some images that stood out to me the most. The first image I feel addresses the issue of one sided body shaming. It shows how shaming girls who have a curvy body type is seen as inherently wrong while shaming girls for being skinny or petite is seen as no big deal. The second image also illustrates how more people see being called “fat” as more insulting than being called “too skinny” and how people respond more sympathetically towards fat shaming than they do to skinny shaming. In the image they show a curvier girl being told she is beautiful the way she is and that she shouldn’t listen to what others say about her body type. While in the second half of the image there is a skinny girl being told that “real women have curves” and the only response she gets back is to suck it up. She gets no body positive responses. This is the mindset that our pop culture perpetuates. We look at skinny girls and don’t think that they have any need to be insecure or have body image problems. Skinny shaming can be extremely harmful especially when eating disorders come into play. Body shaming any kind of body type is wrong and yet in our pop culture we see skinny shaming as acceptable. Which brings me to the third image. The third image is a picture of a clearly upset skinny girl being told things like “you have it easy” and “how could you possibly be self-conscious?” one comment even says “liar.” How is this type of body shaming any different than curvy shaming? How is it okay for us as a culture and a society look at one group of people and say that degrading and putting them down is okay but when another group experiences the same treatment we as a society get angry and make “body positive” campaigns that promote that singular group. Skinny shaming and fat shaming are both body shaming. Body shaming is wrong no matter what group it is directed at. We shouldn’t downplay the effects that body shaming has on skinny body types. Being body positive should apply to all body types.

#analysis

Refection

Natasha Woodruff

9-29-15

EN211

Refection

Research Paper Reflection

My writing processes doesn’t really consist of any particular brainstorming our outlining typically, however, due to the blog I found myself brainstorming and in a way outlining my essay. The blog organized my ideas on my research and organized the various articles and findings that I had. Having all of the research organized in one place made it easy for me to plan out what information would be most important to have in my research essay. When it came to writing my essay I usually sit down on my laptop and just type up a complete draft of the essay. I don’t usually edit at all and I usually don’t make multiple drafts. I just find it easier for me to work the kinks out all at once as opposed to making several drafts and editing little by little each time. I think that this process works well for me as I don’t get confused by changing one thing at a time instead I am able to rework my essay as a whole.

The workshop feedback didn’t really play any role in my revision process as I found that my peers didn’t really give me feedback that I could apply. Most of the feedback I got was compliments on my essay, not really anything constructive to the writing. I found that when I reread my own paper during workshop I personal found more errors and fixable aspects than both of my peers combined, this could be because I am more critical of my own writing though. I found that the instructor’s feedback was more helpful as it was more constructive and did point out more errors or potentially fixable aspects of my essay. The instructor feedback played a role in my revision as I did take the feedback into consideration and changed several aspects of my paper after receiving the feedback.

Personally, the most challenging part of the writing process is being understood. I want my writing to have a certain tone and convey a specific message and I tend to struggle with how to articulate that during my writing process. I also usually struggle with starting my writing, I can know exactly what I want to say and sometimes I still find it difficult for me to sit down and actually write the essay. In contrast, I think that the easiest part of the writing process for me is focusing on a topic and having support for it, essentially creating an arguable thesis. I feel like coming up with topics for papers is the easiest part of the writing process for me.

The only thing that really supposed me about my writing process was how I brainstormed and outlined essentially through my blog posts. As I mentioned before I am not one to usually make an outline or brainstorm several ideas but the blog really enabled me to do that with my research essay. If I could change one thing about my writing process for this essay it would be to have my essay peer edited more than just in workshop. I usually send my essays to my sister who is an English teacher and have her give me feedback on my writing. I felt like since I didn’t get much constructive feedback in workshop I should have sent my essay to her for that extra set of eyes to look at it and possibly catch anything I might have missed. I can change this by sending my essays to her in the future to get more feedback.

#refleciton

Biweekly Blog Post

Natasha Woodruff

9-28-15

EN211

Biweekly Post

http://yaleherald.com/op-eds/the-myth-of-skinny-shaming/

I thought that this was a very interesting thread on the topic of body shaming and skinny shaming especially with how it relates to Nicki Minaj’s song Anaconda. I thought that the stance that the original post took was exactly the kind of mindset that needs to be addressed when it comes to topics of body shaming and skinny shaming. The original poster claims that skinny shaming isn’t as big of a deal as fat shaming is and shouldn’t be treated the same. She also claims that being skinny is a privilege much like white privilege, which I found to be a gross exaggeration. The author of the original post says that being skinny is easier and more desirable but I think that the opposite is true in our society today, especially with songs from artist such as Nicki Minaj, who have the body type that they are being positive about. Our standard of beauty in 2015 is seen as “big is beautiful” and that guys are more attracted to women with curves, and when an artist such as Nicki Minaj, who has a curvy body type, come out with a song that say “fuck skinny bitches” that becomes a trend. Skinny shaming is just as real as fat shaming and I thought it was very ignorant of the original poster of this thread to downplay the effects of skinny shaming and the wrongness of body shaming in general. The authors comparison of white privilege to being skinny also came across as very ignorant to me, as having a certain body type doesn’t give you preferential privilege to anything. Especially when it comes to clothing such as the author mentioned. She claims that one of the skinny privileges is being able to shop anywhere and find your size but as a tall and petite body type I can attest to the fact that finding clothes that correctly fit is a challenge. Overall, I found this post to be eye opening to the reality that not every sees skinny shaming as body shaming. As the author of the post put it, “Yes, I understand ‘fuck the skinny bitches’ might hurt your feelings, but no, this one instance of skinny-prejudice is not comparable to the pervasive culture of fat-shaming we live in. And by ignoring the fact that there is a difference, we deny the fact that this system of privilege and oppression continues to exist.” This is exactly why I want to analyze the body shaming culture that we live in and how pop culture downplays the shaming of skinny body types while stressing the negative effects of shaming other body types.

#analysis

Biweekly Blog Post

Natasha Woodruff

9-24-15

EN211

Biweekly Blog Post

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/meghantrainor/allaboutthatbass.html

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nickiminaj/anaconda.html

I decided to take a look at some popular songs in today’s society that reflect that issue of body image and body image shaming specifically to skinny or petite body types. Many people know of the songs “All about that bass” by Meghan Trainor and “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj. Both of these songs have a message about body image and what the perception of beauty is in relation to body type and size. Both of these songs portray a negative feeling toward skinny and petite body types while empowering curvy body types. This type of body shaming is fairly new and with pop culture has become increasingly popular and a societal norm.

Meghan Trainer has lyrics in her song that say directly, “You know I won't be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll,” and “I'm bringing booty back/Go 'head and tell them skinny bitches that.” This clearly shows a negative view of skinny and petite body types. This type of body type put down is common in our society today and I think needs to be analyzed and further understood. Why is it acceptable to put down skinny and petite body types while glorifying other body types and portraying them in a more positive light? Nicki Minaj also has similar lyrics that negatively portray skinny and petite body types in her song “Anaconda.” Some of the lyrics include lines such as, “He said he don't like 'em boney, he want something he can grab” and “Fuck them skinny bitches/Fuck them skinny bitches in the club/Fuck you if you skinny bitches,” all of which are extremely negative toward a specific body type which is skinny or petite. This is clearly body shaming, as it is sending a message that a specific body type is undesirable and should not be something to be embraced or looked at in a positive way. I find it interesting that in an effort to end body shaming of curvy body types our culture has begun to shame petite body types. If we really want to end body shaming we have to do it across the spectrum not just for one type of body shaming. We should promote healthy body image no matter what the body type is.

#analysis

Biweekly Blog Post

Natasha Woodruff

9-24-15

EN211

Biweekly Blog Post

http://hellogiggles.com/saying-no-to-the-say-no-to-size-zero-campaign/2/#read

The article that caught my attention was an article done on the “Say no to size 0” campaign. Recently in a lot of pop culture and media there has been a movement going on encouraging girls to “say no to size 0” or that “zero is not a size” as a means of promoting better body image for girls and women. This movement however has been receiving backlash as it shames the girls that are naturally petite and smaller sized. This contradicts the purpose of the campaign, which is to promote heathy and positive body image. Advertisers cannot say that they are encouraging healthy body image when they clearly are putting down a specific group.

I found this article to really hit on the topic of while it’s a great idea to want to promote and encourage all women and girls to have a healthy body image we shouldn’t make one group feel better about their body while putting another group down. As the article says the “say no to size 0” campaign is making beauty and healthy body image a contest. It is pitting curvy girls against petite girls and not collectively sending a message that all body types matter and should have a positive outlook. The article mentions that we as a society have to make everything a competition and we do this in the beauty industry. We say that “curvy girls do it better,” and the article points out that what does this even mean in our culture? What is it that makes one type of beauty better than another? Why does one have to be the best? Why do we need to have one sided campaigns that only promote one type of body type while putting down another?

Overall, I found this article very interesting and I am very curious to learn more about campaigns like “say no to size 0.” I do believe that this is a relevant and prominent topic in our society today and that analyzing it would be interesting to see the effects of campaigns similar to it.

#analysis

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