Reference no: EM133556827
Question 1. Look again at the Margaret Atwood epigraph which began this chapter and think about the different personas which you present to the world. Why, when and how do you change?
Question 2. Headlines such as these regularly appear on the covers of magazines aimed at girls:
10 Tricks to make Him fall for You. Find your Perfect Summer Love. Boyzone Poster Special Inside!! Shape up for a Bikini Summer.
Free gift - Body Shop Eau de Toilette.
Look at some magazines for girls. How are girls constructed in and by these magazines? What are their concerns assumed to be? What role models are they offered? What do these magazines have to say about such topics as appearance, the body, diet, sexuality, school and education, careers, sport, leisure time, clothes, cosmetics, being popular, socializing? How are these messages being delivered: explicitly, implicitly, in words, pictures, adverts, advice columns, factual articles, stories? Who is writing for these magazines?
Question 3. Native American cultures use the expression 'standing in your moccasins' to refer to the respectful exercise of attempting to understand someone else's experiences and perspectives. To think clearly and sociologically, we need to develop the ability to look as objectively as possible at other cultures and at our own.
The fastest way to uncover your own, possibly unexamined and unacknowledged, assumptions about class, race, gender and childhood is to find yourself in alien contexts and cultures with different norms from yours. Last year, three of my male students gained a whole new series of perspectives on gender and sexuality when they came to college and attended lectures for a day dressed as women. So, swap childhood stories with someone you perceive as being very different from yourself, and seek opportunities to experience other cultures, be these racial, classed or gendered.