Stephany Pineda Cardoso Discussion 3

My smile – Psychological and Critical

Although I’ve had bad comments about how my smile looks aesthetically, I still love it. My teeth are straight, so this helps my confidence, regardless, I believe it represents me and who I am as a person. My personal philosophy is to always smile, be kind, hardworking and have discipline. I have developed this through my personal experiences. Moving to a new country heightened my self-awareness of my difference in culture. I was not only facing school, culture, language, and personal identity development challenges but I did not have a safe place to go home to. My family and I were unwelcomed by some family members that lived here. Being torn away from my family in Mexico was difficult, and although I had my mom, I also had my new outside world to face. Knowing that the people you love can be torn away so quickly is the reason why I love people in general, I believe I need to cherish every moment. Smiling was my way of coping. Every time I see a picture of myself, I am smiling, and most of the time with my teeth showing, it’s funny but it reminds me of how happy I am with the people around me. I have pictures of all my friends and family hanging up on my wall and we are all cheesing. My smile is a reminder that I can overcome anything. People know me as always being happy, bubbly, and full of energy in any situation. Through my analysis I see that my experiences influence the way I view my smile, and this is a psychological and critical perspective.

Arms – Biological, Psychological and Critical

I have viewed my arms through the norms of society. I have disliked their thinness and hairiness because it has led me to believe that I am physically weak and unattractive. I have learned to feel indifferent about them, but I cannot help but feel annoyed sometimes. Everyone has body hair, but it is expected that women shave. The problem is not about shaving the problem is that women are expected to do this in order to be exemplary, more like “an acceptable woman”. Otherwise women get called disgusting, or even manly. I was constantly “jokingly” called out for being hairy. This brought down myself esteem, I looked at myself and wanted to get rid of everything that made me look different. The only thing that kept a razor off my arms was my mom telling me that if I shaved my hair will grow back thicker and ugly. My first time shaving was for my firth grade graduation, I think I was too young to do so but I was influenced because my best friend’s mom had allowed her to shave and so she made a side comment about me doing it. Through middle school I had close friends who had arms just like mine, and I would make pinky promises with other girls to promise each other never to shave our arms and support each other. Sadly, they always shaved, and society won. I now feel more confident, I am glad I didn’t shave, and I don’t mind my arms being thin. What still annoys me is that when my arms are visible people just stare, as if I suddenly transformed into an alien. This is annoying and hurtful at times, but I let them have their view and process of thought, there is really nothing else I could do.

Speech – Psychological and Critical

I am insecure of how I speak; I am scared to look like a fool, and I feel frustrated when I cannot get my ideas across. I started learning English while barely knowing Spanish. My cultural differences have led me to fear being perceived as uneducated. While taking linguistics I was able to reflect and understand that I have idolized “white English”. I associated “white English” with great articulation and perfect pronunciation. My view on my speech has come from a psychological and critical perspective. 

I think that my embodied communication complies with “what it means to be a girl”, this could be anything from my behavior to how I talk. Based on the information in this article I believe I use many stereotypical behaviors to fit my needs and my environment. I have always done “boy like activities” to show that I have courage and to break the stereotype of a typical girl. It is common for a girl to be perceived as strong when she does a daring activity (known to be for boys), but once that girl starts picking up “boy behavior”, such as a specific way of sitting, talking or eating, she risks receiving retaliation. I see myself in this situation, this is a norm I follow and submit myself to, they construct my behavior today. Psychological theories describe these experiences, children grow up within ideals that make it harder to break this gender binary system. Mothers want the best for their child but there is the fear that teaching their children something other than these norms might completely challenge their experiences.