Author: Lisa Blamfort

Lisa Blamfort Discussion #3

I choose my eyes, my mouth and brain for my project because those are my richest possessions and I won’t trade them for anything in the world. I select my eyes, because I want to travel around the world and see the world with my own eyes, meet new people and learn from them I believe if you don’t travel, I won’t be able to cure your blindness like  John Milton said “To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable.”

Second one is my mouth, I want to be a voice for people and educate others who are struggling with personality disorders, oppression, racism, discrimination and prejudice.

The third one is my brain I want to learn new things about myself nature and life, I am really tired to learn things from tell-lie-vision.

My eyes and my brain are related like Unknow said “the eyes are useless when the mind is blind”. I want to clean my eyes first; I want to take off the dirty pair of glasses that society gives me and wear my own in other to use my brain correctly and me learn who I am.

My embodied communication complies with the command performance by all the stereotype that society has assign me to do. Because I was in a catholic girl only school where all the nuns/leaders were women, and it was really annoying for me and until this day. I had to wear long large skirt with a big t-shirt or a long dress to hide my body otherwise people and men specially is going to see me as a whore, until this day I can’t be comfortable in a tight dress or pants because I feel like that I am being judge by man. My school taught me was don’t finish my plate otherwise I am greedy, I still cannot finish my plate in a date with my boyfriend. Or use men’s bathroom even if you have an emergency, because they said it sticks like dumpsters.

The standard of beauty of a woman around the world and the fashion industry the is white skin, blonde hair, light-colored eyes and a slim, hourglass body otherwise you are not woman enough. I saw a lot gay, trans, cis male and female in the black community bleaching their skins, wear blue, green or other colors of colored contacts to meet those standards. I see them doing a lot of unhealthy diet that lead to eating disorders and drink dangerous flat tummy tea to lose weight to please society’s view. But I always tried to follow my body and his needs, I don’t try to lose weight like I use to do in the past anymore, don’t perm my hair to have straight hair with those toxics chemicals or press my hair anymore. I used to buy expensive clothes and accessories every month to show people that I am bad and bougie to make other girls jealous but I don’t do that anymore.

I expressed my embodied communication by being and be comfortable with myself. By traveling learn about other culture and people, instead of staying in the cough of front of the television that is lying to me and washing my brain about what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t go to churches anymore, I just pray Yahweh and communicate with him anywhere and everywhere, but before I used to go to church every Sunday to listen to a priest. I embraced my thickness I don’t try to be skinny like miss universe anymore, my afro hair and my dark skin color.

Lisa Blamfort Journal #3

The chapter 2 Theories of Gender/Sex of “Gender in Communication: A Critical Introduction / Edition 2” by “Victoria Pruin DeFrancisco, Catherine H. Palczewski, Danielle McGeough” analyzes the different study about gender and communication and provide a clear understanding and formal explanation to readers about the perception of their gender’s identities.

Before the authors reach out to definition of gender/sex communication they analyze for us the theories of many searchers in 3 categories. The first, on a biological point where they said chromosomes (Hormones and Genitalia) do not have an impact in our aggression, delinquent or violence behavior but otherwise it is caused by an aggressive situation that affect our testosterone. And for the brain development, it is just the experience that we have as a girl or boy in our childhood from society that impact our masculine and feminine behavior, therefore our biology differences do not determine our sex.

Second, Psychological theories include psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic feminism that our conscious or unconscious thoughts and memories don’t related to our gender identity but our emotional experience during our childhood. Social learning that focuses in our learning method and observation from society can’t influence gender/sex but separated it instead. And cognitive development may variable to the change of someone sex because man and woman are not that different.

And third, is a critical/Cultural theory that is someone’s customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group influence someone lifestyle and the separation of power between female and male rather than our gender identity and sex.

And in chapter 4 of the second “Gendered/Sexed Bodies” how norms and cultures illustrate sexed bodies differently and project different pattern on those bodies so that they can creating feminine and masculine persons puppets. Acting like a man or woman is not natural, this is manipulation of your beliefs, changing the way you look into things and your thoughts like a slave.

Like Guante said in his poem “Ten Responses to the Phrase ‘Man Up” gender categorized is just a stereotype, society wants “man who doesn’t eat steak, drive a pickup truck, have lots of sex with women are nothing more than background characters, comic relief, props.” But the reality is we are all equal in emotion and we are just different by physical anatomy and the poet add that “women and the women’s movement figured out a long time ago that being directly ordered around by commercials, magazines and music is dehumanizing. When will men figure that out?” all those stereotypes are poisons and mental chains for humanity I believe if everybody was themselves maybe society will be a better place to live, people will be more happy like I am instead of looking for a reason to exist, a safe place and happy place to be with all those unnecessary expensive therapy and medications.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion #2

 

 

 

 

 

The personal diagram that I drew give me a clear understanding of my gender identity, I did know about myself and who I am but I didn’t know that my personalities were related to my gender identity, I thought they were divide but in reality they were just one.

In my diagram the bleu represents my masculine side and the pink my feminine side and I embraced both equality inside me.

 

Like few women in my in my circle and that I know, I don’t need a man to make me feel pretty or loved, that is the reason I consider myself independent, I open doors for my boyfriend we lift the same weigh at the gym, we share the restaurant bills together mostly, I fix the window when it is broken and I do the plumbing etc.. even if he refuses sometimes, as a rebel like in my draft, I told him this is gender stereotype. As a curious person it is really fun for me to learn new things even society assign a lot of things to “manly things”. Society teach us that men needs to provide in the household contrary to women, but I love being in control of my financial life and future and that’s one the main reason I decide to become a CPA and not otherwise.

Like most woman I am shy like society want us woman to be, I put Yahweh AKA God, family and friends first in my live. I cook for them maybe because I am a foodie too, I clean, I do laundry and the groceries.

If someone see me he or she won’t know that I am agender because maybe I do my make-up, nails and hair like a girly girl so they always assign my gender as femininity but after they get to know me they get confused about my gender because of their lack of knowledge and information about gender identity. Most of them think the woman movement is about more money, education and job opportunities for women but is about to break gender barrier in a society where rich white men established norms, rules, class, a pyramid to put down people who are different from them.

At the end of the diagram I addition a pink heart and a square blue color to show what I feel inside and really happy with the result color actually I believe that of the purple represents my gender identity.

 

Lisa Blamfort Journal #2

This text “Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies” by “Miliann Kang, Donovan Lessard, and Laura Heston” uses Crucial feminist theories like discrimination and exclusion on the basis of sex and gender, objectification structural and economic inequality, power and gender roles and stereotypes to explain us the creation of social movement of feminism. The authors also show how personal experiences form by political, economic and cultural passions within the condition of history, institutions and culture, Conceptualizing Structures of Power impact and the limitation of feminism. And how Social Constructionism and Intersectionality that is social categorizations including race, class, and gender applying to a specific group for the creation of racist and discrimination in the systems established and approved by rich and educate white men

The authors explain us in his introduction several factors that contribute to the creation of feminism movement. The first one was the Theorizing Lived Experiences that unfold how inequality of race, class, gender, and sexuality leads to multiples issues to a levels of micro, meso, and macro/global of everyday towards woman that cause them to develop organizations and protestations in order to break those dilemmas with other women who were experiencing the same economic, cultural, and social problems.

Social Constructionism is a theory of knowledge that study how socially situated and knowledge work well-adjusted in the arrangement of inequalities where a group of people in power decide to produce racial, sexual and gender affair just to categorized and valuable another group of people over another. This study and theory help the feminist movements and theories to analyze the fructification and recreation of social constructionism and how to deal with it.

Conceptualizing Structures of Power consists to keep or restrict someone or something within certain limits by the establishment of rules, norms, and procedures based of his or her gender, race and sex but like a human body this theory can crash by changing and by fighting inequality for the collapse of that system even if it is going to take time for the skeleton to collapse and the feminism goals to accomplish.

The text makes realized that “man is a wolf to man” I thought everything like all those prejudices and discrimination were normal and they were nature work, I thought the color of my skin was supposed to be change in order to be happy and loved by others, I thought I was supposed to be inferior to white people, that white is right, I thought God makes me black because I am dammed or he hates me. I  Even said several times when I was a kid I hate myself I wish I was white because of the injustice that was going on around me and still, but growing up I feel like the text said it is just Conceptualizing Structures of Power to make rich white men feel good about themselves band put themselves in the top of the pyramid and put down minorities. Now that knowledge, information and education are accessible to everybody I feel the system is starting to crack and a change is coming like Sam Cook said in his song “ A Change is Gonna Come”.

 

 

LISA BLAMFORT Discussion #1

My name is Lisa Blamfort, I was born and raised in Haiti a country when we adopt only the binary gender and nothing else matter because of our religion and cultural beliefs or maybe because we are a 3rd world and our school system fail us to teach us about gender and equality in a society where everybody is unique and different inside and outside. I spent my preschool, middle school and high school in a catholic school where they teach me being gay, trans or others is an abomination against Yahweh AKA God and we are going to burn in hell at the end of the world, because of the pressure of the school I never fully develop my gender identity it was impossible for me explore my options because the system didn’t give me one. After my high school years I decided to study law to become a judge but my parents didn’t agree because they felt like it was a job for a tough man but not for a sweet girl like me but I didn’t listen to them and went to law school anyway and spent one year before I moved in United States.

When I moved here everything was different the food, the diversity of race, culture and religion and more importantly the diversity of the population. This is the country that I have seen a gay, trans, cis for the first time on Tv in RuPaul Drag race and that was amazing to watch. I do really love the country because they teach about tolerance and self-love in a daily basis and everywhere.

Now that I am here decided to study Accounting and become a CPA and yet my parents again told me to study nursing, because I am girl and I need to act like one and choose a girly career.

I am someone who is calm, ambitious, competitive like a man, but I am not a lesbian even if some of my friends think that I am gay, but I told them I am not attracted to woman. It is just for me woman was considered always as a weak and vulnerable individual and I know I am not, and I don’t like that. Some of them call me strong woman but I hated that more, I am just an independent human being who doesn’t put herself down and see herself as a girl and a boy, I embraced both like gender as the assignment of meaning to bodies. Physically I look and sound like a woman but mentally I think like a man. Maybe that’s the reason growing up I always want to be a boss like those CEO that I usually see on Television. Coming here is a life changing for me because I can appreciate myself and feel proud of myself without being call crazy, gay or a “guy wanna be”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LISA BLAMFORT Journal #1

This article, “Gender Stories” by “Dan P. McAdams, Ruthellen, Josselson, & Amia Lieblich, Identity and Story” disputes how gender is a type of characteristics related to and set apart between masculinity and femininity in the beginning our life by society. Depending on the time frame, culture and some people these attributes may include biological sex (like male, female, hermaphrodite, female pseudohermaphrodites and male pseudohermaphrodites), sex-based social structures or gender roles, or gender identity.

 

Because the article is a little bit confusing for the first couple paragraphs the authors starts by reviewing the conceptualizations of gender for us which are first of all,  gender as equivalent to sex which is the physiological aspects a person has that make him or her different from the opposite sex. Biologically speaking there are 2 genders females and males/ feminine and masculine because of our structure anatomy, woman can give birth and man is stronger and more competitive than woman. The second one is gender as separate from sex where society influence your femininity and masculinity and sexuality as well but not biologically determine your sexuality. And the last one is gender as the assignment of meaning to bodies is a way of life, everyday we wake up and put ourselves in different appearances and faces, if we are going to jogging or working out we put act like tough like a man all of us, when we are going to a date we act like we are sweetest person on earth by calling femininity side man or woman. Or are just attracted but the same sex but still identify as man or a woman.

 

Another influence is identity how a person feels inside and outside who she or he knows him or he self to be when it comes to his or her gender. Even though in our society the genders that are most recognized are male and female there are more than 2 genders in society, gender isn’t about someone’s anatomy, it is about who they identified her himself as male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender etc.…

 

The authors talk about binary gender is a concept or belief in some countries or culture that there are only two genders and that one’s biological or birth gender will align with traditional social constructs of masculine and feminine identity, expression, and sexuality.

 

Like in my culture and my country Haiti we have only binary gender maybe because 80 % has no education and information in gender identity, communication and tolerance because we are a 3rd world country. Gowning up I never knew such other gender exists, I always embraced my femininity side without even acknowledged my masculinity side because being a girl or woman is glorified and considered as bless because men value, adore and take care of you physically and mentally like it is an obligation or a law. But when I come in United states it was the total opposite, men over here don’t even about women needs or feelings. I don’t know if it is a bad things or not but I do know in here everybody is equal and because of this equality people can find themselves and identify their inner gender or maybe get lost in their true identity.