We all like to be defined but what we wear. In many situations we don't care about the quality of the product, or even if we like what we are purchasing, we are simply buying a brand. Slowly we are becoming slaves to consumption as we will purchase the brand product over the no-name one despite the fact that there are no differences. It won't matter if there is a price differences in most cases simply because we want the comfort of having that brand.
Naomi Klein talks about this in her book, No Logo, which talks about consumerism and how companies know that we but brands and logos, not products. Because of this, that is exactly what companies started selling. I notices ads all the time but rarely do I put value on them, mostly because i'm ignorant of their value. For instance, i've never really cared what brand of shoes im wearing. When ever I walk into a show store I simply walk up and the isle until something catches my eye and then i purchase it. Since we were discussing No Logo in my Lit. Theory class I decided to pay more attention to the brands as i got new shoes the other week. For the longest time I thought I had been walking around in K-Swiss shoes. This time however I found the exact same that I had gotten 2 years ago and that were no burned out. They were Adidas. It then hit me that I haven't work K-Swiss since sophomore year of high school.
People's attention to what shoes they wear can come up often. I was particularly drawn to Mackelmore's song Wings, a song about a young boy buying a pair of Air Maxes. The song addresses consumerism today in a new creative way. The song opens positive with Mackelmore telling a story of how he believed the hype that Nike was spilling about the "Air bubble" in the heel allowing you to jump higher. The story then evolves to Mackelmore being at school and how it didn't matter if he couldn't play basketball as long as he had the shoes that the pros had. This transference of targets for sales shows how corrupted our society has become. Nike used to target athletes, now though, it doesn't matter, kids want the shoes just to have the logo on the tongue.
Mackelmore, then starts to question his world after his friend Carlos' brother was murdered and his Jordan IV's were stolen. Mackelmore then realized that he had hoped the shoes would make him great and he would never need to work for it. Making the shoes the source of being a good player not hard work and determination. The irony here being that Nike's tag line, "Just do it" didn't kick in because the Nike symbol and promises made Mackelmore lazy. Mackelmore again says in the song that after growing older he's stare in the mirror and think about how Phil Knight (co-founder of Nike) had tricked everyone with his advertisement and product promises that gave the shoes a false worth.
Mackelmore addresses blind consumerism in his closing line,
" They started out, with what I wear to school
That first day, like these are what make you cool
And this pair, this would be my parachute
So much more than just a pair of shoes
Nah, this is what I am
What I wore, this is the source of my youth
This dream that they sold to you
For a hundred dollars and some change
Consumption is in the veins
And now I see it’s just another pair of shoes."
Here Mackelmore states that the shoes at first were just about what made him cool. Slowly he became dependent on it. Mackelmore realizes the folly in paying a hundred dollars for a pair of shoes when they are no different then any other shoe out there, it doesn't matter if they were made by Nike, K-swiss, or Adidas.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
The Single Father
Jane Juffer speaks often about the hard life of single mothers. Now this blog isn't going to bash any single mothers so please don't get the wrong idea. The reason I am writing is because I want to question if life is any harder if the rolls were reversed and this book was about the lives of single fathers.
When I try to look at these two different lifestyles, my mind first jumps to the conclusion that the two are not that different, with some degree of difference. In this way I am choosing to look at both situations as the same one: a single parent.
Quick! Picture a single mother. What did you think about? In most cases, myself included, we picture a young, hardworking, underpaid, overworked beautiful and unappreciated women. Now, picture a single dad. Like the single mother, we have preset beliefs about this stereotype. Did you think of a panicking man in a backwards apron pouring sausage, pancakes, and syrup into his sons lunchbox? Maybe the kid is wearing mismatching clothes, his shoes are untied, and his hair is all over the place.
We get these preset images of single parents due to popular media. Single mother's, more often then not, are glorified e.g. Gilmore Girls, Friends, Reba, Bewitched, Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (two mothers but same point) or 8 Simple Rules (became a single mother after the real life actor who portrayed the husband was killed) and for fathers: Full House, Two and a Half Men, Supernatural, Hannah Montana (didn't want to reference this but it is true)
NOW ONCE AGAIN! I AM NOT BASHING BEING A TEENAGE MOTHER!
I am simple trying to state that there is a prejudice against single fathers. I asked my sisters about this and I asked her which stereotype is worse. She told me immediately that women had it worse. I asked her why and she said, "When you see a single dad, you think that he had a wife and she died. When you see a single mom, SHE had a one night stand and SHE has to carry the baby with her for the rest of her life." I could see where she is coming from but I was curious to find some actual statistics.
Looking at updated statistics we can see that:
Of the mothers who are custodial parents:
seeing that 34.2% of single mothers have never married and that 45% are divorced or separated. This paints a different picture than the young, impressionable hardworking mother. Granted 34.2% is huge and there are a lot of single mothers that for one reasons or another are single parents. There are many possible reasons for this though. There shouldn't be this image that it is because she had a one night stand and now has to bare the pain or humiliation.
The statistics are similar for single fathers. almost 21% of all single fathers have never been married, and only 1% are single fathers because their spouse died. This means that the image we get of a single father whose wife died is also very false stereotype.
Essentially what I'm driving at is that we need to take a hard look at the images thrown at us in TV and movies. Media has made a bias towards single mother versus single fathers. This bias isn't even backed by actual statics but it focus on "what sells."People would be more interested in watching a tv series about a mother who is single because of a one night stand then a mother who is single because she and her husband separated or divorced. This helps explain why TV shows like "16 and pregnant" or "Teen Mom" are so popular.
The way I see it, life is just as hard for single fathers. Looking at a teenage level, when a young guy gets a girl pregnant his life is just as shook up as hers is. She gets full rights in deciding if the baby aborted, kept, or adopted. The father has to live with her decision. He then also has to live with the consequences or paying for the baby's care and supporting the mother (excluding incidents where the mother wants nothing to do with the father or the father ran away).
In older examples men have it just as hard. Men do not have the natural nurturing instinct in them. Men can't here a baby cry and know that that specific cry means the baby is hungry, tired, needs a diaper change, et cetera. In incidents where the child is older the single dad has just as many problems. for male children, the father and child will start budding heads as they strive for control of the house. in female children Men will have a harder time since they wouldn't be able to help girls understand the changes they are both physically and mentally going through.
What I'm striving at is that I believe single dads have it just as rough as single mothers and that this social idea that women have it much worse off is simply an illusion provided by media.
When I try to look at these two different lifestyles, my mind first jumps to the conclusion that the two are not that different, with some degree of difference. In this way I am choosing to look at both situations as the same one: a single parent.
Quick! Picture a single mother. What did you think about? In most cases, myself included, we picture a young, hardworking, underpaid, overworked beautiful and unappreciated women. Now, picture a single dad. Like the single mother, we have preset beliefs about this stereotype. Did you think of a panicking man in a backwards apron pouring sausage, pancakes, and syrup into his sons lunchbox? Maybe the kid is wearing mismatching clothes, his shoes are untied, and his hair is all over the place.
We get these preset images of single parents due to popular media. Single mother's, more often then not, are glorified e.g. Gilmore Girls, Friends, Reba, Bewitched, Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (two mothers but same point) or 8 Simple Rules (became a single mother after the real life actor who portrayed the husband was killed) and for fathers: Full House, Two and a Half Men, Supernatural, Hannah Montana (didn't want to reference this but it is true)
NOW ONCE AGAIN! I AM NOT BASHING BEING A TEENAGE MOTHER!
I am simple trying to state that there is a prejudice against single fathers. I asked my sisters about this and I asked her which stereotype is worse. She told me immediately that women had it worse. I asked her why and she said, "When you see a single dad, you think that he had a wife and she died. When you see a single mom, SHE had a one night stand and SHE has to carry the baby with her for the rest of her life." I could see where she is coming from but I was curious to find some actual statistics.
Looking at updated statistics we can see that:
Of the mothers who are custodial parents:
- 45% are currently divorced or separated
- 34.2% have never been married
- 19% are married (In most cases, these numbers represent women who have remarried.)
- 1.7% were widowed
- 57.8% are divorced or separated
- 20.9% have never married
- 20% are currently married (In most cases, these numbers represent men who have remarried.)
- Fewer than 1% were widowed
seeing that 34.2% of single mothers have never married and that 45% are divorced or separated. This paints a different picture than the young, impressionable hardworking mother. Granted 34.2% is huge and there are a lot of single mothers that for one reasons or another are single parents. There are many possible reasons for this though. There shouldn't be this image that it is because she had a one night stand and now has to bare the pain or humiliation.
The statistics are similar for single fathers. almost 21% of all single fathers have never been married, and only 1% are single fathers because their spouse died. This means that the image we get of a single father whose wife died is also very false stereotype.
Essentially what I'm driving at is that we need to take a hard look at the images thrown at us in TV and movies. Media has made a bias towards single mother versus single fathers. This bias isn't even backed by actual statics but it focus on "what sells."People would be more interested in watching a tv series about a mother who is single because of a one night stand then a mother who is single because she and her husband separated or divorced. This helps explain why TV shows like "16 and pregnant" or "Teen Mom" are so popular.
The way I see it, life is just as hard for single fathers. Looking at a teenage level, when a young guy gets a girl pregnant his life is just as shook up as hers is. She gets full rights in deciding if the baby aborted, kept, or adopted. The father has to live with her decision. He then also has to live with the consequences or paying for the baby's care and supporting the mother (excluding incidents where the mother wants nothing to do with the father or the father ran away).
In older examples men have it just as hard. Men do not have the natural nurturing instinct in them. Men can't here a baby cry and know that that specific cry means the baby is hungry, tired, needs a diaper change, et cetera. In incidents where the child is older the single dad has just as many problems. for male children, the father and child will start budding heads as they strive for control of the house. in female children Men will have a harder time since they wouldn't be able to help girls understand the changes they are both physically and mentally going through.
What I'm striving at is that I believe single dads have it just as rough as single mothers and that this social idea that women have it much worse off is simply an illusion provided by media.
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