I believe in persevering

I can barely catch my breath. The Colorado air makes me feel like my lungs are being compressed and my head is slowly being tightened in an unforgiving vise. It is seven in the morning and we have been slowly trudging up this mountain since five. In the past two hours we have made it less than a mile up the daunting mount Sneffels. I am sitting at about 12,000 feet trying not to pay much attention to the 2,157 more feet that I have left to conquer. The morning air is still crisp and the remainder of the sunrise has faded away and all of the pikas and marmots are chirping more insistently. I take another deep breath. My brother and father are eager to continue on our way. 

“Abbie c’mon we have like three and a half more miles to go. We need to finish before it gets dark out.” 

All I could think about was wanting to crawl back into a bed, any bed. To close my eyes and end the pain that I am burdened with currently. As my 14 year old self is about to look at my dad with tear stained eyes, this man in his mid to late 70’s is basically jogging up the same mountain that is leaving me so discouraged. How could an older man be in better shape than me, a girl who has done nothing but play sports and be active as a child? It offended me and my ability to do what I set my mind to. At that moment, I decided that I would reach the top of the mountain. As I started my trek to the summit again, I started to feel uncomfortable with the fact that it was taking me longer than other people who were surrounding us on the mountain. I felt like the slowest person there, that I was climbing up sand instead of large boulders. 

Ian, my brother says to me, “I understand if you want to turn back, if it is becoming too much for you. It is hard for me too but,” I will never forget what he said next though, he quotes Peter McWilliams in saying, “sometimes, Abbie, you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

Again I found the fire within myself and this time, I was flying up the mountain. I think back to these moments throughout my life when I am faced with a decision of persevering or knowing when to quit. I think back to the last half mile before I summitted my first 14,000 foot mountain. I had not even reached the top yet and all I could see were the incredible mountains that I was surrounded by. The way the tops of the clear-cut ranges were beautifully iced with the perfect amount of snow even in mid August, how perfectly clear it is outside and how far up I am that I can see mountains for miles and miles. It is times like these I am reminded that it is not a coincidence that these mountains are here or that I am climbing them. At the time I was never really a religious person but I reached a spot where I sat down, admired the view and talked to God. 

Then within the next ten minutes I reached the summit. 

The sky was the most precious color of blue with small wispy cotton candy clouds. I was surrounded by so many people just admiring this masterpiece that we tirelessly worked hours to reach. After about an hour we decided it was time to descend. 

Although it was not as difficult to go down the mountain as it was to climb it was crucial for us to be careful of each step due to the loose large rocks. After another three to four hours we are near the bottom. My brother and I, exhaustedly take a seat on the ground and gaze at our latest accomplishment. I felt so proud of us for not giving up. 

We got back to the car and I took a well deserved nap and later that day we went to dinner. At dinner we talked with waiters about our accomplishment as we devoured food like never before. 

I will never forget what one of the locals turns around and says to us, “ I cannot believe you guys chose mount Sneffels as your first 14er to climb. It is probably one of the most difficult to summit.” I make eye contact with my dad, his eyes are big with surprise, then I look at my brother and we burst out laughing with absolutely no regret of our adventures together.

My group discussed for our project to maybe do a video on vaccines and the controversy around the Covid-19 Vaccine and other vaccines in general. I think that this is a good idea that we could talk a lot about. I think that there is a lot to say for both sides and why people should be getting their vaccines and why some people may choose not to get their vaccines. If I had to choose another topic though I think that talking about gun control could also be interesting and something that most of us all agree on.

https://voicethread.com/share/25239217/

 

 

I apologize the video is a little glitchy.

My favorite Ted Talk of all time is one by Tim Urban on procrastination. I like this particular video because it taught me a lot on why I am so apt to procrastinate. I also like it because he uses humor to keep the audience engaged in his talk. After I first watched this talk I was more understanding with myself whenever I would ultimately end up procrastinating. It also helped me stop procrastinating as much and getting my work done more efficiently. I think that if I were to do a Ted talk I would want to do it on the evolution of feminism and gender equality. I think that although there is still a lot to be done for gender equality but we, as a society, have come very far from the idea that women are only mothers and belong in the kitchen. Women are now allowed to vote, have almost any job they please, and many other things that women even just 20 years in the past couldn’t do.

 

 

I felt that Dawson had a decent handle on the memorization and execution of giving his speech. I also felt that the visuals he gave throughout the speech were simple yet effective. I like how well he incorporate ethos into his speech as well as the structure he set up his civic artifact in. He takes a deep dive into the effects that this music video has and how it relates to the SDGs. I think he could’ve had a little bit better of a flow of speaking but other than that he had a very interesting and well done speech. In my own speech I feel like I had an adequate set up but lacked confidence and could have memorized the materials a little more. I also felt as though I should have tied the information more to logos, and ethos and not just pathos.

Speech Outline:

 

• Briefly talk about the Barbie movie and the monologue that America Ferrera gives. Then I will talk about how important this movie is as a whole and it was a type of love letter to women and womanhood. 
  • Show some of her monologue 
• Rhetorically analyze some of the monologue 
  • Then talk about the room full of men at Mattel and contrast it with the Barbie Land version.  
• Discuss how important the monologue was and how important the scene is where Barbie tells the older lady that she is beautiful
• Talk about the contrast of the beginning of the movie to the end 
• The character development that Barbie has.
  • Talk about the backlash that Barbie received

Think of a CEO, or an engineer most people tend to think of men in these positions. While it is not necessarily their fault but the fault of our society. Positions of power have previously only been reserved for men. We live in a society where men dominate in these positions with a lack of female representation. America Ferrera’s monologue from the Barbie movie is an empowering speech that spoke to me and many other women. It is an empowering monologue that pushes women to see their full potential and the fact that we are made to feel like “we’re always doing it wrong.”  It also shows how far we still have to go as a society to fully reach gender equality.  Ferrera’s monologue relates to other speeches that women have made with the same urgency trying to achieve the UN’s SDG number five of gender equality. She uses emotion that made me think back to AOC’s speech that she gave after she was verbally assaulted by congressman Ted Yoho. There is never a day that women are not reminded of the gender they are. Our society needs more change, more female representation, our society needs gender equality.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivers a very powerful speech that speaks to not only congress but to every woman. She is speaking to every single woman and showing that even in a position of power she has to deal with inequality and mistreatment from men. Women that hold positions such as a congresswoman are subject to men like Congressman Ted Yoho who is quoted by Ocasio-Cortez by saying, “… he called me disgusting, he called me crazy, he called me out of my mind, um… and he called me dangerous” (0:58-1:07). Ultimately he ends up making a multitude of excuses for himself. AOC though continues to hold him accountable. She has a powerful style and delivery, are just two canons of rhetoric in her speech that always gives me chills. 

She goes on to say that we cannot keep continuing to make excuses for men’s bad behavior. She powerfully delivers the next part of her speech by stating, “I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse and worse to see that, to see that, to see that as an excuse and see our congress accept it as legitimate” (5:12-5:33). Her repetition of saying “I could not allow…” Is so powerful in her delivery; she is speaking to every woman to show that they too cannot allow men to treat them poorly at work, at home, in any circumstances and let them get away with mere excuses. Not only is she speaking to not letting themselves accept these excuses but not letting congress, or workplaces, society or anyone accept the inequality that any woman has to face for just her gender alone. Some may argue though that Congressman Ted Yoho would have done the same thing to another congressman but did it to AOC because of her views. There are plenty of congress men out there that share the same beliefs as AOC and are not being verbally harassed on the stairs of the House of Representatives. 

An excuse that is used by representative Yoho is that he has a wife and two daughters. This is an excuse that we have seen many times in our society where people who are racist use the excuse of, ‘but I have black friends.’ To this remark AOC goes on to say, “But what I do have issues with is using women, our wives, and daughters as shields and excuses for poor behavior”(6:13-6:26). In this part of her speech she is stripping men of their excuses and is holding them accountable for their unjust treatment towards not only their colleagues but women as a whole. Something like politics can be touchy and people tend to let their emotions take over. AOC recognizes this, “Having a daughter does not make a man decent, having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man and when a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize. Not to save face, not to win a vote, he apologizes genuinely to repair and acknowledge the damage done”(8:22-9:02). While I have watched the video of Representative Yoho’s side of the story I have a hard time even labeling it an apology. He represents the men that treat women as lesser than simply due to the gender that they were born as. AOC and many other women who are part of our Congress, House of Representatives, Judicial Branch and many other positions of power, deserve the same dignity and respect as every man obviously already receives.

 

I really enjoyed Vel’s civic artifact speech because he used very eloquent language as he spoke. I also thought that he memorized his speech really well and used had movements while he delivered his speech. I also enjoyed the artifact itself with the Bambi characters that were used to show the message that forest fires need to be stopped. I think that Bambi had related very well due to the forest fires that were involved in the movie. They are cute forest animals that push people to want to help save their environment/the animals home. I think that he spoke with passion about the problem while also maintaining a good tone of voice. The arrangement also stuck out to me because all of his speech flowed well and did not seem too broken up.  The only thing I would have added would maybe have been how much forest fires actually affect us and our environment, especially with the Canada fires that recently occurred and caused the air quality to plummet. I think that forest fires have been very prevalent even just in America and it is something that needs awareness to be stopped. Other than that I think that he did a really good job and statistics would have only just added to the speech itself and made the issue seem more pressing.

UN’s Sustainable Development Goal: Gender Equality

Lens used: Identity rhetoric criticism and representation

There are not many days that I am not reminded that I am a woman. Mostly in the most abrupt ways possible. Something recently that brought a lot of light to the gender inequality that riddles the world was the Barbie movie. Although it was a silly movie meant for both children and adults, it represented a lot how we are living in a “Man’s world.” If you don’t believe in gender inequality or that this is a man’s world Imagine a CEO. Is it a man? Imagine an engineer. Probably another man came to mind. Now imagine a hairdresser. I’m sure you just thought of a woman.

An example of the efforts being made for more inclusion or empowerment towards women is the Ford ad they did this year as ad campaign for National Women’s Day. In this ad they included a car that did not feature all of the parts made by women. The car was called the “Men’s Only Edition.” Even just the comment section of video on YouTube is filled with people making fun of the fact that Ford put out this commercial. There is a misconception that men are the one’s that have created anything important for this world we live in, yet there are many women out there who are either capable of being in positions of power or are in positions of power.

Why is it that we have just now in the last election achieved a woman vice president with Kamala Harris? Why have we not had a woman as president yet? If we consistently discourage women from positions of power due to the sole fact that they are women, we are missing out on a great deal of knowledge from approximately 49.7% of the total population.

The Barbie movie, although a silly example, was meant to show that woman can be anything they want in life whether that be a CEO, a doctor, and astronauts, a firefighter, the options are meant to be limitless. Barbie in the movie even faced the harsh reality that when she went into the room of the higher ups at Mattel it was all men.

America Ferrera had a monologue in the Barbie movie that has stuck with me ever since. She basically talks about how impossible it is for women to be women. No matter what women are always doing something wrong. I love how powerful this speech is

I hope to live in a world that it is not only normal to see women having as much respect and responsibilities as men but it is expected. I am thankful for companies such as Ford that recognize how just as valuable women are to society as men.

Thank you.