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January, 2013

  1. PAS #2

    January 23, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

     

     

    In America today, we have a predisposed vision of beauty. The vision that men and women should be tall, dark and thin and in a swimsuit, if even that, on the cover of popular magazine. Beauty in America is physical and all based on the attractiveness of the individual. Little boys and girls, mostly girls, are looking up to these “beautiful” people and wanting to grow up to be and look exactly like them, but sometimes this isn’t anywhere near healthy for the child that is idolizing this “beautiful” person. I think the perfect example of this is the show Toddlers and Tiaras. This show is the epitome of what the definition of beauty is in our country. Moms dressing up their little girls like they’re in their twenties all to win a competition. To me, it’s just not worth it to do that to those children and I can’t believe their parents are the ones pushing them even when they don’t necessarily want to.

    The tall, tan and skinny image that most everyone today connects with as being “beautiful” was not always true. The definition of beauty has changed a lot over the past 50 years. From the more conservative housewife look in the 1950’s to the bigger hair in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s when the Farrah Fawcett hairdo was popular and the 1980’s when more big hair and makeup came into the picture. The 1990’s is when the “model” image became the new look of beauty. The person who made this most popular in this decade was Kate Moss, when her super thin body became the new norm in the modeling world. It’s pretty much the same in this decade with the addition of photo shopping and airbrushing of the models on TV and magazines.

    America’s image of beauty is one that has changed over the years and probably will keep changing. I know that even though the image we have today is not one people should be looking up to, there are still efforts being made to try to speak out and tell people, especially young girls,  that beauty is not always the tall, dark and thin image. I think these efforts are helping in little amounts, but it is still a problem in the United States today.

    Category Passion | Tags: | 7 Comments

  2. CI #1

    January 23, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    Women have been fighting this battle for a while now. The battle of being considered equal by their male counterparts in the workplace. Women have been able to get to closer to this ultimate goal rising up in business, but there is still that male dominance in many high end companies. I don’t think this stigma society has created will go away anytime soon, but I think America has gotten a little closer. There are obviously many controversies towards this topic. A woman’s work is inside the home, men should be the breadwinners in the family, and many others.

    Women have always been the primary caretaker of their children, but they have also done their jobs outside the home too. Until about the 1950’s when the “ideal” family was introduced, women did work outside the home and help their spouse earn a living. During the 1950’s, family became the most important thing and women were suddenly looked at as workers in the home. Taking care of the household and the children as well as their husband was their only job, while the men went outside the home and worked all day. This worked for a little while and women didn’t mind it either, until the second world war came along. The men went off to fight in the war and had to leave their jobs behind. This gave women the opportunity to replace the men in their jobs and now work outside the home. Women began to like this new sense of work outside of the household and being able to earn their own money to support their families while their husbands were away. Once the men came back though, the women were pretty much forced to give up their jobs to the men returning and go back to the home.

    Today, there are many women that have walked in the footsteps of the 1950’s women, a housewife taking care of the home and everything in it. On the other hand, many others have taken the opportunity to find work outside the home and become quite successful. These women have shown other women, and also men, that women are capable of doing just as a good a job as men are and can rise up in the workplace to become as successful as they want to if they work hard to achieve it.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | 3 Comments

  3. This I Believe

    January 23, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    Everything Happens For a Reason

    I didn’t really understand it when I was younger; I only knew to go along with it. I was a first grader that went back and forth from my dad’s house to my mom’s apartment. I don’t think it really bothered me much since I had my own room at each place decorated just the way I wanted it. I just remember it being weird that my parents lived in separate places. They weren’t divorced, but separated. Though many stories like this don’t end with happy endings, this one does. My parents got back together and have been together ever since. Like I said, I couldn’t really understand this situation until I grew up and was able to look back and realize that even though this was an unpleasant situation, maybe it was supposed to happen. Maybe my parents needed to take a break from each other for a while only to come back to each other later. My parent’s separation has made me believe that everything happens for a reason.

    Some things in life we don’t realize until we get older. Whether it’s who our true friends are, that working hard in school will eventually pay off in the future, or even why we break up with our girlfriend or boyfriend, it takes some time to process. The only way we finally get to that place of understanding is when we start to think about how much our lives have changed just because of that one thing that happened to us in the past. Those “why me?” moments have happened to all of us. I truly believe there is a reason for every single one of those moments. It may take some time to figure out what those moments mean, but in hindsight we will more than likely realize they were meant to happen to only open a door to greater opportunities.

    Personally, it has taken some heartbreaks and rough times for me to recognize that everything happens for a reason. People may think differently or the opposite, but I know that from my personal experience there are definitely times that have knocked me down, but have only made me realize that they needed to happen. Those times were needed to happen to keep me moving forward.

    Just like with my parents, people have to find that light at the end of the tunnel after all is said and done, in order to fully understand why it all happened. Now in my life today, this is a belief I live by. I believe everything happens for a reason.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 2 Comments

  4. Pas #1 Beauty

    January 16, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

     

    What does beauty mean to you? Have you ever wondered what beauty really is?

    For my passion blog this semester, I’ve decided to switch my topic completely. This semester rather than blogging about new and exciting things I’ve done each week, I’m going to write about beauty. I’ll focus on what beauty is considered to be here in the U.S. and then compare it to how other countries all over the world classify beauty. Beauty isn’t one pinpoint definition that everyone in the world follows. Anywhere you travel, you will find more and more definitions of this so called “beauty.” America’s outlook on beauty has changed a considerable amount over the past century and is still continuing to change. Even though it has changed, it is still not what other regions around the world consider to be beautiful. In a lot of other countries tradition is considered beautiful. Many men in other countries have different ideas of a women’s beauty and it isn’t just tall, skinny and long hair. Some places consider a woman that is on the heavier side to be beautiful, or a woman that with tattoos on her lips and chin, or even in Japan beauty is when women use white powder and heavy makeup to look younger. Beauty is not universal and cannot be observed in the same way that others around the world may observe it. I think it’s really amazing how from country to country beauty can be classified in a whole new way, some I’ve never even known before. I’m excited to do my research and compare the different ideas of beauty in countries all over the world.

    Category Passion | Tags: | 2 Comments

  5. WIP #1

    January 16, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    For my WIP blog throughout this semester I have decided to focus on women in the workplace. I just took a Women’s Studies class last semester and although women in the workforce was a short section of the class it’s something I would like to learn more about. We learned how there are more male dominant jobs and that women usually don’t get paid as much as the men do. These differences that affect both the men and the women working are what interest me in the subject. I want to look into all the controversies that are associated with this topic and also look at women working internationally. I would like to learn if women working in other countries is any different from how it is here in the U.S. with the many stereotypes and if men and women earn equal wages and work the same jobs or if it’s similar to the United States.  I also want to shine a light on the many successful women in business around the world who have worked hard and earned their acclaim as successful working women.  There are many women that have worked hard and have achieved high esteem for their work in their field. So it definitely is possible to be an honored working woman. I want to blog about women in the workplace, but also learn something each time I do blog. Like I said, I am interested in this topic and I hope to get everyone else that’s reading it interested as well.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | No Comments

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