Remember too..

I finished finals and I immediately came home to clean my messy week ignored apartment.  I was going through some drawers in which I came across a stack of cards.  Not playing cards but the cards that parents send out to make sure you’re still alive.  I must have had about five alone from my parents and about three from my grandmother.  What I noticed was that at the end of the cards they would always sign “love mom and dad” or “love grandma and papa”.   Never once did I see either my dad or papa’s signature on the card.  I know they love me but why do both my mother and grandmother feel the need to send cards?  This all came clear to me when I leaned of the term kin keeping.  My mom is always calling to remind me of something along the lines of getting my license renewed, calling my aunt to wish her happy birthday or that I apparently have a dentist appointment.  She has always been that way.  I believe since my mother was that way and I was brought up that way that I believe I will then become like her in that way.  It sounds a bit confusing; however, I am sure you all can find something to relate within your families. 

She's a Girl!

As a few of you have caught on I have a huge love for football and yes I am a women.  Growing up, I had an older brother who was really involved with football.  I wanted to be just like him.  I would always help him practice his running, catching, throwing, and even tackling (may I add that was my favorite part).  Sounds strange, but I loved being powerful and feeling like nobody could stop me.  I liked being tough!  One day I told my mom that I wanted to go out for football.  Like most mothers, she almost had a heart attack.  Her little 11 year old daughter wanted to put on football pads and play with the boys and get beat up.  My dad on the other hand, always my coach was ecstatic!  He knew how talented of an athlete I was and how this was another sport of many that I would try.  Long behold after much begging, I got to sign up for Pop Warner football.  I was so excited to show up for my first practice.  I thought to myself that I couldn’t be the only girl to play.  After the first practice, I noticed I was surrounded by boys.  I heard mumbles of parents picking up their boys that day.

“What kind of parents would allow their little girl to play a boys sport?”

“That is one girl you want to stay away from, you hear me.”

“Is that even allowed, she could get hurt?”

I was silent the entire way home.  I assumed my mom thought I had a bad practice (even though I did great).  I went home and told my dad that people made fun of me because I was a girl.  His response was “did you have fun?” and I quickly smiled and told him that I did.  He ending the conversation saying “just go out and show those boys what you can do!”  And from that moment on, I listened to him.  I was moved all over the place on the field.  My coach didn’t know where to put me.  I was fast for outside linebacker, had a leg that could kick at field goal, and feet that could out run the boys with a ball in my hand.  After the parents saw how much of a contribute I was to the football team, their comments vanished.  I even had little sisters looking up to me and wanting to play themselves.  After the season was over, I couldn’t help but wonder what pushed me to be the player I became.  Was it my dad’s inspirational talk or was it all the other people who were against me playing in the league being the only girl in the entire city of 70,000 people playing?  To this day I would say it is a mixture of both. 

I came across this YouTube video on a little 9 year old girl out in Utah.  Basically she is dominating on the field.  Why t is this any different from a little 9 year old boy rushing for yards?  She made national news for just being a girl and exceeding at a man’s sport.  Even though the news reporters seem like they are spreading good news, they are simply performing gender ranking.  They are saying that it is so shocking to see a girl outrun the boys (like it has never happened before).  It just goes to show that gender ranking and discrimination is still not over yet. 

I think it’s amazing that this player made the national news but to advertise that she is a girl make it seem like this is a rare occasion.  What are your thoughts?  Do you think its right to make note that this talented athlete is a girl or should the news just simply talk about the talents of this player? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrmi8_-u1c4

this one is better :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3eyetGvQNY

Fantasy Football Queen

I love my boyfriend dearly; however, he can really lose his temper quit easily.  Today, it was really bad.  My boyfriend has about five different fantasy football teams.  Every Sunday he purposely sets an alarm to get up early to watch ESPN and to set up his fantasy for the day.  He keeps note of who is injured, who he thinks will play good, and even the type of weather condition the athletes he has will be playing in.  If I haven’t made myself clear, he is very committed to winning his fantasy league every week. It takes a lot of time and knowledge of each athlete and the sport teams in order to do very well.  

I was doing some homework in the other room when I noticed him yelling at the television more than usually.  I came in to ask what was wrong and his response was “I am getting my butt kicked in fantasy by a girl!”  I immediately started laughing. I thought to myself that I had gotten up from studying for that?  He is really yelling about that?  To me it wasn’t a big deal. I thought the girl who was beating him must be a real cool chick. As you can guess, he even got mad at me for laughing at him. 

What is it about guys and not being able to accept the fact that women are perfectly capable in beating men? Men believe that women aren’t as good at sports, are not strong enough, and simply shouldn’t know more about sports than they do.   This act showed me that gender equality is still far from where we want it to be.  Women can achieve and do what men can do.  Why is it so hard for a man to face the world and know that women can beat them? 

What do you all think?

 

Anyone in fantasy and what would you think if you were getting your butt kicked by a female fantasy goers? 

My boyfriend would be so mad if he knew that I had blogged about this.  Our little secret! J

It's Not for Women!!!

I was watching ESPN today when my favorite soda came on a commercial.  Even though I haven’t had soda in almost 7 years, Dr. Pepper still gets me to think about giving up my long commitment and cave into having a sip of my favorite soda.  It was when I started to watch the rest of the commercial that my mind changed completely. The manly commercial was filmed in the forest with a guy holding a lazar gun.  His masculinity is clearly being presented as a tough macho man.  It started off with this male actor asking us women if we enjoyed the film and replied “of course not, it’s our movie!”  Throughout the advertisement they kept referring to the soda as “our drink” or “our soda”.  As a woman, I immediately feel discriminated against.  Are us woman not high enough on the scale in order to enough such a drink? Are we not that cool or important enough in order to enjoy this low calorie soda?  If anything, I think this makes you less manly for wanting a soda that has such few calories because after all men don’t want their calories (sarcasm, stereotype intended).   Throughout the clip, they say that it is “only 10 manly calories.” Why couldn’t they target both men and woman and simply say that this soda only had 10 few calories? What really pushed me over the edge and made me feel less like a woman was when they said “you can keep the romantic comedies and lady drinks.”  So this commercial is really bashing women and the stereotypes that follow.  I hope the makers of this commercial realize that some men do like to watch romantic comedies and a lot of men do like what they are trying to say ‘girly drinks’.  This gender ranking commercial ending in "it's not for women" really should be taken off of television and YouTube.  As a society we are trying to focus on gender equality.  How can we do this if the media is continently ranking men higher up than women?

For you so-called manly men out there, what are your thoughts on this commercial?

For you romantic comedies and girl drinks lovers, what are your thoughts?

Super awesome non-gender ranking Dr. Pepper 10 video right here>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iuG1OpnHP8&NR=1&feature=endscreen

What Women Really Want

When I get bored I tend to look up stories on the Yahoo.com homepage and that’s when I came across the title, “Study Investigates What Women Really Want” by Lisa Collier Cool.  I thought to myself “this out to be good!”  The researchers of the article wanted to test to see if women are more attracted to men with low body fat and not macho man features.  Did I read this right?  The type of guy gossip I ever hear around campus is:

 “Did you see that guy at the gym and how his muscles were big and sexy?”

“He is very tall, dark, and handsome!”

 How strange would it be if it were reversed?

“Did you see the way he looked at that baby; he would be a good father!”

“He is drinking orange juice; he must have a great immune system!”

Silly or not? Since the beginning of time, women want the ideal man to be the father of their child.  They want someone who they could picture their son to be like which include the ideal genes and the over healthy immune system. 

The researchers found three leading questions to be the deciding factor for such results:

1.)    Is there a link between testosterone and hotness?

2.)    What is the real secret of men’s sex appeal..?

3.)    What really makes a ‘babe magnet’?

I am going to attach the article but first…

·         I want you WOMEN to answer these three questions to yourself and then compare it to what the researchers have found in this article? Were you close? Spot on? Do you agree?

·         Now for the Men, I want you to think of how the average women would answer these three questions.  Were you close? Spot on?  Do you agree with what the researchers have found about your kind?  Are you comfortable with these results?

 

Overall, the type of men the women found most attractive was the men who had a body fat percentage of 12.  As a health major I know that these percentages put these men in the athletic category just missing the next less highly thought of status of fitness.  A second result was found that women are more drawn to men’s antibodies are what turn these fertile women on (Cool, Lisa 2012).  How do women get like this? The men we daydream about are usually the men who act in our favorite soap or fairy tale movie.  Are we going to meet our prince charming tomorrow?  Are we setting our standards too high? Do you think media has put such a role on what women should expect how a man should be to be ideal?

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/study-slim-men-are-sexiest

How cute are dads with babies?

The other day ago in my Women Studies class, I read an article written about a type of Sweden’s policy. I thought it would be a boring article about the country and so on.  With it being in Europe, I assumed they did things differently over there, but I didn't realize how different they were and for the better.  Did you know by law, here in the U.S. those having children go on what we thought was maternity leave? Right? WRONG! It’s a family medical leave which is an act passed only a few short decades ago.  It allows families who have recently had a baby to take unpaid time off work.  Yes, you read correctly, UNPAID! They are guaranteed their job back after the short month or two; however, no income.   If you are like my family, not making income is just not questionable.   How is this possible?

Why are Swedish parents any differently you ask?  Well by law, they have a parental leave. The parents are allowed to take time as wanted to care and tend to the child.  This can be done in all sorts of increments. 

For example, the mother can take off for two months than the father for the same and back and forth for a short time and the best part ... IT'S PAID!!!  And YES, the father is expected in the country to take time off as well.  Here, if a man stepped out of the MAN BOX who knows what kind of ridicule he will receive from buddies and/or employees.  Would he be considered weak?

How cute are dads taking care of the kids just as much as the mothers do? Families in Sweden are much happier and have less divorce rate than here in the U.S.  Is this because both parents are sacrificing (if you even want to call it that) or is it because their government actually helps and plans for them to make families and have healthy parent-to-child relationships?

Do you think something like this could be done in the United States? 

If so, how long do you think it would take? 

What kind of things would need to be done in order for this to ever happen here?

In Sweden, Men Can Have It All

By KATRIN BENNHOLD

Published: June 9, 2010

The Voice vs. X Factor

I was watching some shows on television last night.  I am a huge fan of the Voice.  I have been watching it since the start of the season.  I really admire the fact that the show is based strictly on someone’s singing ability rather than their appearance. The judges pick their team based on the person’s voice and from there coach them to reach potential with their voice. I than came across the show X Factor, in which I was so overwhelmed with the stage set-up that I nearly fast forward through much of it. However, from what I noticed was it was much different from The Voice.  The contestants on this show were made to put on an outrageous show, have unique outfits, and be different than anyone else. I couldn’t help but noticed this girl who was no more than 16 years old was wearing these sexy but trashy tights with a lot of body revealing.  Another girl who was only 12 was wearing this punk rock outfit, which I found strange was when they showed her video clip of her ‘before the show’ she was this happy smiling, pretty in pink girl.  Why did this show want to change her?   I believe that society has become much of the problem.  We promote people who are good looking and put on a good show instead of their ability to sing, I guess this is why it’s called the X Factor.  It was very different for me to see such difference in the shows.  I mean both shows did coach; however, the advice that the Voice gave was different than X Factor.  For example, don’t quote me but pretty close was from the Voice:

 

“Loved how you really hit that note”

“You really went out there with the song choice and it worked for you”

“This was a different song for you but you really improved in the areas of the song that we worked on “

“I am so proud of you “

 

Now, these are some of the advice the coaches/ judges were giving to the contestants on the X Factor:

“You have a lot of sass on stage but when you get off stage you become shy and timid, you need to step up your game”

“The outfit went perfect with that performance”

“The entire SHOW really made me drawn to you”

 

To me it’s simple as to what show I would want to watch and let alone the show I would want my kids to be watching.  The Voice shows that anyone who has an amazing voice can become who they want to be.  X Factor to me shows that if you don’t have ‘the look, the show, or the attitude then you don’t have anything.  I just think that our society should help out the world and not have such shows like this or at least have an age limit.  What do you all think?

Pub Crawl

Over the weekend I participated in the Fall Pub Crawl.  For those who are not familiar with this event, it’s basically an all-day drinking party.  So I woke up and had a nice big breakfast.  After I let my breakfast settle down, I started to pick out my outfit. Its Pub Crawl, nobody dresses up.  Usually your group buys a certain color t-shirt to wear; however, being in the middle of October in Wisconsin the weather was not favorable.  Once I was finished putting on my jeans, sweatshirt, and jacket I walked over to my friend’s house in which they had this huge tent up.  The weather was pretty cold and rainy.  Since these are my friends, I would say we all dress kind of similar.  Most of the attire was jeans, rain boots, sweatshirts, hoodies, and hats.  Basically, anything you could find to keep you warm for the day and night.  Later in the evening as our group started to make our way down to the bars we ran into this other group.  This group was full of young woman.  We couldn’t help but notice what they were wearing.  All five of the young woman had on short party dresses and heels, with NO JACKETS! I thought to myself, they must be crazy.  This is Wisconsin I thought!  I just couldn’t help but think about those girls who are dressing like this.  What do they think they are accomplishing by freezing their butts off?  Was I the only person thinking this because I was a girl dressed in boots and a jacket or were the guys thinking they looked sexy or simply crazy? Is this an example of women using their bodies to maybe get free drinks, or maybe to get into a party?  I can’t judge them because I don’t know them personally.  I just wish they had more respect for their bodies or at least put on a jacket. 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, what do you think? Ladies- Do you think those women are right or wrong for wearing such scandalous dresses out in cold Wisconsin weather? Would you judge them?  Guys- Do you personally think a women is potentially smart, without even knowing them or stupid by the way they dressed that night? 

Your Fat!

I was buying some time in between classes when I came across this video on Facebook.  It was titled “News Anchorwoman called fat!”  I just ignored it thinking it was just a stupid video some college students made and was clearly trying to make fun of an overweight person.  It was than after my Women’s Study class and in my medical aspects class of Kinesiology (active lifestyle) was when I actually wanted to watch this video and see what the fuss was all about.  There was this news anchorwoman who read an email on air of a man that said that she was overweight, obese, and not a good public figure, especially for the younger female population.  First of all, for her rebuttal she addresses that she knows that she is overweight and maybe considered obese, but what upset her was that the man didn’t even know her and has never met her.  He doesn’t know what kind of exercise or diet she may be on.  As we talked in my classes, can a person be healthy but be overweight? If someone is skinny, does that mean they are healthy? ABSOLUTELY NOT! As a personal trainer, I can verify this.  I have a wide range of clients ranging from those who are super fit to clients who are even a few hundred pounds overweight.  I see what they eat, exercise, and their progression on a daily basis.  I can tell if someone is actually getting healthier or actually becoming less healthy. There are so many examples of people appearing to be healthy on the outside, however, on the inside is dying for help.  Instead of judging someone’s health strictly on their appearance, we should start to appreciate what the person does that makes them healthy on the inside. 

What are your thoughts?  Do you think our society can overcome the “don’t judge a book by its cover?” Or do you think physical appearance will always tell us if a person is healthy or unhealthy?

Gym Jerks

I am not much of a writer, however, when I see something that bothers me, I become one.  I was working out at the gym last Tuesday.  It was about 4pm and I would say pretty busy for the YMCA.  I was working out on the circuit machines when I couldn’t help but notice this young group of boys giggling.  I thought to myself what could be so funny at the gym?  Did someone fart or something? It was then when I noticed the group of guys pointing towards the cardio equipment.  There was this lady who looked to be in her mid- thirties who was clearly overweight.  She was running on the treadmill and was extremely red in the face.   After I walked around for a second, I overheard one of them say “this is why GIRLS shouldn’t be allowed to work out in the same gym as US.  She’s is fat!”   

 

This made me furious.  It made me extremely upset because I personal train clients who have goals of becoming healthier and to lose weight.  This lady happened to be one of my clients who was working out on an off-class day.     It shocks me that people would say this about someone, especially at the gym. To me, the one place athletes have the common courtesy and respect for fellow fitness goers no matter what their shape or size is.  Was this the sign of future gender rankers?  Was this gender ranking?  These boys clearly thought they were better than this lady simply by their work out strategies and their ripped physique.  Do I make this assumption on all young boys at the gym?  When does gender ranking start?  Where do you think they learned it from?  Let me hear your thoughts!