The movie “Mean Girls” is a prime example of girls creating social pressures for other girls. When listening to Anthony talk about social pressures spurred on by other women, I immediately thought of this movie and how hard all of the main characters try to outdo one another in order to become the “most popular” girl on campus. Additionally, the movie makes it clear that everyone else at the school wants to be just like whoever that girl is.

Hello All! Over my past couple English classes me and my classmates have been sharing our findings on the research topics of our choosing. As you guys know I chose to focus my research on whether or not social media plays into misogyny, i.e. the social and sexual pressures on college-aged girls (check out my last post to look deeper at my findings). Anyways, one of my classmates did his on the pros and cons of co-educational education and brought up a point that I thought could be useful in my argument as well.

My classmate, Anthony, explained that one of his sources found that the social and physical pressures on girls were often worse at all girl institutions. Now this got me wondering- I think we can all agree that social media has created more pressures for females than males, however, does this pressure root from girls wanting to impress guys or merely, other girls?

It’s something I’d never really considered, but when Anthony explained that the judgement, often seen between women, was what spurred the women at all girl institutions to try a little harder, I saw his point. Males aren’t the ones posting pictures on Instagram I’m trying to compete with, females are. Even more so, all the “famous” accounts I follow, whether it be celebrities, bloggers, or fitness accounts feature pictures of women not men.

When applying my research moving forward and formulating my final argument, I am definitely going to keep Anthony’s findings in mind. While I still hold strong that females are more affected by social media, I would like to retract my assumption that these new pressures are implemented by males. This amplified thirst for popularity and fame, based on the number of likes or followers you have, is just as much spurred on by females needing to outdo one another than it is by males having overly high expectations.

Hello All! As I’m sure you have seen from my last couple posts I have spent a great deal of this quarter looking into social media and it’s various effects. In this post I want to steer away from social media’s effects on our social standards and focus a little more on how it effects our learning and even more, our writing.

Obviously the introduction of cellphones and laptops has drastically increased the amount of time I spend per day typing. Whether it’s sending a text, an email, or even updating some social media status, I seem to be constantly typing out my emotions. However, a recent class discussion spurred me to question whether or not these actions can actually be classified as “writing”.

While there is no doubt I am technically spelling words and forming sentences to convey a message, I personally believe something such as a text is much more similar to talking than writing. While writing requires us to engage our brain when considering proper sentence structure and other grammatical factors, technology allows us to mindlessly type exactly what we are thinking. Furthermore, I think that texting abbreviations/lingo are deteriorating my generations writing skills by allowing us to avoid forming full thoughts.

While technology and social media certainly have many positive effects on one’s education, I do not believe that the constant flow of “writing” we do all day actually qualifies as writing. Building off this, I actually believe it hinders our ability to convey full thoughts through words and form grammatically correct sentences.

Hello all!!! For those of you who don’t know I recently set out to discover whether or not social media has increased the social and sexual pressures on young girls (research questioned explained in Research Question: Social Media vs. Social Pressures). For the past three weeks I have spent endless hours researching a variety of sources to figure out how experts, and teenage girls themselves, feel about this topic. Throughout my research I saw a number of opinions, although the overwhelming majority of my sources did argue that social media is leading to the increased sexualization of women and the false/unrealistic perception of female perfection.

Source Breakdown:

1) One of the only sources I found that argued social media has not increased these pressures was, “Is Misogyny Worse Now Than Before The Internet?”. This article, which features the opinions of five different feminists, argues that misogyny (or male pressures/ discrimination put on women), hasn’t increased but simply become more publicized since the introduction of social media.

Would we want to say that there is quantitatively more sexism now the internet exists? I think not. We could tentatively say that sexism looks slightly different online. The allure of anonymity certainly appeals to some, just as honking horns and shouting abuse from cars does to others. (Power et al.)

In addition to pointing out that female pressures and discrimination exists in all domains, online and not, the article also points out that many third world countries, without internet access, have far worse misogyny and female discrimination than America. Although this argument was by far the minority, I do think it made some valid points which cannot be overlooked.

2) The next set of sources that I found argued that social media has largely increased the social pressures on young girls. Not only this but many articles stressed the extreme sexualization of women that social media often promotes. Nancy Jo Sales, the author of American Girls, pointed out many examples of this ranging from obvious things like sexting and sending nudes, to more discrete things like the hyper masculinity/sexualization in male vs. female posts.

Guys tend to have a picture like, I don’t know, they’re standing on a mountain looking like they’ve climbed the mountain, or they’re holding a big fish or they’re doing something manly, or in their car. … But the girls’ pictures … tend to be very different; they tend to be a lot more sexualized. (Sales)

Additionally, these sources made a big deal of pointing out the lack of female role models presented on social media. They argued that platforms like Instagram encourage girls to place self-worth in their outward appearance, thanks to so-called “famous” accounts that focus a majority of their posts on what I would call “unrealistic beauty ideals” (yeah that’s right Kardashians I’m talking to you).

3) The third set of articles I read focused more on the sexual pressures that both social media and the increased accesibilty to porn have created. These articles suggest that the casual “hook-up” culture we see on many college campuses (including my own) can be contributed to the frequency in which we see references to sex in the media. Not only this, but the articles went as far as to argue that there’s a certain level of violence in today’s pornography that we are seeing reflected in real life encounters more and more. This is likely referring to the male domination we almost always seen sexually in the media (Fifty Shades of Grey, etc.).

Young women grow up in a porn-saturated, image-centered, commercialized culture in which ‘empowerment’ is just a feeling, consumption trumps connection, ‘hot’ is an imperative, fame is the ultimate achievement, and the quickest way for a woman to get ahead is to serve up her body before someone else does. (Klein)

Conclusion: Throughout all my of research, the idea that misogyny is being seen on a larger scale thanks to social media was confirmed. Although it was argued whether or not misogyny is actually increasing or just appears to be thanks to our access to the internet, almost every author agreed that the sexualization of women is, at least, becoming more apparent. While collecting sources, I found many examples of real life social media posts, such Kim Kardashian and Rihanna’s “sexual selfies”, or famous Instagram accounts featuring almost naked women, that portrayed women as more of a sexual item then an actual human being. Even looking at my own posts, I found it alarming how many more likes I received on an Instagram picture in a bathing suit than in regular clothes. Although, like any outlet, social media can be used to promote almost everything, including feminism, I discovered through my sources that an overwhelming amount of posts objectified women.

For class today my English teacher encouraged us to look at a classmate’s blog post and write a response. After looking through many of my peers blogs, I found an article written by my friend Morgan entitled “The Little Things Matter“. The post, which was not only extremely well written, covered an assortment of feminist topics that I could really identify with.

The post, which discussed the progression of female athletes here at Santa Clara, also discussed the large double standard between men and women when it comes to sports. As Morgan says in her article, Santa Clara, and universities in general have come along way in the past 50 years or so when it comes to accepting female athletes. However, as Morgan mentions there are still many hurdles for female athletes to overcome.

Hello all! So after my last couple posts addressing a) proper research skills and b) the process of performing archival research (and my very personal findings), I am now writing to tell you all how I plan to apply this knowledge into a topic I feel deeply about (yes you guessed it, feminism).

For my next English assignment, I will be picking a research question to evaluate, through both library resources, a peer survey, and, for my topic in-particularly, social media.

After writing my archival research paper, which covered the evolution of women at Santa Clara, I knew that wanted to continue my study of the patriarchal atmosphere that exists on college campuses even today. As a female college student, I am personally touched by this subject matter and think that it is often overlooked in modern day society. However, the fact of the matter is, that many girls, myself included, still feel pressured to act a certain way to please our male counterparts – and perhaps more so than ever.

The idea that men will eventually make more money than women, and that women, even today, will ultimately become housewives, is enforced in today’s youth through multimedia such as the internet and TV (i.e. Real Housewives). It’s this notion, along with the false perception of female “perfection” we often see on social media (i.e.”couple goals”, “perfect body”), that influence college girls to spend more time worrying about their impression on boys than their actual studies.

“We have to be a good role model for these little girls because who do they have? All they have, literally, is the Kardashians. She doesn’t have a Malala poster in her room — trust me.” -Amy Schumer

Building off this, I believe that media has amplified the social pressures we often see on college campuses, by creating unrealistic expectations of what females are really like.  We see these girls on instagram and twitter who seem like they have it all (great body, great style, and in effect great boyfriend) and think if we could just be a little more like them everything would fall into place. No longer are we comparing ourselves to the prettiest girls on campus, but the prettiest girls, well, in the world. Aditionally, these so called “perfect” women aren’t exactly the epitome of modesty. We see celebrities or social media stars, such a Kim Kardashian who became famous for things like PORN. Is this really the type of woman we want serving as a role model for my generation?

At the end of the day, I believe that multi and social media work together to foster a culture which encourages girls to overvalue their exterior beauty and feel the need to engage in meaningless hookups solely to “impress” guys. For my research question, I want to explore if the social pressures I adhere to as a 19 year girl attending college, have been amplified by my generation’s exposure to media outlets that promote unrealistic female aspirations.

For class this week I was assigned to read the article “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing” by Joseph Bizup. In the article Bizup introduces a new way of thinking about the sources students use when conducting research projects. Bizup suggests instead of looking at the sources based off what form they are, we should classify them by what they do for us when we’re writing. For example Bizup suggest four types of sources: Background, Exhibit, Argument, and Method.

Personally I think Bizup has a point. I think that too much emphasis is put on where we find our sources whether it be online, in print, a newspaper, and encyclopedia, etc.. Too many times I have been assigned a research project where I am required to get a certain number of each format of source with little regard for what the sources are saying or what role they serve in my research project. I agree with Bizup that teachers should spend more time requiring students to find sources that actually serve depth to what they are saying, than a certain number of every format.

With the internet becoming what it is today and the exceedingly fast extinction of print sources it is becoming harder and harder to monitor where information began. Because of this students should focus on finding sources that are going to help them make a POINT when writing their essays. Too many kids, including myself, find a huge amount of information but don’t really know what it’s saying or what to do with it. By default you see a huge amount of high school research papers that are just pages on pages of facts with absolutely no so what.

Throughout my high school experience I performed research one way. I received a topic, I researched said topic for said answers, and then wrote about said answers in a paper I’d likely outlined before I’d even researched said topic. However, after reading the article “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One- and How Can We Get Students to Join Us?” by Michael Kleine I discovered I may have been going about my research all wrong.

Throughout his article Kleine describes two types of researchers: hunters and gatherers. Hunters, which is what I would classify my former self as, are students who go into their research assignment already knowing what they want to find, and only searching for said information. This means (yes I know it’s bad) that these students will ignore other information on the topic, even if it conflicts with their argument, because it doesn’t contribute to what they are wanting to say. While it is good to have some direction when performing a research a project, too much can keep you from fully exploring the topic you are covering.

The other sort of researcher Kleine describes, in a much more positive light I must add, is the gatherer. The gatherer goes into a research project seeing all that they can find on said topic before coming to a conclusion on what they’re going to write about. This is a better way to approach a topic because it allows you to fully understand all aspects of what you are covering before deciding what area you want to cover and what your viewpoints are on that area. This allows for a fuller research process and probably more accurate given that the content of the paper was decided post research.

While I would say I am typically a hunter, during my archival research process (which I wrote about in Archival Research Process: Things get Personal) I took more a  gatherer approach when shifting my paper to focus more on women’s rights than on my actual research process. After finding information during my research that really spurred a personal connection and wanting my paper to cover not only how I found it but what it meant to me, I shifted the point of my paper from the archives to the long lasting effects of patriarchal societies. Having an open enough mind during my research process to find this was important because I ended up finding information I was much more passionate about than I originally expected.

To all of you out there who think research is boring (trust me I was one of them) I think you will find that taking a more open approach of your topics will help make your research more interesting. While it may be a little bit more time consuming it allows you to get further invested in your topic and actually learn about it, opposed to just locating the exact sources you needed in order to back up your pre conceived notions.

As suggested in my last two posts, I was recently assigned an archival research project on old documents regarding Santa Clara University. Despite my hatred for research (which I describe fully in Research is my Nemesis), I was actually pretty excited to look at archives from my very own university. I knew I was interested in tying in a feminist viewpoint, to build on my research from last quarter, but was not at all expecting to find as much as I did.

Upon walking into the archival section of the library I was met with a table of documents solely on the adaptation of women to the SCU campus. My original shock, of course, was finding out that women weren’t accepted until the 1960’s. Furthermore, I was surprised to see that their acceptance was highly disputed, even by male students. 

“TRADITIONS SHATTERED,” covers half the front page of the University’s paper, The Santa Clara, alerting both students and faculty alike that, as of the following quarter, SCU would become the first coeducational Catholic institution in California.

While it’s understandable that female facilities and a larger student body would create expenses for the school, it seemed to me like female addition to the campus would, if anything, excite young men. To understand why this might not be so, I decided to take a closer look at the time period. After reading Katherine E. Tirabassi’s article, Journeying into the Archives, in class, I knew a huge part of archival research was background information. As far as Catholic schools are concerned, Santa Clara was among the first to accept females onto their campus. As the oldest institution of higher education in California and a strict Catholic campus it is no surprise that the school had, and has, placed an immense value on campus traditions. Traditions, that as of 1961, did not include women.

“It will detract from the spirit of the school, from the Santa Clara image. Tradition is important here and I think that the reason that most of the fellows came here was the tradition of the Santa Clara spirit. That tradition will be destroyed now.”   -Santa Clara Student Leaders, The Santa Clara, 1961

Women coming to Santa Clara would create a huge shift in the atmosphere of the school, which had remained primarily unchanged since the it’s opening in 1851. After reading the paper and looking at other archives to cross-reference, I concluded that the primary cause of dispute was the University’s fear of change. However, the discrimination of female students on and off the campus goes far beyond this.

While the archives introducing female presence on campus were extraordinarily interesting, it was the documents I found next that really caught my attention. The Santa Clara Women’s Center, which was created immediately after female acceptance into the school, was an organization formed to provide a variety of on campus classes and activities for women. In addition to fun events, the organization held an abundance of safety and confidence seminars, such as “Rape Education” and “Assertiveness Training”. While I rarely feel physically threatened here on campus, I think that the social atmosphere at colleges in general is one which encourages females to submit to men. Although classes themselves are not biased, there are many social pressures on college girls to do what their male counterparts ask of them. In some cases this may be listening to them on a project or trying to look a certain way, but in many,  it’s being peer pressured to “hook-up” with a guy because we’re too scared to say no.

“Is it hard to state how you feel? Are you too embarrassed to say what you really like about someone? Is it hard to say ‘NO’ because you don’t want to hurt their feelings?”

These rhetorical questions line the top of 1981 “Assertiveness Training” flyer, which at one point in time was hanging on Benson’s very walls. The flyer immediately caught me off guard. Unlike the other documents I’d studied, which were clearly outdated, this flyer could have easily been directed at me. The irony of reading my inner most personal problems off an archive in the library, seemed almost absurd. I knew going into this assignment there would be certain parts of my research that would resonate with my own college experience, but I never expected to feel a personal connection. How could it be that girls going to college a full 35 years before me were faced with the exact same internal conflicts? The answer goes far beyond Santa Clara or it’s originally male-dominated atmosphere, but to the idea that it’s our duty, as women, to please men. If something goes “wrong”, whether it’s the shifting of a University’s traditions or a guy not getting laid, it’s always women who take the fall. Through looking at archives over the past few days, I was able to clearly see that female discrimination cannot be limited to a certain time or place, but is a societal norm so ingrained in our nature that we don’t even notice until it’s spelled out in front of us.

When looking into the history of Santa Clara it was easy to see that the University has made tremendous leaps over the past 55 years regarding gender equality.  That being said, I was shocked to realize that many of the problems I researched remain evident not only on campus, but in our society as a whole.  Through studying Santa Clara’s archives I was able to personally identify with many gender issues here at school in a way that was much more engaging than simply reading an article. In addition to helping me better understand my university, this “sparked interest” encouraged me to expand on my previous knowledge of sexism, where it’s rooted, and how we commonly see it today. As a 2016 female Bronco I can say that our struggle on campus is far from over, but I do believe that, as a society, we can continue to outgrow our patriarchal tendencies. While it may be a stretch to assume we can reshape a social atmosphere that exists at Universities worldwide, I think, that if the archives showed me anything, it’s that change is always possible.

When researching archives there are many things you must take into consideration. While some of these things may seem almost subconscious (author, date, etc.), there are a decent amount of questions you must ask that go beyond the surface of the archive.

Past the obvious, the first thing I try to ask myself when conducting research is “what is the archive trying to say?”. This may seem like a fairly obvious question but it actually requires you to dig fairly deep into the subject. To reach a conclusion one must understand many things about the background of the archive. For instance, one must grasp the social environment in which the archive was conducted: “What time period? What area? What are these environments like and what do people commonly believe in this era?”. Without understanding these things you could seriously misconstrued the archive’s significance. Through reading an article I was recently assigned by Katherine E. Tirabassi called “Journeying into the Archives”, I learned that there are four key steps to figuring out the archives message:

1. Selectivity– According to Tirabassi the first step to understanding an archive is selecting and omitting artifacts from the given collection. It’s key to understand what information is relevant when trying to decipher an article.
2. Cross Referencing– In order to understand any given archive you should cross check it with articles over the same topics. This allows you to confirm, collaborate, clarify, and even contrast the given information and better understand what the original archive is saying.
3. Categorization– After you have identified the important information, it’s crucial that you both sort and organize it. Finding key words, and different aids to locate and process the key points will make your research significantly easier.
4. Closure– Tirabassi’s final point is that one must accept that no one archive will be able to answer all of your questions. There are holes in every article and part of conducting good research is ending having created more/ deeper questions than you started with.

Through these steps I’ve realized that A LOT  more goes into research than the simple skimming and note taking I repped throughout high school. When putting these steps into action during my last English class I realized that not only do they make the research process easier but they also make it far more interesting. Considering the lives and believes of both the author and other people during the time the archive was written puts a personal spin on the research process. So to all my fellow history junkies, I HIGHLY encourage you to test these methods out. Sometimes all it takes is a deeper look to make something that used to be a boring chore an interesting investment of your time.

As a girl who genuinely loves learning and enriching her education, it may come as surprise that I HATE research. It’s the formality of it all. Typically it’s over a topic I don’t really care about,  I’m required to collect information from certain (extraordinarily complicated) databases, and to be frank, bibliographies straight up give me anxiety. Personally, I think it’d be a whole lot simpler if we were encouraged to use search engines like google. Like Professor Lueck said in class, at this point, google is everything. While I always follow procedures and requirements laid out by teachers, I think research could be much more effective if students were given more freedom in their source section. This being said, I do understand the problems with the article we read in class. While I agree with the student’s claim that many research technicalities are pretty pointless, (let’s face it, we all use wikipedia for at least a little back up info) I also think that some of the “shortcuts” he took while writing his paper crossed a moral line. When it comes changing quotes or lying about sources, you not only risk getting in trouble but you are lying to your readers. I am all about making research easier and less time consuming, but I think that the student in the article did make some questionable decisions. Additionally, I think students would enjoy research more and take less “shortcuts” if they were able to pick their topics. Personally, I’ve only enjoyed a couple research projects and it was because I was allowed to study a topic that interested me. I’m far more likely to read an entire book opposed to an online summary if I actually enjoy the topic.

I think that through loosening research guidelines and allowing students more freedom on research topics, teachers will see a dramatic improvement in research quality. Too many students, including myself, dread research projects despite their interest in school. If Liw’s letter showed us anything, it’s that something about standard research guidelines needs to change.