Guiding Questions

Week 3: In Susan Bordo’s article “Never Just Pictures”, depicts the reality of unhealthy models and the expectation in which women and men feel pressure to look a certain way. Which in result, can be detrimental to our society. Bordo states in the article “children in this culture grow up knowing that you can never be thin enough and that being fat is one of the worst things one can be”. Where are children getting this absurd idea from, does it have to do with social media? And if so, would body-shaming be as common nowadays if social media didn’t exist? Or with the help of social media, has the acceptance of all body shapes grown exponentially since before the times of Instagram etc.?

Week 4: Scopophilia known as “pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight” is so common in today’s society that many of us don’t see it as an invasion of privacy of one’s own body or we feel entitled to that desire because it is of ‘human nature’ to admire such bodies. Are women mainly targeted? If so, does this type of behaviour stem from pornography? And what’s most common for men and women to experience, active scopophilia or ego libido?

Week 6: Why is it that Feminism has such a negative connotation with the term as it is supposed to be a positive endorsement towards equal rights for all. Is it due to the fact that people are uneducated on what Feminism means or because they believe inaccurate information regarding feminists?

Week 7:  In Cassandra Stover’s “Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess”, she mentions how “society could only accept a woman whose ambitions were channeled towards love, or a woman with a great love for her father, a very prominent trend in postmodern representations of powerful female characters”. Why is it that the creators of Disney films feel the need to showcase the princesses gain for approval by their fathers/male figures, when at the same time, they contradict that behaviour by fighting against that approval and justification. Is the message they’re portraying conflicting in the sense that a young woman can be adventurous or independent, but in the end still require that reassurance by their father? (e.g. Mulan)

Week 8: How was the idea created that young girls or woman feel the need to look ‘sexy’ or ‘attractive’ in their Halloween costumes? Is it because they want to look that way, or because they feel pressure by men to look a certain way?