Amanda's Third Article Review

Amanda Blohm

Professor Currans

Blog Topic: Gender and Popular Films

Article Review #3

Lauzen, M. M., & Dozier, D. M. (2005). Maintaining the double standard: Portrayals of age and gender in popular films. Sex Roles, 52(7-8), 437-446. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-3710-1

            In “Maintaining the Double Standard: Portrayals of Age and Gender in Popular Films”, Lauzen and Dozier discuss the double standard for aging male and female characters. Within this study, they came to the understanding that men generally are allowed to appear older on screen where women are not allowed to do so. Besides this, the majority of characters were male, at least in a staggering number when compared with female characters that hold the major character spots. They conducted their study in order to see whether or not popular films currently also perpetuate the double standard that older films have put on. Therefore, this study was conducted in order to “illuminate the complex systems of expectations and perceptions regarding individuals young and old, male and female,” through media’s representations (438).

            In order for Lauzen and Dozier to support this argument about the double standard being maintained in contemporary popular films, the study had to be conducted in a way that gave enough results to conclude from. Before the details of the method and results were given, however, they talk about how media portrays gender and age. From a work of literature talking about the same subject, the author noted “that frequently men’s success is measured by what they do, whereas women’s success is measured by how they look” (438). Moving further on this note, you could assume that then women lose success as they grow older and lose their beauty by society’s standards whereas men may continue to be successful despite aging physically. As they say several times throughout the article, men then are allowed to enjoy longer screen lives than women. In most cases, while men are represented as older on screen, or at least represented at more varying ages, women are limited to an age when they are seen as their more attractive. This means that “female characters in prime time are younger than male characters” and in a study, they “found little change in the portrayal of gender and age over the three decades” (439). In order to conduct the study, Lauzen and Dozier coded several traits. The codes were as follows: gender of character, type of character (major or minor), age, leadership, occupational power, goal, and effectiveness in achieving that goal” (440). Unsurprisingly, women only made up 28% of the characters were men made up 72%. The percentages are similar when it comes to women that make up the major characters and men that make up the same category. When looking at the age of these characters in films, women made up much of the younger ages where men made up more of the older characters.

            The results of the study were used in order to answer several questions that the researchers had asked prior to coding and conducting the study. Firstly, it was asked if “popular films continue to misrepresent the age distribution of the US population” (441). Within the male population, younger boys were underrepresented, men in their thirties and forties were highly overrepresented and men older than that were also underrepresented. Women faced a similar but opposite trend, where their younger ages overrepresented and older ages were underrepresented, but the age of women in their forties actually matched the population. Another questions asked “whether gender interacts with age to influence a character’s leadership status, occupational power, possession of goals, and effectiveness in achieving those goals” (442). For men, leadership increased with age but for women, it did not. Where males had goals across all ages, women did not and it seemed to drop as they grew older. However, effectiveness was not significant in either gender according to the study. From all this, however, we can assume that films do still perpetuate the double standard of gender and age. Female characters were overrepresented at ages between twenty thirty where male characters were overrepresented slightly older than them. As well, “portrayals of characters aged 60 and older were scarce”, which suggests that it is not only gender involved in younger women being portrayed but an age bias as well (443). But simply from this study we can gain, “women enjoy a shorter screen life than men; they effectively disappear from the screen at an earlier age” and that these “popular images reinforce cultural beliefs that women’s value continues to reside in their youthful appearance” (443). All of this is extremely harmful towards children’s and in general society’s perception of gender and age in relation to each other.

            This article relates to my topic of gender and popular films, due to its subject concerning gender relating to age on the screen. Following my previous articles, we can see that even in this small subset of categories in films, women are still represented unfairly. Beyond that, even men are represented incorrectly, only well in one area of age as women are. Even then, both genders are overrepresented in one age rather than others, in fact they are underrepresented in the rest of their ages and especially in ages exceeding sixty. Relating to the previous article I reviewed, these two are only slightly similar. Both take a look at the two genders and certain traits they relate to, but each are very different when it comes down to exactly what they are looking for. The previous article was interested in the feminine and masculine traits put on by several characters over time, where this article focuses primarily on how successful and goal-oriented characters are, especially when connected to their ages. 

Sexuality and Visual Art: Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art

Hunter O'Hanian, director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, says, "What we hope that we can do -- and what we care a great deal about -- is treat and deal with issues of gender and sex in a professional museum setting that is done in a straight forward and honest manner. So that other museums have the courage to do so."

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is in none other than New York, New York and is said to be the only LGBTQ museum in the world. The museum was made and is operated by the non-profit Leslie Lohman Gay Art Foundation, which was founded by Charles Leslie in 1987. The Leslie Lohman Gay Art Foundation has supported LGBTQ artists for over the last 30 years and continues to do so.

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art has a collection of over 24,000 works and contains information on over 1,900 LGBTQ artists. They not only have information on the artists that feature work in their museum, but also other artists that that LGBTQ audiences may be interested in. Not only that, but the museum ALSO has a library that has over 1,000 volumes that is considered to be one of the most comprehensive collection of books, pamphlets, and catalogs on LGBTQ art. 

I encourage you to check out their online database that allows you to search over 1,000 images in their collection. This link will take you to a page that gives details on how to use their database, from their, you can click on a link they provide you with to access the online database. Oh, and just for added info, admission to the museum is free and open to the public! Just a little added incentive if anyone's interested.. Here's the link to the museum's page! :)

In the meantime, here are three works that can be found in the museum. 

David Hockney, Two Boys aged 23 or 24 from: Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy, 1966, Etching and aquatint on wove paper, 13.75 x 8.75 in. Foundation purchase with funds provided by Ray Warman and Dan Kiser

Dyke Action Machine (DAM), Do you love the dyke in your life, 1995, Processed ink on paper, 8x8in.

James Bidgood, Willow Tree (Bruce Kirkman), mid-1960s, Digital C-print, 19.688x15.438in. 

--Josephine Hicks

Casey Coulter's 3rd Article Review

Casey Coulter

WGST 202

T/Th 11-12:15

Professor Currans

Blog Topic: Sexuality in Film

Article Review #3

Article Review 3

Meyer, Michaela D E; Wood, Megan M. “Sexuality and Teen Television: Emerging Adults Respond to Representations of Queer Identity on Glee” Sexuality & Culture 17.3 (2013): 434-448

            “Sexuality and Teen Television: Emerging Adults Respond to Representations of Queer Identity on Glee” by Michaela D E Meyer and Megan M Wood is essentially a study of young adult Glee fans and their thoughts and reactions about queer representations about the show. The introduction outlines Glee’s success as a show, gives background of the LGBT characters, and then they introduced the premise of the study, which included interviews with 97 young adult Glee viewers. The question that sparked the study was, “How do audiences make sense of Glee’s representations of queer sexuality and how do these representations impact their own sexual Identity” (436). The article describes what teen television is and how it can impact people who are coming to terms with their own Identities and sexualities (437-438). The article also gives examples of how the viewers of other shows responded to the representation of those shows (439). The article then describes the methods used during the study and then delivers to the readers what it shows (440-444). The authors then summarize the findings and concisely conclude the article (444-446). Overall, the findings conclude that Glee is definitely progressive in terms of queer representation, but is just the latest in a long line of shows that deal with discovering identity (446).

            Most of the participants involved in the study agreed that the show is “progressive” in regards to sexuality and identity representation, while also saying that the show deals with real relatable problems that a lot of teens deal with (441). While not only dealing with these issues, viewers noted that the show offers many differing viewpoints of these issues through the diverse cast of characters, which can create discussions between fans about the issues (442). An important issue that most of the participants were quick to note was visibility, particularly relating to sexual identity (441). Participants seemed to agree that this visibility is important because just as in the show, you’re going to run into people with different sexual and gender identities (442). Because they’re so involved in discussion on these “progressive” issues, Glee fans feel a sense of community around the show.

            One of the most interesting results of the study was the difference between reactions of male and female fans. Female participants on the whole were more enthusiastic about stating their affiliation with the show, not being afraid to call themselves “Gleeks” (A word mash-up of Glee and geek). They would often post about watching the show with friends on social media and were open and honest about their affinity for the show (442). Male participants, however, were more reluctant about expressing their fondness for the show; only under the confidential interview atmosphere were they comfortable with sharing that they enjoy it (443).  There was a stigma identified by the participants that because of the musical aspect of the show, it was deemed more feminine, which made it “more gay” (444). The combination of queer characters coupled with the musical aspect created a perception among viewers that male viewers would most likely be gay, although most of the male participants made a point to mention that they were heterosexual (444). In conclusion, male participants identified a threat to their heterosexuality because they watched the show, and were more reluctant to admit they do so, whereas the female viewers were able to be open about liking the show without worries of a social stigma.

            While Glee isn’t a film, television is a very similar form of media. This can relate to my topic of sexuality in film firstly because of how alike film and television are, and because the article describes how Glee includes queer characters and how the viewers of the show react to it. We haven’t really talked in class about sexuality in film (or television), but we have talked about other performances, such as Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” video, which raised issues about female sexuality and whether the video was empowering or not. It seems completely unrelated to my article, yet it is. The article discusses how the show Glee provides teens with knowledge about sexuality (436). The characters in the show deal with issues with sexuality very similar to the issue surrounding “Anaconda”. For example in season 2 episode 2 Will Schuester, director of the glee club in the show, refused to let the students perform Brittany Spears music because it was too provocative, much to the students’ dismay. In my previous article review of “’Potential Lesbians at Two O’clock’: The Heterosexualization of Lesbianism in the Recent Teen Film” by Tricia Jenkins, I mention how Jenkins discusses that while lesbianism is becoming more present in teen oriented films, it’s often watered down by being objectified by male characters. This article describes how Glee does exactly the opposite; Queer characters are both visible and un-objectified, and actual sex rarely even comes into the picture. For example, the characters Santana Lopez and Britney S. Pierce partake in sexual relations with each other, and while in season 1 their relationship was merely a funny joke, it evolved as the show went on and became one of the main focused points in a couple of the episodes. I personally found this article much more entertaining and easy to read compared to the other two that I had read. Being a Gleek myself, I’m very familiar with the show and found the results of the study discussed in the article very interesting, yet not surprising. It makes me sad that guys can’t like the show simply because people will think they’re gay. There’s a stereotype that enjoying musicals is “gay”, and I think is really unfortunate, but at the same time I fit the stereotype so I really can’t talk. All in all, it was a great article, interesting and relatable, I would definitely recommend it!

Article Review #3

Ali Marnon

Intro to Gender & Sexuality H

T/Th 12:30-1:45

Blog Topic: Sexual Violence Against Women

Article Review #3

Fitzgerald, Louise F. "Sexual Harassment: Violence Against Women in the Workplace." The American Psychologist 48.10 (1993): 1070-076. Print.

            In Louise Fitzgerald’s article “Sexual Harassment: Violence Against Women in the Workplace” she explore sexual violence in the workplace. In her article she notes that “Sexual harassment has been a fixture of working life since women first offered their labor for sale in the marketplace” (Fitzgerald, 1070). Fitzgerald looks at the nature and prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace, what kind of consequences that sexual harassment has on job performance and the mental states of its victims, and the what legislative initiatives that can be put into place to help combat sexual violence in the workplace. Fitzgerald looks at how often and what kind of consequences sexual violence has and how to put an end to sexual violence in the workplace setting. Fitzgerald argues that we need to take all of these factors and work to put an end to the violence that occurs in a workplace.    

            In her article, Fitzgerald examines the nature of sexual violence along with its prevalence in the workplace. The list of types of sexual violence that can be found occurring in the workplace setting can be just as extensive as any other setting. However, Fitzgerald notes that “the great majority of harassment in not physically violent but rather reflects intrusive, unwanted, and coercive sexual attention” (1071). To illustrate this point, Fitzgerald looked at a study that was conducted to look at the prevalence of different forms of sexual violence. In this study, of which Fitzgerald failed to name, they found that sexual remarks were reported being experienced by 33% of the women participating. Another 26% reported touching and 15% said that they were pressured to attend dates with coworkers. Fitzgerald also found that women were more likely to experience sexual violence in workplaces where “women have traditionally been under-represented” (1071). She also states that the “government estimates that approximately 12,000 female federal workers were victims of rape or attempted rape by supervisors or coworkers” (1071). The encounters of sexual harassment did not just occur once. Fitzgerald finds that some of these experiences can occur for several months at a time.

            The next thing that Fitzgerald looks at in her article is the consequences that sexual violence has on job performance and the women’s mental health. One consequence noted by Fitzgerald is job loss. Of the women being sexually harassed in the workplace, “25% resigned due to the stresses of the complaint process of the harassment itself” (1072). Women may be afraid to come forward if they are being sexually harassed by someone in the workplace since 50% were found to be fired if they came forward to file a complaint against their harasser. The consequences on women’s physical and psychological well-being were found to include “anxiety, depression, headaches, sleep disturbance, gastrointestinal disorders, weight loss (or gain), nausea, and sexual dysfunction” (1072). This list could probably be expanded as Fitzgerald also looks at how harassment is associated with mental disorders such as depression and PTSD. She notes that mental disorders can be the product of sexual harassment.

             Lastly, Fitzgerald looks at legislation that could be reformed in order to prevent sexual harassment from occurring in the workplace. She came up with five ways that legislation could be reformed. The one that Fitzgerald claims to be the most important is having employers make a policy that they strongly uphold and display prominently so that every employee will know what the policy is. Fitzgerald’s reasoning is that “weak policies or those that are laxly enforced are similarly related to higher incidence levels” (1074). If we are trying to reduce the amount of sexual harassments that occur, then having a strongly enforced policy would be a good idea. Another legislature change that Fitzgerald proposes is to increase the amount that can be paid out to sexual harassment victims. Her third idea is to make sure that any woman who quit due to sexual harassment be allowed to collect unemployment. Fitzgerald mentions how “oftentimes, their unemployment is considered to be “voluntary” and thus not eligible for compensation” (1074). The fourth change that Fitzgerald would make is to “extend the statute of limitations for filing sexual harassment charges” (1074). The current length of time to file a charge currently is about 180-300 days depending on which state you live in. Her last change would be not to revictimize the victims through the legal system. She says that “evidence that seeks to make the victim responsible for sexual harassment should be statutorily excluded in all states” (1074).

            This article relates to my blog topic of sexual violence against women as Fitzgerald’s article looks at sexual violence against women in the workplace. Fitzgerald whole point throughout the piece is to look at the effects that sexual violence can have if it’s committed in the workplace and what we need to do to stop it from occurring. Fitzgerald’s article is similar to my review of Zinnstag’s “Sexual Violence against Women in Armed Conflict: Standard Responses and New Ideas”. They both look at sexual violence and how affects people in certain situation. They also both believe that we should reform legal system so that it will no longer be revictimizing the victims. Both of the authors also acknowledge that women may be ashamed to come forward after the have been sexually harassed or violated and that we should make it easier for them to feel comfortable and safe to do so. The articles differ in the areas in which they examine sexual violence. Fitzgerald explores sexual violence in the workplace while Zinnstag explores sexual violence in armed conflict situations. Another difference is that Zinsstag doesn’t particularly look at the types or how prevalent sexual violence is in armed conflict whereas Fitzgerald looks at this in the workplace. Zinsstag mostly looks at how to gain justice and get support for the sexual violence that they endured during armed conflict. The information included in this article widened my knowledge on how hard the legal system makes it for victims to get the restitution for the crimes committed against them. I was not aware that we had a cap on damages that could be paid to victims of sexual harassment. I was also not aware that there was such a strict limitation to the amount of time that could pass before you could no longer file charges. I don’t think that she left anything out that I would have liked her to address in her article. She did a nice job of including everything a reader would need to understand her viewpoint and her reasoning.

Review of “Sexual Violence Inside Prisons: Rates of Victimization.”

Elijah Zagorski
Dr. Currans
WGST 202H
11 December 2014

Article Review 3

Wolff, Nancy et al. “Sexual Violence Inside Prisons: Rates of Victimization.” Journal of Urban
           Health : Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 83.5 (2006): 835–848. PMC.          Web. 25 Nov. 2014.

            Nancy Wolff, Cynthia L. Blitz, Jing Shi, Ronet Backman, and Jane A. Siegel explore sexual violence against men in the prison setting along with the frequency of it occurring in their article titled “Sexual Violence Inside Prison: Rates of Victimization.” Their main focus was to bring up and explore the trends that the surveys conducted on inmates in a variety of different prisons throughout America demonstrated. While the authors acknowledge that there are biases within the data collected, there is still reason to make these statements about the correlation between being assaulted once and the likelihood that he (the man who was assaulted) will be assaulted again following the first assault. They examine two types of assault: inmate-on-inmate and staff-on-inmate. The main statement that they are making is that once a man is victimized the chances that he will be assaulted again goes up significantly, creating the victimization effect.

            The study conducted supports the existence of the victimization effect as it surveys prisoners from different geological and demographical prisons and finding similar results. This includes prisons that are co-ed, all-men’s, and all-women’s prisons. From the three different types of prisons surveyed, the one that’s most likely to have sexual violence occur most repeatedly is all-male prisons. These surveys only were able to prove correlation and not causation between the likelihood of repeated assults, though, not allowing further explanation of why there is this trend. The authors analyzed the survey conducted to draw the conclusion that abusive sexual conduct is more likely to occur than nonconsensual sexual acts. To further explain the difference between the two, “[s]exual violence was defined as nonconsensual sexual acts, which consisted of forced sex acts, including oral and anal sex, and abusive sexual contacts” include unwanted touching or other advances (Wolff et al). Their findings make sense given that abusive sexual conduct is able to escalate into nonconsensual sexual acts but it doesn’t always. They also makes the statement that sexual victimization can lead to more violence outside of prisons as it can produce rage, in addition to the individual’s internal struggle with self-harm, drug use, or suicidal ideation.

            The authors explain that the sampling involved questions regarding the past six months of prisoner’s lives within the prison, while also taking into account the victim and the perpetrator’s age, length of time in prison, and race. The study they conducted found that the most likely man to be a victim was the younger, white male maybe incarcerated for his first time; the most likely person to be a perpetrator was an older prisoner who may have served a sentence prior to the current one, who is black. The authors analyzed their data to be able to create a general stereotype of what the scene within prison violence would look like. They also point out that in the male prisons surveyed, the majority of inmates were black or Hispanic, leaving white men as the minority.  They draw these generalizations by using the data they gathered in their surveying.

            This article relates to my blog topic by connecting sexual violence against men in a specific setting: within prisons. This also connects to the course theme of the intersectionality among race, gender, and sexuality. Specifically my topic explores the intersection between gender and sexuality in the sense of sexual violence, but this article also brings race into it. There can be parallels drawn between this article and “Sexual Violence Against Men in Armed Conflict” by Sandesh Sivakumaran as both articles explore men in socially obscure settings. The setting of armed conflict and prisons may be similar to one another as they have less freedom available for the individuals in terms of both sexuality and sexual expression when compared to non-incarcerated people. The difference is that there is more ability to cause physical harm to victims with more dangerous tools in the combat setting than within the prison setting. The article Wolff and her cowriters wrote added more about why this is a problem and why public health care should be worried about it. Victims of these situation is able to generate violence within individuals who may not have previously been violent. The authors state that the prison system has more individuals who contract STIs and HIV than the outside community. This added to my overall knowledge as it provided a greater understanding of the general topic of sexual violence in prisons.

Labyrinth Outreach Services to Women

Since it's our final post, I found something happier than I've been posting about! Labyrinth Outreach Services to Women is a project targeting the main reasons women repeatedly go to jail. They set up housing and support groups for substance abuse or childhood violence. Their main goal to to rehabilitate these women and keep them out of prison. The majority of women they help were incarcerated for nonviolent crimes, as most are, so it's important to rehabilitate them before they offend multiple times.
Here is the article that talks about their wereabouts and beginings!
-Erin Lucas

Hate Crime and the LGBT Community- Bridget Thomas

http://www.thenation.com/article/176437/hate-crime-laws-dont-prevent-violence-against-lgbt-people

Read this article titled, Hate Crime Laws Don't Prevent Violence Against LGBT People. This article was really helpful for me as it explained the history, purpose, and implications surrounding hate crime laws. It also explains the reason as to why some LGBT people oppose hate crime laws, and why some people support them. This article was very thought-provoking for me, especially when it brought up the concept of justice in relationship to things like equality, fairness, and punishment. The article contains much information, read it to see which part or parts spark your interest!

-Bridget Thomas