2.1 Pre-Writing

When you think of the 1950s in America do you assume that we are more "liberated" than "they" were then? What does liberated mean? Who do you think the audience of these films are supposed to be? What prejudices or expectations do you bring to the table?



Gee golly whiz!! Yowsers! Times sure have changed. I watched the film titled, "Sex Attitudes in Adolescence" where the film follows Bill and Mary's sexual development. Bob's mother is a wdow raising her son without a father figure, whereas Mary grew up with both parents. The film follows the protogonists from the time they are infants all the way up to marriage, where it carefully outlines the each stage and what this means for the individual.
I was curious to see what points were highlighted throughout the film. There wer some interesting points throughout the film. For example. around the age of 10 Bill's mother was "prud" that he was accepted by other boys and stopped playing with girls. As the plot thickens Bill's mother finds that some "porn" in her sons room and she just tucks it back into place and ignores it. The narrator explains how this is natural for a boy and the mother ignores a lot of her sons sexual pursuits. For example, Bill's mother listen in on her son's phone conversation and hears how her son talks about girls and bragging about boasting about girls. He goes on to speak of girl who is "ok [and] can do better than her" and has "better prospects". Bill even talks about how he is going to take a girl "by a pond" and we all know for what. It's amazing how in all this he isn't viewed as a bad guy!! His mother "worries" about her son and how girls seem to divert his attention from school. However, mother does nothing about it. She lets him be. Oh yeah, and Bill was the quarterback for his
football team-how convenient.

As for Mary, welp...she's prim and proper! She goes on lots of dates with boys, however, the film portrays her in such a way where she KNOWS HER LIMITS AND STANDS BY THEM. ONe time she went out with a boy and he tried to be fresh and continue to make out with her when she no longer wanted to... being the good girl that she was she stopped him and asked to go home. I'm not saying this is a bad thing but I thought it was interesing that
this added this clip into the film. It's important that Mary brings a "good boy" back home that the parents approve of, whereas Bill can date raunchy girls and her mother can express her concern but nothing is really done. On the contrary, Mary's mother is on her case and even geos as far as asking her not to date a boy. Interesting.

All I have to say is thank GOD I don't live in the fifties!! YIKES!

>>In Class Blogging Assignment<<

Please spend 10 minutes reflecting on the question below after the group discussion.
Based on our discussion, what conclusions can you make aabout gender expectations for white middle class teens in the 1950s?

In the 1950s, white middle class teens were expected to be saints in comparison to today's society. Girls were expected to be so demure and mindful of their appearance. Whereas the boys were supposed to be Gentlemen and always taking care of the the defenseless little girl. It's clear who has a dominant role (men) between genders in 1950s society. A female's place in this male dominated society revolve's around what the man expects of a woman.

>>AFTERTHOUGHTS<<
((dont know if this makes any sense))

My assignment to observe behavorial patterns between genders has been an extremely positive experience. I have learned that there is more than meets the eye. I reported exactly what I saw, but it never occured to me to question why I came to the conclusion I did. Why is it that the girls on the bus grouped together whereas the guys were reluctant to sit next to one another? It's true, there is more than meets the eye but it doesn't end there. There is something more.
I'm not expert an ethnographist ( is that what you call it?) by any means but that's not to say I cannot develop a theory of some sort as to why men and women interact the way they do. Evaluating the behavorial patterns of males is too far of a concept for me to grasp. However, I can speak for the girls. Consider this... It's late at night and you need to go back to your dorm. You are alone and have no one to walk you back to your dorm, instead you decide to take the bus. It's too "dangerous" to walk outside in the dark alone so the bus is your best option.( but thats not to say this is only reason girls ride the bus, it sjust an example) Even if it were a group of girls... I would hope that most would agree with me in saying that is a lot safer and easier to ride the bus.
So, you board the bus and for a college student the p2p it a can be a pretty interesting place. You find everything on that bus- especially drunk people. If you're lucky, you might have a "cool" bus driver who plays "hip" music on the bus and this tends to ease the awkwardness of riding a bus with a bunch of strangers. In my opinion, the atmosphere is set up in such a way where it encourages you to interact with other people. This is especially true between male and females. The seating arrangement also is a conducive factor in encouragin both sexes to interact.
As I had previously mentioned, guys tend to sit further apart from one another, whereas girls tend to group up. This is perfect! As a result, the chance of a female sitting by a male is a lot more probable than a male to be sitting in close proximities to each other. Which can attributed in explaining why males and females were more likely to talk to one another in the short time that I was there.

After looking into what exactly ethnography was after English class I wasn't really sure where I was going to conduct my hour long observation. Lenoir? No, that wouldn't be original now would it? I knew that if I was going to be stuck someplace for an hour it had to be (1) fun and (2) interesting. So where did I go? Yes, boys and girls I spent an hour long on Chapel Hill's finest transportation system. The bus was the next best thing that I could conjure, where people come together. Think about it. You ride it to class, dinner,or home. Sometimes you ride it alone, with friends, or perhaps you run into friends, or even meet new ones. All day, everyday people ride the bus, but what we fail to notice are the ways we all interact with each other- especially men and women.
At first, I got on the NU and deicided to follow that route, however, what I did not take into conisderation was the hour. It was 9 p.m and for those of you who dont usually take the bus at night, there's a reason. Most people don't really take the bus at night... now the p2p...that's a different story. So, after 20 mins of being on the NU I realized that I was on the wrong bus and if I really wanted to find the goods it would be on the p2p and that's exactly what I did. I introduced myself to the bus driver
( who must have thought I was crazy for doing this) and asked for permission to take pictures of him and people on the bus ( their permission also, of course).
As time went by I noticed more people were boarding the bus and most were girls. It was interesting to see where the girls sat. Since it was late at night most girls rode the bus in pairs or more. Whereas the guys boarded the bus in smaller numbers in most cases. There were 2 exceptions - two girls- who oddly enough got on the bus alone but walked off with people they randomly bumped into on the bus. What a coincidence!!
What made this more interesting was the placement of seating for both genders and the way they interacted with each other if there was ANY. The girls would sit next to each other with ease, whereas the boys tend to sit a couple seats from each other. Once the bus started to get a bit more packed guys would sit relatively close to each other so long as there was a girl between them or if they were sitting across from each other. It was kind of like an understood code between them... very stranger. As we were coming to end of my hour I noticed that it was easier for guy and girls to interact on the bus who were complete strangers as opposed to same sex interaction. Now, it could be because this is the p2p and 70% of the kids who get on are "under the influence", but it was 10:15 and everyone looked pretty sober to me.
An hour felt like too short of a time to make a cohesive conclusion simply because people came and went and weren't on the bus for a substantial amount of time. Honestly, I really learned a lot and it forced me to question why I have come to these conclusions. I met new people and I really enjoyed trying something out the box like this. *Ahem, even though people looked at me a little weird when asked if I could take their picture!** Yayyy!


NOTE: All the pictures in this post were the pics I took on the bus. I couldn't convince too many people to take their pic but I did get some.

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Penny for your thoughts?

( REFLECTION on drafts and crap)

I never had to deal with peer evaluations until recently. My past experiences with English class never emphasized much on group work or workshops. Now that I'm in college, I'm a rookie to the whole peer evaluation process. My first time in taking part in a review session wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. The fact that I was comfortable enough to give and receive criticism from my group- who I thought to be friends- made it easier to take in. However, the question of whether I apply the feedback I receive is another issue. It's one thing to take advice or criticism from a group who KNOWS what they are talking about versus someone who is just giving you a critique for a grade and could care less whtether this will help you out or not. I would considered one's evalaution if I value and trust their capacity to give an effective one that I could benefit from in the end. It's sad really... I would take an instructor's feedback over a student ANY DAY! Why not? If the instructor is the one who will be giving the grade then I would much rather seek his/her advice. I dont even trust myself! I don't mind letting others reading my work because I don't really know if what I'm doing half the time is right or wrong, so to have someone take a second look is not a bad idea.

Recently, the feedback I received from my powerpoint presentaion, I thought, was good and effective criticism. I understood what my weaknesses and strengths were. Since my part was so short there was little room to make a dramatic revision- not like I really needed to. Presentations to me are more about improv and the ability to be confident and get yourself together. Sometimes I feel that there isn't much need to prepare for a speech - well, at least for short ones- so long as you know the material and are able to convey your points in a professional manner. My weaknesses lie more with papers, therefore I feel like I need more revisions in that area as opposed to a presentation.
So what do I think of myself when it comes to giving feedback? Well, it depends. If I'm familiar with the material then I'm capable of giving a good evaluation, BUT if I have no clue what I'm doing then I can definetly bomb an evaluation. You can tell when I know what I'm doing or not. A good review is when someone provides a detailed evaluation and perhaps is able to provide a solution as to how correct the problem. A short, vague evaluation is usueless and does not help the person in any way. I try my best to be helpful instead of writing a cold, harsh review. I try to be conscious of what I say so I don't offend anyone.

HW: Rant for 10 minutes...

So i'm asked to type for 10 minutes... riiiight. Welp, I am known to talk alot so maybe this whole writing thing wouldn't be too bad. What can I say? Welp, as of right now I'm listening to "The Perculator" - a song for those of you who don't know- and it has a pretty nice beat, but it really distracting me from my writing. Oh no! Maybe it wasn't a great idea to listen to music as I'm writing. Why? Because I'm going to want to repeat what the song is saying... which goes somethng like this, " It's time for the perculator." This is great! I spent a good 2 minutes talking about a song called "The Perculator." Niiice. Anyhoo, so I was supposed to come up with a topic for an article, right? Music would be a fine choice, however, the presentation from the Rolling Stone article would make it seem as if im unoriginal. Soooo that's out the window. What can I talk about? hummm, STDs? Nah, I did that in high school. No sexual topics... a little overrated. " It time for the perculator" ahhhh! See... def. not a good idea to listen to music. You know what makes it worse? This song is 5-6 mins long! Oh no...wait... what's this I hear? John Legend? Ahhhh yes....that's nice. However, a little too mellow for my taste. " Come on and gooooo with me" -- John Legend. Hhaha this is so sad. Yeah, so all this talk of music has be thinking maybe my focus should be on music.

OOoh! I have an idea... write everything that I hear in this song.

" cuz all i could do is love you
baby when i used to love you
there was nothign I wouldn't do
i went through the fire for you
but it's getting harder to...." -- John Legend, Used to Love you

" now maybe i ahoul rob somebody, so we could be like Whitney and Bobby
it's pribably my fault , my bad, my loss
but you are above cost"-- John Legend, Used to love you

Sorry, the first time I thought I could catch up with the song and do it ... but then I lost track! So what do i do? I try to catch another part of the song... and then what... yeah, you guessed it... I lost track...again! So, now i give up. Welp, i still have about 4 minutes left. Damn, this sucks. My fingers are getting a little stiff. Ooh, it would be nice to pop them once I'm done. haha Yeah, i know...thats sick. Oh well... wow, as I look to my left I see a bag of popcorn that I would love to stick my hand into. Arrrggghh! I can't because my fingers are going at it on this thing. Ahhh how i hate this assignment. Oh well, it's easy. :-) Hahaha, true confessions of a fat girl. The food is tempting me to my right. Ew, there's another John Legend song that just came up- def. not my favorite. It would be nice to listen to some mellow music. What do you think?

** ATTENTION EVERYONE... ONE MINUTE TO GO**

I swear I haven't stopped yet. I'm surprised .... ahhh im done.

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