Blog 7

Lately, I have seen a children's movie called Beverly Hills Chihuahua.  It is about a rich and stuck-up female chihuahua named Chloe, who gets lost in the foreign streets of a city in Mexico. For the majority of the movie, she is the only female dog, and she receives help from only male dogs.  Her protector is a male german-shepard, and the dog that saves her in the end is a male chihuahua.  The main antagonist is a male doberman, and two other antagonists are a male iguana, and a male rat.  Two other protagonists are also male dogs, both of which are bigger than Chloe.  This really stuck out to me, and throughout the movie, Chloe was the picturesque damsel in distress.  Another thing that I noticed concerning gender roles, was when the male gardener of Chloe's owner traveled down to Mexico to help Chloe's babysitter locate her.  The babysitter was a ditzy, blonde, and irresponsibe female, who could hardly get anything done.  The gardener was a tan, muscular, and confident male who accomplished a lot when he started a search for Chloe.  The only trailers that I ever saw for this movie were of a song during the movie, and didn't incorporate gender roles at all.  I think that the portrayal of gender roles in this movie are stereotypical, and I don't agree with them.  I agree with Finkbeiner in The F Word, when she says that "sex without marriage is no longer a taboo".  I also agree that this is because of birth control that is more easily acquired now than it was in the past.  An interesting point that was made in chapter seven, was that the "new generation is marrying later in life, and slightly less often than their mothers".  I think that in our new generation, marriage is not as important or the normal in everyone's life.  Other options are being more accepted today, like being a single parent, or having a homosexual spouse.

Chapter eight talks about the changing of gender roles accomplished by the waves, and Finkbeiner makes a good point when she says that contemporary women "have quite a different outlook on life than previous generations".  I am in this new generation and I can definitely see the differences of moral levels of women my age, compared to older women, like my mother, grandmother, and co-workers.  I do consider myself a feminist, and I was surprised when Finkbeiner asked, "Could feminism's inability to attract young women have something to do with this type of attitude?"  I know many feminists that are around my age, and many of them have different moral values than me. I would have never thought that feminism was not popular among young women, as Finkbeiner said.

In chapter 13 of Feminism is for Everybody,I was surprised that mothers heading households without a father-figure, put more emphasis on sexist ideas and roles.  However, I can certainly see where this is coming from.  I do believe that women can raise a boy to be a proper man.  Chapter 14 talks about sexuality and partnership, and the changes they have underwent from the waves.  I am happy that these changes have happened, and that now the household roles have become more equal than in the past.