Here it is, my video. It was heavily inspired by a you-tuber who goes by the name Contrapoints. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it!

References

Byrne-Haber, S. (2020). Simulating Disabilities. Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC. https://sheribyrnehaber.medium.com/simulating-disabilities-d03986e05c1b.

MacMurchy, M. (2021). Self Analysis: Socioeconomic Status [Blog]. https://edusites.uregina.ca/mmacmurchy/2021/03/30/self-analysis-socioeconomic-status/.

Newsom, J. (2011) Miss Representation. Virgil Films and Entertainment.

Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal? (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press.

i) Normative narratives

In Taylor’s story, she talks about how when she moved in with her boyfriend people expected her to be the perfect little housewife because she enjoys cooking and cleaning. These statements frustrated her as they reinforce the false narrative that as a woman all she is meant to do is cook and clean for a man. I admire how she admits that she does enjoy cooking and cleaning but she does not do them for her boyfriend. As she says “A woman whose sole purpose wasn’t cooking and cleaning”. I think it is important to point out that she seems defensive on her stance, in that she feels the need to say she is “not really the kind of person to get offended easily”. She even admits that she “can take the odd sexist joke”. She wants to make sure the audience understands that she is not uptight, and then she will let some sexism fly. I think this is interesting as it re-enforces the idea that a woman reacting to a sexist comment negatively means she can’t take a joke when in reality she has the right to point out that any sexist comment is not funny. I think it’s interesting that she says she will let some sexist jokes slide personally, I have very little tolerance for such ‘jokes’.

In Lovelee’s story, she talks about the comments she heard some parents say at a Taekwondo Tournament. She was competing against their son and one of the parents commented how they hope they don’t hear any complaints about her getting a fake injury because their son beat up a girl. She decided to keep silent and prove herself in the ring. I can relate to people thinking less of my physical capabilities because I am a girl. I understand the frustration she feels when her “hands start trembling out of frustration”. At the end of the story she says that she “does [Taekwondo} for the fun of it and [she] shouldn’t have to prove [herself] because of her gender” and she is 100% right. It is incredibly boring as a female to feel that I need to constantly be proving myself in fear that if I don’t I will be looked down upon. I think there is a slight undertone that the parents are embarrassed that their son lost to a girl. She says that she sees his parents standing in the shack as they comfort their son’s over his loss. From this, I kinda picked up the sense that the parents are comforting him for two reasons. The first is because they lost. The second is because he lost to a girl. Not only is the boy’s pride wounded but the parents as well. I think the parents also feel some level of shame for their assumptions.

Francois’s story is about him walking his female friend home at night. As they are talking she thanks him for walking her. He doesn’t think much of it, but then realises she is grateful because she does not feel safe on the streets alone. I picked this story because I feel like it analyzes the privileges men have over women. Francois points out that “sometimes being a guy meant that by default [he] did not have to worry”. This contrasts with his friend who feels like she even needs someone to go to the grocery store with. I can relate to his friend a lot. I hate going places by myself because you never know what terrible things could be waiting around the corner. There’s power in numbers, and so if I go out I usually try to get at least one friend to go out with me. Francois points out that he thought her fear was ridiculous at first because they are both made of the same stuff. He could just as easily be attacked, but then he comes to realise that they have had different experiences due to their genders. He can never truly understand her fear, but he can be sympathetic towards her and try his best to make her feel safe. While this story plays into the narrative that women are defenseless I can’t blame the girl in his story for wanting someone to walk home with. The truth is she is at a greater risk of being attacked if she is alone.

ii) Creating counter-stories: Disrupting normative narratives

Out of these three stories, I think that Lovelee’s is the best at breaking normative narratives. She is dealing with sexism and prejudice from the parents of her opponent. I think the parents are exhibiting traits of benevolent sexism. Benevolent sexism is not hostile in nature. It places women in a position where they should be protected and supported (tekanji, 2007). The parents are speaking condescendingly, but I think the root of this is in the belief that girls are fragile and need to be protected. Lovelee herself says that just because she is a girl that does not mean that she is “defined as fragile”. Right before the fight boys, she is up against “wishes her luck”. This statement is the boy’s own learnt sexism. It may be unintentional, but I think that it is not born out of hatred. He is clearly ignorant about Lovelee and her skills at Taekwondo. Due to this ignorance, he is placing a sexist stereotype on Lovelee by assuming she is weaker than him. The boy’s sexism is “born out of ignorance, not malice” (tekanji, 2007). Lovelee breaks down this normative narrative by winning all her fights. She does not lose a single time. It is clear that even though she is a girl she is not weak or fragile in the slightest sense. It is important for women to break stereotypes of fragility. It is not dangerous to be feminine and fragile but it is the association of fragility with femininity that is dangerous. This association will constantly put women in positions where they are assumed to be weak or easy targets. I think that by winning all her fights Lovelee proves that femininity is not fragility. Hopefully, the boys she fought did not leave those fights with bitterness in their hearts, but with a new understanding of what femininity is. That being a girl is not a sign of weakness.

All of these stories deal with stereotypes placed on women. Lovelee deals with the association that femininity is a weakness, Taylor deals with statements that lessen her value as a human, and Francois learns about how others view women as fragile. Being a female does not lessen one’s value or predispose one to certain traits. Everyone has their own self-expression and it should not matter if that fits into the colonial gender binary.

References

tekanji. (2007). FAQ: What is “sexism”?. Retrieved 29 March 2021, from https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/sexism-definition/

The narrative that there are only two genders is pushed by a colonial agenda. There are Indegenous people who have not fit into the colonial binary for years, but for there to be complete assimilation the government had to eliminate that idea. Colonialism only leaves room for a house wife and a working husband and that’s it. There are no bisexual’s or trans people in the colonial narrative. Anything outside of the colonial narrative is rejected as another. I think that that’s stupid. I think its stupid to hate on people because they dont identify witht he made up rolls that colonialism is trying to force on them. Obviously the best way to eliminate the colonial norms is more education. I think children should be taught about the gender and sexuality spectrum in elementary school. There is no reason they should not be taught that. I was taught to be a heterosexual woman but turned out a bisexual one. Children will not be indotronated by the “homosexual” agenda by learning that people are gay or trans. But not learning about any different genders or sexualities can be much more harmful as children will not know why they feel a certain way and think that they are bad for feeling that. Not teaching about the gender and sexual spectrum is accepting and pushing forward the colonial agenda. Another way is through representation. Children of all different genders and sexuality should be able to turn on Disney channel and see themselves reflected back at them.

The documentary Miss Representation made me remember something that happened to me. I am a big DC comics fan. I grew up watching animated shows and movies and I started reading comics in high school. I mainly read Batman and Superman. Not that I didn’t like Wonder Woman, I just didn’t know where to start with her. It’s very easy to get into Batman or Superman. There’s a solid list of classics that most if not all comic fans know, but there are none that come to mind for Wonder Woman. She is just as important in the comics like Superman and Batman but I know far less about her. I came to realise I  knew nothing about her because I never watch shows about her. The only show I watched that had her was the animated Justice League show, and she’s just one member of a huge cast in that show. So I didn’t think much when I went to see the live-action Wonder Woman movie. I was excited to see a female lead superhero movie, but I didn’t know how deeply this movie would impact me. I  left that theatre crying like a baby, and my friends thought it was because Steve died but that wasn’t it at all. I just watched a movie led by a female superhero who did not waiver in her beliefs when a man told her otherwise. She was always the most capable person in the room. There was no one as strong as her. She was not a sidekick. In Miss Representation they point out how female characters are often sidekicks or sex objects or both. I would say that Black Widow from the MCU fits this pretty well. She is a shallow character for most of the movies she is in. She is shot through the male gaze and when she reveals her backstory she feels shame for the fact that she can not have children. I remember watching that scene and being mad. The movie basically said that Bruce Banner (the Hulk, an actual uncontrollable force of nature) is not the monster, Natasha Romanova (Black Widow, the woman who was forcibly sterilized) is. What’s worse is that I’ve been taught to vilify women like Black Widow, and I admittedly did not like her at all. Not because she couldn’t have kids, but because of the way she was shot and portrayed. I didn’t like her until she died. Which says a lot about her character writing. I think it’s important to point out that only half of the Marvel movies pass the Bechdel test (Popdust, 2020). Which isn’t great.

Wonder Woman made me realise the importance of representation in media on a different level. I always understood that representation was important, but I had no emotional investment in it until this movie. I want everyone to feel the way I did coming out of that movie. It also made me think something; do men, white men in particular, constantly feel this. When they watch Batman and Ironman so they feel the same level of empowerment that I  felt watching Wonder Woman?  Or is that just the norm for them. Make you wonder…

Newsom, J. (Director). (2011). Miss Representation [Film].

Popdust. (2020). A Realistic Look at the Representation of Women In Superhero Movies. https://www.popdust.com/a-realistic-look-at-womens-representation-in-superhero-movies-2453826431.html

We were driving north on the ring road. My mom in the driver’s seat and me in the passenger. I was in grade 9, and my mom was picking me up from my after school club. We were sitting in silence. Me on my phone, my mom paying attention to the road. The song on the radio changed and I started talking. “II think i want a haircut.” My hair was near my hips. The Mermaid length I used to call it. It was so long because I danced, but once I started high school I quit dancing, and now I have too much hair. I wanted to cut it off.

“How much?” my mom asked, staring at the road. “All of it,”  I said in jest. Then her face changed. I was confused for a minute before she spoke again “not all of it, maybe just shoulder length.”  “ No shorter than that. Maybe chin length”  i said. My mom sighed. It was clear by this point that she did not like the idea of me cutting my hair at all. Maybe she was living her hair dreams through me, which doesn’t make sense as I  have two little sisters whose hair touches their butts. And so I pried, as I so often do. 

“Can I not cut my hair?” 

“No you can cut it… but do you have to cut it so short?”

“Yes. I want a bob or something. It’s too long.”

“Your hair is so pretty though.”

“Is my hair the only thing that makes me pretty?”

And then there was silence. Not many more words were spoken. The conversation wasn’t heavy by any stretch of the imagination, but the atmosphere was strange. It felt as though my mom was more attached to my hair than me. Like the length of my hair was a prize of my femininity that she had given to me. And now I want to cut it all off. I was especially confused because i didn’t want an undercut or anything super short, a bob my all accounts is still quite femanine. I was not acting out of what I viewed as my gender norm. I would still look like a girl, but to my mom it meant more.

I still don’t understand why my mom was and still is so invested in my hair. Even now when i go get a haircut she’s scared I’ll come home with a mullet or no hair at all. I don’t see short hair as defiant of gender norms, but my mom does. I can only chalk it up to being generational.

It was Christmas 2014. My little sisters and I had just opened piles upon piles of brightly wrapped presents. All 3 of us got our own Ipads. We were starting them up and downloading games and music onto them. I downloaded Snapchat onto my iPad. I wanted to see my classmates spoil. As I tapped through all the different stories I saw a large variety of gifts. Some kids got Ipads, Ipods, Wii U’s, DS’s, and so many other types of technology, but there was one image that stood out in particular. The kid has posted an image of their Christmas haul, but it didn’t seem like much of a haul at all. They had gotten some pokemon cards, candies, socks, etc. Nothing like what I got. In my family, we always get at least one expensive piece of technology, whether it be an Ipad or AirPods. What he got as large main gifts was what I got as stocking stuffers. I realized something at that moment.
I was, and still am, privileged. My mom hasn’t worked since I was born, and yet we can afford luxuries like trips to Mexico and Disney world yearly. I knew that this boy had never even left the country. That was such a wild concept for someone like me. Someone who has never once thought about how much money my dad actually made. The extravagant presents that I get for Christmas is not the “norm”. Not everyone gets Ipads and laptops for Christmas.
Every Christmas since then I think about those boy’s Christmas presents. How He got so little and I got so much. My family can afford to purchase luxury items like Ipads and individual laptops for everyone in the house. Not everyone is so lucky. After that Christmas I found myself asking for more modest gifts. Maybe it was because of that boy’s Snapchat story, or maybe it was just because there was no more I could ask for.

It was a cold January afternoon. I was sitting in music class on the cold flat choir bleachers watching a movie. The Little Mermaid to be exact. All thirty of my fellow grade ⅞ classmates were watching with varying levels of interest. Some boys were talking behind me, some girls giggling to the side. But I was paying attention. I wanted to watch the movie. I was playing Ariel in our school production and I wanted to be just like her. Her long red hair flowed on screen as the sea creatures began their song. I mimicked her actions as she pushed her hair back or signaled something with her hands. I’m sure others were looking at me like I was crazy but I didn’t care. I was a princess.

Sebastian began coercing the clueless prince. “Kiss the girl” he sang as Ariel started to become shyer and I copied, folding into myself just a little. The song began to near its end and I became giddy. This was me, I thought. I was going to be placed in such a romantic situation. I was the princess and he was my prince. He was Sam. A boy one grade above me. A cute boy thought as I looked over at him.

I noticed how he did not look like the Prince in the movie. He did not have pale skin with smooth black hair. Sam had dark skin. Curly hair cut close to his head. He did not look like the prince, or like me. I looked around the classroom and realised that many of my classmates looked different. I realized that in the movie I only saw myself. Ariel is white, I am white. Prince Eric is white, but Sam is not. I wondered if he was thinking about this. How he did not look like the prince he was going to be portraying. I wondered if this bothered him, or if he was paying attention to the movie at all. Maybe I was overthinking it. After all, it was just a movie and it was just a play. We were just playing a part.

I turned back to the movie and watched as the characters fell into the water. The scene changed and the bell rang. It was time to go back to the homeroom and with that, we all stood up and left the classroom. The thought left my mind as we walked down the hall in a straight line. After all, he was going to be my prince no matter what, and I was going to be his princess.

In Period 3, history 30 I started crying. My teacher had no idea why I was crying, but he knew I had a flair for the dramatic and would explain myself in a heartbeat. So he asked why I was crying. I was happy to share my feelings with the entire class as I needed answers. What led up to this? It was a simple in-class reading. Four or five paragraphs that describe what the Canadian Identity is. Simple. But the reading upset me in a strange way. The reading describing the Canadian identity had no clue what the Canadian identity was. It used the example of the Canadian identity being the ‘not’ identity. A Canadian isn’t an American. This had me in tears of both dramatic flair and a slightly identity crisis that was starting to take its toll on me.

I basically told my class “I have always identified myself as a Canadian, and as a Canadian who is not an American. This reading called my bluff and told me that that is not a real identity. Comparing yourself to another person does not develop an identity, and yet so much of my identity of being Canadian was about comparing myself to the actions of non-Canadians.” I had stopped crying at this point, but my eyes were still wet and ready for another round of identity crisis related tears. Some of my classmates agreed with me, while others mentioned that they were first generation Canadians so they had a lot of their culture from their parents’ home country to sink their teeth into, so they identified Canadian culture and identity in a completely different way from me. I appreciated my classmates’ feedback but it didn’t help me define what my personal “Canadian” identity is. 

And so I sat there in the front row of a morning class with tears in my eyes looking for an answer to my crisis from my teacher. A wise old man to guide me on this journey of identity. He just looked at me, and like a confused Grandpa, laughed and agreed with what everyone had said and moved on.