Women's History Month Conference

Today I attended a panel discussing the messages conveyed in pop culture through gender, religion, and sexuality. It was actually quite interesting to learn about gender roles and how sexuality and religion play a part in gender stereotypes. The first presentation was by Jaime Mendoza, entitled Glee-ligion. Mendoza (obviously) focuses on the popular, and controversial tv show Glee, on FOX. Glee was the perfect specimen to be dissected and examined for a panel of this topic. The show has it all, homosexuality, underage drinking, teenage sex and pregnancy, and controversial stances on religion. Mendoza did a good job in analyzing the clips he showed, but did not come to a main point or even tie his points to the topic of gender. It seemed like he did not prepare his speech well enough and almost like he was improvising. Next came my favorite of the three, Jennifer Berlin's presentation of Smart Women and Stereotypes in Legally Blonde. Berlin's made an excellent point of showing the audience how the protagonist, Ms. Woods, is cast into the dumb, blonde, even comical stereotype, even though she is a smart woman who got accepted into Harvard law school and actually dresses pretty decently never showing a belly or anything above the knees. Finally came Tanya Flores' presentation of Androgyny and Musical identity: Glitz, Glamour, and Everything in Between. Flores started by introducing music and pop art from the sixties up until today and discussed their appearance and performance to their audience. She then made an excellent point of tying music and pop art to modern gender issues, using examples such as David Bowie, Lady Gaga as Jo Calderone, The Velvet Underground, and Andy Warhol. Although, I liked her presentation, I feel like Flores lacked some enthusiasm towards her topic, almost like she didn't really want to be there.

Plagia-what?

I find it kind of interesting that some students don't really understand what plagiarism is. Maybe it is just because I learned what it what at an early age so I just assume it is common knowledge (I tend to assume things like that). Plagiarism can be many things, including passing off others' work as your own or not citing phrases or quotes. Though, I know what plagiarism is, I also learned it is not okay to rearrange a sentence and pass it off as your own. Although I never ripped off whole paragraphs or sentences, I did rearrange sentences and sometimes whole paragraphs in high school without giving credit to the original author. Although I understand now that what I did was plagiarism and that I should be to blame, I think the high school teachers should take some responsibility, because I was never assigned a research paper in which I had to citate in APA format. I never used in-text citations until the summer after graduation, when I took an English class at Portland Community College ( such a long story). I find it very hard to believe that someone could have not plagiarized in high school, simply because it was so easy to, whether it was knowingly or unknowingly.

Community Problem

For my community Problem Report, I will be writing about stem cell research. I am not very familiar with the topic of stem cells or their research, but I am learning plenty as I research it. The more I learn about stem cells, where they come from, and what they are used for, I find myself strongly favoring further research on them. I believe that the public does not know enough about stem cells to make an informed decision about them. The only logical way to make an educated opinion is to fund for more research. I think people are confused about their opinions on stem cells, they could find themselves opposing their implementations but unknowingly be opposing their research. I consider myself as a man of science, so from my point of view, if you can learn more  about any subject, why not do it?