http://socio.ch/mobile/t_geser3.htm

This article is extremely detailed in seemingly quantifiable information regarding which gender uses the phone more heavily, as well as the years that provide that information. It discusses how men began to use phones predominantly due to males being socially more adept towards using technology, the same stereotype that exists among computer nerds and the expectation of “gamer dudes”. Women are said to use it more as an emotional level of exchange between the point of contact, which is cool I guess for a method to gossip or whatever. The author didn’t seem to persist any bias within his assertions though which I appreciated because a lot of these gender per specific articles seem to, although I could just be expecting that myself!!!! He actually starts by saying it has been adopted by both genders, and doesn’t delve much into the specifics of who is instagramming which type of things. His narrative seems to be unbiased and he includes statistics, which I feel elevates his writing by adding a back bone to what he is saying.

It’s also a cool topic to write about considering all the social media issues we constantly are feeling as women and are talking about as a society. It makes me think of why more women now are involved in their phones, or why men marginalized obtaining this new “scary” technology first, and then women began to ease into it afterwards. He isn’t saying this though. He’s discussing within his article that usage intensity began with men leading, and then women caught up and then exceeded. It is left to us to fill in the blanks as to why. As an awful milennial of 2016 shattering the baby boomer’s ideals with our facebook reposts, or as a woman feeling the pressure of an ideal image accessible within our pockets as a reminder, it’s of our own interest to be more curious about the thing that consumes a significant amount of our time.  We all know how convenient cell phones provide to be. We wake up to our alarm, we etch in work events and friend’s events to our calendar. It provides us with the tools to be responsible as well as social. It provides us with the entire world. In accordance to gender though, he’s exploring the statistics behind cell phone usage from the time it popularized through the present as it grows even more technologically unimaginable.

A black hair magazine has just issued an apology for using non black models with fake afros as their cover girl. What makes this so bad is that the magazine is actually called “black hair.”  This magazine is dedicated to black beauty and promoting black hair products, so the readers were undeniably confused about the misrepresentation of the issues cover girl with their mission statement. After much backlash the magazine then issued an apology. Cultural appropriation has been in the news a lot lately. From the Kardashians braids to Vanessa Hudgenson poetic justice inspired look, magazines should do their due diligence to ensure that things like this do not happen.  The magazine has now been slammed for cultural appropriation. The term cultural appropriation is difficult to define in specific terms but can be seen as the copying of another’s social, ethnic, or national traditions and are often delicate matters to a minority.  The magazine says they did not know the model was not black. They received the picture from a third party source and they used their discretion to determine that the model was black. I don’t buy it.

social media affects women self esteem. It has been proven that many women will not get a good night sleep after surfing social media. Due to the constant pressure of how women are supposed to physically look make women become unhappy with themselves. There are many ways to know if social media is affecting a you. If the person notices that their mood is constantly changing, unable to stay away from social media, comparing yourself with other people or celebrities, measuring your success through others, if you like the attention or the drama. The point is that social media was invented to keep in touch with friends and family and it has turned out to be a society with its own mind per say. People post their fantasy lives on social media for others to see meanwhile there are other people who believe everything they see on the internet. for the most part women who just had a baby are really suffering because of all the pressure celebrities and other fit mothers post. For many women losing the baby fat can be one of the worst challenges in their life, and going on Facebook and Instagram to immediately see a picture of a mom of 3 who looks like she never had a baby can be very stressful.

Women should take their time when it comes to understanding their bodies after having a child. Most people who look so perfect after having a child is either because is in their gene or because they had surgery done. Women should not let social media determine the way they should feel about themselves, instead they should take their time to lose the weight properly so they can be healthy and strong enough to take care of their new born.

In today’s society having weave, hair extensions, wigs, or fake hair has become a social norm.  This not only applies to women of color, but women in general.  Weave, hair extensions, and wigs have been used dating all the way back to 3400 B.C. during the reign of Cleopatra.  They would use horse hair, lambs wool, wash it, dye it, then use beeswax to glue it on to the scalp of the women, and even some men.  A lot of hair styles have always leaned towards straight and wavy/curly hair as being a European beauty standard.  In the slave days, if you had lighter skin and curly or wavy hair, you had a greater chance to be a house slave, which despite the name, was a more desirable job.  If you had kinky, nappy hair and dark skin you were put out to the fields as a field slave, which was the least desirable job.  Black women used  weave, hair extensions, and hair relaxers to tame the kinkiness of their hair and to fit the beauty standard of having sleek, tamed hair.  When Nicki Minaj was first coming into the ‘game’ of Hip-Hop, she was known for her wigs and different colored weaves.  She used them as to express her feelings through the different colors of her hair.  People thought of her as a clown or weird because the colorfulness wasn’t exactly what was portrayed in Hip-Hop, but it made a staple in Hip-Hop and made her more memorable.

Some women see a problem with weave, hair extensions, and wigs as not being able to express their blackness enough.  Plus, to maintain hair and keep it look nice and real is unrealistically expensive.  Some weaves can cost up to 500-600 hundred dollars for a nice human synthetic hair.  Some women have their natural hair damaged by wearing sewing-ins (a type of weave) for too long, it causes edges to be damaged, and can even result in patches of hair falling out.  These past couple of years, women have been ditching the weaves, wigs, and hair extensions to have their natural hair grow.  Companies like Shea Moisture & Hair-finity have made products that will help increase hair growth by combining different oils & vitamins that react together that increase the length and quality of your hair.  They have become extremely popular, not only with black women, but all types of people struggling to grow their hair out.  It’s refreshing to see people ditching the faux hair and going au-natural.

So… I have taken this concept of “male privilege” for granted, that is, taken for granted that it does exist. I did some research, and it does exist…but, the “cons” of being males tend to outweigh the pros.

I found to elucidating videos on the Internet. One has a more factual approach of explaining the myth of “men’s privilege” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRsYwu8uD4I&list=PLytTJqkSQqtr7BqC1Jf4nv3g2yDfu7Xmd&index=7 and states that on average, boys tend to do worse in school than girls, earn less awards and, on average, are less likely to continue their education. They also make up 92% of workplace accidents, and are twice as likely to be victims of violent crimes (on campuses, at least). They also take the brunt of issues such as homelessness, suicide, and fighting wars.

The second video I found almost brought tears to my eyes. I don’t know why, it was factual, although definitely had a pathos element about it, but I had never stopped to consider how men suffered until now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPihPrNseAo. I strongly recommend people watch it, if for some reason you are reading these rants. It lists reasons such as women winning the high majority of custody cases – an obvious, sexist bias, but because it is in the favor of the minority, it’s not seen as adverse to society. While I admit that a majority of fathers do not fight for custody, there are plenty who do and lose, unable to do anything about it. There is also the fact that the amount of non-consensual sexual contact is almost equal among girls and boys, but boys’ experiences are far less reported because of social norms. There are virtually no rape victim shelters for boys or men, and very few for domestic abuse. There is a statistic that women are more likely to use a weapon on their spouse than the other way around, and men normally do not report domestic abuse because of, again, social norms. There are so many other instances of gender inequality, such as how breast cancer is the third leading killer, behind prostate cancer, yet receives twice as much funding as any cancer, whether gender-specific or not. Also, the ridicule and protests of International Men’s Day on November 19th appalls me. So many cultures have a “Day of the Woman,” but how can we expect men to support that if we won’t even allow their own day to celebrate? It just…it really appalls me all of this we have taken for granted. We (as society, not women, necessarily, but sometimes) thrust forward this concept of masculinity, of “taking it like a man,” rendering it virtually impossible to complain, and causing such high suicide rates. And there are very little women supporting these issues – they’re too focused on other issues. We have HeforShe, but where is SheforHe? I think we could really use that.

So I wouldn’t be biased, I googled instances of male privelege, because I was sure *something* had to exist. I found this: http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/02/160-examples-of-male-privilege/, but reading through it, I couldn’t help but laugh after watching the second link. These seem so trivial and basic compared to the hardships men are facing. Some of them are just absurd, like “it is socially acceptable for them to physically take up more space,” or that they “don’t have to step out of the way for the other gender.” I’ve had so many men step off of sidewalks to make room for me so I don’t have to walk in the dirt, or hold back their peers as they hold the door open for me so I can walk in first. Some of the sexual harassment ones are true, but men actually face a lot more than first realized. I think this “privilege” is very first-world problem-esque, and are used to displace real men’s issues.

I don’t want to engender “one sex has it worse than the other.” I think both sexes face issues constructed by society, but men face real problems that their “privelege” does not protect them from. I think feminists should get on board to being advocates for these issues as well – because we all know if a man should speak out about unfair treatment, he’d be crucified.