Study finds TV can decrease self esteem in children, except white boys
If you are a white girl, a black girl or a black boy, exposure to today’s electronic media in the long run tends to make you feel worse about yourself. If you’re a white boy, you’ll feel better, according to a new study led by an Indiana University professor.
Nicole Martins, an assistant professor of telecommunications in the IU College of Arts and Sciences, and Kristen Harrison, professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, also found that black children in their study spent, on average, an extra 10 hours a week watching television.
“We can’t deny the fact that media has an influence when they’re spending most of their time — when they’re not in school — with the television,” Martins said.
Harrison added, “Children who are not doing other things besides watching television cannot help but compare themselves to what they see on the screen.”
Their paper has been published in Communication Research. Martins and Harrison surveyed a group of about 400 black and white preadolescent students in communities in the Midwest over a yearlong period. Rather than look at the impact of particular shows or genres, they focused on the correlation between the time in front of the TV and the impact on their self-esteem.
“Regardless of what show you’re watching, if you’re a white male, things in life are pretty good for you,” Martins said of characters on TV. “You tend to be in positions of power, you have prestigious occupations, high education, glamorous houses, a beautiful wife, with very little portrayals of how hard you worked to get there.
“If you are a girl or a woman, what you see is that women on television are not given a variety of roles,” she added. “The roles that they see are pretty simplistic; they’re almost always one-dimensional and focused on the success they have because of how they look, not what they do or what they think or how they got there.
“This sexualization of women presumably leads to this negative impact on girls.”
With regard to black boys, they are often criminalized in many programs, shown as hoodlums and buffoons, and without much variety in the kinds of roles they occupy.
“Young black boys are getting the opposite message: that there is not lots of good things that you can aspire to,” Martins said. “If we think about those kinds of messages, that’s what’s responsible for the impact.
“If we think just about the sheer amount of time they’re spending, and not the messages, these kids are spending so much time with the media that they’re not given a chance to explore other things they’re good at, that could boost their self-esteem.”
Martins said their study counters claims by producers that programs have been progressive in their depictions of under-represented populations. An earlier study co-authored by her and Harrison suggests that video games “are the worst offenders when it comes to representation of ethnicity and gender.”
Other research is starting to show the impacts of other kinds of entertainment sources, such as video games and hand-held devices. It indicates that young people are becoming creative at “media multitasking.”
“Even though these new technologies are becoming more available, kids still spend more time with TV than anything else,” Martins said.
Interestingly, the young people were asked about their consumption of print media, but the results were not statistically significant.
Martins conducted the research while she was completing her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, as part of a larger longitudinal study done with her co-author, Harrison. They sought out certain school districts in Illinois because of their diversity, but African-Americans were the predominant minority group.
(Source: sparkamovement)
Nothing sadder than a pro-life woman
(EDIT: changed the image into a link/TW) http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/abortionimages/07week/01_07.jpg
Aborted at 7 weeks. Just 7 weeks!
Nothing sadder than anyone who continues to dehumanize life in the womb.
Trigger Warning: Dead embryo/fetus compared to a quarter.
If you have to use a bloody photo to prove a point, I think you need work on your logic. All you’re doing is manipulating emotions without appealing to reason.
By the way, this is an embryo at 7 weeks, an image produced by a university medical center.
Your image comes from Priests for Life.
There is nothing sadder than anyone who finds more value in an unwanted embryo than in an actualized person.Fuck it. I’m making a post on gestation at some point because I am sick of seeing this shit.
At 7 weeks, an embryo is approximately 15mm long.
A dime is 18mm in diameter.
That means that if the fetus in that picture was actually aborted at 7 weeks it would be about as long as the diameter of the dime, maybe a little less.
Its not. It’s bigger than the dime’s diameter. Much bigger. This fetus was aborted later than 7 weeks.
I tried to determine its age based on the structures I could see, but unsurprisingly, the head is not shown in this picture, which would help me pinpoint the age much better than other things. Based on the elongated fingers and toes, though, I’m going to say that this fetus is much closer to the second trimester than the first and it was most likely photoshopped to appear as small as it is. The left leg looks like it’s been poorly overlayed over the dime, too, which supports the idea of photoshop.
This fetus:
Is at 12 weeks gestational age (the 6 weeks label is from another pro-life propaganda picture and has been determined to actually be at 12 weeks, source). As you can see it’s fingers and toes are not nearly as elongated as the one in the pro-life propaganda picture from the pro-lifer up above.
The one that was posted from priests for life is clearly fake and most likely photoshopped to appear smaller than it is. In any case, the fetus in that picture is nowhere NEAR 7 weeks.
Love,
Rabble
Here is the thing, okay? Coming into a feminist conversation with, “Have you considered that sometimes women acquire free drinks at bars?” is like walking into graduate school during Philosophy finals and saying, “Have you considered that the color blue that I see may not be the color blue that you see?”
Imagine you are the guy who just walked into that Philosophy class and laid that shit down. Imagine the class full of students who have worked very hard and committed themselves and sacrificed to be here, students who have spent several years of their lives learning about this subject. Imagine now their feelings when you go to the head of the classroom with a smirk on your face and demand the professor give you an A for effort. Imagine now that they think you are a douchebag asshole, because they do, and because you are. You are a douchebag asshole because you are obviously so self-centered, arrogant, and completely ignorant of the world around you, that you thought you could walk into a high-level course with no background and no work and say something profoundly simplistic and totally unrelated and also everybody should congratulate you for having done this thing, so brave, so provocative.
[….]
You are not asking us a real question. You are simply illustrating, for all to see, your own ignorance. You are saying, “I have not considered the implications of the question I have just asked. I have not taken the time nor effort nor commitment to sit down and ask myself this question. Instead, I have come into your philosophy classroom/office/feminist blog and shat out my question with a smirk, because I believe that my two seconds of thought are worth more than your long-term analysis, because I believe I am worth more.”
Fugivitus: A few things to consider when you find a feminist blog (via absolutely-spiffing)
In my experience, the men who are most likely to come into feminist groups to criticise them are self proclaimed ‘intellectuals’ who turn up to demonstrate to people just how oh-so-clever they are, to masturbate over their ‘logical’ arguments, to incite ‘new and stimulating’ debate about subjects that have been done to death, to willfully ignore how they are erasing experiences and silencing people, just so that they can have a few moments of ‘thrilling’ discussion in their otherwise dull, highly privileged lives. And when this brief adrenalin rush is over? They can go home, safe in the knowledge that they have shown all these silly hysterical women exactly what’s what, safe in their privilege which means that they do not have to give this encounter more than a passing thought. Believing that they have made a difference. And this makes me sick.
So, this is actually a pretty good example to use. Perhaps these men will read it and we can get it through their pseudo-intellectual heads that this is not ok. This is harmful behaviour and contributes absolutely nothing of worth to anything at all. Feminism has enough flaws as it is. Feminism is, by and large, racist, transphobic, ableist, homophobic, and classist. We do not have time to pander to these individuals too. If men really want to help? Commit to being a good ally and give us the opportunity to solve these problems without this almost constant hindrance.
Omg this is perfect.
(via angrybanette)
So much about this, so true. People think they’re throwing you some curve ball when it’s really like they’re still in the early pre-cambrian bacterial stages of earth’s global evolution yet they’re convinced they’re multicellular organisms. And you’re like “no dude, it’s really clear that you’re not.”
Anyhow, just to add my own to the first example, it’s so complicated indeed and it’s come up twice for me in the past week. I went on a date last night and I was so, so relieved that they did not hassle me at all about buying my own drink. It was in contrast to two nights before, when I was trying to pay for my drink and another guy at the table really wanted to pay for it to me. So many things go through your head- my friends are always all like, “You might as well accept it if they’re offering,” and if I don’t accept the offer in most cases the guys are not like “cool, you must be upholding your internal, personal feminist values,” they’re often offended and feeling like I made a big deal out of nothing and feel it is a slight (and these guys aren’t assholes, to be clear, they’re just accustomed to what this action normally signals). And I myself feel like I’m being unnecessarily argumentative over what is basically just a generous offer, yet I feel really conflicted about accepting a drink from someone if I’m not actually interested in them (but they are in me), and just about the whole… situation. Anyhow. Yeah, it’s complicated, and there is often no win/win solution.
(via feministdisney)
(via feedthewriter)
sheisplentytoughthankyouverymuch:
I actually very much love this gifset because Ursula ended up being right about that one (when talking about the body language). It was pretty clear that Ursula set up that deal with Ariel expecting it to be so easy to get what she wanted and not even in fact believing that Ariel and Eric might come THAT close to falling in love and finally kissing because she obviously viewed their love as an immature, silly, childish crush based on nothing - and in all honesty in the beginning she was right about it. Eric and Ariel at their start really were a childish immature crush based on nothing. A parody on exaggerated teenage dream of falling in love at first sight after facing a life changing situation, in their case Ariel saving Eric’s life. They saw each other once, they dreamed of seeing each other again and each of them carried that unrealistic idealized image of the other in their heads when technically they didn’t know anything about each other yet (Ariel’s “he loves me, he loves me not!” only highlights the naivety of the whole situation at that point). And Ursula saw it and laughed at it and decided to use it for her own selfish purposes - because what could young love do against her evil, well thought out plans? She didn’t expect one bit that Eric would even look in Ariel’s side without her having the core identity of “the one” he hopelessly fell in love with and was desperatelly looking for - her gorgeous voice. She didn’t believe these two can make it because their love seemed so childish, so idealized, so helpless, so naive. But then all her plans fall apart because - and that she could definitely never predict - Ariel and Eric end up being actually good for each other. They get to know each other “from zero”, Eric gives himself a chance to let a charming mute girl into his life despite still being attracted to the unrealistic image of “the one” who saved him, and eventually he chooses the real girl over an idealized unrealistic dream whereas Ariel actually spends time with her dream guy and forms a much stronger bond with him than she did when she sang him a songs while he was unconscious. They relate to each other and enjoy their time together. They work so well not because they are young and hopelessly in love with an unrealistic ideal anymore, but because they really are GOOD for each other. Even with Ariel being mute, even with Eric not recognizing his “dream girl” in her at first, even with things being more than complecated and awkward and weird. And this is why I effin’ love The Little Mermaid as much as I do. Ursula is a typical example of a cynical individual with goals who has a supposedly “realistic” look on a hopeless immature love. But she ends up failing because sometimes, yes, sometimes this hopeless immature love actually grows and blooms and gets stronger and beware if you dare to stand in it’s way.
I FUCKING LOVE ^YOU^ OKAY I DO I JUST DO I CAN’T EVEN WITH YOUR AMAZINGNESS HERE RIGHT NOW
(via historicalslut)
(Source: clementinecannibal, via briefbutstillinfinite)
the dangers of the dread Tumblr joke
Jokes on tumblr: Not even once
Every once in a while someone on STFU will dredge up our beloved Voldebort post from some ancient reblog. “Yes we know it’s not an aborted fetus, it’s that shot from the end of Deathly Hallows pt.2… that was the joke
“
(via hermione-ganja)
(via racialicious)
Toni Morrison, a professor of humanities at the University for 17 years, received a 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama last Thursday. This is the highest honor that a United States civilian can receive.
(via newwavefeminism)
Military mom ‘proud’ of breast-feeding in uniform, despite criticism
National pride, or disgrace? A photo gone viral of two servicewomen breast-feeding their children while in uniform has added a new layer to the debate over nursing in public.If you think this is a “disgrace”, just quit following me now.
^^^
man i have so many words about how stupid all this backlash is and i’m so infuriated but i think (i hope) you all can just UNDERSTAND mmKAY?!
what.
There is backlash against two people feeding their children. I have no faith left in humanity.
If someone says breast milk dishonors the uniform, but blood does not? I will lose my damned mind.
The bold. All of the bold.
The fuck? This is even an issue?
