Could Mulan's actions be performed by a man?
The way this question is worded, it could be answered in two ways. Looking at it literally, obviously yes, a man could perform the actions of Mulan because being a soldier in the Chinese army during that era was a man's "job." This established norm is what makes the idea of a woman doing the duties of a man so exciting because of the conscious "rule breaking." It reminds me of something similar found in professional sports. Specifically, when women end up playing on men's teams and the implications and complications of that. I'm not going to discuss that here because Hollywood has done more than just beat that story to death.

On the other hand, if Mulan were a male and disguised himself as a woman to do traditional women activities, could a man do such a thing? I find it hard to answer because I have trouble coming up with institutions that are strictly feminine. What if male Mulan stayed at home to support a family during a time of war? I don't think that quite compares because a man would not necessarily have to diguise himself. In fact, female Mulan's actions are perceived to be examples of bravery, valor, and honor, but if a male Mulan disguised himself to support his family, he would be seen as a traitor, unpatriotic, and a coward. In today's society however, we could justify his actions and say that he is sacrificing his honor and putting his family first.

Since I am having the toughest time trying to think up a situation where a male would have to disguise himself as a woman to achieve commendations of some sort, I think it is fair to say that a man would not be able to do what Mulan did. However, this brings up a double standard and perpetuates the moronic notion of the idealized alpha male archetype. What this implies (past the fact that maybe the extent of my socialization is irreversible) is that men are expected to achieve and maintain an unrealistic image. While certain males appear to have satisfied this expectation, it is impossible to stay "on top" at all times. On the other hand, the double standard that I am talking about is how a woman can "step up" and do a man's duty, but a man is expected to be on that step already. This ties into what I mentioned previously. If a man were to "step up" to raise a family, instead of just providing financial support, is relatively new and really only predominant in Western culture. In some circles, this is expected of him as well.

So I feel like I need to conclude this academic blogging with something meaningful and lasting. Here goes. We've spent many hours discussing the differences and similarities of gender. We've talked about how socialization plays a significant, if not paramount, role in the perpetuation of stereotypes and how images of the gender roles are created. We have done this so much so that sometimes, I feel as if a homogeneous single gender, or no gender at all, would be most beneficial to society. However, I've thought about this a few times and I've decided that instead of trying to "label" people to confine them to certain boundaries and expectations, we should make an honest and conscious attempt to try to understand, or at least be aware of what makes each of us unique. Instead of fearing other people's differences and trying to change "them" to fit "us," we should just embrace, and learn from one another.

Short answer: Yes. However, it will be less structured and will most likely not be updated in a timely fashion.

When I first found out that blogging was going to be a requirement for the class, I groaned and rolled my eyes. For the longest time, I had this image of bloggers as people, mainly angsty insecure tweens/teens, who needed yet another way to seek attention and write about nuances in their life that only they could really appreciate. I think a lot of the reason why I have this preconceived notion is that I was roughly at that age (tween/teen) when the novelty of blogging, as THE internet phenomenon/fad, exploded and instantly reached its peak. Also, my exgirlfriend at the time lived and breathed by her blogs and I guess another reason I was so turned off to the idea of blogging was that during rocky points in our relationship, her blog became a black hole of passive aggressiveness.

But I digress... I still think a majority of bloggers are composed of the above mentioned individuals. However, I don't see it as anything to look down upon anymore and in fact, I think it's quite healthy that people make use of the advantages of virtual spaces. In fact, I am going to start up my own little blog, most probably on wordpress, when I start medical school next fall. I think that it will help me "vent," the stresses of the rigors of medical school i.e. work load, ethics, death and dying etc. Also, a part of me wants to "give back" to the aspiring medical student population by providing them with my perspective of the school that I am attending. I know that when I was trying to make a decision, I did a lot of searching to see what a "normal" day at schools were like, as well as strength of curriculum, rotations, board scores, student happiness, which I found but didn't get a lot of answers as to the little things.

I'm sure there are a ton of blogs about life at medical school, but I had trouble finding a blog specifically about the path that I am taking, and the school where I will pursue my education; I committed to pursuing a DO (Doctor of Osteopathy) degree versus the traditional MD because of the different approach to patient care and philosophy. The training is very much identical, same classes and same topics, and they both have the same scope of practice, but to make a very gross, overgeneralized summary for brevity's sake, DOs are MD + mind, body, and spirit. If you are at all interested, the wikipedia article does a decent enough job outlining the differences and I will copy paste the "Osteopathic Principles" section here as well:

These are the four major principles of osteopathy.[8]
 1. The body is a unit. An integrated unit of mind, body, and spirit (Triune of Man - A.T. Still)
 2. The body possesses self-regulatory mechanisms, having the inherent capacity to defend, repair, and remodel itself.
 3. Structure and function are reciprocally inter-related
 4. Rational therapy is based on consideration of the first three principles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy

Oh, and if anybody would be interested at all to "follow" along with my journey, I have already reserved my wordpress account. And if you aren't, I won't be offended. Promise.

It is bautile.wordpress.com

I remember distinctly the first time I realized that girls were attractive. All of a sudden, this girl that I had known for years, looked different. I just had this unexplainable attraction to her face. I just "liked" it. It was the weirdest thing, and also the most awkward thing. I found out a few hours later that one of my male childhood friends was "going out" with another one of my female childhood friends since the day before, and I told myself that it was OK to feel that way. With this in mind, I "manned up" and told the girl I had a crush on her and she admitted that the feelings were mutual. (Awww.) The next day she told me she didn't like me anymore because she told her mom about how she was feeling and her mom said, "Why?He's got a big butt."
Middle School and High School, at least to me, are the cruelest and toughest years of people's lives. In these stages, you are so impressionable, so vulnerable, especially since they're crucial time periods in which people are figuring out who they are internally, as well as who they are socially. I can not think of anything worse than a mixture of hormones and insecurities to fuel your interactions with others as well as how you feel about yourself. It's just so brutal, especially in the earlier middle school years where kids don't really have a sense of throttling back the intensity of their opinions of others, or how they say it. It isn't their fault, they just haven't learned how to speak to people in eloquent, gentle, "nice" ways.

What Kindlon and Thompson discuss in the article, I can agree with. This notion of competition and survival of the fittest can still, in a lot of senses, be applied to boys as they get older. There are still those unspoken rules of not feeling, or at least not revealing, emotions, especially of pain and weakness. There is still that desire/necessity to perpetually prove yourself in the endless pissing contest (I was going to use a much cruder metaphor but it would have been too punny). I can get on moral high ground and say I am immune to these expectations placed upon me, but that would be severely hypocritical. When I think about it, in this "race to impress," who exactly are you trying to impress anyway? And for what reason?

I think it's safe to assert that the majority of "men" these days are really just older, bigger boys from preschool, middle school, and high school. On the flip side, the same is true for the female perspective. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that there is this "race to impress" for women as well. When I first read the article, it reminded me of that scene in "Mean Girls" where the main character is at the mall and they all turn into animals that are savagely hunting and killing each other. Survival of the fittest.

Let's switch gears a little bit as I'd like to take this opportunity close with another "coming of age" story that was utterly humiliating. Sure, during those moments of humiliation, and the short period of time following it, were pretty painful. I personally don't have a problem sharing them now. In fact, I think those are some of my best stories and I love laughing at myself and realizing how ridiculous, although legitimate, my thought process and what I thought was most important was at that age. I hope in the future, I can say the same about myself today. Anyway, back to the story. How I managed to come out of it relatively unscathed by my classmates at the time is still a mystery to me.

So imagine this: seventh grade,  Valentine's day, a version of me that is so much more awkward (think bowl cut, "hip" 90s clothing, and my voice at the peak of breaking, so I squeaked a lot.) The internet was a relatively new thing, and computers were still on the rise. I had a great idea of personalizing a Valentine's card on the computer, printing it out, and giving it to one of the hottest girls in my grade. If I pulled it off and gotten her to go out with me, it would have vaulted me to the apex of social standing. (Kindlon and Thompson would have had a field day analyzing me.) Mind you, I had never really talked to her outside of class, so obviously I had no idea how she felt about me. It never occurred to me that my bold admission, in size 52 cursive font, that "I love you Nina" may have been a bit much, exaggerated, borderline inappropriate even.
Now let's go back to me being awkward. I liked her, and I definitely did enough innocent stalking (and this was prefacebook, so I did it the old fashioned way) that I knew where her locker was and that I got to school before her. I thought the perfect way to surprise her was to slip the note into her locker so that when she got to school to put her backpack away, she'd get the note. The way classes were scheduled that day, I knew I wouldn't see her until third period because we were in different home rooms. However, I knew we would be in the same classes until the end of the day. Third period happens. It starts, it ends. Nothing. I am confused, maybe she's just playing hard to get. Fourth period, the same thing. Fifth period, I am racking my brain confused, but I do give her a bag of Hershey's Kisses which she seemed to appreciate. Lunch. Recess. Sixth and Seventh period. Nothing. At the end of the day, I went to her locker as she was getting her stuff out and was like "well? any response?" and she goes "about what?" and I said, "well I like you, will you go out with me?" and she just looked at me confused and said "sorry, but I'm kind of with this other guy, I thought everyone knew that" and she closed her locker and walked away. I stood there for a second, baffled. To add insult to injury, the girl whose locker was next to hers goes "Leo, I think this was meant for someone else" as she handed me the card I had made.

To what extent is an artist responsible for being a role model for children?  Whose responsiblity is it?

My initial reaction is to say that an artist holds no responsibility for being a role model for children. Immediately after, I think no, the artist has a lot of responsibility because they are looked up to by their fans, and ultimately what they express in their art represents who they are. But then doesn’t that constrict or “stifle” what they can or cannot say, whether literally or metaphorically? Yes. But then what about the liberties associated with artistic expression i.e. personal truths and ideas/ideals if they are limited by responsibility?

Before the above gets even more incoherent and inconclusive, I need to define, or at least distinguish, between what is art, and what is I consider to be consumer/mass media. I realize that the distinction between art and mainstream pop culture/mass media is debatable. That’s fine. However, within each genre of art (i.e. music, theatre, movies, paintings, poetry etc.) there is a pretty obvious distinction between the classics and masterpieces displayed in museums, immortalized by awards and prestige, against the amateur work replicated by the thousands to be sold at Target, Walmart, Ikea etc.

The following distinctions are all personal, but feel free to disagree.

Movies:

American Beauty, Casablanca, Pulp Fiction, Schindler’s List, Requiem for a Dream, Aliens, Up, Revolutionary Road etc. vs. Son of the Mask, You Got Served, Ninja Turtles, Robocop, Mr. Bean, Mean Girls etc.

Poetry:

“Where the Sidewalk Ends,” “If You Forget Me,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Life is Fine,” “The Raven,” “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” etc. vs. 90% of what you find on myspace, or personal sites.

Music (I could potentially get a lot of heat from this):

Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Queen, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Lil’ Wayne etc. vs. Lil’ Wayne, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Queen, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson etc.

(My intent is not to step onto some pretentious moral/artistic high ground. I will be the first to admit I enjoy the award winning “stuff” as much as its “inferior” counterpart.)

So what was the point of that? Well simple. Artists, no matter what form or what genre, are capable of producing jewels that help define/redefine their art just as well as contributing to the amount of “garbage” already present. In today’s society, at least in the Western World, when art and artists are mentioned, more often than not, music is the association. However, the music and the artists that come to mind most likely come from the billboard top 100 singles, or some local radio station’s top 10. What is unfortunate, but is just the way today’s society, is that these artists are looking to sell singles, records, and albums for money. So what is the easiest way to succeed in a capitalistic culture? Sell sex, drugs, and alcohol. Talk about how “hard” you are and what you have done (read “hustle”) to achieve what you have now i.e. sex, drugs, and alcohol.

So back to the question. Who is responsible? I don’t think any one party can be solely held responsible for how or what a child’s role model does. I think that if anything, it is more so the duty of the parent to guide/filter against what they believe to be offensive and a bad example. However, the artist shouldn’t just promote a “rock star lifestyle” because that perpetuates an unrealistic and unproductive lifestyle. Overall, it really should be a balance between the artist and the parent/guardian.

Everything in moderation, even moderation.

So although the movie's copyright is 1993(?) the images in the film are more representative of the late 70s early 80s. So in the span of 20 years, has there been significant change in the dominant portrayals of women and men? No... but there have definitely been changes nonetheless.

The film states that men are perceived, in Western society, as fearless, tough, decisive and that he knows what he wants, and that he wont let anything get in his way of achieving that desired goal. He does this mainly to impress the ladies, and to impress others with his "manliness." On the other hand, women are perceived as beautiful bodies, no brains, and are there to please men. They are shown as willing and eager to serve men, and are willing to be manipulative to the point where she can "trap" the man that she desires. Also, she is perceived as clumsy, helpless, panic stricken, especially when things go wrong.

When I was watching the video, it reminded me of the first or second day of class where we blurted out descriptors of males/masculine and females/feminine. In summary, the adjectives we used pretty much echoed what was said in the video so those senses, nothing has changed. What I did find interesting about the video was during the "musical" description of males and females with the male's segment being very punctuated, terse, and staccato, almost "efficient" and the female's song being very melodious, sensual, and legato. The overall impression that I received from the video is that males are more objective, "get it done," scientific, with females being more creative and subjective.

However, I really do think there is a change significant enough in today's Western world that at least challenges the established norms. This is evident in a lot of media today, music, movies, in that males are looking for Ms. Independent who has accomplished and gotten everything herself, and females are looking for a man who does more than just provide a shelter and food, someone who perceives her as an equal and is not threatened by that status. In terms of nontraditional gender roles, i.e. homosexuality, intersexuality etc. these images and relationships are now present in popular medias as well.

If you love someone, set them free... just kidding. I can appreciate a good happy ending just like the next guy, or gal (let's avoid being heteronormative,) but I appreciate "realistic" endings more. Now this statement may raise flags for psychologists/psychiatrists but personally, I think that there are too many "happily ever afters" so much so that everyone believes that that's what they will get. I am not trying to sound pessimistic, and sorry to burst your bubble, but in the grand scheme of things, by definition, you will only have ONE happy ever after, but a multitude of disappointment. It is kind of ironic because, I too am in search for my own fairytale ending.

In any case, is Louise dead, alive, or an apparition at the end of the story? I don't think it matters. I think the importance of Louise in the second half of the novel is not whether she is dead or alive. Instead, I think Louise in many ways becomes the green light in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby:"

"I didn't call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone - he stretched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward - and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness." (16)

Specifically the green light, and Louise, symbolizes both characters' dreams and hopes for the future. If I had to answer the question, Louise would be an apparition, except not in a spiritual/supernatural sense, but that she has transformed into an idea. If she were ever found, dead or alive, the discovery would sort of "cop out" the intensity and passion of the narrator's love. Louise's lack of autonomy or voice only strengthens the novel because she becomes an unattainable dream. Had Louise been found, the reader would not be able to appreciate, or measure, the capacity and depth of the narrator's love ("Why is the measure of love loss?" (1)). Also, the tone and diction of the novel would most probably have been vastly different if the narrator had found her, assuming that they reconciled.

I think it’s interesting that Winterson chose to end her novel with a “cliffhanger” and say that” that is where the story starts.” Although there are only three feasible “next steps” after his/her failed search, i.e. move on, keep searching, cut off all ties and live as a “widow” until death, his/her stating that “this is where the story starts” implies that time has passed and that he/she is much older/wiser and that he/she has somewhat formed a detachment and has achieved some form of closure to the relationship, hence why the narrator suggests that it is a “happy ending.”

The narrator notes that a "secret code" is written on the body that contains the story of one's life.  Explain how one's body "writes" one's identity.

So I’ve had, including this one, eight and a half semesters of college already. I’ve tried to achieve “perfect attendance” to at least one class. It hasn’t happened. Why? “Oh, I’ve been to every class, I can miss this one,” “I’m allowed to miss a class, might as well use it up,” “The prof cancelled class, so I’ll just ‘repay’ with a miss of my own,” or my most recent excuse “Sorry Mr. Bautista (that sounds so pretentious) your flight out of Dayton, OH has some mechanical issues and you will miss your connection to LAX, here is 12 dollars for food, and a voucher for a night at the airport hotel.” Now why on earth am I starting this post with something so unrelated? Simple. I missed last Monday and I wish I had not missed it because I looked forward to the discussion and how people felt about it. When I was there on Wednesday, jetlagged hardcore, I was surprised to find out that not very many, if any, found it enjoyable. Personally, it is an instant favorite. I like it because the writing is so paradoxical. It is so refined and well thought out, but the emotion is so raw. It’s like the author/narrator “stream of consciousnessed” how they felt, and then added metaphors and comparisons afterward, “tightening up” the language so it was much more powerful and meaningful.

Anyway, to respond to this week’s prompt. I haven’t fully hashed it out in my head what it really means that a “secret code” is written on the body. I will go with it and agree, for now at least, with the assumption. Initially, I think about how scars, wrinkles, bags under a person’s eyes, calluses etc. all have a story, or are a physical tattletale to events that have made the individuals body the way it is. For example, scars could be from some childhood accident, a scrape on the concrete when playing tag or heavily calloused hands could imply that the person worked with some sort of manual labor, carpentry, farming, sculpting etc. However, I do not think it is that simple. Since Winterson repeats how Louise has “reading fingers” as if her fingertips could read the Braille that is the protagonist’s body, the “secret code” written on the body, at least to me, is metaphorical/symbolic.

Since there are a lot of allusions to the sense of touch in the novel, I think that one’s body not necessarily “writes” one’s identity, but one’s identity and their life’s story is “unlocked” by the touch of the person’s lover. The romantic touch is such a sensual and powerful gesture that opens up (makes vulnerable) the individual to the other person. By doing so, they are allowing their lover to hurt them, not in a physical way, but emotionally (which arguably is much more painful.) When I think of the sensual touch, not necessarily on a literal sense, I am reminded of certain personal moments in different relationships where the first kiss, hand hold, cuddle etc. had such a profound and memorable impact in my memory almost as if it revealed a side of me that had been locked up, and could only be released by that person at that time. Back to the prompt stem, when I think about the revelation of one’s life written in a secret code, it isn’t necessarily in retrospective manner i.e. a nostalgic, memory sort of thing, but something that was dormant and is “released” that can now be utilized, fostered, nurtured.

However, I realize that these “things” aren’t innate and you aren’t some sort of sleeper agent waiting for the appropriate person to decipher these secret codes. Rather, they are subconsciously learned from watching and participating in all types of relationships.