Gender Stereotypes

What does it mean to be feminine?  What does it mean to be masculine? These are good questions. Most bias shows that men need to be strong, muscular, never cry, be the provider, and always be brave and the gentleman. While woman tend to be stereotyped as the gentle caretaker of the home, do the cooking and the cleaning. These biases are completely outdated, it may have been this way before, but now you will find stay at home dads, who do the cooking and the cleaning while the wife works. This shows how biases and stereotypes are never correct and that there are always exceptions to them. What do you think about the gender stereotypes that society has placed on them?

Halloween costumes

Why should people be careful when selecting Halloween costumes? They should because some of the costumes are insulting. The idea of "We are a culture not a costume" was introduced early on in the course. We looked at multiple things such as the cowboys and Indians party, and some images of costumes portraying different cultures in a biased manner. These costumes offend some people as they portray their culture in most often a very biased or negative manner and people should think about whether or not it could be offensive first. What are your views on this matter? And has it changed over the course?

Conor Kostic's Epic

The book that i read for my ISU is epic, by Connor Kostick. It is about a boy named Eric, on another planet, 1000 years in the future. The humans back then needed something to do on this long voyage to a distant world, so they created the game epic. It is a virtual reality video game that you “Clip into” and controls your in-game character. This kept them busy on the voyage, but when they founded on the new planet they used epic for more than just entertainment. They turned the game into the basis for everything in the government. The money was in-game money, violence was prohibited and all conflicts would be fought to the death inside the game in an arena with an amphitheatre for spectators. If you had a problem with the government, called Central Allocations, you could challenge them in the arena, if you won they had to negotiate and change what you deemed was the problem, if you lose, you lose everything, all of your armor,  weapons and acquired wealth. From this wealth, the CA was able to make their characters near to invincible, so the common people had no say.  Eric, a farm boy that plays epic during all his free time, he and his friends work for money by killing monsters such as the humanoid kobolds, or work in mines or other grueling dangerous tasks. Eric is obsessed with killing Inry’aat, the Red Dragon, he has died many times trying to kill this thing by himself and finally he gives up all hope of doing so and he created a new character against the norm, a female swashbuckler, a class no-one picks, and he spent all his points on beauty so she looked more like an NPC, and not like the grey pixelated faces of most players. When he enters the game he is greeted by NPC’s that normally never talk to you and even received a necklace as a gift from a merchant that was worth more than his friend made killing kobolds in a whole year. He discoverers that there is so many more ways to play this game than anyone thought. After his father is sent into exile after he is discovered by central allocations, for committing an act of violence in the past, Eric and his friend try to kill the red dragon one last time, and succeed by finding a glitch in it’s logic. He now becomes one of the richest people in the world from the dragons hoard and gains some unwanted attention from CA. This book is such a good one, and i would recommend it to anyone that likes fantasy, or plays mmorpg's.

Should Shakespeare still be taught in high school English classes?

I think that Shakespeare should be taught in high school. It is only given to the academic classes to read so it should not be that difficult for them. While it is in a more ancient form of English, I for one was able to understand it fine, and read it at only a slightly slower than normal pace. It provides a slight challenge for reading and forces you to pay attention and read closely, as you cant just try to scan and absorb it. The plays are old but still carry powerful messages, themes, and literary devices that are perfect practice for analyzing texts. It is not too long, but still long enough to be taught as a full unit. The summaries and translations help with any problems understanding, so I see no reason why Shakespeare should not be taught in high school English classes.

Fate Vs Free Will.

I do not believe in the idea of fate, or of karma. This is probably because i hate the idea that my actions are not my own, that no matter what i do to change something, it will only lead to the end result that was planed. In Macbeth, if the witches had not have told Macbeth anything, think of how drastic the story would have changed. he did not have any ambition to be king until they told him he would be, so then is there fate? if fate did not exist then the witches where just meddling in the affairs of men, to some preferable outcome. Karma does also not exist, ever hear the saying "Nice guys finish last", you would think that being a good person you would be rewarded by karma, but by not taking advantage you could only be hurting yourself. If fate did exist and karma did exist, why is there murders that go unsolved, or criminals that get away with crimes, when karma states that the universe will punish them, it is their own stupidity that gets them caught in the end, not karma. So, i would say that fate does not exist and that all our fates are for us to choose, and not for some divine entity to decide in advance.

Evil is innate

This statement in Macbeth that you are born evil is untrue as everyone is made who they are by their life experiences. Your memories and actions shape you as a person, in Macbeth for example, Macbeth was a good loyal soldier who's lust for power caused him to commit horrendous acts that caused his ultimate demise. Macbeth was not evil at the start, so it is only logical to assume that evil is something brought on by your choices later in life. While it is true however that certain people can have a brain mapping that lead to more violent tendencies, that does not prove that that person will be evil. Most evil people do not even think that they are evil, this is because they have most likely been hardened by their choices or have just gone insane, for example the dagger scene. In my opinion you are not born evil, but you are the source of  if you decide to become that kind of person.

Social Media's role in challenging stereotypes

Social media has a great impact on the way we think, so it then must also challenge stereotypes. By having a large group of people all having their input heard, people could challenge stereotypes by being able to talk to people with the same ideals. One example is in the article we read early in the semester on that group that challenged a cowboys and Indians party. These people found out about this through social media, and showed these people how offending it was, even though the people holding it thought it was alright. This shows that social media's role is that of a tool to keep us well connected, and it allows us to be able to challenge stereotypes because all groups of people and their opinions are present. Because of this generalizations and stereotypes are not as common, because of ignorance to certain groups of people and their way of life.