IRB intro #3

The book I have chosen for my 3rd IRB is called I Am That Girl, written by Alexis Jones. I heard of this book from social media posts from one of my favorite actresses, Sophia Bush. She contributed to the book and is an activist for the I Am That Girl association. After reading about the association I became even more intrigued to read the book. It is all about changing the standards for how girls are raised and making them feel secure in who they are. I think it will provide a very interesting perspective on life and hopefully give me more tools for moving forward in a society as a girl.

TOW #16

I really enjoyed reading Freakonomics. It caused me to develop a new perspective on everything, especially on the way things are connected. The book explains seemingly crazy reasoning behind the correlation of events, or why something occurs, which is all very interesting. One of the chapters I found really interesting was on "What Makes a Perfect Parent." Upon first reading the title, I almost laughed because, I doubt it is possible to have a PERFECT parent, more or less have a scientific formula for what makes one. However after reading through the chapter I realized a lot more plays into parenting than I originally thought. Levitt and Dubner include theoretical anecdotes and lists in order to show how certain factors contribute to the parenting of a child. In the beginning of this chapter, the idea of how people make decisions out of fear rather than shock is introduced. These sort of decisions can negatively effect a child. The authors express this through a theoretical anecdote. The anecdote explains a story where the parents of a child ban their child from going to friend A's house because friend A's parents have a gun. However they allow their child to go to friend B's house, even though friend B has a pool. Through statistics, Levitt and Dubner explain that the chances of their child dying from a gun is far less likely than dying from drowning in a swimming pool. In fact, the chances of dying from drowning are significantly higher than the chances of a gun accident. This anecdote is an example of how a decision made based on fear could negatively effect a child. The anecdote shows the extreme way children can be impacted from a simple decision by their parents. The child's chances of dying actually increased based on the parents decision, because their child would be spending more time at the pool. Through the use of this theoretical anecdote, the authors are able to exemplify that even simple decisions contribute to the effectiveness of a parent. Dubner and Levitt also included a series of lists to help explain the factors. They start off with explaining how some factors contribute to the way a child performs on a test. They began with one list of all the possible factors in the life of a good test taker. The list was shortly followed by a second list that showed only the factors that actually contributed to the child's success. Next, the authors made up short lists directly comparing one factor that contributes and one factor that doesn't. For example, "Matters: The child has highly educated parents. Doesn't: The child's family is intact" (page 170). By including these lists, the authors are able to compare different life factors in order to show what really matters in parenting. It was very interesting to see that having educated parents can alter the performance of a child, but the family being intact, which seems more important, does not. Through the lists, Dubner and Levitt expressed the number of factors that contribute to a child's life. Along with this, it showed how many factors are not even choices made by the parent. Yet, something out of their control could make someone a good or bad parent. This chapter was extremely interesting to me, because I never realized how many factors there are in parenting, or how they can effect a child. Now looking at my own life it is interesting to see if any of these factors are apparent. Next time I fail a test, maybe I can blame the factors of my parenting!

TOW #15

All of us experience set backs in our lives due to things we cannot control. Such as gender, race, age, etc. However, what we usually do not account for is the privilege that may also come with it. Roxanne Gay, American author, published an article about this very issue, and why we should learn to embrace privilege rather than deflect it. In Peculiar Benefits, Gay uses personal anecdotes and theoretical situations in order to argue that we should acknowledge that we all have privileges and we should embrace them. The essay begins with Gay bringing us back to her childhood when her family took a vacation to her parent's homeland, Haiti. It was then that she realized what an extreme difference there was between poverty in America and poverty in Haiti. This anecdote effectively introduced how we all have privileges, even when we don't consider them to be privileges. Such as being middle collar in America, or having the ability to work two jobs. By showing how people in another country have worse problems, it shows the benefits we experience. Along with this, Gay argues that we should learn to embrace our privileges in her theoretical but common situation of a White Man being told he has privileges. She writes“It’s not my fault I am a white man.” They say, “I’m working class,” or “I’m [insert other condition that discounts their privilege],” instead of simply accepting that, in this regard, yes, they benefit from certain privileges others do not." (para. 6). This exemplifies how people tend to react when they are labeled with the word privilege. This situation helps Gay argue that just because we have a privilege does not mean life is not hard. It is just showing how we have something others do not. Just because one has a privilege because of race and gender, does not mean they don't have other setbacks. I think this article brought up a very interesting perspective on a topic I've never spent much time considering.

TOW 14

 The debates about gun violence are non-stop. The controversial issue is not getting any smaller. Moms Demand Action released an ad that features two children, one holding a gun and the other holding a Kinder chocolate egg. The ad portrays how America forbids kinder chocolate eggs because they are a choking hazard to children, yet guns are still allowed. The ad includes emphasis of colors as well as rhetorical questioning to get their audience to inquire the issue of gun violence. The ad's background is darkened including everything but the children, gun and the egg. The children are highlighted making them stand out. The dark colors appeal to pathos, and create a negative connotation for advertisement. Instantly looking at the picture, you can tell there it is about a dark subject. The fact that the child is holding a giant all black gun, opposed to a small hand gun. The size and color of the gun add to the negative effect that this ad has. This creates audiences to question what guns could be doing in America. Along with this, the ad questions the audience with a caption that reads "We won't sell Kinder chocolate eggs in the interest of child safety. Why not assault weapons?" This directly addresses the audience on the issue of gun violence. It compares a kinder egg, which is a candy that was intended for kids to enjoy, with a gun that has the potential to kill someone. Clearly, the one that seems safer for the child is the egg. By questioning the reasoning behind which one is banned, it shows how ridiculous it seems that kids have access to these weapons. The ad overall, effectively raises the question of gun violence, and why it is an issue.