In Cynthia L. Selfe’s article, “Lest We Think The Revolution is a Revolution”, has some some good persuasive points. I found that she is stating the fact that Americans use technology for personal benefit but as some of her examples show advertising makes Americans believe they are not only for personal gain. I also noticed in Selfe’s article that technology is making us believe we are making progress in every way, when in reality we are heading in the wrong way of progress. Gender roles are still played out in technology and how men and women are suppose to use it. Men are the leaders and women the followers.
On page 306 Selfe explains, “We find ourselves as a culture, ill equipped to cope with the changes that this Un-gendered Utopia narrative necessitates. We cannot, indeed, even imagine, collectively, ways of relating to gender outside the context of our familiar historical and cultural set of experiences.” Which means that people have a set of values and history chiseled into our minds that we can’t change. Making us have the same views of gender as we did in the 50’s. She uses a beautiful woman in front of a monitor, comparing the beauty of a woman with the beauty of this monitor, they have the woman in a "seductress" role to sell the monitor. This shows the traditional "roles" of women in the media. Men are portrayed in suits and ties, this has been normal since the 50's. Men have always been the workers and outside of work they are portrayed as "bikers," "nerds" and "sex machines."
Also a claim is on page 308, and Selfe says “The results are evident in the numerous advertisement about computers the women that use a retro look to link women’s roles in the 50’s to those in the 90’s-which each gender assumes their appropriate role in connection with technology.” Meaning the 50’s in short was the generation that more than ever represented men and women’s place in the world. But try to relate the 50’s to the 90’s, Selfe explained it by saying “Men use technology to accomplish things; women benefit from technology to enhance the ease of their lives or to benefit their families.” She also brings up an explanation to support her claims that “where images of the television-era of the fifties are overlaid by those of the computer-era of the nineties.” Almost half a century has gone by from the 50’s to the 90’s and the same gender roles were still among us. Even now that we are in 2010 there are still gender roles being played.
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
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