This lecture was one of the most interesting of the whole year for me. I had never thought about the war in Iraq in this manner before. From an American’s perspective, how dare anyone try and do harm on Americans when we’re just trying to protect our country. But what we don’t realize is that their countries are glorifying the bad things that we do. As Sam said, I’m sure there are no youtube videos online about how wonderful Americans are. On the other hand, a video of an American tank crushing the car of a mere civilian makes for great entertainment. Just as we can’t grasp what they are doing when they act against Americans, they likewise can’t grasp why we are over there in the first place.

When I’m hanging out with my guy friends on a weekend, we just do whatever we want to have fun. We don’t really care what other people think about us, we just go out to whatever party we’re going to that night and hang out and have a good time. When I’m hanging out with my female friends, however, it’s a completely different story. Before we leave, they need to know who all is at the party, because “oh my god if Joe is there I have to change my outfit first.” I’ve been around it more than I would like to, and it’s so obvious that girls play mind games when it comes to how they look. It’s more complex that my organic chemistry class. So from experience, girls are way guiltier of this, although guys should take some of the blame.

To address the fact that guys conform somewhat to what society portrays as the “norm,” we do to a slight extent. Just as girls diet to look thin, guys lift weights to look muscular. We’re all guilty of going to the gym to look good. This is certainly a type of conformity. I read a reply earlier stating that guys all dress the same in an effort to conform. I would argue that this is more of a cultural thing than a conformity thing. Most guys wear jeans and a hoody/t-shirt on a daily basis. I mean all guys do it, but what else are we going to wear? That is what is comfortable to me, and I’m not going to go out of my way to be different.
Another similarity between guys and girls on this topic is how we show off our “physiques.” Girls walk around campus with revealing tank tops and shorts that are about four inches in height in order to get guys to look their direction. But likewise, for every girl there is wearing this outfit, there’s a guy in a sleeveless shirt strolling around campus trying to show off his body at the same time. It’s just seen differently when girls do it as opposed to guys.

As a guy with just as many female friends as male friends, I can say with absolutely certainty that girls care way more about fitting in with the "norm" than guys--although we do care to an extent. It takes the average girl an hour to get ready to go out. I don't even know how many outfit changes I have seen the same girl do in the matter of ten minutes, whereas I wear whatever I wore to class that morning when I go out. I mean I can't blame a girl when I see this going on, because every other girl is doing it too, so she has to keep par and look equally as nice when she hits the dance floor at the frat she's going to. It's a problem that has clearly spiraled out of control in recent years--females needing to look better than every other girl when going out.

From my experience in taking foreign language classes and speaking with other students who also have, people either want to learn another language or they don't. For those that don't, they struggle through four years of spanish or french in high school (plus whatever is required in years prior) and just forget everything they know when they get to college. So why are we making it mandatory to take these classes during the first twelve years of a child's life? If someone doesn't like it while they're being forced into taking a language class, they're going to quit the second they hit college and forget everything they know. I, personally, took spanish all through my K-12 years, and really enjoyed it. I was really good at it, and it came pretty naturally to me. I decided to minor in spanish here at Penn State, and I can honestly say I'll be (very near) fluent by the time I graduate. People like me will take the classes regardless, but why force a kid to take these classes when they won't get anything out of it in the end? Wouldn't they be better off taking another science class or something?

I'm really glad you feel this way--finally a woman who isn't complaining about something that nobody can control. I mean yeah I'm sure it sucks to have one, but there's no reason to cause an uproar because men aren't doing everything we can to make you feel better about it. Like you said, it's a necessary, ubiquitous process to human life. I mean if I'm hanging out with a group of friends and I get the option to talk about basketball or women having their periods, I mean no offense, but nobody wants to talk about a woman's time of the month. I don't even get why women want to talk about it. If you hate it that badly (not you in the video personally, you get it), then why on earth do we need to talk about it? I do feel bad that I can't relate to women when I hear someone talking about it, but it's not something that I, or any other guy out there, can control.

Although I personally am not bothered by discussing blood, I know a lot of men and women who can't stand to talk about it. I think that's where this stems from. If all men had to take a class about women's menstrual cycles, what would this solve? We'd be able to talk about it? I mean it would be less awkward, if that's what our goal is here, but it wouldn't really help the fact that no one wants to talk about it. To address the free tampons deal, I don't think--okay I KNOW--that they would not be free. That's ridiculous to even think about. In the harsh economic times we live in, companies are doing everything they can to not go bankrupt. I mean sure it'd be nice to offer out free tampons to all the women in the world, but who would pay for it? I don't think this would change at all if men got periods too. I mean there are a lot of things that just men need (like condoms) and those aren't free.

Imagine a world where we didn't question each other or our superiors once in a while--we'd be bored to death and wouldn't have a chance to form our own opinions and think for ourselves. Questioning things is not a bad thing at all, but rather, an attempt to make something better through looking at it from an individual standpoint and seeing what parts of it don't necessarily make sense to us.

This is something that we as Americans should have done with slavery. I mean it's not like one person waking up one day could just get out of bed and decide slavery was bad and end it right there. It takes a lot, a TON of people to get something like this into action. Living in a society where slavery was a huge issue isn't something we can stop in the blink of an eye. If every American would have been confident enough to stick up for what he or she truly felt as the right thing (stopping slavery), then it probably would have "ended" much sooner. But seeing as the consequences for acting out alone back in the old days are far more severe than just a slap on the hand, we have to understand that it takes a group of people standing up for what they believe in to truly make positive action against a big group or big issue such as slavery.

As far as the 28-day cycle issue we discussed in class, I can certainly see where some people are coming from with the whole "let's not talk about it" issue. Although it personally doesn't bother me whatsoever (and I'm a guy), through listening to the people around me talk in class I can understand how this is an issue. I don't think it's a matter of not wanting to step inside someone else's shoes, but rather, a phobia of sorts dealing with things that are not so common in everyday life. When the next "Saw" movie comes out, go into the theater and see how many people are grossed out and turn their heads at the sight of blood. Okay, "Saw" isn't exactly a good comparison to a woman's time of the month, but it's the basic principle. Some people have a severe phobia of blood and needles and a lot of other things that have nothing to do with this, but I'll bet if you started talking about almost anything, you're bound to get people who are grossed out.

In class you compared it to someone cutting open their finger and rushing over to the toilet and letting it drip into the water then going to look at it, and that being the same thing. My issue with this though, is that what comes out during that time is, from what the girls around me were saying, is not just blood. And it's not dripping out of their fingers, either. As far as your "hunger" and "toenail" examples from class go, I don't see the resemblance to this issue. Nobody is grossed out at the thought of hunger, or is afraid to watch people eat. People are, always have been, and always will be, disgusted at the thought of blood. This isn't an ethnocentric issue whatsoever. It's not a fear to look at the world from a different standpoint , or try something new, it's the natural human instinct that many people have to be repulsed at the thought, sight, smell, etc. of blood or other bodily fluids. It's something your born with, not something you choose to be.

This is definitely a great step for women who enjoy the sport of football, just because it opens up so many more doors for women who would like to get involved with the sport. There will obviously be some people who are not okay with a female head coach, but there will always be people criticizing you no matter what you're doing. I'm surprised this is happening so soon. I would imagine that the sport of women's football would need to take off and get a lot of involvement before a move like this was made, but as a professional women's football player, I don't think anyone is denying the fact that she has the knowledge and love of the sport necessary to be a great coach. And as someone else included, the fact that she's a teacher at this high school will allow her to teach the athletes, and hopefully lead them to success.

I mean this just goes back to the whole concept that white people are more heavily-criticized for being racist than minorities. This stems from the fact that since whites are the majority in this country, if someone says something negative about them, no one really causes a scene or draws attention to it as much as when a white person offends a black or brown person. A perfect example of this is last year a few days after the election when Obama won, I saw a brown guy in West commons wearing a shirt that stated "This year, I voted black." I was literally appalled by the shirt. If a white person walked around with a shirt that said "This year, I voted white," I can only begin to imagine the commotion it would cause. But I guess that nobody was as concerned upon seeing the shirt as I was, or perhaps they, too, were just too appalled by it to say anything.