Male constructs from ‘The Outsiders’

In this novel, there are some parts which make readers to assume constructed image of male in that time period. The narrator starts to explain about the boy named Dallas Winston. He explains as a ‘tough guy’ or ‘bad guy’. He likes to shoplift and good at smarting off to the cops. Moreover, he always carries handled switchblade which is pocket knife. This shows the social perception that act like him makes male look cooler and nicer. The line “He liked fights, blondes, and for some unfathomable reason, school.” gives an idea that male should not prefer to go to school to look masculine. The narrator also explains about his appearance like”If I had to pick the real character of the gang, it would be Dallas Winston-Dally.” and “He had an elfish face, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, small, sharp animal teeth.” This leads readers to assume that dallas has scary looking face and very aggressive. Also, it mentions “he didn’t like haircuts, or hair oil either, so it fell over his forehead…” which means he doesn’t care about his appearance.

To sum up, we can assume that male in this novel trying to show manly semblance and be masculine. Dallas doesn’t want to care about his appearance and keep causing troubles. He believes those behaviors make him look cool and appeal to female. Therefore, male construct image which are wild, manlike, masculine, tough, and rough.

After reading ‘I am Malala’

Malala’s society is very patriarchal. That means male holds all the power to control everything. Malala introduced values, roles, and ideas of patriarchism in her society by using her birth as an example.

When she was born, people in her village consoled her mother instead of congratulating. They only celebrate birth of son because they believe role of women is not important as male’s. They simply define the roles of women, which are preparing food and giving birth to children. Moreover, they do not bring birth gifts for daughters. They are not even allow putting daughter’s name on the family tree because those are only for male. However, Malala’s father and his cousin broke those patriarchal traditions. For example, his cousin celebrated Malala’s birth and brought handsome gift of money. Her father asked his friends to throw dried fruits, sweets, and coins into her cradle that is usually do for sons. He wrote the name of Malala on the family tree. Furthermore, he took his daughter’s name, Malala, from Malalai of Maiwand who was the greatest heroine of Afghanistan. This includes that he wants his daughter to be an influential woman in the world like her.

This leads to the fact that there are still some countries with serious gender discrimination. Females in those countries disregarded and have to hide by force. They cannot receive congrats about their birth and cannot make voice for themselves after they grow old enough. However, Malala has different ideas about her role and society around her because she gets different treatment from her father unlike other females. This leads to the conclusion that we need more people like her father to break patriarchal traditions and embedded gender roles around the world.

Advertisement related with gender

 

The advertisement tries to promote a tie produce by Van Heusen. It appeals to business men who wear tie often. This advertisement attributes to the people that women should serve men and men take it for granted. Moreover, the advertising phrase ‘show her it’s a man’s world’ represents the idea that women should not express their thoughts or opinions and involve in discussion about business or politics which they considered as man’s world. The man and woman who are in the advertisement follow patriarch system.

What does being a boy or girl mean to you?

Some people believe that there is no more gender discrimination nowadays, but I still can feel and experience gender discrimination which are largely embedded in the modern society.

People take harsh view to women when it relates with sexual issues such as date with someone or having sex with someone etc. They usually blame women when risks come out. They believe women tempt others to make inappropriate consequences. Moreover, women always should be the only one who dedicate themselves for their family. When women getting married, they are required to take care of their children instead of building careers.

However, there some freedom being a girl as well. Especially, for Korean, all male have to join the army for 2 years. Women can get out of that responsibility.

Reflection of national identity speech

1. What do you think are the most important elements in your personal identity?

I believe that the most important elements in my personal identity is self-confidence. If I want to be who I am and to form clear personal identity, I need to know about myself better than others.

2. What do you think is the most important influencer of national in your country and why?

The most important element influences Korean national identity is Korean values which are competitive and hard working. Because Korea showed incredible economic growth that no one expected based on hard working. Moreover, nowadays, Korea became one of the influential countries around the world in short period of time. I think those huge amount of achievements are based on Korean values and those are the most important elements which give great influence to form my national identity.

3. What did you learn from this unit?

I learnt that every countries has different national identities and their national identities are also unique and special. Moreover, even people who are in same culture, have different thought about choosing important national identities.

4. What goes into a good speech? 

Good speech includes various methods. For example, clear topic sentences, reliable sources (graph, photographs), and persuasive devices. Persuasive devices include emotive words, rhetorical questions, contrast, imagery, quotes, and repetition of words phrases

Who am I

Does social media makes people smarter or more stupid?

Social media is websites or other online communication that are used by lots of people to share their ideas, information and to improve their social relationship skills. The most well-known social media is obviously ‘Facebook’.

Who am I?

Hello to my blog mates! 🙂 My name is Siwon Kim and I am Korean. I was born in Korea but now I live in Jakarta, Indonesia because of my father’s work but there are some other reasons as well. First of all I want to have new experience. I never live in another country before, so I think this can be great chance to make new friends and study English. I think I already had great memory in here. Moreover, I want to learn or study English in different way. Speaking with others and reading English books help me to improve my English skill a lot.  I attend the Australian Independent School (AIS) in Jakarta and take the  IB Diploma course. My role in my family is the only child who gets a huge amount of love from my parents. They support and encourage me a lot. However, to be the only child is not always good. I have pressure to get good grades. Moreover, they have concerns about my future more than others. My role in society is as a high-school student who has to study hard and to make a  good contribution to the society.

I look like typical Asian girl. I have curly long brown hair and I am of a medium height. I have a little bit of a dark and yellowish skin tone and dark-brown eyes. My sense of humor makes me different from others. As I have a sense of humor, I can amuse my new friends when we have a conversation. Everyone has positive and negative attributes and so do I. My positive attributes are honesty, patience, creativity. In addition, I lead my life as it is. My negative attributes are that I am so sensitive about about my books since I love reading. I consider them precious so that it is hard to let others borrow my books.

I’m taking the IB Diploma course. My subjects are Biology, Psychology, English, Korean, Music, and Math. All of the subjects that I choose are interesting and make me excited about learning new knowledge. Biology is the hardest subject because it has lots of parts to memorize. Math is the next challenging one because of new formulas and rules to solve questions. Psychology is the subject that I like the most because learning psychology is a new experience and it  directly relates to my future career. I want to be a criminal profiler which helps police to investigate criminals by using mentality analysis  after graduating university. Korean is the easiest one for me because it is my native language and I like reading books especially novels. I do Green team, Dance club, and Concert band for my CCA. . I chose those because I want to have balanced skills that reflect creativity, action, and service. Green team enables me to expand lots of knowledge about saving the Earth and helps me to be a part of global citizens. Concert band helps me to improve my collaborative skills and playing a musical instrument which is flute. Dance club improves my fitness. For CAS, I plan to teach basic English, Math and knowledge about health care to Kampung Kids, that’s underprivileged children, nearby to our school. It is a perfect chance to give back to less fortunate children. Since I cannot speak Indonesian fluently, there are some difficulties to communicate with them. Nevertheless, I will strive to give my best contribution to the children.

I like meeting new people, reading books, watching movies, and having a chat with others. I prefer to read and watch movies that have serious topics since those make me consider my life and the society we live in. I do not like waiting, traffic jam and mosquitos. In Indonesia, traffic jam are common so I have become used to them. However, heavy traffic jam still make me annoyed. My values are family, friendship, and my future. Family and friends are people who affect my life the most. They give me positive energy to cheer up.

Everyone has different ideas about what makes their identity. I think culture and tradition shape my identity. Culture is the characteristics or knowledge of particular group that surrounds someone since they were born. Culture affects a lot to someone’s life in terms of the way they act, talk and think. Culture and tradition always change because of the development of modern technology.  My culture has influenced me to be polite to everyone.

Making video – I am from

I am from love and warm hug

from celebration and blessing of many people

I am from books

Always start with ‘once upon a time’

and teddy bear with soft brown fur

I am from dandelion

whose trustworthy and thankful

I am from deep cobalt blue ocean

from sound of waves

and from sand castle which always stays on as imperfect

from bright golden sun

I am from red, blue and white

from passion of flame

from broad-minded sky

and from purity of clear soul

I am from the moments of creating as I am now

 

Poster about myself