Brazil's Reputation Might be Looking for a Change?

Summary:

In this article it talk about the issue of Brazil and how they are tired of their country being a hot spot for "sex tourism". Adidas recently made two lines of shirts that were very racy and had sexual implications on them . These shirts apparently upset Brazil and they asked Adidas to remove the shirts and to stop selling them because it was bringing the wrong kind of attention to their country. Although these shirts were only going to be on sale for a limited time, Brazil still insisted on taking them off the market. One of the big reasons for Brazil's uproar is that their government is trying to get rid of their promiscuous reputation. The shirts were made for the World Cup Soccer Tournament and were meant to be a fun thing for Adidas to launch as well as a way to heighten the sales profit. The President of Brazil Is very serious about the whole matter and says that he will definitely be very strict when 600,000 foreigners come to watch the WCST.

Analysis:

I think that a lot of countries are facing this stereotype right now of having women who are being greatly sexualized. It is an ongoing problem that is getting worse. Adidas should have asked Brazil for permission to make the shirt because it implies a lot of things about Brazil that Brazil does not want right now. Although Adidas was sponsoring the event, it still would have been respectful to make shirts that were more appropriate for all of the audience and less sexist towards women. Sexual advertising is everywhere now and is linked to many negative outcomes including possible rises in the rates of sexual crimes. The world is getting out of hand in many ways and it is a good thing that Brazil has noticed and is taking action for the problems in that area.


http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/25/us-worldcup-brazil-shirts-idUKBREA1O1KY20140225

Jessie Loy

10:30 am

Feb,1,2013

This article goes over a few of the basic issues in gender inequality, so I found it to be a good place to start with this blog. Prone starts the article by placing you in a situation as a female in a new job interview and the HR person asks you how many kids you plan on having. I, myself was horrified the second I read that. I for one would never want to be asked that question and would be the first to claim invasion of privacy. Prone brings up two very good points to this issue, however. The first being, does the job not have the right to know if you are planning taking a leave of absences to bring a child into the world. While that is an amazing adventure for the mother, the job will be faced with finding someone to fill in for the new mother and as Prone puts it, "inconsistency". Even as a woman I had to admit, looking at from that point of view, it didn't seem to far fetched. The second point that Prone brought up with this simple question, was why does the man not get asked the same question. He is in fact effected by having a new baby as well. The male often suffers from lack of sleep when a new baby is born. This lack of sleep can drastically reduce concentration and job performance. Is the company not worried about the risks involved with that? While it may seem like HR would be gender targeting woman at first, it can also be seen as just covering their bases with what to expect. It is also curious that men are not asked the same question, even thought they are just as effected. 

Prone spends a lot of the article talking about how women are pointed out and unjustly so. The point that I would like to focus on is also at the very beginning of the article. She talks about seeing baby shirts that say things like "smart like daddy" and "pretty like mom". Societies start on children as soon as they are born if not before on placing them into gender roles. At baby showers we somehow know that pink means little girl and blue means little boy. We start handing our children seemingly harmless items without thinking about what we are doing. Every little boy gets trucks, balls, video games, and anything plastered with a darker color. Girls get barbies, baby dolls make-up and bright pretty colors. Yet we wonder why on earth we are so gendered. It works much like subliminal messages. By giving boys trucks and balls we are telling them this is what your role is in life and society. This is what you must become. When we give girls dolls, we are telling them you must become a mother and that is just how it is. Its the simple things like giving a baby boy a shirt that says "smart like daddy" or a girl a shirt that says "pretty like mom". Those two shirt imply much more than at fist glance. We are telling boys, you must be smart but not always pretty and we are telling girls, you must be pretty but not always smart. One simple thing that leads to a whole mess of socially constructed gender inequality.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/terry-prone/too-sexist-for-my-t-shirt-this-gender-inequality-question-is-a-non-runner-220867.html

Inequality

For my blog I would like to look into inequality with special focus on gender inequality. It is very personal issue for myself as I have friends and family who deal with this. I am also deeply interested in the construct of gender and why certain genders are only allowed to do certain things. For something that is so deeply rooted in who we are as a culture and as a human race, I want to ask why different societies have labeled different genders the way they have. I also want to explore what happens when you have cultures who have more than two genders or genders that a person can go in and out of multiple times throughout life.