PSE Unit 1.

Identity:

Who are you? What is above the waterline?

  • Grade 11
  • studying at UWC sea east, Singapore
  • female
  • turning 18 this 25th.
  • quite short compared to others
  • fair skin for an Asian
  • have a wonderful family who loves me

What is below the waterline?

  • Artsy
  • Loves music
  • Prefer the time alone
  • Have difficulties in opening up to people

Ideal Personality Types:

One of the personality types that aligned with me was Speculating. I would like to know the big picture and the possibilities before acting. I neither want to rush and mess things up nor look too carefully into details. That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about other people’s feelings, I do care. However, I think my personality type is more of like the middle ground of the rushing and too organized ones.

Self-talk: What is optimism? 

Even before having this lesson, I have a little bit of optimism within myself. It was just I didn’t really realize it. I would be optimistic about things that I do. However, after learning more deeply about optimism, I became more aware of the optimism that I originally have. There have been ups and downs since I came to this school but I think when there are times I am feeling very negative about things, I would remember to be optimistic about it and change it into a positive statement or sentence so that I would feel less stressed out about things.

Question for Myself:

Now that half term is over, what are my first thoughts about the experiences of the IB? Are they mostly positive or negative? 

I feel like IB is both positive and negative for me. The subjects are quite hard since they are not in my language. I still feel like there is a language barrier between me and the subjects here. I could not fully understand when given a task and even though I am getting better, I am still struggling with it. On the bright side, I have friends who support me! I also enjoy this learning system even though it is a bit hard.

On the break, I am going to relax by listening to music and practice painting more pieces

 

 

Posted in PSE

Unpack the Visual and Lexical Elements

The author of Woman’s world, Graham Rawle, wanted to create a book only based on woman magazines such as how women are portrayed in magazines.

Our thesis or global issue question is “To what extent can texts show one’s imagination and affects their identity in the reality?”

In here we have three strands of ideas that are going to support the thesis statement.

The first one is how the propaganda portrays a woman to be. In the story, Roy wanted to be a girl so he read woman magazines to learn more about women. Magazines tend to show an exaggeration of certain types of things so here you can see that it can become a big issue in the real world – such as how gender stereotypes can change someone’s perspective on others.

The second one is “women who don’t fall into the stereotypes of the magazines find it very difficult to accept themselves” which I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. If you read a magazines about woman in a woman magazines, the readers will probably think that’s how women are like and if a woman were to read the magazines and finds it hard to see themselves in a particular role, they will at some point  find it difficult to accept who they are and that can question their identity.

Finally, our last point is “as a result of the stereotypes, men have a very limited vision of women”. It is very scary how certain types of texts can change how people understand others. Just like in the book, Roy wanted to learn what a woman is like or how the women’s world is like but because he has limited vision of women, he relied on what is the think it reliable – woman magazines. By reading the magazines, and because of his limitation of knowledge, he accepts everything that the magazines are saying without a doubt. This can also be taken to a real-life situation as well where people generalize a certain type of group such as Asians have yellow colored skin while the African people have black colored skins. Which is not entirely true. How you found out about these facts are when you go out and explore what the reality is like. In the novel as well, when Norma finally went out to explore the real world, she found out that not all the things she’s reading on woman magazines were true.

To conclude this, the whole point was how this book is a big example of what the actual world is happening. It tells us a story about a guy named Roy crossdress as a woman named Norma and in order to do that he gains his knowledge about women by reading woman magazines. However, it can also apply to the real world too. Certain types of texts can affect one’s way of thinking or mindset and it is very important to adress the issue carefully or to consider before writing it down on the paper or even publishing it. otherwise, it can raise questions to a point some individuals might lose their identities.

Procter and Gamble Analysis

Global Question: How does the text challenges and raised questions about gender stereotypes? (5 min)

The company Procter and Gamble, found by James Gamble and William Procter, is known for being one of the largest and fastest-growing consumer goods in the world. The company was established in 1837, and although the business start-up was rocky, they manage to maintain their business till now. Thus, they promote their brand as reliable and trustworthy as possible by directly connecting with the consumers. They also give equal opportunities for different gender. Hence, the company is known for raising or addressing controversial topics such as race and gender stereotypes.  

Always is one of the campaigns under PnG that empowers women and build self-confidence within themselves. They wanted to raised awareness of gender stereotypes and one of the ways was to redefine the phrase ‘like a girl’ which is an insult towards others. They shot a ‘real-life-interview’ where the interviewers interpret the phrase. The ad was played during the Superbowl event and caught everyone’s attention, raising controversial questions about gender stereotypes. The ad also challenges the gender stereotypes by addressing the issue of how they have big impacts on girls who are going through puberty, a time where they are finding out more about themselves or their identity – mainly because at that moment, their sense of identity is fragile and can easily be affected. Always wanted to redefine the term, by spreading the message and empowering women that the phrase should be something meaningful and powerful statement and that all women should embrace it. In the establishing shots, the female director can be seen among the males which intentionally or unintentionally shows that there is a diversity in shooting ground or in the working field. However, the female in the frame can also be seen as if she was being pushed aside by the males (society) even though she has her own personal space and workplace. Moreover, on the right slide, even though they highlighted the girl by dressing her up in brightly colored clothes and the man dressed in dull color, the man seems to be slightly bigger than the girl showing that even though women are in the spotlight, they are the real ones who are in control. 

Though women are capable of doing works, they are still being looked down in society and it hasn’t changed. The ad perfectly described what the society is like now. Gender stereotypes are not well-addressed and even if the people knew about it, they continue on to neglect it because it doesn’t affect them directly. That is why Always is taking a step forward by creating the ad and challenges the gender stereotypes 

.

.

(The first draft is here)