1) What is “princess culture,” and how have movie-making corporations contributed to it? (104)
Princess culture is derived from Disney production movies that portray women to be princesses and their lives being dependent on finding a man and getting married. Many movies like Mulan, Snow White, Cinderella, and among others are used by movie-making corporations to display women as weak, inferior, who are needy in love and desperately need a man to take care of them. Thus, this kind of propaganda can cause young girls to feel like this is their only importance in life – being a princess and finding a man. Additionally, this development of thinking can result in a lot of misconceptions about marriage and being a princess, consequently, cause women to experience a lot of hurt for they will realize that movies do not always project the truth of reality. Moreover, one should know that being a princess is just an abstract it’s not real- and needing a man to always take care of you is also very misleading. Overall, in reality everyone is responsible for their own life and problems, so you can’t always expect that being a princess and finding a man would be the solution to everything because it’s not.
2) How do gender expectations make political campaigns difficult for female politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin? (123-124)
Gender expectations in this case contribute for a female political running for president to have masculine attributes. Such as, no crying, loud, bullheaded, tough and among others. Clinton was receiving popularity for her campaign in 2008 however, on her crying event, she was viewed as weak and unmanly, thus causes people to think she wasn’t going to be a prevailed candidate. Whereas, in Palin case she keeps staging a “family” image which pursued people to think maybe she was better at home doing housework. Indeed, we live in a patriarchal society and in order for women to take on men position such as being the president, then they will need to develop men attributions to gain respect from people, especially people in U.S.
3) What is the difference between transgender and transsexual? After reading “Real-Life Freaky Friday,” would you be uncomfortable living as a different gender – why or why not? (255-256)
Transgender is an individual who identify with the role that is the different from their biological sex. Whereas, transsexual is when transgender individuals who attempt to alter their bodies through medical interventions such as surgery and hormonal therapy—so that their physical being is better aligned with gender identity—. Yes, I would be uncomfortable living as a different gender for I would know that I am not being my authentic self. I feel like if I wanted to transform myself as a man and have surgeries and other related substances to feel like a man-I would be fooling myself because no matter how extent I go with the surgeries to become a man, deep down I know I will always be a female.