"Equality of Opportunity Equals a Level Playing Field"
Diversity is the sense that no matter where you come from, who you are, or what your background is, there is a place for you.
This course was designed to further my understanding of the dynamics of differences, erasing stereotypes, and embracing the strength and depth that diversity brings to our community and first and most important steps to achieving diversity in our leisure and community.
Diversity is a broader concept than ethnicity, race, and gender. Diversity has gone beyond legal mandates and has become an environment that fosters communication and a genuine attitude that is inclusive of all groups, maximizes the potential of all individuals, and values the variety of perspectives all individuals bring to a community.
This course allowed me to explore leisure, recreation, and tourism behavior as related to social impacts across a wide variety of dominant and non-dominant populations including: ethnicity, ability, gender, age, sexuality, religion, and nationality.
Don't DIS my ABILITY
People with disabilities are regularly portrayed in a negative light by the media; their treatment in movies and on TV is often unsympathetic and/or shallow.
The Don’t DIS my ABILITY campaign questions stereotypes and asks people to ‘re-think’ prejudices they might have on disability issues. It also highlights the sense of pride and empowerment among people with a disability.
Question #1: Should people with disabilities be more proactive to counter negative media representation or should they focus on encouraging more positive representations?
Individuals with disabilities should continue to focus on encouraging more positive representations than counter the negative. Although negative is often portrayed more frequently in social media and the news, positive documentations of have in my opinion a more powerful impact on peoples’ views. The negative will be displayed either way, but the positive inspires and changes lives. The change we have seen over the years in increasingly motivation and efforts to provide equal rights to all people is the proof that positive representation works.
The most powerful positive representation I’ve seen was a demonstration at Washington’s capitol back when people were fighting for disabled rights (ADA). The clip shows handicapped children and adults climbing the capitol’s marble stairs using only their upper body with no other assistance. They can do things despite civilizations limitations and they deserve the same rights as everyone else.
Gender Bias, Image, & Equity
- Nearly half of 12-15 year-old girls read magazines every day. Studies such as "Body Image: an Introduction to Advertising and Body Image" show that looking at magazines for just 60 minutes lowers the self-esteem of more than 80% of girls. Six out of 10 teenage girls think they'd be "happier if they were thinner".
- Children will have accumulated 22,000 hours of television viewing by the time they graduate from high school, which is twice the amount of time they will have spent in school. They will have seen 350,000 television commercials by the age of 17.
- While women have traditionally been the target of impossible beauty standards, marketers are increasingly projecting distorted images of male attractiveness. Since 2012, beauty and personal care products specifically targeted at men have increased globally by more than 70%. The National Association for Men with Eating Disorders reports that 1 in 4 individuals with eating disorders are males. (Links to an external siteLinks to an external site.
Over the years I have grown to love a good movie. I don’t know about you but there is something about snuggling up and turning on the big screen to take you away from daily stressors and place you into a different world. We all tend to like certain actors and actresses more than others, one main characteristic we seem to be drawn to is their physical appearance. So who is everyone’s celebrity crush? Well reality is these celebrities might not be what they are made up to portray in “the real world”. Gossip magazines, such as People’s, always like to catch someone famous in their mistakes, screw-ups, and/or even non-make up days as if it it’s a shock that they are human.
Throughout our college experience these images and stereotypes we place on the media aren’t realistic. We depict them in perfect super human ways. The example, Hugh Jackman as wolverine. Its true images such as these provide quality entertainment but can also be very destroying.
First off, the body is being objectified and is nearly impossible to obtain under a normal daily nutritional routine. Movie stars don’t go to a 9-5 shift, they are usually paid to work out and follow a diet. They are have nutritionists, personal trainers, and a crew of highly trained professional arts.
These images can be detrimental to not only the male population of any age but also impacting females. It plays an emphasis on what women consider desirable and almost mandatory. The billion dollar industry of film making isn’t considering the damage these images play, rather are doing what they were created to do, make movies that they will sell. I’m not against what they do, but there is a fine line we need to be aware of, reality and Hollywood.