innappropriate

I have loved all of my classes so far at BYU.  Its hard to really actually come out and say that because I am sick and done (mentally) with school.  I feel like giving up in the classes I am in now, but I continue to chug along.  I am able to do this because all of the classes are inspiring to some extent as we are a school that is mainly LDS with many giving answers which can have the word God or Jesus within the context.  Oh how great it is to go to a university where I can be uplifted and edified in class (which is one of the aims of BYU). When I look back at last semester and semesters before this one, I remember so many things.  I learned how awesome it is to learn the psychology of children and their development from prenatal to age 11.  In another class I learned about adolescents and their problems with drug/sex abuse, the church's standpoint on the issue and parental impact on adolescents.  Even though I hated being in the classes and doing the papers last year, I really learned a lot from them.

This semester is a little different because I like almost all of my classes!  I am taking a fun English class where we study Poetry & Drama.  Right now we are reading Othello, which is a great Shakespearean play!  I have an awesome religion class where I learn so much about marriage and family which uplifts and edifies me to want to be a better person.

The class that I don't like as much is Sociology of Gender.  I find things in that class to be highly inappropriate.  I have come home on countless occasions already this semester with a bad attitude on my reading assignments with the F word and much more vulgar language (topic on Gays, Lesbians, Trans, and Bi).  I have put up with these things.  Yesterday though, as Brian put it, broke the camels back.  I walked into class to the teacher being absent and the TAs with a video to show through the entire 50 minutes of class.  Before the TA put in the video, she said the video was edited, but if anyone feels uncomfortable, please feel free to leave.  Is that appropriate to say in a BYU class?  The TA then puts on the board, For Essay one, be able to answer: what are the three major themes in the Media?  The movie was a woman who was talking with a class of about 200 on the impact of advertising on television.  She explains how advertising is all around us.  You think you can avoid it? You can't. "Advertizing goes into the subconscious and you can recall it" she says.  As the woman was speaking, pictures of models for Victoria's Secret pop up, pictures of women in provocative positions come onto the screen.  One was a commercial ad for Burger King.  A beautiful woman was eating a hamburger and the hamburger would drip, as it is dripping off her mouth it would show her open blouse and chest.  Okay, I could have probably handled this for a two minute clip in all reality, but 45 whole minutes watching women models hardly dressed?  I was outraged! The poor boys in my class..who knows what was going on through their minds (don't worry men, it will just be dumped into your subconscious now). 

The last five minutes was about media and masculinity.  Guess what was shown? Pictures of men with only underwear on, no shirt, and without pants.  I don't want to see that! I came out with horrible feelings as I felt my body was degraded by watching these beautiful women with hardly anything on (one shot completely nude side view with the face and tip of the chest barely out of the picture).  Yes, the class was supposed to be discussing how women are being objectified by the media and that men can turn women into just "things" they can possess, but was that appropriate to show in a class at BYU where the church standards should be inforced?  Could the TAs have blanked the screen and let us just listen to the woman discuss the women issues of eating, dieting, morality and being objectified?  Maybe I am old fashioned, but that was not BYU honor code approved.