TOW #20 - IRB - Bad Feminist

Bad Feminist is composed of many essays where Roxane Gay touches on the topic of feminism.  Whether her essays are positive or negative Gay is especially effective in paralleling her life to things she sees in society, such as media, school, etc.  Paralleling her life to other aspects in society not only allow readers to see Gay in a more personal way, but they also reveal truths in an honest yet straightforward manner. 

Gay connects her life to TV shows she’s seen to make perfection less needed.  Talking about her life in her twenties, Gay emphasizes how difficult and messy it was.  She “lived a generally crappy life” and generally being “lost and awkward, having terrible sex with terrible people, being perpetually broke.”  The overall unhappiness Gay feels, as do many other 20-year-old women, is reflected in the TV show she highlights.  Girlfriends, a show Gay watches that debuted in the 2000s effectively captures the despair and troubling times Gay and many women faced in their twenties.  However, despite it’s scary accuracy, Gay is sure to mention that the show is not perfect.  What is more important is the fact that, “the women were human and they were portrayed humanely.”  In this imperfect show Gay connects the mess her young life was to the show.  Not everything that people desire to be perfect is in reality, perfect.  In fact, that’s what makes it better.  Not everything is perfect, just like Gay’s experiences when she was twenty, it was full of twists and turns, but she was trying live the only way she knew how.  The show Girlfriends captured real life struggles and even though it didn’t touch on everything, it was human, and it was significant.  Girlfriends captured the human struggle in a way many modern shows do not, and revealed that not all media can be as inclusive and desirable and one wishes. 

The faults Gay parallels between her life and the show Girlfriends emphasizes the lack of perfection occurring in life.  But the imperfection does not necessarily mean it’s bad, because imperfection is human.  Her short essay allows readers to see that making mistakes is just a part of life.  Bad Feminist includes highs and lows such as the ones in the essay Girls, Girls, Girls because not everyone is perfect.  The mistakes made contribute to the greater idea that someone is trying, rather than not attempting something at all.  

TOW #19 - Bill Frist: The Case for Keeping America’s AIDS Relief Plan

The HIV/AIDS epidemic hit the world hard in the 1980s; ranking no. 4 in causing the most deaths in the world, and no. 1 in Africa.  Since the 80’s many nations have tried to reduce the prevalence of this disease.  One program, Pepfar, was created by the United States to help other nations, mainly third world ones, with combatting HIV and AIDS.  Bill Frist, who helped pass the plan in 2003, uses his piece to explain the essentiality of this plan and how it should continue to be reauthorized.  By employing hopeful statistics and also refuting questions about Pepfar, Frist reveals to his readers how important Pepfar is to developing countries.

            Pepfar was created after HIV/AIDS started growing in the world, and it was able to help many countries after being put into action.  Frist highlights the beneficial effects of the plan by using statistics that induce hope in readers.  More specifically, Pepfar “reached 11.5 million people with antiretroviral drugs” and “Two million babies with infected mother have been born H.I.V.-free” (3).  The huge amount of people being aided emphasizes how influential Pepfar is.  In addition, by mentioning innocent children who could have been affected by the disease but weren’t, readers feel emotion for babies that could die from HIV/AIDS.  For many developing countries, Pepfar can be the only hope for people infected.  In addition to inspiring statistics, Frist also refutes what many people may think is wrong with Pepfar.  Some official worry that Pepfar may not be worth the investment when there are many security concerns in Africa, and Frist agrees.  But he also mentions how “Pepfar has helped Stabilize much of Africa” (8).  In addition to that “from 2004 to 2013, political instability and violence fell by 40 percent in countries that received Pepfar assistance versus just 3 percent in similar countries that did not” (9).  Refuting what many people think strengthens the fact that Pepfar may seem risky, but in the end it is beneficial to countries that truly need help.

            Frist using both hopeful statistics and refuting arguments allow readers to see how essential Pepfar is to countries and the people living in them.  By saving babies born by infected mothers and decreasing instability in countries, Pepfar is far more influential than one may think.  Frist uses his piece not only to reveal Pepfar’s importance, but also reveals how countries with the means to help others should do everything they can to help third world countries.  When countries come together for a common cause, they are far more beneficial to the world than when countries are apart.

TOW #18 - Why Does the United States Still Let 12-Year-Olds Get Married?

In Fraidy Reiss’s piece Why Does the United States Still Let 12-Year-Olds Get Married details the unknown practice occurring in the United States.  Seen in various cultures and countries, child marriage still exists and is hidden in America.  Revealing the detrimental effects of this practice, Fraidy Reiss- founder and executive director of Unchained At Last- reprimands the United States government for not doing enough to end child marriage. 

Reiss’s argument that the government had not done enough to eliminate child marriage is agreeable due to the way the government has always created exceptions to laws created to protect children.  In 2016, Virginia finally passed a bill to end child marriage, yet legislators combatted it with an exception to the bill.  Emancipated minors, youngest 16, are an exception.  Although Virginia has moved to stop child marriages, with the creation of exceptions, minors are still subject to marriages that lead to poverty, pregnancy, and a higher percentage of a myriad of harmful diseases.  With legislators creating exceptions, minors are still subjected to child marriage.

Not only to exceptions ruin freedom for children, but avoidance does too.  Two states, New York and Maryland, proposed bills but they failed.  Some states have not even acted at all.  This lack of action has led to around 248,000 children wed in American in the span of 10 years (2000-2010).  When Michelle De Mello was 16 and pregnant, she was pressured into marrying the 19-year-old father.  Thinking that the law would save her from this fate, DeMello had hope that being a minor protected her from marriage.  Contrary to her thoughts, the law did not protect her.  In fact, all states have the exception that children under 18 can marry with parental or judicial approval.  27 states do not have an age where children are not allowed to marry, meaning there is no limit as to when these minors can be legally married.  Without any states taking action, the US government can be accused of not working hard enough to end child marriage.

With many states creating exceptions to bills and some taking absolutely no actions, child marriage does not seem to be eliminated in the near future.  But where the responsibility lies to fix this problem falls into the government’s lap.  Only the government can abolish child marriage, without exceptions.  Reiss emphasizes the government’s importance in ridding child marriage by highlighting the faults many states have.  Failing to eliminate marriage with minors has led to many women on economic deprivation and instability, not to mention the more women being married has led to a high chance of these girls dropping out of high school and increasingly likely to drop out of college.  The girls forced into marriages deserve more protection and should settle for nothing less, only now we must rely on the government to provide this protection.

TOW #17 - Visual Text

Surfrider is a foundation dedicated to the protection of oceans, coasts, and beaches.  Their advertisement, published in 2011, is raising awareness of littering in oceans and on beaches.  The ad features two large sushi rolls composed of garbage.  Instead of seaweed wrapped around the outside, it is plastic bags.  Rather than fish and vegetables inside the rice, it is blue trash and more plastic.  Underneath the rolls of sushi is the phrase, “What goes in the ocean goes in you” accompanied with a figure about how fish consumes 12,000 tons of plastic a year.  Surfrider’s advertisement reveals to viewers the honest reality of littering; what is put into the ocean is coming right back into us. 

Using trash to represent food scares viewers into seeing how their littering affects what they eat.  When trash is put into the ocean, fish and other marine animals ingest a majority of the waste.  Consequently, this trash is consumed again when we eat fish in dishes such as sushi.  Creating this image with trash as food evokes horror in viewers.  They are forced to realize they are eating the same trash they’re feeding sea creatures.  Pairing this visual with statistical evidence also enforces the harshness of littering, “fish off the West Coast ingest over 12,000 tons of plastic a year.”  Appealing to viewers’ sense of logic, this fact clearly indicates the excessive amount of litter that is thrown into the ocean yearly.  Effectively pairing visuals with evidence, Surfriders’s advertisement implants fear into viewers since they are eating trash which was eaten by fish, and the fact that tons of waste is thrown in to the oceans.  The foundation’s advertisement emphasizes the importance of preventing littering.  Not only does it hurt the oceans, but it affects all creatures on Earth.  It is essential to realize this to sustain life on the planet many call home.