WYWTD- Because it's mean...

As I mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to focus on women's reactions. I find it interesting that there is a possibility that women restrain their reactions not because they find it necessary to tame it but the probability that they restrain themselves because that was how they were taught to be a proper woman.

Earlier today, I went to meeting held by an organization that I am involved in. This meeting consisted of active members in the organization discussing issues affecting us. As with everything, people had different views on every issue. During the meeting, there was one issue that resulted in a heated debate. The issue dealt with negative publicity in regards to the actions of one of its members. However, the debate dealt with how the issue should be addressed. Three of the five women at the meeting agreed that it would be best if we kindly talk to the member and let him know we were aware of the issue. Being one of the two women who disagreed, I felt that we should respond with strict consequences and four of the four men at the meeting agreed. The three women argued that it was his first offense and they felt it was mean to punish him. This is when I began to notice the difference between the majority of the women versus the men. I felt that the women were exactly playing into what I had just discussed in Film 190. I felt they were being kind because they were raised to be kind and not forceful. I also felt that it dealt with him being a man because i know if he were woman, two of the other girls would have had no problem punishing her. The men however, did not have an issue of any sort and I felt this was due to the fact that they were raised to be forceful. After the meeting, I talked to the three women and asked them what was wrong with punishment. All three said that punishment was harsh, mean, or that they did not feel right about it. This is when I knew that my teacher was right. Most women are raised to be passive aggressive instead of forceful like men. So, in this case, they did not react the way they would have because they WERE trained to be polite and non-aggressive.

Reason 4. Trained not Tamed!

WYWTD- Trained vs. Tamed

The other day in my Film 190 class, Women Make Movies, we were addressing the issue that men tend to be a dominant figure in cinema for many reasons but one that I found to be interesting was that women are trained to be polite, apologize, and more considerate towards others than themselves. For that reason, women have a tendency to be less forceful than a man in the industry, although this does not apply to all women. This is where I got my idea for this blog post. What I got from this discussion was that women were trained, from childhood, to not be dominant, rather they should be polite and considerate of all those around them. I wondered if this “training” could be applied to our reactions because if our actions have been trained then our reactions must have been trained as well. But this thought lead me to another question, have our actions been trained or training another form of taming your actions? So, for this week and the next, I plan on observing women's reactions and their interactions in the work and school environment but focusing in on their reactions in comparison to men's reactions.

WYWTD- I Hear the Beats

There will always be something about music that makes it freeing. I love that it has the ability to play with your emotions as well as create new feelings for something else. Music to me is a powerful force that cannot be seen but only heard and felt and has the incredible characteristic of taking its listeners to what seems like another realm resulting in more of an impact.

As you can tell through how I described music, I really do love music and I find that many others do as well. Although I thoroughly enjoy many genres, sounds, and beats, one of my favorites is electro house music and when I hear a song I find it very difficult not to dance.

Yesterday afternoon, I went shopping with two of my friends to Irvine Spectrum and we went to this small but classy and sheik store called Angl. The clothes they sell vary from laid-back lounge clothes to trendy going out attire. To set the store mood they play electro house music, which compliments their clothes since the majority of their clothes are party and clubbing clothes. For me, hearing the electro house makes being in there just that more enjoyable (the owner’s goal: accomplished). As I mentioned previously, I find it very hard to not dance to electro house and in public places such as this store I usually don’t and I “tame” my urge to move my body and dance to every beat that I hear. But this time I said to myself “Why the hell not?” So as my friends continued looking at clothes, I started to move my body. It started with my head as I bounced it up and down, left to right, right to left to the beat. Then the music moved to my shoulders and travelled to my arms where I raised them and watched as my hands and fingers danced and kept to the music. Soon enough, my hips, legs and feet started to move synchronously. As I looked to my friends, they both stared at me with a “are you really doing this right now” face, mouths dropped, and frozen in embarrassment. I didn’t care though, because I chose not to, and I closed my eyes and imagined the music within my body and every beat caused a movement. The build up in the song was playing and then as the release played, I jumped so freely. I danced for the rest of the song and by the end, everyone in the store was looking at me like I was crazy but this one girl who smiled at me, nodded her head- she knew what was up. I knew this girl had partied and celebrated life the same way as I did. Anyways, my friends were ready to leave the store and so we did. As we walked out the store, they asked me why I danced my ass off and I said, “Because I wanted to. Why didn’t you?” They answered saying that no one dances in stores and that they were embarrassed.

So I found another why, embarrassment tied in with public image and boundaries are reasons why don’t do other things. There are unsaid boundaries set everywhere and with everything, even music! We try to obey these boundaries but for no real reason. It just seems that someone said it is proper to dance with a big group of people but it’s not proper to dance where by yourself where music is playing, like a store. For that moment in time, I said f**k these boundaries and I did what I wanted. But as usual, it leads me to another question who set these boundaries that we all live by? I am not talking about laws, after all those are written and therefore that makes them real, but I am talking about the unsaid rules of society. As for the public image reason, I don’t really need to go into that because we all know that no matter how much you DGAF about what others think, you actually do to some extent.

REASON 2. Public Image
REASON 3. Invisible boundaries

WYWTD- Parking Fiasco

Have you ever been looking for a parking space in a crowded parking lot, find a space and about to pull in until another car speeds up and steals that parking space and the closest space is the one farthest away from the store? Isn’t that bitch to say the least.

Well this happened to me on Monday and I tend to be unbiased even in my own situations but this guy was an a-hole! I was at the mall and there were literally no spaces available so I decide to head to the front of the parking lot and drive around to another side. As I was going down a lane, a woman pulled out of her space and she was parked right in front, most definitely a prime parking space!! I was feeling pretty lucky and happy that I got an amazing spot. Oh and this spot was definitely mine because I was the ONLY car in the lane, even on both sides!!! As this car pulls out and away, another car pulls into the lane from the other side (the space was near the lane entrance) and drives right into MY spot. I was pissed and rightfully so. In my head I thought “Man, I should put my car in park, get out and yell at this mother f***er!!” My next thought was “Well, you know what I’m from LA, and I am going to show him whats up.” Little did I know the chaos that was about to erupt.

I pull up in back of the car, put my car in park and got out. A woman around her late 30’s steps out of the black jetta looks at me somewhat confused and all I can do is yell my brains out. She was a typical Orange County mother fake tan, fake blonde hair, fake boobs, and probably a fake personality. So of course when I started yelling she had no idea what I was talking about because she was totally clueless…no wonder they made the cell phone laws here in California…SHE WAS ON HER F***ING CELL PHONE?!?!?! “I screamed at her “Umm…excuse me ma’am, do you realize you just took my parking spot???” She then looked me up and down…like someone of higher rank, and with her hand on her hick responded, “Your name isn’t on it, so how can it be yours?” After that we started a back and forth yelling match that lasted for a little over 5 minutes until a security car came up and broke the fight up. The only problem was he told me that if I didn’t stop fighting, he was going to call the cops on me?! Wait…it takes two people to fight, so why did he only tell me this and not the lady? I wasn’t going to get in a huge fight over that, so I just got in my car and drove away.

So why do people tame their reactions?
Reason1. The don’t want to get in trouble with authorities simple as that.

WYWTD- Wanna be... Sort of

The other night I was watching TV, which I rarely do since I started college, and a show came on ABC called " What Would You Do?"  Once I saw this my mouth literally dropped!  I continued  to watch, noting all the similarities this show had with my blog.  It was an interesting show in which it staged scenarios such as a man ruffing a lady's drink while the audience would wait to see the reactions of the spectators.  I was surprised to  some of the reactions of that particular scenario.  Some people did not bother to tell the girl that the man rufied her drink rather, they told the man they saw what happened or they just walked away.  I ended up watching the whole show to see the similarities and differences between it and my blog.  The show was similar in the sense  that we were both looking to see a reaction and we were searching for the "why"  of each reaction.  It was different however because it was staged and even though it was looking for a reaction it was not looking for your first (instinctive) "untamed" reaction (What you really want to d0) as in my blogs.

The formation of the show eventually had me thinking about the formation of my blog and had me questioning "Amy I going about the right way to find out the question- why do people tame their reactions?"  I felt that my experiment or "research" and "process" of it needed a small change to get a better answer.

The Change:

I am now going to try to instigate a reaction.  What I mean is that when a situation reveals itself as a possibility for  my blog I'm going to give my initial reaction but I'm going to do so in levels until I get their reaction.  Then the next change is going to involve me to talk to them after asking why did they react as  they did and if I have to instigate a reaction out of them (which is likely for about 85% of the situations) then I'm going to ask them why it took so long for them to react?  What were your fears about your reaction? and What ultimately led you to react in which ever way they did

WYWTD- Road Rage? Not Much

Let me tell you of a surprised failed attempt on the road.

Background:  

It was Tuesday evening and I was driving on Culver to a friends house.  While I was driving a car switches lanes to in front of me and starts driving ridiculously slow.  Well, he was driving slow in the other lane too but that didn't really matter to me because it wasn't in my lane.  Eventually he starts  breaking for no apparent reason.  By this time, i was pretty bothered and my natural reaction was in affect.

Reaction:

My reaction was to piss this guy off just like be did to me.  So I switched lanes, passed him up and drove  30 mph in a 50 mph zone right in front of him.  This guy wasn't having it but all he did was switch lanes.  What a dumb "tamed" reaction on his part!  So what did I do you may ask, I did the same freaking thing!  I switched lanes to be right in front of him and drove slow and braked.  He kept switching lanes without more than a simple reaction of shaking his head.  Eventually I had to turn and we parted ways.  

Attempt:

My search was a failure- not only did I not get a reaction, we drove off in different directions and I got nothing answered.  This ended good though because my friend was saying that he could have been crazy and crashed into my car on purpose.  I hadn't thought of that.  She also pointed out that it was harassment too.  I need to start thinking about these things.

WYWTD- TAMED

Since I have started this blog series, which was only a few days ago, I have tried to act on my natural reaction. What I have noticed is that I am very quick to tame my first reaction. In fact I am so quick that I often think that my "normal" reaction is to be calm and/or distant so that a situation can cool or not be awkward. But I came to the realization that I have been taming my instinctive reaction so much so that I rationalize everything. I feel like this is normal for mostly everyone but I still find it odd that my "normal" reaction tends to be acted out first. It seems like my normal, rational, reaction is a leash on my instinctive reaction and I am finding it difficult to untie this leash. I am still trying to understand when and why I let this "leash" be in control of what I do. I have been thinking about it and in my eyes, the leash some what represent the unwritten code of mannerism of society by society and I am still led to the same question: why do we act by this unwritten code?
Even though I am still unaware of this answer, I feel I have taken another step forward to finding my answer. By recognizing that the majority of my reactions are tamed due to habit I am going to always ask myself "If you could act in any manner and there would be no consequences and no emotions to tie you down, what would you truly do?" Hopefully my instinctive reactions will shine through and not get me into any real trouble.

WYWTD- New Friends

W.Y.W.T.D. stands for What You Want To Do

To start this 10 week blog series off, I'm going to give you a brief explanation of what these blogs with this title will be about.  You know how there are situations in everyday life in which you think of doing one thing but rationalize what you want to do and act in another way?  Well, for the next couple week I am going to act in whatever manner that comes to first comes to mind, no matter the situation (positive or negative), and try an understand the reason why we tame our reactions and how we do so.  

Since this was the first "report," if you can call it that, I wanted to start of simple and work my way into more difficult situations.

First off, I would like to say that I am the type of person who would like to get to know what makes up a person.  Usually, I do not go off and start talking to strangers that catch my attention through their personality, actions, language, dress or look but I do always want to know more about them.  As a result, I decided to go up to these people and talk them but secretly try and get the information I was looking for.  

The most interesting story took place at UCI's own ZOT N GO.  This past week I have been sick with what I hope is just the flu and I decided to stop by Zot N Go to buy some theraflu.  I went up to the cashier to pay and she asked me how I was doing.  With my soar throat and raspy voice I replied "sick."  What caught me off guard was the way she replied, which was "Oh No." But with that tone of voice that showed like she did care.  She went on about how I should wear a sweater and ways to get better fast and was really into it.  It caught me so off guard that I was quiet at first and it seemed that she was having a conversation by herself. As I snapped myself out of semi shock, I realized I was intrigued with that fact that she cared so much about a some stranger being sick so I decided to continue on the conversation to find out how much she cared and how she would react if I opened up.   I started saying all my symptoms, worries about being sick, medicines I have taken, what I think it is and the different way I could have gotten it.  I thought that she would have been freaked out about some stranger talking to her about their own sickness but she wasn't.  Her reaction was simply just to go on talking.  By this time though, my interest in the girl was done with but she still kept talking and to top it off there were people behind us.  At this point the situation changes and instead of trying to talk to see why she cared so much, I decided I didn't want to talk to her anymore.  That and I was going to be late for my class that was kind of far.  So, I just got my things and left in the midst of her talking, started to walk off, turned to see her reaction, and then walked out.  I am not going to lie, I felt really bad because I would have probably just said excuse me but im going to be late for class, but I reacted on what first came to mind.  Her reaction was not anger, sadness, or laughter but it was just simple confusion.  Her face looked how it would if you saw a zebra on campus; her head slightly to the left with locked on eyes and furrowed eyebrows.  I understand why just walking off confused her and I believe it was because it was more on impulse and there were no body language or verbal clues that signaled that I had to leave.  

Although I did not get a good enough reaction to analyze, I do feel this was a good start up exercise to help me in future situations.  Also, I did get a tiny but slightly noticeable adrenaline rush since I was not used to acting like that.