Blog 9

In class this week we talked a lot about women's roles. The most interesting thing I found was the article that dealt with maids. No doubt, most of us fail to recognize women's actual roles in the home. They really are "maids" no matter how you look at it. It was interesting to read a story from a personal point of view about how it is to be a maid, what's degrading, etc. My workplace is currently looking for a cleaning service for our new construction. While I was searching for estimates, I decided to do a little bit of investigative research of my own. Some things that came to mind were; How are the cleaning people portrayed on different websites? How are they described? What types of words/language are used? I decided to visit the site of the well known "Merry Maids." What I found was a very generic site. They use a "team" system for their cleaning. There would be anywhere from 1-3 people in a home at one time. They pride themselves on being a very universal cleaning service with operations in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and the United Kingdom. They continually remind you that they are an established business and strive to fill website visitors with a sense of "comfort." (They speak a lot of being able to trust the maids and not having to worry about theft.) It seems like an okay service, but not very personal. They are aimed at impressing customers with how many homes they clean rather than the quality of the cleaning, or the caliber of the employees. I think the employees definitely deserve more recognition. I also visited the "Molly Maid" website. It seemed eerily similar to the Merry Maids site. Although, it didn't seem to have a very customer focused vibe. They make sure to tell you the Maids workday is from 8-5 and they cannot guarantee an exact time of arrival. They seem to care about their maid's personal time as well as the customers.

Blog 8

In the class readings from last week, I was really interested in one in particular. It focused on the Wal-mart company and the class action suit that they face. It is because of sex discrimination and I thought the article did a great job of explaining and giving examples of things that had been going on to women in the workplace. It is unfair for women to be treated the way they were being done so by the Wal-mart corporation, so I took my research to Google to find out a little bit more about it. I came across the Wal-mart class action website, (http://www.walmartclass.com/public_home.html) and splashed across the homepage are things like "Have you been denied career opportunities in management? Have you been denied equal pay for equal work? Have you been getting the run-around about promotions or raises?
Have you hit the glass ceiling?" It's basically a site that allows women who feel that they have been discriminated against to sign up on the site, or call a toll free number. Or, if anyone has any additional information that may help the investigation, they are encouraged to come forth as well. I read all of the FAQs that could be accessed. There is a lot of valuable information on the page for the discrimination victims. It's also a good place for the general public to go that will help them in understanding the case more thoroughly. The article from class piqued my interests, and I just decided to do some additional research on the subject.

Blog 7

Last week's in-class readings centered around family. Dynamics of not only heterosexual families, but homosexual families were both discussed. I had never really thought about what it would be like to have gay or lesbian parents. I have lived my life being the daughter of a heterosexual couple, and that's all I really know. That's what I would deem "normal." I am interested to learn more about homosexual parenting, seeing as though that type of situation is being more and more prominent in society. I decided to go online and do some researching on the topic. I came across a pretty informational website. It addressed the false notion that heterosexual couples make better parents than gays or lesbians. That claim rests on absolutely no empirical foundation. Overall mental health of parents, and their approaches to child rearing have proven not to be less than that of heterosexual couples. I even found some major supportive evidence to back homosexual child rearing. The website said that the results of some studies suggest that lesbian mothers' and gay fathers' parenting skills may be superior to those of matched heterosexual couples. Reports of lesbian parent's awareness skills as being stronger than that of hetereosexual parents have surfaced as well. I found all of this information very interesting, and I also saw it as a step in the right direction for the gay community. They deserve to gain positive feedback for the positive things that they accomplish. If you would like to review the website, please visit http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/lgplgparents.html

Blog 6

This week, I learned that my cousin decided to being Cosmetology school. I decided to help her do some research on the subject. I enjoy doing make-up and hair, so I thought that it would be interesting to do a little hunting around with her. We used Google at first and just started clicking on random sites. One for the Yossi Bitton Make-up school. Now, she's probably going to be staying in the area to attend school, but we were just searching kind of for the fun of it. On the Yossi Bitton website, there is a before and after gallery devoted to basically how make-up application can dramatically change someone's look. Well, I am convinced that more that just make-up has been added to these photos. If you've seen the Dove commerical thing on YouTube which shows the transformation of the model, it's easier to understand. Elongating the neck, bringing the eyes close together or further apart as needed, etc. are all things I think are noticeable in the pictures. Take a look at the before and after picture. I am not convinced that the only thing that has been done to this picture is added make-up. Make-up cannot make a huge blemish look invisible, no matter how hard you try. Make-up is a minimizer tool designed to detract your notice away from imperfections, but if does not erase them. I think that this is bad advertising for the school. It is unrealistic and I think could lead to disappointment for a lot of hopefuls wanting to attend the school for make-up application. They cannot be shown these pictures and expect to have the results of an Extreme Makeover solely by the use of make up alone. I think that this type of advertising is detrimental. It reminded me of the Dove commerical and I'm sure that others will share the same viewpoints as myself on the subject.