Blog #2

Women have come along way since the time in the readings. College educated housewives are bored with a life in isolation and confinement. Women were lacking equality and being suppressed because of their sex, race, and class. Maria W Miller Stewart was the first woman to publicly speak. A lot of these characteristics of women to me related to a character on my favorite television show One Tree Hill. Although this show was on recently, her character portrays many similarities of what was going on with women. Brooke Davis started off the show as the popular, provocative girl. She seemed very shallow and was pretty much sleeping around. She was popular but only had one true friend. Her parents gave her no attention what so ever; they would throw her money whenever needed to keep her entertained. Money did not buy her happiness; it only provided her with new, fancy things to surround her in a big lonely mansion.

Like oppressed women, Brooke was lonely and was internally suffering.  Through her struggles, she became much stronger independent woman. Similarly the way housewives focused all of their time on their family was the same way Brooke spent her time focused on boys. She started pouring the energy she used to give boys attention into herself and things she wanted to do for herself. She decided to run for high school president.

She wrote a speech that personally moved me when she stood in front of the student body explaining, “You think you know me, but you don’t and that means you don’t know what I can do. You see me as someone who’s popular, and has all the answers, that’s not true. I may not always know what I’m doing, but I’ll try to make things better, and when I make a mistake, because face it, we all do, I promise I’ll ask for your help…John F. Kennedy said the courage of life is the magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles, and dangers, and pressures, and that is the basis of all morality." (http://onetreehill.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hero_Dies_In_This_One).

This speech explains personality perfectly but also the struggles women were going through during their oppression. She won the presidency at her high school but her goals did not end there. When Brooke broke up with her boyfriend at the time, her friends pushed her to not let a boy dictate her happiness and life. She always had a passion for fashion so she started to design her own clothes and make a clothing line that was sold on a website. The name of the company fits actually perfectly for the idea of feminism, Clothes over Bros.

Flash forward a couple of years later when Brooke Davis enters the real world, she is a successful single world-renowned fashion designer. She didn’t succumb to the pressures of society, she had the opportunity of a lifetime and she seized it. In one of the reading’s it describes how money shaped women’s identities but Brooke Davis never let that happen. She used her money to help others become just as successful as she was. To me, she portrayed many feministic characteristics after she stopped letting boys dictate her life. Brooke Davis stands up for what she believes in; her fashion line became a huge successful with a magazine. She refused to allow emaciated models go on the cover of her magazine. Her brand emphasized the slogan that zero is not a size.  Even though Brooke’s character grew up in a different time she went through similar issues as the oppressed women went through. Brooke once said “Anyway here's all you really need to know about today; if. you're fat, dumb, sexual and a guy, you're OK. If you're a girl, not so much”( http://www.searchquotes.com/search/Brooke_Davis_One_Tree_Hill/2/ )

Brooke Davis understood the difference between men and women. She rose above the difference and was a great example of a strong woman.