My Experience......
My mother always repeated what my grandmother had said to her, and said if you do not have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself. Well I am not my mother, and had she dealt with what I went through she may have changed her mind. I have never been in a group in all the years as an undergraduate or a post grad and had this experience before. With the exception of two other hard working ladies. I heard from no one. Communication was non-existent, no matter how many emails were sent out. Group assignments were given out by people who did not even bother to reply to anyone. Yes it was a crazy semester, and having 8 women try and get together to organize a project should have been possible. The one meeting we were suppose to have was can canceled about 20 minutes before I arrived at the place. Yes Fires were burning less than 2 miles from my house and my windshield was covered in ash, but I got in my car with my paper mask and found a way to get towards Encino, where I received a voice mail saying the group meeting was canceled due to poor air quality. Keep in mind the meeting was inside. The group project was nothing more than us working individually and standing as a collective in front of the class. The tension was as thick as brie cheese. Fortunately enough, things worked out, though the presentation was extremely long. I was assingned Carrie, and the men she dated. That is what I was allowed to speak of, though I tried to include her fashion and the idea that she was more complicated than the rest because of her ties to the city. Carrie was not just a fashion Icon, but a symbol for change amoung the female gender. She spoke of sex, her opinion, and changedthe culture to allow those ideas to be discussed. Her characterized "raunch ideal" changed America and allowed us to be open about our sexualities. Chris Barker states on page 313 of his text, "(Raunch )observes that women identifying within this 'culture' speak of their rights to objectify sexuality like a man, inculding looking at and enacting pornography. They reject the idea that women should behave as victims and clain the right to do whatever they want to their bodies and to look how they wish.....Rather they are entitled to rejoice in their own sexuality and to act on it in just as assertice and even predatory a way as men." His idea of raunch culture as postfeminine part-time allows the idea for it to be okay for a woman to accept her sexuality, and with this approval, others were able to feel allowed to follow ship. Carrie and the Sex and the City show broke through stereotypes and became accepted and loved by all who watched the show.
