Small Strokes Big Oaks

Tonight is the very first ever Chicago Feminist (#chifems) book club!!  Yay!  I’m very excited. 🙂  If you missed us this time and want to join in on the fun next time, check out the group’s Goodreads page here.  (That’s also the place to go if you have no idea where we’re meeting.)  Since this was my brain child to begin with, and since you can take the woman out of the classroom, but you can’t take the teacher out of the woman, I felt it necessary to create some sort of discussion guide, which follows.  Feel free to discuss in the comments if you read the book but can’t make it to the book club meeting tonight.  Also, I imagine we’ll come up with a few choices for books to read the next time around, and then vote on them later, so if you have any suggestions, send them my way!

General Discussion Guide Questions

 

• Overall impressions of the book: Did you like it?  Were you informed?  What surprised you?  What didn’t surprise you?  Explain.

• What do you think about the tone of the book?  Does sarcasm at some points help or hurt what Pozner is trying to get across?  Why?

Introduction

 

Don’t Get Depressed, Get Active

From … tips on how to write a protest letter to guidelines for deconstructing media content, you’ll learn how fun fighting propaganda can be.

• Do you think our students and children could get into this?

Chapter One

 

Mistaking the Trappings for Love

Here’s the formula: First take a naïve beauty who longs to get married and offer her a gorgeous guy who says he shares that wish.  Next, send her to a series of bridal gown fittings, let her select a wedding right, and eventually have her write vows with the other half of this arranged marriage equation.  Throw in a healthy heaping of liquor-lubricated sex scenes and, voila, “love” – reality TV style.

• Have you ever seen a reality TV quest-for-love show not follow this formula?  If so, what was it, and how did you feel about that show.

Chapter Three

 

What Reality TV Teaches Us about Women

To illustrate the way media shapes what we think of as “the truth,” imagine that you’ve never in your life met an American woman or girl.  How would you perceive American women as a group, if your impression was formed solely through reality television?

• Answer this question.

I Know Better Than to Trust Women

Who benefits when women are conditioned not to trust one another?

• Answer this question.

“The Mommy War” seems to have made its journalistic debut in July 1989 when the Texas Monthly declared that “Working moms view stay-at-home moms as idle and silly, traitors in the battle to encourage men to assume more responsibility at home.  Stay-at-home moms view working moms as selfish and greedy, cheating their own children out of a strong maternal bond.”  Ever since, headlines such as The New Your Times’ 2001 “LOVE & MONEY; Is My Mom Better Than Yours?” and 2003 “The Opt-Out Revolution” (which claimed that educated women were fleeing the workforce to stay home with their babies) have abounded.

• Do you feel this sort of competition amongst women in your lives?  If so, how do you actively combat it?  If you don’t, how could you combat it in the future?

No One Wants to See a Brainiac in a Bikini: Woman as Stupid

Apparently, no one wants to see a braniac in a bikini.  One wonders how a med student slipped through the casting process in the first place.  Not to worry; future seasons have mostly avoided participants prone to such pesky habits as critical thinking.

• Do you think this makes our kids less likely to think critically?  What about adults – do you think it makes us less likely to think critically?

Chapter Four

Charity, Not Change

But by defining philanthropy so narrowly, the show reinforced the notion that what America needs is charity, not social change.

• What kind of social change do you think America needs?

Chapter Eight

“Equal Society?  I’m Sick of It!”

“…The fact that I’m not married right now at twenty-four years old makes me feel like a failure!  Walking down the aisle would finally make my life complete.”

• Some women do feel this way in real life – I’ve met a few. So what comes first, the chicken or the egg?  Or, what came first, reality TV cutting or women who actually feel this way?  Does this sort of cutting produce women who feel this way or prolong this sort of attitude, or both?

Chapter Nine

“It’s Not at All about Making Better Television”

Advertising is profoundly manipulative at its core.  Its imagery strives to deprive us of realistic ideas about love, sex, beauty, health, money, work, and life itself, in an attempt to convince us that only products can bring us true joy.

• How do we, as teachers and parents and feminists, teach against this?

Chapter Ten

Media Literacy: Fun for the Whole Family

As parents, siblings, teachers, and friends, we have to get beyond condescending or judging the media that girls and boys identify with and enjoy.  Instead, it’s up to us to pay attention to the TV they’re watching, the social media they’re interacting with, the video games they’re playing, and the music they’re listening to.  Interact, play, listen, and watch with them.  Talk with them about what they’re learning from these forms of media, how they feel about their favorite musicians, actors, TV shows, movies, magazines, and websites and how they feel about themselves when (and after) they engage with these media.

• How do you plan on putting this into practice?

(P.S. This is book #2 for #15 of my 30 Before 30 challenge!)