Media, Advertisement and Word Choices: Skinny and Beautiful are not synonyms

I wrote this post because now that I am at home more, I have a bit more time to watch some TV, I like to leave the TV on while I do chores around the house so I can listen to the background noise. I have noticed something that I believe is worth mentioning. Looking at commercials I’ve found a horrific similarity among them and that is their focus on a common goal, to make you feel bad about yourself so you will buy their products. That’s right, the new merchandising strategy, guilt. Ads like the one of the bowflex thread climber, the NutriSystem ones and a lot of other fitness and dieting commercials target mainly women’s low self esteem and image problems to persuade them to buy expensive, non proved and sometimes useless equipment and products with the promise of a taste of “skinny paradise”. Most of these commercials strategize the constant use of the word skinny, but never the use of the word healthy. As most of us are aware (because most of us own a mirror), no two women have the same body type; therefore skinny for you might not mean the same it means for me. I mean, skinny for Queen Latifah does mean the same as skinny for Kate Moss, or Kim Kardashian, or Halle Berry, and it will never mean the same, because they are different women, with different body types, bone structures, genetic material, etc, etc. However, media and advertisement industries seem to disagree with these notions and it appears they have come to an understanding that as long as it has the word skinny on it, women should buy it because it will be good for them. Skinny has become the new “One Size Fits All” tag. This reminds me a lot of those Jimmy Dean commercials where at the end it gives you a nice display of the product and shows you the calories but there is a strategically placed plate with sausages or a sandwich so you won’t see the sodium levels. Where am I going with this example? Simple, just because it is low calorie does not mean it is healthy, the same way, just because it says skinny on it does not mean it will be good for you.    

Also people tend to forget that skinny does not equal beautiful, and that is what we should be teaching girls and women and even men around the world; fit and healthy equals beautiful, not skinny. Eating healthy and exercising properly IS loving yourself, but you don’t need expensive diet systems and expensive fitness equipment for that, all you need is to inform yourself on nutrition and health and put it to practice in a way that fits your schedule and budget. But most importantly, know that you are beautiful, smart and important regardless of anything else.

My latest publication

This a link to my latest publication, it's in Spanish so, enjoy!

http://elpostantillano.com/component/content/article/318-cartas-de-una-antillanoa/2821-yalitza-santos.html

Chain Reaction

Puerto Rico has turned in a place of violence. This weekend alone (from Friday to Sunday) there have been 10 cases of murder reported. The once “Island of Enchantment” has turned into a place where people are afraid to come out of their houses because they know that now more than ever it is more of a possibility to die waiting for a traffic light to change, picking up an order in a fast food restaurant of jumping back into your car after a day of shopping. What ever happened to sense of community that moved people to take care of each other of the codes of the streets where no innocents, women or children were to be hurt in the process of “taking care of a situation”?

 While the public slowly marinates in the panic, government official and political parties focus on smear campaigns and playing a “tag blame game” amongst themselves. Red senators blame blue ones and those blame red district representatives and those blame blue mayors and those blame red senators and those then go back to blaming blue Governors and so on so forth they continue to play tag while women are being battered to death by their abusive partners, children are being physically, sexually abused and murdered, senior citizens rights are violated by badly trained and psychologically unstable police officers and citizens are being murdered and robbed in their own homes.

 Meanwhile, in the United States political parties and government officials are focused on denying people the right to public health insurance and women the right to choose whether they want to have children or not. Instead of focusing in the education and economy problems of the country they just “want to show those second class citizens who’s boss.”

 As we can appreciate here our socio-economic situation is not only our own, but it is a chain reaction. The worst part of it is that it will continue to get worse if we don’t pay attention to the social components of the problem. People need help. Not only in the economic sector, but also access to objective information, quality education, to know that they have a choice and that they will treated with respect and dignity. Otherwise these situations will only get worse; which is a shame because it is those who are innocent the ones who end up paying for the sins of the guilty.

On restaurants and Translations

The new restaurant trend in Puerto Rico, is that restaurants want to have bilingual menus (which is not abad thing considering Puerto Rico is a very popular touristic destination). So what they do is that they have the name of the specialty in Spanish and right next to it a translation in “English” Why do I write English inside quotation marks? Because sometimes the word chosen to represent the concept in the menu is not exactly the right word given the culinary context of the word. People underestimate the value of a good translation. To be respected as a bilingual destination where tourists can have  a good time in their own language is not limited to just be able to translate a few words and be able to say “Yes” “No” and “Give a moment” until you can find someone who is actually fluent in the language. It is also about choosing the right vocabulary according to the represented context. A very good example is a well known restaurant that has enjoyed a well reputed name for years in the northwest area of Puerto Rico, if you order from their menu; you can always enjoy the “Parmesan Chicken Chest” as your main course, it’s bound to be delicious even though its choice in vocabulary is disastrous.

On Cars and Car Accidents

     My husband is always accusing me of being a bad driver and yet, I haven’t caused a car accident in the 6-8 years I’ve been driving (yes, I got my driver’s license a bit late in life) however, that does not mean that weird things have not happened to me on the road and considering the latest one I would like to share a few of those experiences. Maybe you have been in the same situations.

With the KIA

1. Brake Trouble- the brakes of my car got stuck and then broke while I was stopping at a red light in the highway on my way from Isabela to Aguadilla, there was a loaded truck behind me.

2. The car went crazy and turned itself off, refused to turn on again and when my husband arrived to help me, the car just started, just like that… as if nothing was wrong…douchy car!

With the Corolla

3.It overheated while I was stopping for a red light in “El Mani” on my way to Mayaguez and that’s not the worst part, it turned itself off so I had to push it out of the way…by myself…under the rain…wearing heels and a dress. I’m 5’3’’ and at the time weighted 115 pounds. So you can imagine how easy (NOT!) it was to get my car out of the way at 9:00 am in a crowded highway.

 4. A student rammed me in the parking lot when I was already parked, she just pressed the gas while talking on the phone… and the rest is history.

      So as you can see here, my accidents have been that, just accidents, caused by forces outside of my power. Still, there is a lot of crazy people driving out there that have lost respect for their cars and the power these have to be turned into weapons and damage others as well as yourself. So please, if you are driving, be smart, use a hands-free or the speaker-phone, do not text, be courteous to other drivers, and pay attention to the road. It can save your life as well as the life of others.

Common Sense, apparently not that common anymore

     As some of you may know, in Puerto Rico it's illegal to transit the main roads in unauthorized vehicles and methods of transportation such as four tracks, bicycles, roller-skates, skate boards and unregistered scooters (just to name a few, you would be surprised the kind of vehicles I see on the road sometimes). However this does not stop some people, apparently born and raised in "hillbilly county" to "stick it to the man" and transit through the mentioned main roads not only in unauthorized vehicles but also without any type of protective gear.
     People don't think that, when they do stupid stuff like this they are not only augmenting the odds of damaging themselves; but also endangering the lives of innocent people who have nothing to do and should not have to pay the consequences of  their limited brain capacity.It is when I read news articles like this, that I sit for a moment and wonder: What could have gone through the mind of these individuals the moment they agree to these kind of life threatening decisions? In my mind it goes more or less like this:
"Uhmm, you know what girlfriend?
"What girl?
 "I'm feeling super douchy today, so I'm gonna' go put some lives at risk, including my own, to prove to my momma that I'm a grown up [and that I'm super cool of course ;)] and I know what I'm doing. Wanna join me?"
"Sure, why not? I mean, it's not like we could die, or kill someone or something with our majestically stupid behavior."
"Hell no girl, let's go."

     It is because of intelligent decisions like this one that so many  lives end up so tragically, so early. Hello! Extraordinarily smart girls in the vehicle, why can't you just take a moment to acknowledge that decisions have consequences; that you are not alone in the world and that unless you live in a deserted island, your decisions affect everyone around you? Maybe it's too much to ask because apparently, common sense, is not that common anymore.

Here's the link to both the article and the video:
http://www.elnuevodia.com/videos-noticias-transitanenfourtrackencarreteradecaguas-1483733185001.html

Justice

A 30 year old male teacher rapes a 15 year old girl and he is immediately perceived as a monster, a perverted human being and a lot of other categories that involve unpleasant and heavy words. However when the situation is the other way around, when a 30 year old female teacher rapes a 15 year old boy, it is not a felony but a fantasy. The dynamics of gender that our society deems as correct don't seem to be based in morality or in right and wrong for that matter, but on power relations. When the authority figure that abuses his power is a male, whether the abuse is directed towards a female or a weaker male we consider it abnormal and abusive; on the other hand but when the weaker male conquers the female figure of authority it is considered an accomplishment to the conquering male. Double standards anyone?

Why can't we be objective when it comes to justice? I believe people have come to forget that justice being blind does mean that it will be played with at will and it will not notice but that it will treat everyone objectively, no special considerations will be taken because you are rich, white, male, powerful among lots of others that I will not mention here. Why is it so hard for people to understand that actions have consequences and that punishments should be applied according to the consequence not the level of education, money or power that the culprit might have. Maybe if we could convince people that consequences will be upheld no matter who you are the world would not be as it is, maybe we would have more equality, respect and better social interactions with those around us, we would have less hate crimes, robberies, murders, rapes, civil rights violations, etc, etc,etc.

Nonetheless I do not want you to see me as an idealist that is proposing an immediate solution to obtain world peace, that would be unreal and idealistic. However it would be a nice first step.

Parent does not equal Good Teacher

A couple of days ago I was watching a TV show in which a man was demanding from his wife for her to take charge of their 12 year old daughter's education. The father wanted to remove the girl from the public school system and force his wife to home school the girl because he felt it was safer and it was the wife's duty to educate the girl at home. These statements done by the father other than being exaggeratedly chauvinistic and unreal left me thinking about home schooling and the level of involvement parents should have in their kids education. How far should a parent go, how much should a teacher tolerate? Where are lines crossed? Today while I was roaming the children books section at Borders I involuntarily witnessed a situation that chilled my bones but provided me with some answers to my own questions. I saw a mother trying to teach her daughter how to recognize verb tenses in Spanish. What's wrong with that? Is what you might be thinking, well, the part that chilled my bones and made me want to bitch slap the woman was that the girl was probably around eight years of age and the mother was talking to her as a drill sergeant would talk to a private during the first week of basic training. As could be expected the child was scared, about to cry and could not concentrate so every time mom would ask a question the little one would get it wrong and the whole children section plus the corridors of the store would know she got it wrong for to add insult to injury, she wasn't using her indoor voice when she corrected the child. The point this example proved to me is that being a parent does mean you are a good teacher. Not all parents have the disposition, patience and training that being a good teacher requires. There is no hormone released during pregnancy that readies you to be the appropriate teacher for your child, or somebody else's child for that matter. Being a good teacher just like every other good professional is a matter of loving what you do and those that you do it for. So if you can't take the heat, get out of the classroom before you damage your child's education in ways you would never wish to. Because as I have witnessed a vast amount of times during my years teaching, good parents are not always good teachers. Something that the aspiring teacher should always have in mind is that teaching is a calling, not just another 9 to 5 with a set of paid vacations twice a year.