Popular Cultures Influence

When taking a look at the popular culture of today’s society, I do believe that it has had some influence on the way that I view the differences between men and women. These differences compare and contrast greatly with the differences of a few years back. I feel like the greatest influence that I pay attention to is the music industry. This industry reaches such a vast array of society’s population that when it deems something popular or important, the population listens. The best example that I can think of is in the R&B artists, they sing about women’s independence and how it’s sexy if a women can fend for herself and pay her own bills and such. Thus, most women in today’s world are being dependent upon themselves versus being dependent upon a man in their life.
Breaking that down even further into the influence on race and class, I don’t personally think that popular culture has influenced me as much. I could be wrong because I have never really sat down to think about it until this very moment, but, as cliché as this may sound, I see everyone as the same or equal. I think that the popular culture kind of places everyone on the same playing field with even some minorities being placed slightly above the dominant races. But other than that I see really no difference, or no influence of popular culture affecting the way I understand and see race and class.
I do see sexism as becoming more prevalent for me, meaning I am able to notice it more now than I was before. When I see something on a TV show that seems sexist to me, I point it out immediately, but don’t really start a full on debate about it with the people that are watching the show with me. I’m not in to discussing things like that because I haven’t fully formed an opinion about it. Obviously I don’t like it seeing as how I will be entering the working force here in a few years, and think women deserve to be equal to their male counterparts, but I am not knowledgeable enough on the subject to have a debate about it.
The first associations of the word feminist that come to mind for me is a political movement that works for women’s rights. I also think of the three different waves of feminism that have taken place. I think that these associations have come from just being aware of our culture and especially from being in this class. This class has made me more aware of feminism and what is going on with it in today’s society.