Monthly Archives: February 2016

Reading Summary #4

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Accommodation is a very delicate topic nowadays because it is also delicate but also a very confusing topic. Lots of people and groups have been irritated at the word ‘‘accommodation.’’ It often sets up a distinction between the normal and the other. One group’s needs determine a basic shape, and then another group comes along and asks to alter the original. But the word also allows for the possibility of mu­tual give and take.  One of the biggest issues with accommodation are restrooms. Restrooms are public conveniences separated by gender. One sign will read male, and the other will read female. One bathroom has urinals and probably smells bad while the other is most likely clean and has all stalls. People separate bathroom by gender so that they can be more comfortable with themselves when changing clothes and using the restroom.

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Typical bathroom sign you see at every bathroom

 

Transgender people have it different on the other hand. School districts throughout the country have generally agreed to call transgender students by their preferred names, and allowed them to join the sports teams of the gender with which they identify. But deciding where they should change and shower and use the bathroom has been trickier. In suburban Illinois, a transgender high-school student who is undergoing hormone therapy and has a passport identifying her as female asked to change in the girls’ locker room. This created a huge issue for the transgender because she had to change by herself.

Women get mad at the time others spend in the stall, while on the other side of the wall, urinals keep the line moving for men. Over time, women have become attached to the camaraderie of the ladies’ room. When girlfriends want to chat, they head there. And now some of them are disturbed by what they see as an incursion by male anatomy. Letting transgender students into the locker room. It’s poignant: Transgender women say they are women, but some other women can only see them as men, and so they don’t want to make room. The framework of accommodation is useful, as a starting place, because it’s practical. For people with disabilities, reasonable accommodation is about a bar next to the toilet and a button that opens the door. For transgender kids, it’s showe­ring near your peers in your stall, and then maybe getting dressed behind a privacy curtain.

These things are complicated, and people need to realize that they have characteristics of a particular gender. If one has breasts in the women’s room, she should point to her breasts, and that should be the end of the argument. On the other hand, however, transgender is a very bewildering topic because of its uniqueness and abnormality. In the past, many people didn’t believe that changing their sex was even possible, but now due to scientific advances, we have made it a possibility to change your gender. This issue is still young, and the transgender revolution will be accommodated without a doubt.

Reading summary #3

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In today’s society gender roles are being questioned and challenged every single day. Masculine and feminine roles have been established since the beginning of time. The men would have leadership roles and go out and work, and women, on the other hand, would have to stay home and take care of the kids. Nowadays, however, gender roles are changing as people are seeing the abilities of people as they are and not their gender. But today’s design landscape is still deeply rooted in Modernism, a movement shaped by a predominantly male perspective. Historically, men have occupied power roles in offices, so male necessities dictated the design of prime spaces while the female secretaries occupied ancillary areas. The Modernist mass-production model, paired with this male-centric paradigm, lingers even in today’s information age—the world of technology and web design is also a very male-dominated field, with 85 percent of tech workers at the top companies being male and just a mere 15% are female. In the past, transgender people were viewed as outcasts, certainly in corporate America. But Martine Rotheblatt the trans CEO of United Therapeutics, defied traditional roles to become the highest-paid female executive in the United States even though she was born biologically male.

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Bruce Jenner is a retired Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete who chose to undergo a sex change, which came to the biggest shock to Americans all over the world. His new name is Caitlyn Jenner

 

The first topic to look at is appearance. Boys look like girls and girls look like boys. People are typically assigned a gender and history, but they can decide what gender to identify with beyond this. There are colleges now where students are not putting their gender down on forms. They are standing up to institutions and saying that they don’t want to be identified as one or the other. Children in middle school are also asking to have their gender  changed. To accommodate everyone’s sexuality and comfort big companies are going to be putting unisex bathrooms in addition to normal ones. The addition of a new bathroom will stop those from discriminating genders coming into their restroom. For example, if a transgender walked into a men’s bathroom he or she would feel much less awkward if they could have a bathroom that any gender could walk into. These type of things should have already been created. It’s unfortunate to think what’s happened with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it’s unbelievable how hard it still is to find accessible bathrooms and entryways. We cannot approach gender issues in the same way, with just regulations and compliance. We are only at the very beginning with gender-neutral design, but having safe places for anybody to function and do what they need to do, no matter who they are should be our first step.

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Gender roles are something we as humans need to ignore and focus on bettering our society by selecting those who are good individuals. No job, sport, task or life role should be determined by somebody’s gender.

Mid-term reflection

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English 1102 this semester has been a unique class I have ever been in. I believe that I had an advantage because my high school used lots of technology to learn. Each student got their own mac, and we had many assignments on applications such as iMovie and powerpoint. However, my high school never made me do assignments such as website building.

The information that I have learned in class has helped me alot, and I have used this to dig deeper into my assignments and write things that are not as obvious.

The built environment descriptions we do are all based around letting your audience understand where you are. Many of us can gain a clear understanding of an environment by just reading a descriptive analysis on their setting. The reading summaries however, are different because you are just summarizing the passage. You do not add any of your own information to your writing. The audience for these posts are our classmates and Professor Wharton.

 

 

 

Decatur Marta Trip

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I did my built Environment description on the Decatur Marta station. The Marta station in my thoughts was going to be like any of the other station. To my surprise, it was much bigger and better than any of the other Marta stations. When I walked off the bus, I immediately saw nice black and white tiles covering the floor instead of the usual cement.

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As I walked up the stairs I saw a unique painting on the wall that grabbed my attention fully. The painting on the wall was something I had never seen on a Marta station before. The colors were so bright and made the area seem so much more vibrant than normal.

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Upstairs was very bright, It was so bright that it would even hurt your eyes a little bit. Everything seemed so clear and as if I were watching a High definition movie. Most of the people there did not seem as poor as some of the other people from other stations.

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In conclusion, this experience was very different for me, because I am normally moving from north to south. On this occasion, however, I moved from east to west and got to see one of the best Marta stations in Metro Atlanta without a doubt. The feel of this Marta station was much more professional and was well air conditioned. The area was big and you were never cramped or bumping into anybody. None of the bad characteristics of Marta of your typical Marta were able to be seen at the Decatur Marta station.

Built Environment picture 5 (Decatur)

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This is the Marta Exit/entrance gate. The lights were so bright they brought discomfort to your eyes, but also, everything seemed so clear. This area is also where you must swipe your breeze card to enter or exit the gates at all times. One trip is a $2.50 fee that is charged at the breeze station.

Built environment picture 3 (Decatur)

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This is the second floor of the Decatur Marta station and the set-up was really nice. You could look down onto the first floor because of the opening. There were black and white tiles on the second floor as well and it was surrounded by the breeze stations where you could buy your breeze cards.

Built environment picture 2 (Decatur)

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As I was embracing the lavishness of this Marta station, I came across a very interesting painting on one of the walls. This picture covered the whole wall and was a combination of many bright colors and shapes. It immediately uplifted my mood and made what normally is a dull and lifeless Marta station into one that was very unique.

Built environment picture 1 (Decatur)

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My built enviorment description was on the Decatur Marta station. To my surprise, the Decatur Marta station was much nicer than the other stations immediately. As I got off of the train in the picture above, I could immediately sense a more modern clean look because of the nice walls and the black and white tiles on the floor.

Annotated Bibliography #3

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Watson, Jaye. “Metro Atlanta Mom Writes Why White Parents Won’t Choose Black Schools.” 11Alive. N.p., 10 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

Abby Norman the mother of two kids, and an English teacher who lives in the Atlanta area with white residents posted a blog about education and racism. Mrs. Norman’s kindergarten daughter is the only white person in her class. When Mrs. Norman was at the pool in the summer conversating with other moms, she would often get criticized when she told them which school her daughter went to. Other parents would often tell her to remove her daughter from the school immediately, simply because of the heavily populated amount of African Americans. Even though the other moms have never stepped foot in the school before or talked to any of the teachers, they are still very judgemental. This article does a great job of showing others that race means nothing. As long as your child gets a good education and meets friendly well-educated people that will guide her life in the right direction, it does not matter at all about the color of your skin.