Better Living Online through Content Moderation by Melissa King

             This article explains the importance of how certain content on the internet like advertisements should be blocked so as to reduce time being spent online. These distractions can also stray the user away from what their main job was intended to be. A lot of people have the choice to limit the amount of content they see online by installing apps that prevent non-related content.

           Sometimes the user gets tempted to see something interesting that catches their eye. This is when they start to give into clicking something that could be dangerous for them to see or even for the computer to download. It leads viruses swarming into the computer. In other cases, cyberbullying has become a nationwide problem for teenagers who are more vulnerable to being targeted. There are a number of other ways people are attacked mentally and this is just one way the younger generation are affected.

           Another feature that helps people online is the use of block lists. Block lists block people who the user feels uncomfortable with. Avoiding illegal harassment by cutting the people who do harm in ones life is an essential part in decreasing the intensity of the problem. This takes a lot of courage to do as it can be for personal reasons and for other reasons like protection. Genderwise, it is mainly the females who are being harassed more than the men because females are more sensitive and they seem to be more affected by it.

          As a result, people should be given the freedom to choose what they want in life. It is a choice made by them to satisfy their needs. Anyone opposing can cause conflict, even disaster and chaos as wrong information is being portrayed into ones life. Encouraging people based upon their decisions and exposing themselves to the consequences tends to make their life a little bit easier to handle when it is said to be against bullies. We all have a responsibility of owning up to our own actions. So make your actions worth the fight against being bullied.

“Color Walking” –  Phia Bennin & Brendan McMullan 

           This article explains how we perceive colors in this world. William Burrough, an american novelist and short story writer, reveals how interesting colors can be especially identifying them from one another. He came up with a simple idea called the color walk which would help us observe how our eye captures different colors where ever we go. Mainly seeing what kinds of colors catch the naked eye while going through one’s everyday life.

Bennin and McMullan decided to give Burrough’s experiment a try. They started from where Burrough worked which is at WNYC in Manhattan. They noticed how they went from one color to the next while trying to stick with one color. They went from blue, pink and violet.Who knows! They might have seen different shades of the color they started out with or surprisingly they found the same shade of color somewhere else.

After their journey of seeing so many colors, these colors were laid out fresh in their minds. Some advice they gave were to give yourself an hour or two dedicated for this. Pick a color of your choice and try following it throughout the entire walk. If not, no worries! Just pick a different color and continue. If you seem to pick different colors a lot, you are on the right track.

As you can see, different colors drives people to do or go to certain places. For example, blue sometimes tells us to go to a beach or lake. Green tells us to go to a park. Even a combination of colors can depict a certain concept. For example, red and green represent Christmas. Every school has their own mascot colors. Colors can also be associated with gender. Newborn babies are usually worn in pink or blue blankets depending on the gender of the baby.

Colors can also derive how we feel. For example, the color blue, in certain cases, denotes sadness. Psychologically, the color green gives out a positive impact and a good feeling. The color red reveals a negative feeling. Some say that it is Satan’s color and that it denotes evil.

“His & Hers:Designing for  Post-Gender Society”   –  Suzanne Tick

          Nowadays, we are living in a community where gender cannot merely be accepted just by admitting it but by proving it. People need to work on accepting people for their own individuality. Modernism is a movement in the arts that modifies modern ideas or something new. This area is mainly dominated by the males. Males have a primary role in offices while women have a secondary role of supporting them.

          A video on Emma Watson presenting a speech that promoted the He for She movement demonstrated gender equality for both men and women. This video went viral all over the internet. It made people really think and ponder on this topic.As we all know, the debate on whether same-sex marriage should be accepted or not has been going on for years but has finally come down to a decision of being accepted in the society.

          As time progressed, women started to make their way into being more involved with the primary activities that men would get themselves into. While this change is happening, items that women use or buy like makeup attract the attention of men. This has taken into fact that the roles of men and women are being switched.

       Physical appearances sets confusion for people who try and identify people using their physical characteristics. This is because many of the characteristics tend to overlap each other in both men and women. So it would be hard to distinguish genders. Decisions of not being identified through gender are being made. People even change their gender besides the fact that they are not transgender. Many schools accept what people for who they are and for who they think they are. This is a huge building block that a majority of us do not do.

       Trans CEO of United Therapeutics, Martine Rothblatt, is the highest paid female executive even though she is born male. Rothblatt published her book “The Apartheid of Sex” that argues how everyone has their own unique individual identity through gender. In this book, she states how social attributes play a significant role to identifying human sexuality. She also says that the division between men and women is as wrong as the division between black and white races.

        Large companies and a few colleges utilize gender-neutral or, in other words, unisex bathrooms just so that it would be convenient for both men and women. This was also done so that it would not disperse a sense of discomfort and instead let people feel like they are secure in person. Accommodation is something everyone struggles to deal with. It is not universally agreed by everyone. But can be controlled a a point where transgender people are merely humans just like we are.

        Creating an environment where transgender people can associate and feel comfortable in would be essential for them to grow individually. Disasters, arguments and fights can be held off for other purposes.Stepping out into the bigger picture, gender equality has been something that needs to be achieved and is somewhat still needs a little bit of working on.

 Making bathrooms more “Accommodating”   -Emily Bazelon

               This article aims more focus on how transgender people are mainly being handled and treated in different places. It also explains how people are not sharing facilities that are targeted to accommodate one side of the sex. We all have this sign inside of ourselves saying that something is wrong when a person of the opposite sex walks into the wrong restroom. This is only arises people to become uneasy when this happens because everyone was taught  to use the restroom of their own gender. Many people are against having the opposite sex enter the dominantly opposite sex of the person entering the restroom. Even in cases of transgender are sometimes never an excuse for them.

              One crucial issue that we all stumble upon even up til this very day is sex distinction and the ability to cope with it. Transgender people has caused lots of confusion and discomfort for many people. Some of the confusion involves taking showers, sharing gender based bathrooms and associating with them. Schools decided to treat transgender people with the same equal rights that everyone else has. This applies to every part of life except for where these people are going to use the restrooms and locker rooms to change. Accommodation is a term that denotes for hospitality and adaptation. On the other hand, it can also mean to make room for other people whether you like it or not.The word “accommodation” has built up a lot of contradictions between one side and the other. There are two sides where accommodation takes place. One is by the transgender people and the other is everyone else being affected by it.

              There are a few distinctions between the men and women restrooms that make it a little frustrating for how it is not entirely equal for both men and women. The lines in the men’s restroom are always moving or rarely seen at all. While on the other side, the line in the women’s restroom seem to grow as time goes by. On the bright side about the women’s restrooms is that they are highly clean and refined. As an extra, women also have “retiring rooms” due to how women are more vulnerable to dizziness and fainting.

              Although many people are against sharing the same facilities with the opposite sex, some people prefer to use unisex bathrooms. Unisex bathrooms are open to both sexes and they could also be used because of how men tend to have women physical characteristics or vice versa. An example is that men could have manly boobs and women could have hair in places that men do. All in all, this promotes a little bit more privacy and it comes in favor of the transgender people.

               The Transgender Law Center provided society with a resource guide called “Peeing in Peace” that states a couple of strategies to bear the existence of transgender people. The first strategy is called Invisibility where one ignores the other person’s presence. This may seem rude at first but it can avoid disagreements and fights. The second strategy is called Gender Proof. This is where gender can be identified by simply picking out the physical characteristics of a human being.

              Overall, this community still struggles with the concept of how transgender people should be put up with. They somehow come up with small solutions to somehow squeeze transgender people in the society successfully but not entirely. There are still conflicts here and there about these issues being presented in public.

“Tapestry Of Space: Domestic Architecture And Underground Communities In Margaret Morton’s Photography Of A Forgotten New York.”

by Irina Nersessova.”

Margaret Morton published a book in 1995 named “The Underground Homeless in New York City” that portrayed specific homeless communities in New York. The fact that someone has a home defines them to be homeless or not. People without a home shows their instability. Morton emphasizes that the condition of being homeless is not merely the fact of not having a home but instead described as the absence of a stable home.

Nersessova uses Morton to explore the community through space. She uses this as a helpful creative guide to what she might be using in ways to prevent using the environment as a commodity. Morton’s goal is to examine the everyday life of the homeless by understanding what kind of physiological impact the environment might be having on them. She takes into consideration their behavior and attitude.

Morton goes on to photograph and explore tunnels and abandoned streets. She photographs the underground society and receives more insight from them by talking about their life. Morton notices how their are people out there read to destroy the homes of the less fortunate people. There seems to be space that people take of care of and is used by its people even though it is seen to be forgotten.

Space has been something Morton tried to gain perspective on through photography. This would aim more towards the creative project she is striving for. The tunnel denotes an area that has been disregarded. people find the tunnel to be safe because in times that they are in danger, all they do is run into the tunnel. The tunnel is dark and it prevents danger from entering it. The high levels of security in the tunnel is found to be more better than it is most dangerous. The psychological relationship is that the darkness in the tunnel gives out peace for people hiding from danger.

The people are more aware of the space in the tunnel and everything else about it which is why they are more comfortable gathering food, and materials for their home. They know that people do not enter the tunnel unless they happen to be the people living there or if the aboveground has no where else to go. The main purpose people live underground is to attain peace. The physical space that people gain in the tunnel correlates to the mental space that they achieve. As the tunnel closed, a war on public space was in place for a few years.

Morton does not put in any images into her book as she knows we have a little idea of how it may look. The one absolute thing that the homeless need is space. “The environment’s effects on emotion and behavior are observed in Fragile Dwelling as much as they are evident in The Tunnel”  (Nersessova) shows how Nersessova uses Morton to examine the tunnel and how it psychologically affects the homeless who are in need of space.

Domestic architecture is where the homeless construct their own temporary homes using the space they are provided. This is the only means by which they survive in our society until they are pushed out. “To allow people to create their own personal space would be to give them the right to housing and to remove the damaging stereotypes of laziness and need for charity” (Nersessova). These things should be removed in order for the homeless to survive through basic means.

Having personal space means to have room for our own individuality. This is exactly what the homeless are trying to strive for. This personal space gets unprotected and is invaded by people who intend to destroy these people. The homeless take their own time to make a place that is comfortable by getting certain objects like pets, paintings etc. for their homes. this was defined to be a certain amount of wealth they got even through their rough moments. Their homes not only contributed to their psychological state but also emotionally too.