Research @ Flintridge Sacred Heart

Caroline Chase 20' (journal article) The study of Pennell and Behm-Morawitz analyzed “the effects of sexualized female characters in superhero film on women.” They conducted studies on some women in a Midwestern university. They showed the women shots from Spiderman and X-Men where the women in the film were either showed as a sexualized damsel in distress or an oversexualized heroine. They predicted that, upon seeing these clips, the women would have their self-esteem lowered and have a more acute sense of self-objectification. They indicated through previous research that US action films commonly exploit women for their bodies in a film rather than focusing on who they are as people. The authors took into consideration the rejection of the usual value in modesty, yet they found through their study that women did indeed have a higher consciousness of their bodies after viewing the oversexualized women in action movies. This article shows with a sample group an example of f...

C erys Davies 20' (journal article) The source starts off by introducing the culture of strippers and the impact it has on society. The author, Silcock, makes a point to show that strippers have been industrialized to a certain point. But before anything, she defines stripping as “ erotic dance for payment, which may take place either at a private club, public bar, or in the form of a 'strip-o-gram' where the dancer goes to the client/s” (Silcock). There is so much coverage of this culture in mainstream media, from movies to music. Strippers seem to be everywhere. There was even been a recent movement of people taking pole dancing classes as a hobby along with the influence of “stripper-wear” in everyday fashion. But Silcock is quick to acknowledge the different views of stripping, “ Radical and Marxist feminists are opposed to all forms of sex work, positioning it as part of male oppression and the sexual division of labour. The more liberal and pro-choice f...

Elizabeth Rosenberger 20' (book) “The Lawful treatment of Animals” was written by Thomas Aquinas with the goal to use Catholic teachings and scriptures to determine “Whether it is Unlawful to Kill Any Living Thing”(Aquinas). In Thomas Aquinas’s early life he attended the Benedict House for five years studying many scholars and theologians, primarily Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas’s writing about “The Lawful treatment of Animals” is based on Aristotle’s teachings  that “an act is good or bad depending on whether it contributes to or deters us from our proper human end”.  Aquinas’s intended audience is for theologians, students, followers of the Catholic faith who are discovering the Catholic religion’s perspective of animals, and any person who is challenging their perspective on how animals should be treated. Aquinas uses evidence and facts from the Bible to support his claims. Aquinas’s writing titled “ Whether it is Unlawful to Kill Any Living Thing” relates t...

Olivia Pieterse 20' (journal article) This article, titled Food Assistance Programs and Child Health, discusses various food assistance programs, specifically SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and how these programs should be altered to further benefit those who partake in the National School Lunch Program.  In addition to discussing SNAP, Gunderson also mentions other programs, such as WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children), NSL P (free- and reduced-price National School Lunch Program), and the SBP (free- and reduced-price School Breakfast Program. He talks about the purpose of these programs and how they were established to both decrease food insecurity and improve children’s health; however, Gundersen also explores how these programs can sometimes have a negative effect on certain groups of people, sp ecifically those in low-income communities. It focuses both on the positive and negative effects of these programs...

Olivia Pieterse 20' (journal article) This article, titled From Charity to Security: The Emergence of the National School Lunch Program, discusses the creation and formalization of the national school lunch program. It also showed how the national lunch program would not be a federal issue if not for World War II and the Great Depression. The article begins by providing the reader with general information about the early beginnings of the school lunch program in addition to stating what the rest of the article will be about. The article continues to describe how the United States created its own system influenced heavily by other nations, specifically Great Britain. The author relates Great Britains’ lunch system with the Boer War and relates the U.S. system with World War II.  The article then transitions and goes into detail about the beginnings of the national school lunch program. The first account of a feeding program in the US was at the Children’s Aid Society...

Aili Lin 20' (Magazine) This article is written by Katy Kelleher and published by the Paris Review. Its intended audience could be everyone, including the ones appreciate or depreciate “ugly artwork”. In this article, the author tries to defend the ugly artwork. She claims that using the word “ugly” to describe this kind of work is not accurate since ugliness implies a sense of immortality. Also, research has shown that beautiful works and ugly works can light up the same part of the brains of the viewers, which proves that both of them can have the same effect on the view. Beautiful or ugly, all of these works can spark the “A-ha” moment, a sudden feeling that we can feel others’ feelings. Both of these works function equally well: stimulate sympathy and empathy of the views so that they can understand the emotions under the artwork. What’s more, ugly paintings can express the idea that literature cannot present. Ugly artworks can reflect social issues that litera...

Cerys Davies 20' (journal article) This source compares two different accounts of strippers and connects them to the  emotional work that is stripping. Lerum, the author, does not give an opinion of the matter, merely presents the information and leaves it to the reader to decipher their own opinion. She starts by describing the book G-strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire by Katherine Frank. This book is particularly interesting because it gives a lot of insight into the people that actually attend these strip clubs who are predominately heterosexual men. Frank makes a clear line of reasoning to the fact that these heterosexual men “are willing to spend their money on such a public, voyeuristic (although interactive) fantasy” (Lemur). Lemur evaluates how Frank exposes male privilege to be the cause of the success of the stripping industry. Frank “cautions against concluding that men go to strip clubs simply to r...

Greta Coontz 20' (journal) This article discusses how consumers see sustainability and what their priorities are. Though there was a major lack of attention toward sustainability, the public is beginning to notice the dire need for a more eco-friendly society. The article pulls the definition of sustainable development from the United Nations in 1987 which states that sustainable development means “to meet the present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations 1987). The article also states that consumers care about the economy just as much as they care about the environment. The most logical way to be sustainable and keep the public happy is by balancing the economy and the environment. Without a healthy balance there is no point in attempting to create a fully sustainable society as it would collapse economically. This article is actually quite different from the other sources I have read. It takes a mid...

Izabel Mah y Busch 20' (book) At the beginning of chapter one in Anxiety: A Very Short Introduction, the authors first go over an abstract of what anxiety is. In the abstract, they come to the conclusion that anxiety is an emotion and is unavoidable. They describe anxiety as being a feeling that something bad is going to happen but not knowing precisely what it is. Based on that experience of anxiety the authors come up with statistics regarding anxiety. The statistics come from both the United States and the United Kingdom and revolve around adults. More and more adults feel more stressed in the modern world than they had prior. Along with basic statistics on adults’ experience with anxiety, the chapter also includes statistics on how many people suffer from clinical levels of anxiety. After contextualizing anxiety in the modern world then the writers discuss the word anxiety as a whole. They show the roots of the word and show the word translated in different l...

Christina Perasso 20' (newspaper) This source from the American Journal of Psychiatry by Damian Mcnamara describes how the different ages of patients with ADHD play a role as to why ADHD stimulants are continuing to rise. Differences in geographic location, insurance, and ethnicity also have an impact on the usage of ADHD stimulants. For adolescents in the United States in 1996, the use of stimulants including methylphenidate, pemoline, and dextroamphetamine grew 2.4 percent to 3.5 percent in 2008. Researchers even found that approximately 2.8 million young individuals announced that they were taking at least one stimulant. Along with this, the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey has found that children ranging from ages six to twelve are taking the most stimulants. Even though the use of treating ADHD with stimulants increased between racial and enthic minority groups, the rate stayed lower than children who are not Hispanic, partly because parents who are colored...

Jenny Wang 20' (eBook) Across many societies across the world, women are considerably made self-aware about their bodies. Such assertions are made through media like magazines. There a few exceptions such as Japan where for a time, women are not valued for their physical appearance but rather their personalities. There has been a considerable shift from them being viewed as social foundations and more of sex symbols. Such shifts may point towards possible shifts in attitudes and values within societies. Over one hundred years ago, local criteria was utilized to decide and set a benchmark for physical beauty. In one explanation brought forward was through the theory of sexual imprinting. There are some arguments that some perspectives are established inherently through biology. Others like clear unblemished skin are quite standard across cultures. A number of these so-called prejudices have come up through a number of beauty contests. Many of the ideas of beau...