1. ECS 110 learning journey
By Lilyanne elder

2. I initially went into Ecs 110 thinking I knew everything about social issues as I consider myself a pretty socially conscious person and understand things like : white privillage, racism disability and sexism/LGTBQ issuses
, I was unaware of the normative narritives that I was participating in because I didn’t even know what a normative narrative was!

3. Normative narratives
The definition of Normative narratives is: relating to, or determining norms or standards EX: heterosexuality, and being Cis gendered. Those two thing are what society has deemed the norm. the biggest thing that I learned from this past semester is that normative narratives can be problematic and exclusive.

4. White privilege
I learned that I didn’t know the full story about white privileged, I at first thought it was one the rich white men who possessed this privilege but this is incorrect. It’s all white people who benefit from this.
In peggy mcintoshs article “unpacking the invisible knapsack” she highlight points talking about things that people of colour have to worry about that white people don’t. READ
A lot of the things on the list I have never even thought about but these are things that really effect POC.

5. Life in Canada for me vs. for others
I'm white, female, and able bodied. Life in Canada for me is privilege, I've only learned of Canadas nice past and the belief that Canadas such a nice country! for others that’s not their reality, and Canadas dark past effects them on the daily. In the article: clearing the plains AUTHOR writes As Canadians, we think of ourselves as decent, even good
people. We’re nice. We take care of each other etc.
But for the indigenous people in Canada 2/3 of all first nations children in Saskatchewan lived in poverty. Tuberculosis rates in first Nations communities are 31 times higher than the national average. Infant mortality is triple the Canadian average. More than 100 aboriginal communities across the country don't have safe drinking water. Less than half of kids who live on reserves finish high school. more aboriginal young people go to jail than graduate. People across the country are calling for an investigation into how almost 1200 aboriginal women and girls have gone missing or have been killed. In Winnipeg families of missing and murdered women have taken it upon themselves to drag the red river for the remains of their loved ones.
This doesn’t mean I need to feel guilty for being born privileged it means I have to acknowledge my position and work towards helping others.

6. racism
Before ecs I thought that racism was only verbal kind of like bullying but I learned about the different kinds of racisms
Representational - depictions of racial stereotypes in popular culture, media, etc. (Pocahontas, or crazy black people.)
Ideological - racist beliefs embedded in our worldviews (belief that FN ppl are lazy or drunks or all black people re criminals or violent)
Discursive - racism that comes out in language (e.g. racist slurs, words with negative connotations like the N WORD, gangster, winos...)
Interactional - racism that manifests itself in interactions (e.g. crossing the street to avoid people of a particular race)
Institutional - racist policies and laws
Structural and Systemic - idea that racism is embedded into the very fabric of our country to benefit white/ rich people.

7. disability
Something I didn’t have a lot of knowledge on prior to ECS was disabilities. And I think the most important thing that I took away for it was language use and how I should view people with disabilities.
Language use regarding disabilities is: you should say “ a person with disabilities not a disabled person” because you should see/talk about the person first rather than their disabilities.
In the article “I wont pretend disabilities stimulation works” says the term “awareness” makes minority groups sound like a problem. The word Disability makes it sound like they are incapable of anything which is not the case, they are able, just not in the ”normal” ways and moving away from disabled word use is a great example of disrupting normative narratives.

8. Sexism/ LGTBQ
In the video Representations of Gender in Advertising it showed the stark difference in representation in men in women. Women are usually in very little clothing and are used as objects or used as a sex sells scheme, where as men are clothed, and domineering and in power. And I can also tell you I've only seen a handful of same sex advertising.
Gender constraints are constantly changing. Boys are blue and girls are pink is the norm nowadays but less than 100 years ago it was the opposite! But if someone was to put their baby boy in pink people would throw a fit.
Some people feel like they don’t fit into the typical gender binary and are then excluded. Gender binary is problematic because of this

9. takeaway What ive taken away for this class is I need to Listen
Be open minded
Educated myself because the excuse of “I didn’t know only goes to far”
Be aware
Call out and be midful of problematic behaviours like sexism, racism and homophobia.
To be accepting of others and to distrupt harmful normative narratives