Exploring Killing Us Softly and Disney's Magic Mirror (More like kill me softly with a magic mirror)

Never have I ever done this much reading about gender injustice in my life. Watching Killing us softly and reading Disney's magic mirror, by all means enlightening and thought provoking, but man was it depressing, concerning, and slightly boring.

On a more positive note, I was forced to

think about very important topics, which I believe is worth the struggle. I think the most thought provoking thing I did was write about both pieces and tie my own experiences into my arguments. I really believe that "Develop[ing] habits for engaged reading" was the focus of this week. Thus, I wanted to focus on making main ideas and guided questions.

During the magic mirror exercise, I think the most helpful thing was the guided questions. In future readings, I want to try to pin point a main idea and a main argument so that I can devise guided annotation questions.

I think another reading habit that I originally slept on was making connections. I made connections on my writing assignment that really helped me understand exactly what I was supposed to be arguing.

I really put both ideas together in my writing piece. I think I understood the question better by asking questions while I annotated. The questions helped me focus on what

I was looking for and zone in on the important info from the text. Making connections gave me a more personal connection to the topic and made me relate to what I was arguing for. One thing that got me really interested in the topic was the idea of beauty standards for women of color. I'm a K-pop fan, so I often see women of color that conform to the pop culture standard of beauty. It was just a little bit of realization to see that one of my favorite groups falls prey to these toxic standards. Below are pictures of the same person, with and without makeup, that I used in my essay.