Critical Reading: Ideologies of Everyday Life, Brett Farmer

Farmer believes that ideologies are deternmined on culture. That someone from the west will have diferent ideals to someone from the middle east for example. To back up his arguement he presents the plaque on the side of the fisrt space shuttle to the moon. The plaque is for the benefit of any extra terrestrials that they may have encountered, so that they know what the inhabitants of Earth look like. However this plaque is filled with western ideoligies, the perfectly formed, inshaped people. The mans dominance over the woman is also very interesting, these are ideals. In actual fact many people are not in perfect shape and men are not always dominant over women. They are presented like this because this is how we believed it should be, not so much today becuase women are more independant and dominatn but certainly at the begining of space exploration.

The reading discusses how we are cultured. Farmer talks about Althusser's theory whereby he refers t us a 'the individual' when we are pre-social human and 'the subject' when we are fully socially educated. Farmer believes that we get our social acceptance by following codes and conducts in our societies. By dressing, talking, acting, and looking a certain way, someone from an arabic country is instantly recongisable because the will where different clothing to the Western world.
Although a difference in the way that Western and Eastern people look there is also a difference in the way people look between different western countries. Aside from national dress there is also a diffference in general appearance very often do be people claim someone is foreign mearly by looking at them. Whether it be a hair cut the way they are acting or even just their genral appearnace it is sometimes possible to tell if someone is from the certain country or not.
Farmer presents the arguement that we are all influenced by gendered ideologies, he uses the symbol most of us see everyday as an example, the male/female sign for a public toilet. He says that we are making are forced to make a desision on which gendre we are by walking through a certain door. We are segregating between us both, however most people simply view this as 'the way things are'. I think this is a very interesting arguement, I hav never given it a second thought as to why I walk into the mens toilet, its just what is done.
Farmer also sights fitness magazines as a form of social divide a mens fitness magazine with a bodybuilder on the front is not at all unusual. Similar images are used regulalry and we do not really notice it. A female body builder on the front of a magazine will get lots of attention because it does not conform to how we think a woman should look like. She may be almost threatening to some men as she does not look like she would be dominated by the average man. A female body builder goes against modern ideologies.