Lora Cheng
September 14, 2009
Eng215
RD1
The Plight of Becoming a Woman
From the time a girl is born, she is placed in a box in which she is expected to stay in. As she gets older, she may deviate from this box and be labeled as a social outcast. Her childhood dreams of being in a male oriented profession may be destroyed because of her sex. She could be ridiculed and face more obstacles than men in order to be recognized by her peers. [THESIS] Women experience trauma when they start going through puberty by being in a male dominated society. [THESIS]
When a girl experiences puberty, it is arguably her first experience of being self conscious. Her body shape may not be one of a model so she may try to compensate it by wearing expensive clothing. Wearing expensive clothing will make her feel better of herself and the males she may fall in love with may view her as a trophy. If a girl goes against the norm of dressing well, she will suffer for it. Her inner beauty may be overshadowed by low self esteem from the criticisms of others. Her body and looks appears to be the most important quality in a fickle society. Brains and knowledge are for a male.
Perhaps this is why females in powerful positions in society are awed at. It isn’t expected. Unfortunately, society also has the nasty habit of painting women in power to be dikes or lesbians. When can a woman in power sport a male hairstyle and not be labeled a “dike”?
Women in power make less than males. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) their statistics states that the ratio of women’s median annual earnings to men’s median annual earnings was 77.0 in 2005 for full-time, full-year workers, statistically the same as in 2004 (76.6) and virtually unchanged from 2001 (76.3). When you include part time workers the ratio is much lower because women are more likely than men to have their work scheduled reduced.
According to Pipher from our textbook Dialogues pg 430, it states adolescence is time limited and some girls are much stronger by the time they graduate from high school. The way girls handled their adolescence life can reflect on them later on in life because of their self-confidence and self-direction. Certain times girls hold back their pain and betrayed themselves. Most women are great with juggling a bunch of things at once such as the needs of their family, coworkers, friends, and children’s, and even strangers but they forget to add themselves.
Women are exposed to more pressure and are more vulnerable to sexual assaults because of how the media portrays women. On television, sluts are shown more frequently than respectful, conservative women because society thinks that they are boring. Female celebrities started off as innocent figures, and then became changed by the media into models of what America categorizes as hot or sexy. In photo shoots, women are encouraged to do sexy poses or more provocative poses to impress the public and get more attention. When strip clubs was created it made respectful women feel disgusted. It portrayed an image for men to think women are toys. This results in women having to live harder lives than they should be living.
According to Debra Ann Escalicas, “Gender roles can be traced back to stone age history. Men hunt and gather food, while women are left back cooking and taking care of their children. This information has been passed down for generations on what is expected of the other.” I agree with her because back then men were to do the working and women are supposed to stay home to cook and clean. After generations some families have changed their traditions where they have the men do what is supposedly the women job while women are allowed to work when it was considered the men role. Families will eventually adapt to the westernized culture.
In conclusion, it might take a while for old traditions to die hard. As families pass from generation to generation the old-fashioned family roles will start changing into non-traditional ones. Males will start taking on the female's role in the family (such as house chores, looking after the children) and vice versa. However, at this current state in time people are not used to seeing such things happen, and things such as prejudice result.
Work Cited
Pipher, Mary. “Saplings in the Storm.” Dialogues: An Argument Rhetoric and Reader. 5th edition. Eds. Gary Goshgarian and Kathleen Krueger. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2006. 411-417.
Pipher, Mary. Dialogues: An Argument Rhetoric and Reader. 6th edition. Eds. Gary Goshgarian and Kathleen Krueger. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2009. Chapter 11
“The Gender Wage Ratio: Women’s and Men’s Earnings”. August 2006.
<://www.iwpr.org/pdf/Updated2006_C350.pdf >
Good blog, good supporting examples. Aren't we supposed to add an example from one of our classmates postings on gender role trauma as one of our arguments and pointing out the fallacy in the posting? Or maybe you did, just the work wasn't cited. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteLora
ReplyDeleteOverall your essay took a variety of examples to support your argument and I think that was good. Please keep in mind, since your thesis statement focuses on women going through trauma by being in a male dominated society, you should somehow connect why each of your points supports that or builds on that.
One technical preference of mine, usually when you say male/female you refer to biological, and when you say men/women it refers more to gender roles, either way you go is fine but try to be consistent because you jump between terms within one sentence or paragraph.
Third paragraph on “females in powerful positions are assumed to be dikes or lesbians,” you need some supportive examples because WHO in society is calling them that, or is that your opinion that society is doing that? Your next paragraph is a good example because you have facts to support your statement, to make that paragraph even stronger, maybe connect this to your thesis of how this affects women’s experience living in a patriarchal society.
I had some problems with your paragraph on women being more vulnerable to sexual assaults because of how media portrays them. You should define what a slut versus a respectable conservative women are as far as how they are portrayed on TV. I would word it a little differently because you are stereotyping and putting your own value judgment, so instead of slut, you can say sexually attractive or promiscuous women versus career oriented, positive role model women figures. Also the part about strip clubs, you need to prove that statement or state that is your opinion. You have hundreds of women taking strip pole classes in gyms all over the US and they feel greater about their bodies after.
Might want to reword the last sentence, families will eventually adapt to the westernized cultures. What do you mean by westernized culture as far as gender roles are concerned. Why is that important for you to include that in your essay?
Please reread your last paragraph, maybe out loud because it could be smoothed out. Your first sentence, I did not understand “it might take a while for old traditions to die hard.” Do you mean die out?
I would highly recommend rereading your paper out loud. There were some grammatical errors, like using present tense then switching to past tense. Since we discussed this on our blogs, maybe provide some solutions? With a bit of cleaning up, mainly providing more support to your statements and connecting your paper, you have a good foundation to work with. Good Luck.
I found your essay to be really good. I really liked all the information and examples you included to backup your thesis. I would say the only thing that needs work is on the transtions between paragraphs. I did feel it could be a little smoother.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting support to your thesis. You might want to double check on your references and that way you use quotes from your text. You did seem to have a couple grammar errors, but nothing that you can't fix on your FD. I look forward to reading your final paper
ReplyDelete