Critique #1
Rimer’s “A Lost Moment Recaptured” (2000) provides readers with stories of women’s lives who have returned to college through Smith College’s Ada Comstock Scholars Program. These stories intertwine with evidence supporting the implied claim; the typical college student is no longer the 18 to 20 year old. Providing intimate details about the lives of these diverse women, Rimer leaves the reader admiring their triumph over gendered expectations of generations past by going back to college.
Rimer hooks the reader immediately in the opening paragraph by describing a transforming moment in an older woman’s life. The woman was leaving her life and beginning anew; she was going back to college. The women in Rimer’s essay range in age from 37 to 85 years old. Getting married after high school or discouragement by their families to attend college was a reality faced by these women. Colvard’s parents “opposed her going to college” (para.3.). Legare was “married at 19” (para.10). Martindell’s father forced her to withdraw from college (para.17). Previous negative familial attitudes concerning women attending college is a theme throughout the essay.
While Rimer directly interviews the students and faculty of Smith College’s Ada Comstock Scholars Program for her primary research source, this particular college is not the main focus of the essay. Women’s colleges Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr are also mentioned in the essay (para.27). Rimer’s interview with a historian who has studied women in higher education, speaks to women’s colleges in general. The historian goes on to explain that going back to college is transforming for older women who have been shaped by gender specific expectations (para.9). Women’s colleges o...
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...emics” (para14), Mosher assumes this to be clear to his audience, quite certainly clear.
Even with knowledge of Mosher’s Ph.D. in Sports Studies, the essay would have been stronger if it included additional credible resources. I agree with Mosher’s unstated evaluative claim that society should not expect someone to possess the characteristics of a hero simply because they are a sports athlete. Yet, Mosher asserts that society unrealistically demands their sports athletes to possess traits of high character. After reading this essay, I still ask; why not?
Works Cited
Rimer, S (2000). A lost moment recaptured. New York Times. January 9, 2000, 22 – 23 and 40.
Merriam-Webster (2013). Definition of celebrity. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/celebrity
Mosher, S (1998). Where have all the heroes gone?. Ithaca College Quarterly. Winter 1998.
To women in the early 1900s, education was a vital investment in achieving a career and having a well-sustained lifestyle. In Sara's situation, attending college meant exploring the American culture and furthering her studies in teaching. On pages 210-213, Sara demonstrates her excitement for attending college. She states, "This was the beauty for which I had always longed for!" (211). Later into the novel, Sara reflects on her experiences while attending school. Her experience in being around people her age was a way for her to understand the American culture and know that she was now a person of reason. In effect, Sara provides an insight into her overall journey in college and life in the novel by mentioning "Now I saw them treasure chests of insight. What countless years that I had thought so black, so barren, so thwarted with want!"
There can be no question that sport and athletes seem to be considered less than worthy subjects for writers of serious fiction, an odd fact considering how deeply ingrained in North American culture sport is, and how obviously and passionately North Americans care about it as participants and spectators. In this society of diverse peoples of greatly varying interests, tastes, and beliefs, no experience is as universal as playing or watching sports, and so it is simply perplexing how little adult fiction is written on the subject, not to mention how lightly regarded that little which is written seems to be. It should all be quite to the contrary; that our fascination and familiarity with sport makes it a most advantageous subject for the skilled writer of fiction is amply demonstrated by Mark Harris.
Haverford College did not begin as the institution that it is today. A group of concerned Quakers constructed the secondary school on the premise that it would provide a fine education for Quaker young men. On its founding day in 1833, the Haverford School's notion of a "liberal and guarded education for Quaker boys" became a reality. Jumping forward in time to 1870, a decisive change was on the horizon: the faculty and students had voted to go coed. However, the Board of Managers did not concede and Haverford remained single sex for over a century after the students and faculty had spoken. It wasn't until 1980 that a freshmen class comprised of both men and women entered Haverford. Yet it is the decade prior to 1980 that is the topic of this paper. The series of about 10 years before a Haverford female student would unpack her belongings in her room to settle down for four years of an intense and demanding education, both in and out of the classroom, was a time of much reevaluation and consideration on the part of the students, administration, and faculty.
Some Athletes in society today are considered heroes despite their double lives. Their drug use and violence are brushed aside while leading their teams to victory.
Mathers, Marshall. New York Times, June 16, 2010. Intervew by DEBORAH SOLOMON. 1. Print. 23 Mar 2011. .
Sports have undoubtedly had a global impact on culture. From ordinary, popular sports such as running to more blatantly bizarre and obscure activities such as extreme ironing, the world-wide appeal of athletic activities in society has led to their integration in a variety of cultural outlets such as television, social media, journalism, and film. Extending from this desire for athletic competition is the equally ravenous appetite for talented athletes who ultimately transform the sports in which they play. One particular form of communicative media, classical literature, has largely been influenced by society’s desire for the epic athlete, enabling a spectrum of authors from Plato to Hemingway to cater to this audience. Transcending the multitude
Paige, Sean. "Professional Athletes as Role Models." Professional Sports. Ed. James D. Torr Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven, 2003. 171-80. Print.
Additionally, over the years women have progressed in their educational studies. For instance, women currently make up fifty-seven percent of all college students (Marklein Paragraph 2). This proves that women are competent of succeeding and accomplishing more than men. As a result, women have gained the freedom to be able to strive for a degree and be able to be independent. Almost one in four women earns a bachelor’s degree compared to one in seven men (Hechinger Paragraph 2). Women have traveled along way from not even being able to attempt working for an education. Without working women America would have a hard time advancing and keeping up with work demands. Besides, women compromise forty-six percent of the total United States labor force (Perkins 1).This is a testament that women are no longer being discriminated against in any aspect of life.
Hayes, Dianne. "The Black Woman's Burden." Diverse: Issues in Higher Education 29.2 (2012): 18. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
Many men knew that if women were educated, they would not depend on the men. For centuries, only men were educated. In the 1800, women started to come out of their house and reached for the education in colleges. Most people were antagonistic to having women go to college and having the same education as men. They thought that women should just take care of their husband and kids. The society thought that coed colleges were more barbaric, because they thought that men and women could not work together. The women’s colleges became a light for the women in 1800’s. Women learned to stand up for their rights by getting educated in college.
In the past, higher education was not recognized as important for women since men thought that intelligence was not necessary for tasks like child-bearing and housework. “The (male) president of all-female Radcliffe celebrated the beginning of every school year by telling the freshmen that their college education would 'prepare them to be splendid wives and mothers and their reward might be to marry Harvard men ' (Collins 57).” If a woman were to
Susan Faludi unfolds a world of male domination and its interrelationships within its confines and places women in the center of her story. Indeed it truly took an extremely self-confident woman to even entertain the idea of entering an all-male academic college like the Citadel, whose front gate practically reads like that of a young boys fort that makes the bold statement, “No girls allowed they have coodies.” Shannon Falkner was a strong willed woman with an immense amount of confidence to completely omit her gender on the Citadel application to enter this college. As if gender was not an issue, or should have never been an issue in
A college education is something that women take for granted today, but in the 1800’s it was an extremely rare thing to see a woman in college. During the mid 1800’s, schools like Oberlin and Elmira College began to accept women. Stone’s father did a wonderful thing (by 19th century standards) in loaning her the money to pay for her college education. Stone was the first woman to get a college education in Massachusetts, graduating from Oberlin College in 1843. Her first major protest was at the time of her graduation. Stone was asked to write a commencement speech for her class. But she refused, because someone else would have had to read her speech. Women were not allowed, even at Oberlin, to give a public address.
This article takes the lives of two Caucasian women from the similar backgrounds and discusses the impact that their marital status and their level of education affect them currently. Mrs. Faulkner finished college,
Doctors, lawyers, and politicians can be considered everyday heroes, but we the people tend to hold a more trivial profession higher then all of those, Athletes are held the highest. While athletes present us with great feats of ability, we hold these individuals higher then they deserve credit. We place athletes on a pedestaled and we force them to do whatever it takes to preform at there greatest.