Women will do just about anything to feel good about themselves. Everything from painstakingly fixing their hair, makeup, and outfits daily, to dieting and exercising constantly, to paying exorbitant prices for psychological counseling, luxurious vacations, or plastic surgery treatments; they do just to try to make peace with themselves, to get a little closer to that rare feeling of happiness. Compared to these outlandish options, buying a $4.00 magazine seems like a great fix for a day when you’re down. Young adult and adult women (ages 18-39, roughly) today face a struggle that did not exist for previous generations. In their article explaining this phenomenon, Kathleen Hart and Maureen Kenny claim that “changed cultural norms simultaneously emphasize traditional feminine gender-role characteristics such as being beautiful and being a good mother, and traditional masculine gender-role characteristics such as achievement in the workplace, self-reliance and separation from parents” and that as a result, “girls may also be experiencing conflict regarding cultural expectations for success in multiple, and sometimes contradictory, roles” (Hart and Kenny web). The manufacturers of Cosmopolitan magazine create an image of a modern day “Superwoman” who excels in all of these roles—the manifestation of Cosmo‘s slogan, “fun, fearless, female”. They prey on the common insecurities, fears, hopes, desires, and dreams that women have by promising to pick up the slack where women fall short with tips, info, and advice. Success stories of “ordinary” women who have reconciled the discrepancies of their femininity to find not only professional but also domestic fulfillment also convince women that with the magazine’s help, they can accomplish th...
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Every 13 seconds, couples in America get divorced (Palacios). What is pushing these couples to get married if half of the marriages fail anyway? Leading into the 21st century, people decide to choose the single life over the married life, and use their energy and time towards rebounding, money, material love, power, freedom, pride, and their career. Superficial love often conquers idealistic love in today’s society due to one’s self-interest persuading them away from love.
Other times, falls back on her basis of emotional appeal with statements such as, “A woman will not understand what true dependency is until she is cradling her own infant in her arms” (752). This is a result of the love and devotion she provides for her two children (Reimer). Crittenden looks to fit the profile for a woman who was the founder of a controversial feminist magazine, Women's Quarterly. She has a college degree and has spent quite a bit of time working in the "man's world". Currently she is a CEO, however the part that doesn't fit is that she is happily married and a mother, who stayed home with her children when they were young. Now Crittenden stresses that marriage is an uplifting, joyous experience: “We have ceased to look down the tunnel, waiting for a train” (753). She acknowledges that those in the past have almost been forced to give up their independence because they married so young, but she counters it with wise words like, “By waiting and waiting and waiting to commit to someone, our capacity for love shrinks and withers” (752). Though it’s a big risk, the good far outweighs the bad, both emotionally and logically. Salvation lies within, eternal happiness is in your grasp…all you have to do is grow up, get married, and have
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It is a very difficult task for women to live a content life while in a despondent marriage. Though it has been done, it is simply no easy task. In the short stories "Story of an hour", and "Astronomers Wife" Kate Chopin and Kay Boyle both suggests to their readers that a woman needs a man to connect with her physically to be happy. The two stories both share the thesis that women are being held back by their husbands and there is plenty of evidence to prove this. With Chopin's story taking place in the 50's, and Boyle's story taking place at the turn of the century, they encounter parallel situations with a time difference of almost 50 years.
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In the end, readers are unsure whether to laugh or cry at the union of Carol and Howard, two people most undoubtedly not in love. Detailed character developments of the confused young adults combined with the brisk, businesslike tone used to describe this disastrous marriage effectively highlight the gap between marrying for love and marrying for ?reason.? As a piece written in the 1950s, when women still belonged to their husbands? households and marriages remained arranged for class and money?s sake, Gallant?s short story excerpt successfully utilizes fictional characters to point out a bigger picture: no human being ought to repress his or her own desires for love in exchange for just an adequate home and a tolerable spouse. May everyone find their own wild passions instead of merely settling for the security and banality of that ?Other Paris.?
anyone stuck with this type of man. The choice of what type of man a woman chooses to
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reasons people were quick to rush into marriage. Cheating is a common recurrence in this book,
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