Through out my adolescence and now as a young adult, I have always taken an interest in the discussion of gender and women’s studies. I have always questioned the status quo and for the last couple of days I have embarked to be critically observant to the communication that is influenced by gender around me. As I began this class, I had just returned from a month long visit to Colombia where I spent time with family. As both a feminist and the by-product of two differing cultures, it was interesting to find the ways in which the culture my aunts participated in was more “traditional” than I expected. Both the culture at home and the mass media messages in the country were indicative of a dynamic where a woman is expected to be “polite, neat,
The sales team is entirely composed of women and in contrast, the owners are all male. Due to this, they often fail to realize the full implications of a request like this. Having to put on make up itself may seem like a mundane thing, but it is something that not all women like to do and therefore, it should not be the norm in order to abide by their perceived standards of how women are suppose to present themselves. The implication goes as far as to suggest that males are more likely to spend more money if a pleasant face greets
In How I Met Your Mother, the story follows Ted, a hopeless romantic in his quest to find his soul mate through a series of flashbacks with the help of his four best friends. Together three men and two women explore the ever-changing narratives of their lives through the perils of adulthood in New York City. Two of Ted’s best friends are Barney and Robin and through out the show, the stereotypical themes for both a female and a male are explored. Barney is a womanizer who feeds women lies in order to get them to sleep with him, and Robin is another woman in a mans world, who is not able to have it all, instead has to constantly choose between her autonomy and a successful relationship through out the span of 9 seasons. I think I would have to say that I am uncomfortable with these messages because of the type of behavior that they perpetrate, along with the expectations embedded in the culture through these messages. If we are ever to continue to make changes to our current society, we all need to be more aware of the messages that are constantly being communicated through all aspects of our life, i.e. work life, school interactions, close relationships, and especially the media. I believe the media plays a big part on how we negotiate gender norms in
North Americans and Mexicans must also attempt to overcome the ideas that women should be seen and not heard. In Anzaldúa’s words, “Hocicona, repeloma, chismosa, having a big mouth, questioning, carrying tales are all signs of being mal criada. In my culture they are all words that are derogatory if applied to women – I’ve ever heard them applied to men” (2947).
Over the past few decades, research on women has gained new momentum and a great deal of attention. Susan Socolow’s book, The Women of Colonial Latin America, is a well-organized and clear introduction to the roles and experiences of women in colonial Latin America. Socolow explicitly states that her aim is to examine the roles and social regulations of masculinity and femininity, and study the confines, and variability, of the feminine experience, while maintaining that sex was the determining factor in status. She traces womanly experience from indigenous society up to the enlightenment reforms of the 18th century. Socolow concentrates on the diverse culture created by the Europeans coming into Latin America, the native women, and African slaves that were imported into the area. Her book does not argue that women were victimized or empowered in the culture and time they lived in. Socolow specifies that she does her best to avoid judgment of women’s circumstances using a modern viewpoint, but rather attempts to study and understand colonial Latin American women in their own time.
Before the Nicaraguan Sandinista Revolution had taken place in the late 1970s, male and female gender roles had been clearly and traditionally defined as to how one should behave and conduct one’s self. Men and women identified these ideal traits and behaviors for potential husbands and wives, or as guidelines in how to raise their children, and even so that the family order of gender role was not upset. Traditional male behavior had originally been based around the notion of machismo. In this way, they are meant to act aggressive, violent, dominant, sexually conquer and drink and gamble. Women on the other hand were expected to be soft spoken, obedient and caretaker of the household. Once the Revolution started, and as times were getting harder, the idea of the ideal New Man and woman had changed.
Gender Matters is a collection of various essays on feminist linguistic texts analysis, by Sara Mills. Mills develops methods of analyzing literary and non-literary texts, in addition to conversational analysis based on a feminist approach. The author draws on data from her collection of essays gathered over the last two decades on feminism during the 1990s. The essays focus on gender issues, the representation of gender in reading, writing, and in public speaking. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of feminists’ analysis of sexism in literature and the relation between gender and politeness. The article is informative for my research paper, as my topic is going to cover language analysis of the text and who women reading and writing differs according to the discourse analysis within linguistic, psychology, case studies audiences and surveys. The book would be helpful, particularly the last three essays that discusses gender, public speaking, the question of politeness and impoliteness in public speaking. Mills’ analysis is not complete without including the idea of global notions of both women and men, to see whether women and men write and read in the same way globally. Therefore, an update would enrich the book’s discussion section. Although, Mills addresses the class and race theme in language and public speaking, I will only look into the role of language that plays a part in doing or reducing gender in literary, non-literary texts and in conversation.
How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom that has been airing on CBS for the past eleven years. The popular show follows the lives of five friends as they seek to settle down in their lives and marry. The show is narrated from the perspective of one of the main characters, Ted, as he tells his children the story about how he met their mother. As such, Ted narrates most of the story in the past tense and a key focus of the show is his own love life as he explains the process of courtship that he went through before finally getting married. One of Ted’s love interests in the show, Robin, is another main character and one of the five friends that How I Met Your Mother revolves around. Two other characters, Marshall and Lily, are a couple right from the start and eventually marry halfway through the show. The last main character, Barney, is a rich, womanizing bachelor that provides most of the comic relief in the show. His promiscuous exploits with different women in the city of New York regularly act as side plots within the show.
Throughout our program, I still maintained and took into consideration the general and primary focus of this learning plan. However, to my surprise, I began to touch on very country specific topics concerning the lives of women. This was because each country we visited was so different than the others, each had its own view towards wome...
Since the development of civilization, women have always been viewed as subordinate to men in all aspects of life. This is especially true in regards to the communication styles of both sexes. The expository text “ His Politeness is Her Powerlessness” by Deborah Tannen and Charlotte Bronte’s gothic novel, Jane Eyre, demonstrates a shocking similarity between the 1820s and the 21st century in regards to men’s view point on women’s style of communication. According to the texts, women will always be viewed as the inferior sex regardless of their communication style.
In Peter and Wendy, written by J. M. Barrie, the characters exhibit specific qualities which are stereotypical of their genders. The characters fall into traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity: Peter is cocky, stubborn, charismatic and enigmatic to the women in his life, and Wendy Darling, a young girl whose father wants to remove her from the nursery she shares with her brothers. The two characters embody and perpetuate gender stereotypes, and mirror the stereotypes embodied by the adult characters in the story, Mr. and Mrs. Darling.
In a study done by The 4Th Estate, the results showed men are quoted around five times more than women in stories regarding women (Pesta 1). With media being so male centered, it is not surprising that often women become the target of sexual objectification in all realms of media. With the concept of “Sex Sells” still holding true, many advertising outlets have continued to fund ads with sexually focused content. Whether you are listening to the radio, reading your favorite magazine, or just window shopping in the mall you are being targeted by media’s gendered advertising.
...empowerment, the wish to be seen in the political world, gender fuelled economic inequalities and the fight against ‘machismo’. It appears that one common idea that appears consistently in these movements is the resilient importance of ‘motherhood’ that seems to cut above class and underline the irrelevance of political belonging or boundaries. On top of this, there appears to be another clear form of continuity between these movements – gender identity. Some argue that women are claiming rights and gaining a voice and are no longer passive observers of the political process but more so have greater autonomy and power to decide their own futures , but, a valid question, however, is: are these inequalities rooted too deep in Latin American societies or have the movements these women led and fought for transformed the traditional ideological stance of these nations?
Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist, “Woman, Culture, and Society: A Theoretical Overview”, in Lamphere, Louise & Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist, Ed. Woman, Culture, and Society. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. 1974.
We all have a certain way of communicating that seems evident and natural to us, so we can be shocked, frustrated, or even sadden when someone misinterprets us. Interacting with other people is part of our daily lives, yet men and women have different styles of communication and behavior. Some of the major differences between men and women are how they express emotion, affection or intimacy, and communication. Women tend to be more emotional and express more affection, whereas men are far less emotional and express less affection. Women regard intimacy as talking face-to-face; however, men regard intimacy as working or playing side-by-side. Women tend to ask more questions when communicating while men ask fewer or no questions at all. These
Women and gender studies contribute greatly to our understanding of the social and cultural world we inhabit. Studying the complex issues of this field has instituted many key insights. Two major insights that positively affected our society are the awareness through learning and through this awareness activism that can ensue.
As part of our culture, while growing up boys and girls are expected to learn the basic skills to fulfill the "roles of their gender." For boys this includes learning all of the the routine maintenance on a car, to work out and be stronger then the girls, and are usually expected to be better with electronics. While at the same time girls are steered towards learning how to cook, clean, and look pretty. All of the female roles require a lot of practice and trial and error before they can be mastered, but the hardest and most time consuming skill to be learned still remains applying make-up. Just as anything else (even writing an essay) the finished product always seems so simple and easy enough to be done by a child in a few minutes. Although, in reality girls spend years doing trial and error to find out what looks good on them and a few more years making it look "natural." This is necessary for every girl go through on her own, to be able to have her own look. However, there is a routine make-up application process that will help any beginning girl with he basics.
Men and women will never be the same when it comes to both emotional and physical aspects. So, why is it that people are surprised when men and women have trouble communicating? God gave Eve to Adam for companionship. Their differences are what make them a complete pair.