Gender stereotypes Essay Example for Free

Gender stereotypes Essay According to the oxford dictionary the definition of stereotype is â€Å" A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing†. Everyone has a preconceived notion about a ‘MAN’ and a ‘WOMEN’, a man’s work or women’s work, the characteristic ways in which a man or a women is defined also has some preconceived notions. These preconceived notions can be defined as stereotypes. The stereotypes begin at an early age, even as an infant it is already decided that blue is for boys and pink is for girls, even their toys are decided, have you ever witnessed a small boy ever agreeing to like or play with Barbie dolls? I haven’t. Stereotypes are embedded in our society to such an extent that we don’t even realise it, they influence our thought process, the way we become less indifferent towards things, the way we perceive things everything is defined by a simple word:- Stereotype. Even in the 21st century stereotypes exist, it is considered curtsey when a man opens the door for women, but is it really? Or has it always been like this? Why is it that the man has to propose to the love of his life why can’t a women to do? Why is it that women have to always be in the kitchen and cook? Why dothey have to take care of the kids? These are still some of the most common stereotypes that exist but no one really does much about it. Usually, the female stereotypic part is to get married and have children. She is also expected to put her relations well-being before her own, be loving, compassionate, caring, nurturing, and sympathetic. The male stereotypic part is to be the financial provider. He is also to be assertive, competitive, independent, courageous, and career? focused, expected to keep his emotions aside or in check. These stereotypes can hinder a person’s development and make them restricted to the confinement of the stereotype that precedes their gender and never be able to grow out of it. â€Å"Women were created from the rib of man to be beside him, not from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled by him, but from under his arm to be protected by him, near to his heart to be loved by him. † ? David O. McKay.

An Annotation of John Crowe Ransoms Blue Girls Essay -- Crowe Ransom

An Annotation of John Crowe Ransom's Blue Girls Simply put, Blue Girls is about beauty. The poem focuses on the realization and truthfulness that beauty undoubtedly fades. The speaker appeals to young girls, warning them to not put all their hope in their beauty, but to still utilize it before it diminishes. Blue Girls By John Crowe Ransom Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward Under the towers of your seminary, Go listen to your teacher old and contrary Without believing a word. Tie the white fillets then about your hair And think no more of what will come to pass Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass And chattering on the air. Practise your beauty, blue girls, before it fail; And I will cry with my loud lips and publish Beauty which all our power shall never establish, It is so frail. For I could tell you a story which is true; I know a lady with a terrible tongue, Blear eyes fallen from blue, All her perfections tarnished &endash; yet it is not long Since she was lovelier than any of you. The "your" in this poem signifies young adolescent girls attending school. While the moral of the poem could apply to anyone, he probably chose young girls as his audience because they are often the most aware and the most controlled by outward beauty. He also chose the color blue here, which can mean "intellectual" when speaking of a woman. So, "blue" could very well refer to the knowledge the girls hold, or it could just be the color of their skirts. I prefer the first meaning, especially since we find out that they are attending school in the next line. A sward is a grassy area of land, thus suggesting that the girls lead a carefree life of "twirling" and "travel... ... his point across here: beauty does indeed fade away, so some other purpose in life is necessary. In this poem, Ransom offers the girls three main lessons, which, although they seem contradictory, are really closely related: (1) Beauty does fade. (2) Use your beauty as much as you can before it fades. (3) Have something in your life besides beauty, so that when it fades, you are not left with nothing. He describes beauty as delicate and rare, unable to be established. He focuses on the lightheartedness of young girls, how they are caught up in beauty, and he warns them to be conscientious of the fact that their beauty will fade and that they cannot put all their hope on their beauty. At the same time, he encourages them to "practice" their beauty until it is gone, and he promises to celebrate that beauty as best he can, with all its value and frailty.

McDonaldization of Online Dating Essay

McDonald’s is one of the most recognizable companies in the world, they have served billions and have restaurants in nearly every country in the world. In a society that greatly values efficiency McDonald’s could be looked at as the ideal model for how to run a corporation. In recent years, the ideologies that McDonald’s uses in running their company are being absorbed into our everyday lives. In 1996 sociologist, George Ritzer, came out with a book explaining this process, even creating the term, â€Å"McDonaldization,† to describe it. Essentially, he explains how, â€Å"†¦principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world† (Ritzer 1). This model, based off of the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast-food restaurants, is one of the most influential facets of the global marketplace, and its assembly-line process of doing business is driving down c osts and skyrocketing profitability. However, these cost cuts do not come without a price. Although McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurant chains like it have been highly successful in terms of efficiency, there are subtle negative effects on the quality of the product and society as a whole. In recent years one of last industries that would be suspected of McDonaldization, has in fact adopted this business model, the world of dating. Modern technologies are making it more and more easier to meet new people, with as little face-to-face interaction as possible. A most recent example of this is the dating application, Tinder, which may just be the purest example of how McDonaldization has seeped so far into the floorboards of our society that it is now even affecting the way people are meeting potential life partners. The application shows a picture of one user to another and allows the user to anonymously like or pass them. If two users like each other then it results in a â€Å"match† and Tinder introduces the two users and opens a chat. Only after the two users connect solely because they find the other aesthetically pleasing, then do they get to know anything about the other person on a level deeper than their appearance. Eliminating time lags and  distance, Tinder bridges the gap between digital and physical dating, enabling users to experience the instant gratification that modern society holds in suc h high regards. While Tinder is just one example of this, online dating as a whole has become McDonaldized, and all of the principles that constitute the process can be applied to this modern form of dating. To start, the principle of control is, â€Å" the standardization and uniformity of the corporation and the replacement of humans by non-human technologies† (Ritzer). In the means of online dating this would be the replacement of meeting someone in person and feeling a connection, to talking to a person from behind a computer screen. The principle of predictability goes along with this. Predictability is how the services have become uniform and standard. This means that no matter where a person goes, they will receive the same service and receive the same product every time when interacting with the McDonaldized organization. An online dating profile can only be so customizable. You can view a person’s career, location, their hobbies, but there is only so much words on a screen can say about someone, and essentially all of these profiles can begin to seem a lot alike. What these profiles lack is the way someone’s face lights up when they are talking about their f avorite book, how they get embarrassed when you compliment them, or even something as simple as the way they smell. Although the romantic in everyone likes to believe that they can find their soulmate, the chances of meeting them through a computer screen seem a lot less likely. When online dating, for the most part, you are just looking at photo, after photo of people, and without human interaction you don’t much of a deeper connection unless you provoke a conversation with all of the hundreds of profiles you are faced with. The next principle, calculability means that â€Å"the objective should be quantifiable (sales) rather than subjective (taste).†(Ritzer) McDonaldization developed the notion that quantity equals quality, and that a large amount of product delivered to the customer in a short amount of time is the same as one high quality product. Essentially, calculability is the idea that you get out, what you give into it. Forming an online relationship does not take much effort at all, but in doing so you are jeopardizing the quality of the relationship. An example of this wo uld be if you are going out and making an effort to talk to, connect and form real world relationships with people, you are much more likely to find  someone that you could have a meaningful relationship with instead of simply posting an online profile and having a computer between you and the person you are talking to. Online dating websites use the idea that joining is â€Å"simple and easy† to attract new customers, but that’s not the way dating should be. Like anything else in life if you want to get something done the best way possible you need to invest time and effort in order into it to see the results you are looking for. You get what you give. The last principle that ties into this is efficiency. Efficiency in terms of McDonaldization is the optimal method for accomplishing a task. The example that Ritzer uses for McDonald’s is, the fastest way to get from being hungry to being full. Efficiency in McDonaldization means that every aspect of the organization is geared toward the minimization of time. For online dating efficiency would be how long it would take someone from being single to in a relationship. Efficiency could be considered the most important principle due to how much of today’s society has this need to get what they want when they want it. However, with efficiency, when getting something faster you are risking a lower quality product, good things take time. It takes time to make a good hamburger, much like it takes time to form a good relationship. Hypothetically speaking, if you are hungry and seeking a hamburger you have two options, a fast food or a sit down restaurant. You could get a cheap, low quality burger immediately, through a drive-through window, with limited human interaction and right when you want it, one that it much like a lot all of the other fast food burgers you’ve had before. You also have the option to go out and take the time and invest the effort into seeking out the best burger restaurant and going there and getting that once in a lifetime, high quality, satisfying burger, and even then, it’s not just about getting the burger, it’s about going out and enjoying the experience of sitting in the restaurant and waiting for your food. That is how online dating could be viewed, as settling for a McDonald’s quarter-pounder when you really want a gourmet burger. Also, when you go to a drive-t hru you are missing the experience of dining out, like how if you spend your dating years behind a computer, you are missing out on the experience of going out into the world and meeting new people and trying new things. For fast food restaurants the constant repetition of bland, low-quality ingredients being put into exactly the same thing millions of times a day, is not at all the problem, but is in fact the solution, and it the very basis of McDonald’s highly successful business model. Their products may not be ideal taste-wise, and not at all nutritional, but the customer’s know what they are getting. Online dating websites operate in a similar fashion. These companies are showing thousands of potential singles to each other everyday, and like fast-food, these results are usually low-quality and the same thing over and over again. However, these dating websites are making a significant profit due to monthly membership fees and money from advertising, when what they are doing is nothing more the serving up the same bland results time after time. The advertisements that you see for these websites include statistics about how an increasing number of marriages today are started on the internet. What these companies fail to mention is how the divorce rate in America right now is tragically high. In her 2013 piece, Analyzing Divorce From Cultural And Network Approaches, Tamara Afifi explains this tragic statistic. She discusses the many factors of such a high div orce rates, such as, the economy and also mentions the fact that this can be caused due to people rushing into relationships. Online dating makes it incredibly easy to meet people quickly, thus rushing into relationships, and ultimately, shortening the lifespan of such relationships. This can be seen in the media all the time, and most notably, Kim Kardashian’s incredibly short marriage to Kris Humphries. Tamara Afifi also goes on to explain the high costs of divorces and how lawyers benefit from this. Additionally, there are new websites where you can get a divorce online since it is so common today, making it fast and convenient, with little human interacting. This suggests that even the marriage/divorce industry is succumbing to McDonaldization. The people behind dating websites are trying to run a company and are focused on making money. In her piece, The Price of Love, Emi Berry explains how dating websites care nothing more than the profit they receive from people looking for love. She explains this best when she says, â€Å"Money can’t buy me love. Money can, however, help find that love you seek via a dating service.† Dating websites are following the principles of McDonaldization. They are looking to get as much revenue as they can a s fast as they can. They have essentially created a conveyer-belt method for getting single individuals into relationships, and at the end of the day, they are just people trying to run a company. Dan Slater, a former  litigator, talked to several individuals, married, single, and going through divorce about online dating to better other stand the topic first hand, and made a list of common ideas that he heard during his interviews. This list includes ideas such as, â€Å"Internet dating has made people more disposable.† â€Å"Internet dating may be partly responsible for a rise in the divorce rates. Low quality, unhappy and unsatisfying marriages are being more visible due to Internet dating sites. Internet dating can help people of all ages realize that there’s no need to settle for a mediocre relationship.†(Slater) The rise of divorce caused by online relationships could be us to the idea of something seeming â€Å"too good to be true†. Like for example, when you see a McDonald’s Big Mac on a commercial, it looks like a delicious, expertly-crafted burger, go to the store and order one however, and if you are expecting to see the same burger you saw in the pictures then you are about to be extremely let down. The same principles can apply to dating profiles. The beautiful thing about the internet is that you can show people looking at your profile all of your best qualities, while hiding your less desirable ones, thus making people seem much more appealing online. When couples from online dating websites meeting in real life, they may not be all the seemed to be online. However, people might try to make things works because they believe that the person they are meeting in real life is just as great as the one they met online, only to be disappointed later on when they are not all they turned out to be. However, is all online dating necessarily bad? You hear many success stories on television, as well as real life, and theres a positive and negative side to most things. In the case of online dating, all you really hear about in the media is the good and happy relationships that come out of this new technology. What they fail to mention is the disappointment, short-term relationships, and they large amounts of money that people are spending on these websites to be connected with people. Yes, it is true that these websites allow you meet people you may not have ever met without them, as well as match you with people who the website feels you would be compatible with. However, when behind a screen it is very easy to be something you’re not, and with lack of actual interaction with the other person you are missing out on so much more. When you meet someone in person there is a connection that you get that is unlike anything else that can be felt through a computer screen. So whil e online dating does  have it’s benefits, it just seems that not only are there more negatives that can come out of online dating, but its also takes away what human interaction was left, especially in a world where everyday human interactions are slowly being replaced with electronics, self-checkout at the grocery store, atm machines, shopping, and now even something that’s been around since the beginning of time, companionship, is being computerized. This just makes you think, how long is this going to keep going on until human interaction is completely obsolete? So at the end of the day, we are living in a modern world, one where McDonaldization is inevitably taking over the way that most organizations are run. It is important to remember this process, has it’s benefits, but also many negatives. With it’s principles of, efficiency, calculability, control and predictability, this concept is becoming the new norm, faster than you may realize. This process is making the world more technological, and computerizing everything. You have to ask yourself, when is it too far? Should something that’s been around as long as dating be something that is now done through technology? and is McDonaldization in fact, making the world a bigger place by isolating everyone behind their own computer screen? Works cited Ritzer, George. â€Å"An Introduction to McDonaldization.† The McDonaldization of Society 7. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2013. 1-20. Print. 19 Mar. 2014. Turner, Bryan. â€Å"Does Anthropology Still Exist?.† Society 45.3 (2008): 260-266. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. Afifi, Tamara D, et al. â€Å"Analyzing Divorce From Cultural And Network Approaches.† Journal Of Family Studies 19.3 (2013): 240-253. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. SLATER, DAN. â€Å"A Million First Dates How Online Dating Is Threatening Monogamy.† Atlantic Monthly (10727825) 311.1 (2013): 40-46. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. BERRY, EMI. â€Å"The Price Of Love.† Money (14446219) 162 (2013): 52. Business Source Complete. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.

On Ageing by Maya Angelou Essay

Warning by jenny joseph is a humorous way of looking towards old age. It is written as a monologue within which the poet describes how she will behave when she is an old woman. In The first stanza she talks about herself and lists all the things she will do when she is old. She says she will wear the colours purple and red which are significant in the fact that they are bright garish colours. The two colours clash with each other and would not be put together by someone who cares about keeping up their appearance. One of the main themes to this poem is the idea of rebelling against the way society expects you to behave and the idea of not conforming therefore she decides to deliberately make a statement with her appearance by wearing clashing colours to show rebellion against the idea of everyone looking the same- everyone conforming. This idea of rebellion is further emphasised when she says â€Å"I shall spend my pension on brandy†¦ and say we’ve no money for butter†. She has decided that she is going to be deliberately difficult and irresponsible. She is desperate to rebel against the norms of responsible adulthood and change the way she has always been † escape from the sobriety of my youth† . The acts she chooses are harmless and humorous and she will be likely to get away with them as people will think she is senile. The fact that all of these things are what she wants to do in the future shows that she has never done this before and so she could be saying that old age is the time for freedom and to escape from the rules in society. However this could also show that she is only able to do these things with the excuse of being elderly. She would never feel comfortable to break the rules without having the excuse of being senile etc hence why she is waiting until old age to do these things showing that she is still trapped in the rules of society. This shows the underlying more depressing image behind the humour that society doesn’t allow for freedom and the message of how the pressure there is to conform prevents you from being yourself. All of the lines in the poem run on with a quick pace into each other reflecting the excitement and anticipation for the things she talks about doing. Throughout she repeats â€Å"and† and â€Å"I† which also adds to the pace and energy of the poem. The second stanza itself is one long sentence in which she directly addresses the reader with words of encouragement. She wants other people to feel and be able to do whatever they like without worrying about the social pressures of conformity, she could be thinking that if everyone does this then eventually those pressures will not be a problem anymore.

Media Portrays Violence Essays

Media Portrays Violence Essays Media Portrays Violence Essay Media Portrays Violence Essay Thomas H English 1a 10/31/2010 Media Portrays Violence In the world today with technology advancing so fast its hard to keep up with it all; but with the advancement of technology comes the extensive media exposure to viewers. Pretty much everyone is exposed to the media today whether it is television or internet the news can be accessed within moments. And the entertainment industry is no different furthering making options of media accessible with a push of a button whether it is cell phones or other handheld devices to laptops and so on and so forth. This also brings us to the main question. What exactly do the media portray for the viewer and what do we learn from it? Television tries to become more real and real as movies push for 3d and television screens try to push for the clearest picture possible trying to bring the screen to life. Television shows have been pushing more and more to reality shows giving a so called perception of what life would be like in said situations. And even gaming tries to push the lines making things more and more realistic such as call of duty and grand theft auto. Which are great and all but what is all this stuff doing for us really what is it teaching us? In Michael Moore’s Movie Bowling for Columbine, he addresses how the United States of America is clouded with fear and driven with violence and this essay is to prove that. The movie opens to this event: One of the deadliest massacres in the Unites States of America happened in a High school in Columbine,  Colorado. April 20th 1999 the massacre caused by two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed twelve students as well as one teacher only to kill themselves after. 1Moore) The event had pushed the media to question the abuse of firearms availability and the troubles of youth. Apparently though the guns that Harris and Klebold had used were legally purchased at stores and gun shows. The bullets were purchased at a local K-mart in Littleton. This example shows how the media portrayals today affect the minds of youth giving them violent solutions to ideas that should not be s olved in such manners. They think, well it’s in video games we see it all over television it must be okay right? And only after realizing the situation they were truly in did they feel the guilt and attempted suicides. Personally I would not be able to live a trouble free life with the fact that someone died because of me running through my conscious. 3 weeks ago a fight broke out in Hayward high school which involved two local gangs and police enforcement to be involved. The principal stated that the two gangs were fighting with each other and when the police stepped in to control the situation. â€Å"As the officer stepped in to stop that fight, a male student tried to punch the officer. Several smaller altercations ensued, prompting the officer to ask for assistance from other officers. (ABC) Eventually 6 students were arrested in suspect to causing and leading the whole altercation. (1Kurhi) this event is proof enough that the issues expressed in the movie and in this essay is close enough to hit the state even the city we live in today. Medias’ portrayal of how things should be in the so called â€Å"real world† such as MTV; this no longer really being a music television channel , is still driven into the younger generation and very much is strongly influencing them to condone violence as a means to solve things regardless if the issue at hand is even logical to be at arms about. And who in their right mind would hit an officer? So how is this related to the media? Entertainment to people is always something somewhat close or related to real life. Whether it is a drama or action, some form of violence is expressed in almost everything we watch or play. Moore hits one of the most famed shows that are still being run on television today, Cops. A show very stereotypically profiling blacks and Hispanics. (2Moore) although the show is supposedly supposed to portray what police officers go through on a daily basis; it is far from what the average American sees every single day. How often do you see an officer running around town guns blazing? And how often do you see a white man being arrested in the show. This shows portrayal of Blacks and Hispanics give the general population a common racial profiling fear of them although this should not be the case. Once again another media has driven fear due to the critics mainly wanting a boost in ratings. Another prime example of what people see in the media and how they portray it in real life is in our text book when Zimbardo conducted an experiment on how people portray what life is like in prison. â€Å"Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. 15 per day for 1-2 weeks beginning Aug 14. For further information amp; applications come to room 248†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (233 Behrens) The ad attracted many students but only 21 were selected throughout the experiment the students began to get more and more into the role playing where it finally got out of hand that Zimbardo had to stop the experime nt. â€Å"Everyone and everything in the prison was defined by power. To be a guard who did not take advantage of this institutionally sanctioned use of power was to appear â€Å"weak/out of it/wired up by the prisoners† or simply a deviant from the norm of established guard behavior. (239 Behrens) now I know that guards must have some level of aggressive enforcement, but this experiment was a leading example of how we literally do what we believe is right and we believe what’s on television is right because rarely any of us take the time to find out what the truth really is. Now with all the examples provided, it is pretty much a given that America society is driven with fear and violence by the media but what about other countries? Moore lets us look at a neighboring country, Canada; where guns are available in fact are also endorsed in the country seeing it is a hunting community in most if not all parts. So what could it be? Looking at their news the politicians speak in a much different aspect compared to American news reporters. Instead of scaring the population with the most recent corruption in the community, the news reporters and politicians only speak of the continuing improvements in the community today. What kind of community isn’t scared to keep their doors locked? It sure as hell isn’t America that’s for sure. But Moore proves this theory by walking around a neighborhood in Canada briefly interviewing neighbors why they leave their doors open. All the neighbors know each other within the community interviewed and none were really scared of anything. (3 Moore) America is so caught up in the next biggest scare on television rarely anyone in their neighborhood really knows their neighbors like family; and the media is living proof of this. Our television screens are filled with nothing but violence and no resolve the Entertainment industry keeps pushing for more and more closer to life gaming and viewing that people have it in their minds that this is possible and that is why our country is the way it is today. Maybe The Unites states of America should stop boasting with its egocentric powers and start focusing on the problems at home. Is driving the people of our country with fear and violence really the best way to go? Maybe America should look at our neighboring country and sk them for a few pointers on how to have a community full of friendly neighbors; and maybe one day we’ll be able to feel comfortable leaving our doors unlocked just like Canada, or maybe not. Works cited * Bowling for columbine, Michael Moore, Video, United Artist/Dog eat dogs, October 9th 2002 * Six arrested after brawls at Hayward high, Erik Kurhi, Oakland Tribune, October 5, 2010 * Behrens Rosen, Writing and reading across the curricul um third edition, Pearson Longman copyright 2009 * 6 students arrested after series of fights, Unknown, ABC Bay City News, October 5, 2010

English paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

English paper - Essay Example Writing in the first person, Rose defies the traditional political and cultural associations relating to personal achievement to insist that the narrative of an individual’s life is both the product and process of surrounding social and educational narratives. In this article, I will feature the title both metaphorically and literally. The American education institutions are diverse in culture and population. In almost all institutions, one will find themselves surrounded by African, African American, Hispanic, Cantonese, and Asian among other students. Also to be considered is the economic vantage and disadvantage of the student in question, their esteem levels, the parental control as well as the will by the student. Being an African student, I can relate to Rose’s experiences. Coming from a culture that does not value education in general, it was hard to enter into a classroom. Being a girl added insult to injury. Growing up, my going to school was not debatable. I will begin by giving you a glimpse into a traditional Maasai homestead. A girl is supposed to get married as soon as she â€Å"graduates† into a woman. The graduation is marked by pomp and color, after which one undergoes female genital mutilation (FGM). Additionally, culture and family (save for my mother) did not support my dreams or care to provide a conducive environment for my studies, the call was inherent and evident. I loved education and dreamt of being a writer despite the many hurdles and bleak future ahead. Like Rose, my education journey has been a long way coming. Miraculously, I was able to swim my way through high school and won a scholarship to study in the United States. Now came the freshman experience in foreign soils. The alienation and the loneliness was enough to dampen my spirits. In â€Å"The Politics of Remediation†, Rose discusses these feelings. The experience was more or less

ASEAN Free Trade Area Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

ASEAN Free Trade Area - Essay Example The AFTA agreement aims at promoting free trade in the region by bringing down the tax barriers and making the trade related policy framework to be more encouraging. The agreement can be understood as a kind of regional liberalization of trade policies that are favorable for boosting regional trade. Further the article focuses to find out whether if formation of this agreement has created trade creation or trade diversion. Trade creation can be considered as a development whereas trade diversion from the non member nations to the member nations can not be considered as a positive development. An important instrument for applying the trade agreement in the total region is the Common Effective Preferential Tariff scheme that requires the tariff of certain commodity to fall below zero to five percent. These commodities include capital and non capital as well as manufactured goods. This process of liberalization and eliminating the identified commodities from taxable commodities has been phased out in for phases. This has been done in order to prevent any instantaneous impact over the respective national economies of the member countries. A gradual tariff reduction would assure that the change shall be absorbed over a period of years and thus promote trade. After fifteen years of the agreement, it can be observed that the countries have largely succeeded in achieving the goals.