Sunday, September 18, 2011

Katy Hanratty Homework #5

The essay by August was very hard for me to understand because I felt as if he was playing the victim card for all males.  An example from the essay Real Men Don’t by August that I think any female can resonate with personal experiences is when August explains “..gender-exclusive usage that omits males from certain kinds of consideration” (August 130).  This statement is especially biased against women because it is usually women who are the ones being omitted for wanting to do something.  For example, there were a lot of people who got very angry when Hillary Clinton wanted to run for President.  Many people on talk shows and just regular add companies would jeer at her and make female biased comments towards her.  The point was to make her look like a joke to be running for President.  Have we ever seen add companies do this to a male running for President?  August continues to explain that “American males are almost twice as likely as females to be victims of violent crimes (even when rape is included in the tally) and three times more likely to be victims of murder (August 130).  This statement seems as if August is trying to say that there are more male victims of violent crime then there are women.  I agree that there are men who are sexually abused or have been a victim of a violent crime, however, the numbers for women in these statistics are probably significantly higher.
The essay by Tannen was I think more equal to men and women.  The author never intentionally bashed men in this essay.  Rather she was observing the differences between men and women.  “If a woman’s clothing is tight or revealing (in other words, sexy), it sends a message-an intended one of wanting to be attractive,  but also a possibly unintended one of availability” (Tannen 143).  I agree with this statement because it shows how a lot of women simply want to look good and feel good about themselves.  However to a male, it is sending the message that we are available, which is not always the case.  Out of the two essays that we read, I am only convinced by Tannen’s essay because she presented two sides of how men and women are perceived and observed and didn’t simply bash men.  As opposed to August, I felt that he was just bashing women.

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