“Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other is gold” (Scout Songs 1); this catchy phrase repeats itself over and over in the mind of any devoted Girl Scout. While Mindy Kaling may not be the cookie-selling, vest-wearing Girl Scout that dutifully sings this tune, the phrase still rings true in Kaling’s book, Why Not Me?. Kaling spends chapter after chapter analyzing and retelling stories of her private life. These anecdotes range from relationship drama to career struggles and how Kaling overcame the obstacles in her path. However, the narratives that should resonate most with Kaling’s target audience, young American women, are those of friendships gained, friendships lost, and friendships put through the trials of time …show more content…
1). After graduating from Dartmouth College, Kaling began her impressive career working as a writer and actress in the hit television series, The Office (Mead 1). From there, Kaling garnered America’s attention with her very own television series appropriately titled, The Mindy Project (1). With her newfound popularity, Kaling allows her fans a peek into her life and her innermost thoughts through her two autobiographies: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? written in 2011 and Why Not Me? written in 2015. The second and most recent book is the focus of my paper as it “delves deeper into Mindy’s inner thoughts”, according to the highest rated customer review (Ashley …show more content…
Because of this, Steve Duck of University of Iowa refers to women’s studies as “understudied relationships” (Duck 1). In his book, Under-Studied Relationships: Off the Beaten Track, Steve delves into the complicated world that is friendship between women. He reveals that even the best of relationships, more often than not, will “dissolve due to geographical distance”, especially during the transition from high school to college (133). However, Duck claims that this occurrence during young adult transitional periods is “more detrimental to male friendships than female friendships” (133). He explains that, “men’s inability to maintain distal friends may be due to a lack of awareness about and skills to utilize effective strategies that maintain a [friendship]” (184). This argument implies that though males are invested in their friendships, they do not express as much emotional interest in these relationships as their female counterparts. While distance may seem challenging for women to overcome, they collectively put more effort into preserving their friendships than men. Duck further instills this concept by explaining that “women’s same-sex friendships tend to be based more on intimate and emotional discussions than men’s” (186). Men, Duck argues, lack the depth in their friendships that women possess, and, for this reason, have difficulty sustaining a friendship that is met with the strain
We don't see many people in the world who express individuality. However, we see popularity and amount of followers we have on our Instagram to represent our reputation in the public. In the novel, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, we can see that individuality can still be expressed even if the whole school despises you. The main character, Stargirl, demonstrates how to be yourself and how it's better to be yourself than to become someone else.
A child’s upbringing can severely affect who they are later in life. In particular, their transition into adulthood and the way they are initiated into this new stage of their lives is essential to their adult personalities. In “The Demoness Kali”, Shyam Selvadurai writes a story in which formal features of initiation are placed upon its main character, Shivan to demonstrate his coming of age. Through separation, mentors, and tests, Shivan is able to initiate into adulthood.
Friendship can be debated as both a blessing and a curse; as a necessary part of life to be happy or an unnecessary use of time. Friends can be a source of joy and support, they can be a constant stress and something that brings us down, or anywhere in between. In Book 9 of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses to great lengths what friendship is and how we should go about these relationships. In the short story “Melvin in the Sixth Grade” by Dana Johnson, we see the main character Avery’s struggle to find herself and also find friendship, as well as Melvin’s rejection of the notion that one must have friends.
Coming-of-age stories commonly record the transitions—sometimes abrupt, or even violent—from youth to maturity, from innocence to experience of its protagonist, whether male or female. Greasy Lake by T.Coraghessan Boyle and Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates are great examples of traditional coming-of-age stories. The roots of the coming-of-age narrative theme are tracked in the male protagonist’s perspective for Boyle’s short story, while the Oates’ story captures the coming-of-age theme from Connie; a female protagonist’s perspective. In both short stories, the authors fulfill the expectations of a coming-of-age genre when they take us through the journey of rebellion and self realization, as the
During the teenage years they no longer want to be labeled the “child; matter of fact, they have a strong desire to rebel against the family norms and move quickly into adulthood. This transition and want for freedom can be a very powerful and frightening thing as there are evils in this world that cannot be explained. Most parents try to understand and give their teens certain freedoms, but at what expense? Joyce Oates gives us a chilly story about a teenager that wanted and craved this freedom of adulthood called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. This is a haunting story of a young girl by the name of Connie who gives us a glimpse of teenager transitioning from childhood with the need for freedom and the consequences of her actions. Connie is described as a very attractive girl who did not like her role in the family unit. She was the daughter who could not compare to her older sister and she felt her Mom showed favoritism towards her sister. Connie is your average teen who loves music, going out with friends, and she likes the attention she receives from boys. During this time, Connie is also growing into her sexuality and is obsessing with her looks as she wants and likes to be noticed by the opposite sex. Her sexual persona and need to be free will be what is fatal to her character’s life and well-being.
Friendship has been crucial to the survival of women especially those whose social class puts at a disadvantage. Margaret Andersen, in her book, Thinking About Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender, asserts that “Despite long-held assumptions that women’s primary identity was attached to men, research now shows the important role that friendships between women have, including women who live within stable heterosexual relationships” (94). While her claim on women primarily being identified with men is an assumption maybe contested, she points out the importance of friendship to women, which necessarily does not have a sexual undertone.
In addition to romantic partners, other age peers such as friends and family have the potential to become dominant attachment figures for adults. Throughout adolescence and early adulthood, friends and romantic partners gradually replace parents as the preferred source of emotional support and proximity seeking (Freeman & Brown, 2001; Hazan & Zeifman, 1994). Shifts in attachment tend to be a function of the relationship length, and only longer lasting friendships are likely to create close attachment bonds (Fraley & Davis, 1997). Enduring close friendships have the potential to
Ba writes at the beginning of chapter nine, “Friendship has a more constant code of behavior than that of love. Friendship can be stronger than the affection born of blood ties” (Scarlet Song 152). Female friendship or community building is not a new trend, but the society today seem to have chosen to ignore it. Dating back to the nineteenth century “…abundance of manuscript evidence suggests that eighteenth – and nineteenth-century women routinely formed emotional ties with other women” (Women in Culture 372). And contrary to what women have internalized about other women, and their friendships – “…women are so suspicious of any interest that has not some obvious motive behind it, so terribly accustomed to concealment and suppression…” (NATC 900). These women all experienced the comfort that comes with having another person to relate to outside of their oppressive relationships.
For instance, one of the most influential theories in human development is Erick Erickson’s developmental theory, in which he separated human development in stages. His stages of development encompassed about ambiguous developmental period that he characterized as the conflict of Intimacy vs. Isolation in young adult, Generativity vs Stagnation in middle adulthood and Integrity vs. Despair in late adulthood (Schwartz, 2001). Erickson’s developmental stages theory paves the way for in-depth research on social developmental changes that occurred from young adulthood (18-25), middle adulthood (26-39), to late adulthood (40-67). In his developmental research on social relationships, Berndt (2002) found that friendships vary in term of quality, stability,
Some of my friendship do follow the gender patterns and prescriptions discussed in the reading. I have three female close friends and many guy friends. My three female friends are Asialynn, Liz and Maritza. The type of friendship I have with Asialynn and Liz, follows the typical gender friendship pattern. Our friendship is built on dialogue. We became closer through talking, disclosing personal experience, emotions, fear and our problems. We try to understand one another and be each other’s shoulders. In the reading Janice states that, “one of the worst things about being a female is not having permission to be selfish or jealous or not to care about your friend”. I can relate to Janice comment especially in the friendship I have with Asialynn
While maintaining a friendship is important they are not always respected by society as the relationship is often affected by a marriage. Traister states,“ Has just been glancing over this note, he thinks I have written to freely” (Traister, 112). Bronte husband seems to be disturbed by the intimacy of Bronte and Nussey friendship in which he threatened Bronte if she didn’t burn the letters of Nussey by not allowing them to see each other. The love between women is so deliberately frightening that it should be destroyed, its relatable for a romantic interest to be jealous, or intimidated by the bond you share with your friend. Having a best friend is not uncommon but, female friendships offer so much more. Not only have women struggled more compared to women who are married because they often don’t have a partner they can fall back on to help which makes it easier to build their own financial needs. These could be women who compete with each other and those who are focused and often a
Once again I was stuck. Attraction, which should have been expanding my horizons, was limiting me. So why can’t women and men and women and women and men and men be friends? Gender has nothing to do with it. Until we can act without expectation, all we have to offer is not friendship or a relationship, but
Marriage could take two close friends far away from each other, but the emotional intimacy continued to be strong, as demonstrated in letters sent to one-another. This was not considered strange, as the gender roles enforced on the men and women included restrictions on intimacy between young heterosexual couples. Men and women were segregated to the point that the lack of the opposite sex within their social circle stunted the emotional intimacy and spontaneity of romantic relationships. A woman 's close friend was a consistent source of emotional intimacy within a relationship, which strengthened the relationship between the two
In this paper, I will be writing about a close friendship that ended over time with a high school friend whose name is Paulette. Through this friendship we had many fun high school memories, and I would say we were almost like best friends because we told each other everything. I noticed our friendship started deteriorating little by little after we graduated high school and more and more when went our separate ways for college. The five stages I will be explaining from Mark Knapp’s Development model will be Initiating, Intensifying, Differentiating, Stagnating, and Avoiding (Adler pg. 287-293).
Dating and romance are nebulous, universal concepts, and are therefore very common subjects for dialogue. This makes them perfect themes for comedy, as they provide the opportunity to highlight humorous differences apparent in men and women. In recent years, however, one popular attitude towards relationships has emerged, namely the “the friend zone.” This refers to the situation a person (typically male) finds himself in when a friend rebuffs his attempts at sex or romance. The label of “the friend zone” is a frame for this predicament, which is only humorous from the perspective of the “friend-zoned,” when it is actually a very narrow-minded and demeaning concept. When a television show, film, or comedian presents a similar relationship, and categorizes it as “friend-zoning,” women are portrayed in a negative light, and the relationships between men and women are grossly skewed. The comedic concept of “the friend zone” only promotes sexist and degrading gender roles.