Analysis Of Who's Cheap By Adair Lara

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In the Essay Who’s Cheap by Adair Lara, the question of whether men should take responsibility for paying the check in dates as they did in the past becomes a matter worth taking a closer look at. Lara describes numerous examples of why women should re-evaluate their actions and cut their men some slack. At first, she addresses the double standard where women expect to be taken care of and pampered yet at the same time demand equal treatment from men. She then suggests that in this day and age men and women alike, are moving away from their historic roles in society and therefore, should embrace this deviation from tradition. Furthermore, she warns women that many of us are inadvertently fueling the fire of inequality by expecting and encouraging …show more content…

Although, in today’s society women especially are increasingly sensitive towards, as well as offended by, gender roles. Ironically, women fighting for equal rights are also going out to dinners and more often than not, allowing their dates to treat them. In effect, such women are actually contesting their own values and weakening their voice of revolution. Lara calls herself out for falling prey to this double standard. After she tells her guy friend of a date in which a man asks her out to drinks and leads her off to a water fountain, her friend makes a thought provoking statement. He proclaims, “let me get this straight…as a woman you are so genetically precious that you deserve attention just because you grace the planet. So of course he should buy you drinks. He should also drive the car, open the door, ask you to dance, coax you to bed. And then when you feel properly pampered, you can let out that little whine about how he doesn’t treat you as an equal” (47). She then decides, “On second thought, I guess I’d rather buy my own drink” (47). By describing her own mistake, Lara warns women how easy it is to fall into the same trap. She stresses the importance of taking into careful consideration the implied meaning of their words and actions. At the end of her essay, Lara leaves the readers to come to the realization “that offering to help pay implies that the check is his responsibility” (47). She makes an example out of her sister who “gets angry when her husband offers to help clean the house” as if it’s solely her house. “As if it’s his check” (47). Lara makes a terrific point. It is hard to fight for women’s rights when the individual fighting for them continues to, whether intentionally or not, reinforce gender roles in some areas and expect equality in

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