Seminar 2. Is the way we look, influenced by our culture? How so? J. Berger, Way of Seeing. The culture, may to this day, be the strongest influencer of the way anything is being perceived. It is a known fact, that throughout the history, the idealistic images of male and female have always been built by the culture surrounding them. J. Berger describes, very well, that the notion of the cultural presence of females are very unlike to the ones of men. Women, suggests Berger, and especially their presence, is always linked to themselves and never to the world around them. Moreover, women never represent potential, they always make sure, that everyone surrounding them are aware of what women can, can not do and what can be done or can not …show more content…
Berger argues, that a mans presence is surrounded with effectiveness, which is related to the actions that men always perform, their ability and power to do so. One of the most important concepts, that Berger mentions, is the fact that a female identity is very different to men one. Women often visualize and evaluate themselves, which leads to a split of identity (the one evaluating and the one being evaluated). Whereas, males identity is completely different – men tend to evaluate other people surrounding them, by which they further evaluate their potential relation with the one being evaluated. In other words, women always look at themselves and try to make themselves look better. Berger explains: “men act – women appear”, and from bad appearance, or the way women look, may come embarrassment. Berger mentions embarrassment in his book, by referring to Eve from the story of the Garden of Eden. Renaissance art examines the “beginning” of shame, in which Adam and Eve shield themselves from the gazing eyes of the third spectator (which could potentially be either a viewer or the artist themselves), from which Eves awareness expresses to cover herself. By making this reference, I believe Berger expresses that even thousands of years ago culture in us, and especially women influenced the way they look and the way they react to certain actions
Amy Cunningham, an editor and author from New York, wrote an article “Why Women Smile” to emphasize on how women are no longer smiling because it is a natural thing, but rather an everyday habit. Coupled with Cunningham’s supported reasons by using logos and ethos, she also uniquely brings in her personal experience by having ethos, making her argument more relatable. A long side with that, societies’ past and present impact on today’s world about women was also included as Cunningham put her own take into proving her point. Although this may be true, there were some fallacies found in her argument leading it to lack of fully portraying the audience.
In the essay “What Meets the Eye”, Daniel Akst explains scientific facts about the beauty of men and women matters to people. He argues that attractive individuals receive attention, great social status, marries, and gets paid more on a job. One can disagree with Akst’s argument because anyone with the skills and knowledge, despite the appearance, can gain a decent relationship and can get paid well. Akst looks at beauty as if it can lead individuals to an amazing and successful life, but he is wrong. Nancy Mairs’ and Alice Walker’s views on beauty are explained internally and through self-confidence. Both women’s and Akst’s arguments on beauty share some similarities and differences in many ways, and an
know beauty in any form”(86). We are so conditioned to see female beauty as what men
perspective on the concept, arguing that gender is a cultural performance. Her careful reading of
In the society we live in, gender plays a great role, is not biological rader it’s refereed to as a social behavior pattern. It is constructed on male and female character and traditional beliefs. The society has often reflected its passion on gender roles. For instance In the media today women are given roles that suit men which makes them challenge men for their right, they are represented as entertainment for men, women are likely to be the source of leading news stories nowadays.
When it comes to humans there are two types of beauty, inner and outer. Despite outer beauty being much more visually appealing it can be deceiving, masking the horrid true colors of somebody - their inner beauty. In the play, “Cyrano de Bergerac”, the main theme of the story is that inner beauty shines brighter than outer beauty.
Women have made great advancements in improving their rights and roles within society and are now less likely to be viewed as inferior by males. Nevertheless, they are still facing many challenges including being perceived as objects and being expected to dress and behave a certain way. In his essay “Looking at Women,” Scott Russell Sanders analyzes how men often perceive women as objects because of their indecent wardrobe and their willingness to put their bodies on display. In her essay “Why Women Smile,” Amy Cunningham explains the value of a smile and how it does not always reflect how a woman is truly feeling on the inside. Both essays spend much time looking at women and how they are under the constant scrutiny from those around them. What the essays of Sanders and Cunningham illustrate is that, while trying to shake old stereotypes, women find their identities constructed from their external appearance. The problem is and remains that women are complicit in the shallow construction of female identity that trades depth for surface because they have bought into the idea that a woman must trade on her external appearance to succeed in her public life.
This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...
As Lorber explores in her essay “Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender, “most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life” (Lorber 1). This article was very intriguing because I thought of my gender as my sex but they are not the same. Lorber has tried to prove that gender has a different meaning that what is usually perceived of through ordinary connotation. Gender is the “role” we are given, or the role we give to ourselves. Throughout the article it is obvious that we are to act appropriately according to the norms and society has power over us to make us conform. As a member of a gender an individual is pushed to conform to social expectations of his/her group.
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
To begin, how people view one's appearance can determine where they are ranked in the world. Trends start and end every season, and as soon as one person can no longer keep up with the trends, people start judging and unaccepting them. In the story “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, it
Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.
The traditional view of gender roles differs where women are nurturing, home oriented and calm. On the other hand, men are seen as the opposite. Nevertheless, the modern view does not distinguish these differences because of the greater involvement of the father in the family. The differences do not lie among the genders but the perspective of the individuals in society, both genders can contribute to each other’s works regardless of what sex they fall under. The society, religious institute, and media play a greater role in shaping these gender roles.
The word feminine normally bring words such as submissive and sensitive in American culture. Thus, this paper will explain the meaning of femininity and masculinity in American culture, if those definitions are universal, and how over time both sexes have choose characteristics from the opposite sex and it’s perceived. Since the beginning of time, women have been expected to conform to the idea that women should sit back in the shadow
The author explains that the terms femininity and masculinity are two gender identities that allude to the idea of how the male and female sexes are characterized culturally. This theory was useful to analyze an important and interesting video called "The Smurfette Principle" in a mid-term exam that made me reflect a lot. From the analysis, I realized how sexist the world is and it makes me think about how people are educated and form their gender identity, consciously or unconsciously, in the contemporary society through media, that is very influential in shaping how we think about gender. I also learned that we are educated in ideological institutions (the media, the family, the schools, other people) following the myths that men are active, strong, non-emotional and smart, and women are passive, weak, emotional and dependent. I disagree on these cultural assumptions because men are not capable or better human beings than women.