Taking Women Students Seriously, By Adrienne Rich

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

Furthermore, She provides a strong tone that evaluates the potential of a woman. She presents her speech with facts and with confidence and passion. Her tone is trying to motivate young women to act up and take action. Along the way in her speech she makes up a sarcastic tone by claiming that “[women]do not have executive ability, orderly minds, stability, leadership skills, and they are too emotional”(Chisholm, 149). The use of this tone provides affirmation that conveys young women to feel capable of doing anything that men can do. These words don’t define the potential of women nor their abilities. Women are strong, women can take anything, women are smart, women have leadership. Just like Chisholm, women have a voice to speak up and advocate for a change. Throughout her positives tones, she also presents an emotional appeal to the youth who are going to college and are struggling. In reality, some women don’t get the same opportunity as others.“...when a young woman graduates from college…she is likely to have a frustrating and demanding experience ahead of her”(Chisholm, 149). Women face challenges with their eligibility when applying to jobs. Looking for a job is not as easy for women, it takes time and persistence. Unlike men, who are seen as

In early America, women were expected to take care of the household and of the children. However, writers such as Anne Bradstreet and Judith Sargent Murray wanted to emphasize the importance of education for women. The two texts by these authors that will be discussed are the poem, “The Prologue” by Anne Bradstreet and the essay, “Desultory Thoughts upon the Utility of Encouraging a Degree of Self-Contemplacency, especially in Female Bosoms,” By Judith Sargent Murray. A theme seen prominently throughout both texts is fairer treatment of women through education. Although both women do believe in opportunity for women in education, Bradstreet focuses more on the idea that women should have more acceptance in the intellectual world by men while Murray however, emphasizes the importance of women to be raised properly which resulted in them understanding their self-worth.

In his work entitled “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts”, journalist and author Alfred Lubrano poses the question of how receiving education can lead to a harsh reality. Lubrano explains that as a child works toward a higher education, there are certain aspects of life they are forced to leave behind as they enter into a new existence. According to Lubrano’s statement, “At night, at home, the differences in the Columbia experiences my father and I were having was becoming more evident” (532). Additionally, Lubrano states, “We talked about general stuff, and I learned to self-censor. I’d seen how ideas could be upsetting, especially when wielded by a smarmy freshman who barely knew what he was talking about” (533). In answering this question, Lubrano must explore the types of conversations that occurred with other family members, the disconnection from his peers, and how segregating himself from his family

Today’s society sees college as a very fundamental step to obtaining success. Carmen Lugo-Lugo argues that instead of being focused on education, college is beginning to convert into a marketplace and a business. She states that colleges are now more interested in making a profit from their students than the actual education they are there for. Due to this mindset, the flow of the classroom environment and how students treat professors is affected. She also makes it known how prevalent systematic racism and racial profiling exist and tells the readers by her first hand accounts. In her essay “A Prostitute, A Servant, And A Customer-Service Representative: A Latina in Academia”, Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Carmen Lugo-Lugo uses emotion and language to communicate her claim. Throughout her writing she demonstrates strong emotion-evoking words, and hyperboles.

A bold title from a promising author was what persuaded me to pick “Still Needing the F Word” by Anna Quindlen. I am familiar with her work, her commencement speech at Mount Holyoke College being my latest read. As usual, she didn’t disappoint. Throughout this essay, her use of sardonic language cannot be ignored as she touches on deeper issues within our, contrary to popular belief, “pre-feminist” world. As she mocks the world’s oversensitivity towards the use of the “F-Word,” Feminist (if you were wondering), she analyzes the status of women’s rights in modern times through the lens of a study on female undergraduates at Duke University. Now instead of stressing to be the “perfect homemaker,” women must obsess over “being the perfect professional,”

Doctors and Educators were quick to draw the obvious conclusion that, for women, higher education could be physically dangerous. Too much development of the brain, they counseled, would atrophy the uterus. Reproductive development was totally antagonistic to mental development. (Ehrenreich and English p 45)

In her next chapter, Kerber examines the newfound need for the educating of women. Women were not allowed freedom or a political opinion, but they could not be completely pushed aside. For years women had been taught that education made them undesirable to men and educated women were scorned. Kerber argues that a new need for

As a woman myself, it is hard to imagine a time when I would not have been allowed to attend college, let alone be writing this paper. As children most of us heard stories from our grandparent’s about what life was like they were young. I can remember laughing at the thought of “walking up hill both ways” to get to school. With the liberties American Women have today, it is easy to take for granted everything the women before us fought so hard for. It is easy to forget the treatment they suffered in their struggle to bring us to today. In this paper we will examine the lives, struggles, and small victories of women that have led us to

“Neither a Wallflower Nor a Paris Geller Be” by Rebecca Schuman is a witty article about classroom participation in college lectures. This article is primarily directed towards college students around ages 18 to 25. This is obvious through Schuman’s references to professors from the student viewpoint and through direct addresses to the students who are reading the article. She also uses the pronoun us to refer to herself as a professor and to speak on behalf of college professors in general. Additionally, in an attempt to relate to students, Schuman references the struggle that students face when it comes to shyness, overbearing classmates, and completing reading assignments. These college students are of all genders and all races/ethnicities.

Throughout my lifetime I will cross paths with many different people. These people could be friends, colleagues, teachers, professors, or significant others, all of any race or cultural background. When meeting someone for the first time, it is very easy to make assumptions about that person without knowing anything about them at all. We’re all human, we all do this. In her essay, “A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer-service Representative: A Latina in Academia,” Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Carmen Lugo-Lugo claims that what students assume about their professors advocates their attitude toward their education. Racial stereotypes challenge us to consider our own expectations of what we should get out of a college education, and who or what constitutes a college professor. She vigorously uses emotional appeals and establishes her tone of voice using style and word choice in a concerned, direct manner to argue that students make personal or racially-biased assumptions about their teachers/professors, resulting in a lousy attitude towards education.

“The subject of the Education of Women of the higher classes is one which has undergone singular fluctuations in public opinions” (Cobbe 79). Women have overcome tremendous obstacles throughout their lifetime, why should higher education stand in their way? In Frances Power Cobbe’s essay “The Education of Women,” she describes how poor women, single women, and childless wives, deserve to share a part of the human happiness. Women are in grave need of further improvements in their given condition. Cobbe suggests that a way to progress these improvements manifests in higher education, and that this will help further steps in advance. Cobbe goes on to say that the happiest home, most grateful husband, and the most devoted children came from a woman, Mary Sommerville, who surpassed men in science, and is still studying the wonders of God’s creations. Cobbe has many examples within her paper that shows the progression of women as a good thing, and how women still fulfill their duties despite the fact that they are educated. The acceptance of women will be allowed at the University of New England because women should be able to embrace their abilities and further their education for the benefit of their household, their lives, and their country.

The foundation of colleges for women as well as events at women’s rights conventions intellectually challenged society’s views on women’s traditional roles. As education became more of a public governmental service, the educational

There is a double standard of academics that take place at St. Paul’s. While the school promotes the idea of economic success through personal achievements and merit for all their students, the girls at the institution work hard and tend to do better than the boys. This is done without ease. For example, Mary is a student who continually works hard to achieve academic success but does so in a frantic and uncomfortable manner. An essential part at the elite school is being able to exhibit a certain mark of belonging (Khan 115). Khan states, “Lots of students spend as much time as Mary working in the library and their rooms. This is particularly true of girls” (121). The elite institutions strive for equality between the genders, but tend to have stronger female candidates. The girls inevitably have to work harder than the boys in order to achieve higher grades and perform better in school. The girls at St. Paul’s must work harder than boys in order

Throughout the ages, women have been graded on their performance and instructed on what is supposed to be their purpose. In the poem, “Marks,” by Linda Pastan, the speaker expresses her distaste for being graded on how she performs her “womanly” tasks. Likewise, in the poem, “Women,” by May Swenson, the speaker seems to be comprised of a contingent of people from the time the poem was written – around 1978 – likewise, the speaker of “Marks” is a wife and mother of two children – a boy and a girl. The poem, “Women,” details how the people of the time feel about women and who they should “serve.” Since both poems seemingly depict the purpose of women, the poem “Marks” could be incorporated into the class discussion to show conflicting perspectives between women and the public about the treatment of women.