Looking at a Woman

In the article “Marked Women,” Deborah Tannen addresses how everything a woman does-from choosing her outfit, her makeup, her hair, to even her surname marks her a certain way. As a young woman, I liked this piece because it addressed issues women faced that I typically don’t think about. I chose to write about “Marked Women” instead of “Sexism in English” because I related more to the article with my past and current experiences on the different ways women are marked in society. Women are judged every day based upon their decisions on their outfits and looks. Tannen states in the article, “you couldn’t say the men didn’t wear makeup in the sense that you could say a woman didn’t wear makeup,” which made me realize how even something as

Jane has gotten used to cruelty and biased behavior towards her average looks, and develops a miserable self-esteem that believes the only possible way to describe her exterior is “plain”. This self-esteem prevents her from even beginning to recognize that anyone could appreciate her or find her beautiful in any manner. The society’s typical reactions and judgments shaped Jane’s self-esteem, and prevented her from receiving equal treatment as that of a beautiful woman.

The Beauty Myth’s central argument is the growing standards of physical beauty of women as they grow stronger. This standard has affected women in many ways, such as in the workplace, culture, and religion. The standard has taken over the work of social harassment. The beauty myth expands the belief an unbiased measurement of beauty exists and that women want to express it and men would want that women. The author, Naomi Wolf, states that the beauty myth is not about women themselves, it is about the power of men and their society. The myth supplies power to multibillion dollar cosmetics industries and it keeps women from rising too high in the workplace. Within this book, Wolf shows how the beauty myth functions and affects women in the workplace, media, sex, religion, culture, violence against women by men, and by women themselves in the configuration of cosmetic surgery and eating disorders.

In the social realm of life men and women have to meet different standards brought on by different sanctions to certain actions. This shapes the way that the general populous’ mannerisms carry over to the perception of the public eye. Women are still seen as subordinate to the male population by many factors and in some circumstances act lesser due to the pressure put on by the influential factors of society brought on by an older way of thought, made apparent usually by the figures who shape the behaviour of the individual.

There is a cliché quote that people say, “Beauty is in the eye of beholder.” But in the essay “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” (1998) Dave Barry argues about how women who spend countless hours on their so called “beauty” whereas men seem not to care. Barry uses juxtaposition and exaggeration to poke fun at men and women behavior and shed light on the harm that the beauty industry is doing. When Barry argues his point of his essay he addresses both genders, but more specifically teenage to middle age men and women, but he writes about it in a humorous and light-hearted manner.

Through years of history women have been subjugated. They are seen as vehicles for reproduction and sexual objects. Yet this is a mentality that is directly related with moral theory. Since this is for the most part a male dominated society, women's views are often seen

These differences aren’t biological as some researchers lead us to believe, claiming that men are more sexually stimulated by images, making it natural for women to be gazed at. Bordo argues that our culture determines what if acceptable for “women learn to anticipate, even play to the sexualizing gaze…in the process we learn how sexy being gazed at can feel-perhaps precisely because it walks the fine edge of shame” (135). Yet, with the use of erotic male images and her clearly sexually reaction to them, Bordo pushes readers to question why there are differences in how men and women are viewed and view each other. Who decides what is acceptable?

There is something subtle about attitudes toward women, something that many people act in accordance to but are only subconsciously aware of. It is the constant judgment that women face, and it is also something Deborah Tannen noticed while sitting in an ordinary meeting one day. During that meeting, she found herself noticing only the females of the room, not the men. Tannen then realized that it was because “The men’s styles were unmarked” (Tannen 389). While there are standard hairstyles and clothing for men, there are none for women. Everything that a woman wears is a reflection of who she is. In her piece titled There Is No Unmarked Woman, she writes about her experience and concludes that women cannot escape judgment no matter what they do.

The argument of The Beauty Myth is that as women have received more eminence, the standard of their personal appearance has also grown. Wolf’s position on the issue is that this type of social control is potentially just as restrictive as the traditional roles of women. The Beauty Myth discusses how society’s viewpoint of beauty is detrimental to women because it causes many emotional and psychological problems to women who strive to become “perfect”. This book is important due to the fact it raises awareness to the issues that many young women are currently facing.

Women have power, power over you, me and everyone. What makes them so special is that we (men) can’t live without them. They are sensitive, and at the same time strong, they care, they love, and most important, they are beautiful. Women have come a long way in society throughout time. They 've gone from being nothing to being something. But yet, there are issues with women in today’s society. Naomi Wolf with her essay “A women’s place” and Zulu Kente’s poem “I know you good woman” they address that the role of woman in our society needs a lot of improvement. Women face daily issues such as their voices are not being heard, they are being paid less than men, their opportunities and education are very limited, male sexism through woman, and last but not least, woman are criticized by their physical appearance.

Over the year’s society has developed tremendously; especially when it comes to gender equality. There was once a time where women were not allowed to vote or even leave the house because they were viewed as the people whose job was to stay home to cook, clean, and take care of the kids. It is 2017 now and we’ve come a long way at fighting for our rights. Although we have come a long way, there are still issues we face in society. We are constantly struggling to break these standards that women should look a certain way to be considered beautiful. Along with this there are still many things that in a way state women aren’t as great, strong, or as smart as men. While we’ve succeeded in some aspects to have equal rights, there are many more things

After reading from the excerpts of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman I have concluded that the situations of women, as far as rights are concerned, have indeed improved vastly. However, even though their situation has been amended and they are now afforded the same equal rights as men, not all women take advantage of these rights. A fraction of women still care more about their own physical beauty, appearance, and the prospect of finding a husband than anything else. Furthermore even, some of the more juvenile women will even occasionally go so far as to play dumb, thinking to attract the affection of men; while others get so self-obsessed with their appearance that they don’t even have to act in order to be received as dim witted or

It’s difficult to envision a world where idealized female imagery is not plastered everywhere, but our present circumstance is a relatively new occurrence. Before the mass media existed, our ideas of beauty were restricted to our own communities. Until the introduction of photography in 1839, people were not exposed to real-life images of faces and bodies. Most people did not even own mirrors. Today, however, we are more obsessed with our appearance than ever before. But the concern about appearance is quite normal and understandable given society’s standards. According to Jane Kilborne, “Every period of history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the

Thesis statement: Today I will be answering a few of the questions men have about women which include “ Why are women so insecure?”, “ Why do women think they are ugly without makeup?”, and “ Why do women think men have bad intentions?”.

Throughout history and today, we women are constant victims of stereotyping from our society. Certain “rules” have to be followed and certain “ideal” women images have to be kept. We are raised in a way to fill certain position where the society wants us to be and as a result, the opportunities are always limited for us and ideas of our importance in the society are diminishing. Even though women gained some independence, where women can work and take various position in society, the society’s idea of typical role of women never seem to change.