Women 's Unfair Fear By Gill Valentine Essay

In Karen Horney's "The Distrust Between the Sexes," she attempts to explain the problems in the relationships between men and women. She writes that to understand the problem you must first understand that problems stem from a common background. A large amount of suspiciousness is due to people's intensity of emotions.

Judith Sargent Murray was a revolutionary woman- born into a socially prominent and wealthy family during the start of the American Revolution, Murray was recognized for her intellect at a young age and given an education along with her brother. Later in life, she had her written works widely published and read during a time when women’s voices were seen as fundamentally inferior to those of men. In one of her most influential and strongly opinionated works, ‘On the Equality of the Sexes’, Murray makes a strong case for the spiritual and intellectual equality of men and women, arguing that women and men are born equal, but that men are simply given more education and

Feminist theory is the advocacy of gender equality in terms of respect, opportunities and social rights. The Crucible by Arthur Miller represents the conventional feminist gender struggle, through the medium of an androcentric patriarchal society built on the ideals of religion. In Salem, woman are portrayed as the lower class of society, patronised by men such as Proctor “I am looking for you more often than my cows!" comparing Mary to a farm animal is indicative of their perceived place. Furthermore, the violent way the men within Salem converse with woman “You will confess yourself or I will whip you to death, Tituba! demonstrates the lack of impartiality and feelings that theyhave on a woman’s fundamental rights. Miller’s use of

In Brent Staples’ “Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Space” he forces women to recognize the feeling of estrangement from the surrounding public that he has endured. He first took notice at the age of twenty two, when his own self-judgement resulted from scaring a woman when solely walking at night near his college, the University of Chicago. He maintained his dejected attitude when he wrote that a few years later, his own work mistook him for a thief instead of a journalist. Brent Staples heightened his frustration by mentioning a black male journalist who was blamed as a killer in a murder, instead of the writer reporting it. In portraying two versions of his story, he proves that this was a rather common and difficult occurrence for not only him, but others of his race. To attempt to resolve this, he decided to attempt to cross the street or sing classical songs to portray innocence. In this article, Staples’ forces his audience to encounter the hypocrisy in which all black men are dangerous. He concluded the essay with the realization that you can't change what people think, only attempt to show them who you are. Brent Staples appeals to the audience through his emotionally charged language with the use of his experiences with unconscious prejudice.

Rebecca Solnit’s article focuses on the ways male violence negatively affects women. Harassment from men directed at women keep women from speaking up, and many women are living in constant fear of male violence. They live in a constant state of fear because they are aware male violence is taking place around them. Women are also afraid of potential male violence because men openly express authoritative behavior. She explains men feel they have the validity to control and abuse women. Specifically, a man will approach a woman with the expectation that the woman will return the man with a sexual favor. For example, “a woman was stabbed after she rebuffed a man’s sexual advances while she walked in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood late Monday night…”

In the modern world, gender stereotypes affect men and women in different ways. A kind man can be perceived as violent for simply being a man, and in contrast, a woman can be seen as an object to chase or prey upon simply for being a woman. When these roles overlap, the innocent members of both parties feel uncomfortable and ashamed for things out of their control. Judith Ortiz Cofer’s essay entitled The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria is more effective in its explanation of perceived gender roles and stereotypes, compared to the Brent Staples essay Just Walk on By: Black Men in Public Space.

Over the years, our generations’ stereotypical views over the issue on young black males being viewed as dangerous has grown significantly. There are different reasons why these stereotypes occur in our society. People feel on edge when running into them in dark passageways, whenever it’s late at night. Also, while they’re sitting at red lights and notice someone walking towards their cars, they instantly initiate down the door locks. People think stereotyping black men this way keeps them safer because they assume the worst. However; other people disagree with instantly judging who they see around them, it hurts more people as well as themselves by viewing black men this way. Brent Staples, the author of “Black Men and Public Spaces,” claims that he’s considered a stereotypical black criminal. In his essay, Staples succeeds because he successfully appeals to people’s emotions, is an expert on human behavior, creates common ground and offers a logical solution.

Norms in society are the expectations of actions in specific situations. Social norms keep human social relations and behavior stable. Norms are “rules” that have developed within a particular society taking into account its values, culture and way of living. Sometimes, it is even the case that individuals do not have a choice and rarely recognize that fact that social norms have arbitrary origins because they have experienced this during the ongoing process of living (Clinard and Meyer 2011:10). Thus, gender norms are sometimes seen as limiting, disenfranchising and oppressive. People who are in less-favored or less-accepted norms are sometimes pushed to “deviate” from the norm in order to achieve some form of “liberation” from their

Staples often faces stereotypes because of his “threatening” physical appearance. In fact, during his night strolls most women he came in contact with would hide their purses and others would walk towards the opposite side as him. Women in particular are often the ones who fear him. Staples does not deny the fact that women are the most vulnerable to street violence, and young

Men and women alike are often afraid to venture out into the streets at the dark hours of the day. It could be argued that this is a byproduct of the ever-increasing US crime rate, yet it may also be due to the natural fear that accompanies walking alone in public spaces, familiar or not. Although any shifty figures lurking on the sidewalk can be the source of this fear, it is no doubt that the gross misrepresentation of black people as perpetrators of violent crimes has given them “the ability to alter public space in ugly ways,” as so proficiently stated in “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples (205). Through this short essay, Staples uses a variety of rhetorical devices, namely anecdotes, in order to present the fact that these preconceived racial notions can make certain individuals increasingly susceptible to societal scrutiny. This forces many individuals to make concentrated efforts to present themselves as less threatening because “where fear and weapons meet -- [as] they often do in urban America -- there is always the possibility of death” (206).

In his Essay “Black Men and Public Spaces,” Brett Staples’ illustrates the way black men are stereotyped, and seen as muggers, rapists, or worse. His purpose was to inform readers about how black men are mistaken to be aggressive and hostile individuals, and he planned on enlightening people who are afraid of black people in order for them to not be afraid when they encounter one of them. Staples begins his essay with an anecdote to demonstrate to his readers the focus for the rest of the essay. Brett Staples frequently narrates his personal experiences, reinforcing his message, and making the audience sympathetic to his point of view. Staples wants his audience to

Similar to Dumas’ struggle in America as an Iranian, Brent Staples’ “Black Men and Public Space” details the struggle of being a black man in America. There are countless stereotypes implanted in the minds of Americans of the typical black person, aggressive, dishonest, ruthless, and overall ill intentioned. The first encounter with this racist outlook on blacks Staples had was in a wealthier area of downbeat Chicago, who began to appear worrisome and soon after proceeded to run from the author, who had done nothing intentionally to provoke fear in her. I agree that women should always place their safety as their first priority and should remove themselves from any situation in which they find themselves uncomfortable or at risk, but if blacks and whites can’t manage to walk the same streets without one race thinking the other is going to attack at any given moment due to the misconceptions floating around in their heads, then America really isn’t a land of diversity. It then becomes a land of hierarchy. As he says, Staples is too scared to even wield a knife at a chicken, let alone wield a knife at another human being, but by the color of his skin and appearance, one would never know this. Being perceived as dangerous, he writes, is a hazard in itself, and could easily land him in the back of a police car

In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the theme of the power of fear

Culture of Fear, by Frank Furedi, is a book that looks at how widespread fear impacts Western cultures like the United States and Great Britain. Frank Furedi believed that society tends to panic too much, as we actually enjoy "an unprecedented level of safety." I admit that Frank Furedi's novel is based upon a novel concept, and an interesting one at that. However, Frank Furedi comes off to me as little more than a fear monger and an intellectual elitist. His book, to me, seems redundant more often than not. But sometimes part of college is learning about points of view that you may not agree with, so I tried to maintain that perspective when I read the book.

“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman,” Virginia Woolf once boldly stated. Though she was from a privileged background and was well educated, Woolf still felt she was faced with the oppression that women have been treated with for as far as history goes back. Her education allowed her to explore the works of the most celebrated authors, but one who she had a long and complicated relationship with was the Bard of Avon himself, William Shakespeare. As one of the most highly regarded and well studied authors of all time, Shakespeare has been elevated from mere playwright to a pillar of the British Empire, instrumental to the institutions that boasted British superiority. It is evident throughout Woolf’s writing that Shakespeare’s works were highly influential. Her novels frequently allude to his plays, most notably Orlando, Mrs. Dalloway, and also in her famous essay, A Room of One’s Own. Though Woolf admires Shakespeare’s androgyny (specifically in A Room of One’s Own), she also makes the case that his treatment of female characters does not allow for the women to be three-dimensional, therefore leaving them flat and lacking in depth. Even though for the most part Woolf’s assertion is correct, there are several examples in Shakespeare’s plays that suggest otherwise, namely in the play Othello. Additionally, in a similar vain, one could explore Shakespeare’s treatment of other minority groups in his works, such as Jews and anyone who is not English. Though it is easy to