Damned If You Do Essay Example for Free

Damned If You Do Essay In my Chemistry class, there are two students who always ask make remarks or ask questions about the topics discussed: a male and a female. When the male student asks questions, the people in my class sit quietly and listen to the professor’s explanation, but when the female student asks questions, the class—including myself— gets annoyed. They begin to roll their eyes and sneer. Even my professor seems to be annoyed at times. Often I hear my classmates complaining about her during break. They nag about how much she interrupts class with her foolish questions and interpretations, yet no one complains about the male classmate. I thought to myself, â€Å"Maybe he asks better questions than she? † But after a few weeks I began to realize that the intelligence of their questions and comments tends to be the same. So why do my classmates favor the male student’s remarks over the female student’s? Everyone has their own way of saying things, however the way we hear what a women says is often completely different in comparison to how we would hear it if a man had said it instead. When hearing both genders communicating, we unintentionally put males above females. We look at men as more powerful than women. In Deborah Tannen’s book, You Just Don’t Understand, she explains that the reasons for this starts at a very young age. Girls were raised to never boast. Tannen says, â€Å"Girls learn that displaying superiority will not get them what they want—affiliation with peers. For this, they have to appear the same as, not better than, their friends† (218). Females look at boasting as â€Å"showing off† and â€Å"rude†, and feel they will be rejected if they do so. They rarely compare themselves to others. In fact, women try to keep the status between them mutual. The best example is my little sister, Julie. When she plays with her friend Natalie, they always play the same character. They will agree to be â€Å"sister princesses in a big castle. † On the other hand, when I see her play with her friend Jake, he always insists on being superior to her. He says things such as â€Å"I’ll be Batman and you’ll be Robin,† immediately taking the higher status. Boys feel that if they don’t act dominant and take charge people won’t take them seriously. Naturally we expect women not to boast, while with men we don’t seem to care. If a woman told a group of people she was a founder of a huge company worth millions of dollars, they would think she was â€Å"showing off† and the group would automatically leave her out of the conversation. If a man were to say the same thing—because we are so used to them boasting—we would not look at it as â€Å"showing off†. We would think highly of him. This is why men and women are judged differently even when they speak the same way. Tannen says, â€Å"If a linguistic strategy is used by a woman, it is seen as powerless; if it’s done by a man it is seen as powerful† (225). Since females don’t try to be at a higher status, their speech is often ineffective. Along with women not addressing a higher status, they also do not ask for something directly. They are more covert when asking for a favor. When my mom says, â€Å"It would be nice if someone would put the dishes away for me,† most of the time I don’t. Because she is asking indirectly, I don’t see the power in her question. On the other hand, if my dad says â€Å"Hey†¦ put those away for me,† I automatically listen. Although they were both implying the same thing, my mom’s statement was powerless because it was polite and indirect. Females use â€Å"tag questions† (227-28), such as â€Å"That’s a nice dress, isn’t it? † The â€Å"tag question† makes women seem unsure. Women don’t mean to sound hesitant. They say â€Å"Isn’t it? † expecting the other person to say â€Å"yes† or â€Å"no,† and therefore starting a conversation. Tannen says, â€Å"[P]eople expect women to use tags† (228). We expect women to be unsure, and as a result, when they make statements or ask questions, we assume they don’t know that they are talking about. Researcher Patricia Hayes Bradley says, â€Å"When women used tag questions and disclaimers, subjects judged them as less intelligent and knowledgeable than men who also used them† (qtd. in Tannen 228). In other words, because of the different stereotypes of men and women, we have distinctive attitudes towards what they say, and we make men dominant. Looking back at the issue in my Chemistry class, I see why I found the female student aggravating. When comparing her to the male classmate, I unconsciously looked at her as lower than him. Both males and females become accustomed to this power vs. powerless ways. It becomes everyday life. People are less likely to pay attention to an idea that is raised by a woman who doesn’t assert her status, therefore making us unconsciously look at them as below men.

Black Supremacy Essay -- essays research papers fc

Black Supremacy Throughout history, white anglo-saxons have been notorious for mistreating all races other than it's own. Malcolm X felt "the white man had been actually nothing but a piratical opportunist who used Faustian machinations to make his own Christianity his initial wedge in criminal conquests"(563). The earth is burdened by the white man! That is the true meaning of what Malcolm X is stating; the words Faustian machinations, meaning evil plotting, implies the whole white population is out for the blood of other races. Many members of the black race are adopting the idea of Afrocentricity; some call it black pride, I call it black supremacy. Afrocentricists are supporting their ideas with religion and the need for liberation. The liberation of the black man is needed! Molefi Asante describes "the Afrocentric awareness [as] the total commitment to African liberation anywhere any everywhere by a consistent determined effort to repair any psychic, economic, physical, or cultural damage done to Africans"(50). Liberation from what...the white race? Molefi's statement is completely ludicrous; the first copy of his book with this statement was printed in 1988, in my opinion blacks were fairly liberated in 1988. Now the second part of his statement, repair what damage? Any psychic damage which has been thrust upon the black race has not occurred for quite some time: slavery...not in my lifetime nor separate bathrooms were in my lifetime. And I am not about to feel sorry about what happened before my time. Economic damage is not the white man's fault either. In this day anyone can do whatever he/she likes. The truth to the economic matter is that many of the "oppressed" races feel they now deserve a free ride. Absolutely no physical damage has occurred in my lifetime. As for as cultural damage, cultures evolve, they do not get damaged. Clearly all liberation of the black man has already occurred, therefore, there is know further need for reimbursement. The white race is evil! Further, the Afrocentric cause attempts to use religion to denounce the white race as heathens; according the Yakub myth, "the colour black...is the primal colour; other colours, consequently, are merely shades of black, except for white, which is the absence... ...d are calling it liberation. No, the human race will never learn from history; we will just repeat it. The main question is will their ever be racial harmony in the world? I just don't know. "We shall have our manhood. We shall have it or the earth will be leveled by our attempts to gain it." --Eldridge Cleaver Works Cited Asante, Molefi. Afrocentricity. Trenton: Africa WP, 1992. Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Davies, Alan. Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism. Montreal: Mcgill-Queen's UP, 1988. Perry, Bruce, ed. Malcolm X: The Last Speeches. New York: Pathfinder, 1989. X, Malcolm. "Learning to Read." rpt. in Rereading America. ed. Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992.

Thoreau Essay

English Thoreau’s views and morals were very controversial, for he believed that being secluded from society is the best way to live. Thoreau believed in the simple life. He describes this lifestyle by how these people â€Å"will not be frittered away by detail† pg. 382. This means that others lives are based on repetition. People make their own lives busy. Thoreau believed by living a life based on simplicity, others can live in happiness away from society, for tradition, and conformity will be their ticket to success.Thoreau gives valuable advice in his writing. He states that being poor is a simple way of living. By not handling items that are valuable, the poor succeed more in life. They tend to succeed more than an average person because they do not have material things to possess their attention and focus. People are always going to do what the majority is doing. This may be the reason why Thoreau left the Walden Pond, because by living his life secluded, he thoug ht he would not be able to complete more in his life.By saying the statement, â€Å"I had several more lives to live. † He meant that staying by Walden Pond would not do him any good. He wanted his voice to be heard. Thoreau also gave ideas about tradition, and conformity. His ideas about tradition stated that older people will never change the way they do things because that is just how it has been to them. Tradition is hard to change, for it is always how something has been done and people will not stand out and change their views. They will not change their views because they do not want to stand out in society.Thoreau’s view on conformity is that people will do anything to look normal through the public’s eye. They may act completely different in public than they act at home, for they are scared to act out against others. They just want to be similar to everyone and avoid hard treatment. My view on Thoreau’s experience is he is crazy. It is unheard of a man to leave society and live in the wilderness for a long period of time. It is an odd thing to do. It is not a strange happening for one to leave for a short period of time to recollect himself, but leaving for a long time is unheard of.He seemed to think that his own personal welfare was more important than being social. He did not want to be caught up in the personal affairs of others, and leaving society was his way of staying secluded. By leaving society, living a life of simplicity is easy, for he truly was happy in his time being out in the wilderness. Thoreau’s views will be acknowledged among the greatest writers in the world. His views gave society an understanding on how to live. He learned how to deal with society and excelled in his work.

Thomas Malthuss overpopulation theory Essay - 1171 Words

A little over two hundred years ago a man by the name of Thomas Malthus wrote a document entitled â€Å"An Essay on the Principle of Population† which essentially stated that there is an imbalance between our ability to produce food and our ability to produce children. He said human beings are far better at making babies than they are at finding food for survival. His entire essay is based on these two assumptions. â€Å" First, That food is necessary to the existence of man. And second, that the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state.† When taking into account what is said in this essay, it is obvious that his original analysis of population has been proven right. Today, in the twenty-first century,†¦show more content†¦This is because the human population has increased more rapidly than the food production. When Malthus wrote this document 1798, he already predicted that in the future, the population would exceed th e amount of food. This is because â€Å"population grows according to the geometric progression - 1, 2, 4, 8, 16†¦ and the means of subsistence grow according to the arithmetic progression -1, 2, 3, 4†¦Ã¢â‚¬  One of the arguments in malthus’s works was his idea that depression did not fall evenly on each of the classes in society. He believed that the poor brought many of these problems to society by procreating with out being able to support a family, and because of that, becoming dependant on others to support them, therefore diminishing the food supply more rapidly. He also assumed that poverty and misery in the lower classes were inevitable and that those people were the majority in every society. He argued that all attempts to lessen poverty and suffering, no matter how well intended and no matter how well thought out, would only worsen things. Malthus thought that the human condition could not be improved for two reasons. First, he believed that people were driven by an avid desire for sexual pleasure. This led to population increases which, if left unchecked, would grow geometrically – 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. Second, Malthus believed that as more land was used in cultiva tion, each new piece of land would be able to grow less and less food then the previous plot of land.