A Letter To America

Margartet Atwood talks about America and how it is changing. She starts out by reminiscing about the past and how she remembers it when she was younger and better in a sense. She remembers some of her old favorite books like Huckleberry Finn and Little Women. She remembers how we used to have a connection with our past, “We’ve always been close, you and us. History, that old entangler, has twisted us together since the early 17th century” (566). She talks about all of the old classic things that were so unique and she doesn’t think that we have that anymore. Our history is fading and we are letting it fade? I agree with this for example I think about the music that is popular now days and I wonder what we will show our kids when they ask us what kind of music we listened to. What singers are going to be considered classics? Our stars come to fame just as quickly as some of them leave and then forgotten about.
She also talks about the invasion of privacy that America has been faced with now days. “Your business is no longer merely your business. The paraphrase Marley’s Ghost, who figured it out too late, mankind is your business” (567). I agree with this because the government is allowed to look into our private lives a lot more then they used to be able to. It seems that our country is moving away from the older personalized ways of society and leaning more towards industry. “You’re torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be, not to produce anything ourselves, but to grab stuff other people produce, at the gunboat-diplomacy prices?” (567). I think our society is built around business and success these days. I think this was one of the main points that Atwood was trying to point out in the differences in America. She tells about what we seem to care about these days is money and spending money. “You’re running up a record level of debt. Keep spending at this rate and pretty soon you won’t be able to afford any big military adventures” (567). People seem to want to make more money so they can spend more money so they can look good by outward appearance. Society tells us that we can judge how successful someone is by his or her assets. This is one thing she thinks America is turning into and she doesn’t like it and neither do I. I think that the success of a person is only self-measurable.

Crimes Against Humanity

Ward Churchill is talking about the names that certain athletic teams have that target Native Americans. Churchill thinks that these names are victimizing and offensive to the Native American people and it should be chandged. I don't know if I agree with him or not because I would really like to know from the Native American point of view if they feel directly tagreted or not. One of my teachers last year is Native American and she wasn't offended by the names. We actually had a discussion about it and she said it was something that didn't bother her or her family. i think that the examples that Churchill used were more extreme then the situation at hand because he was being more extreme in the names he was using and the actions that he said. He used the example of making a team that targeted African Americans, "The players could appear on TV every week or so gnawning on chicken legs and spitting watermelon seeds at one another" (538). Its not like the players fromthe teams go on TV and dance around in circles doing raindances and chanting trying to make fun of the Native American people and culture. I also wonder what when the names of the teams were being established what the intention was. If the people that were making up the names of the teams were like hmm lets name our team the Indians because we don't like them and we want to insult them or if they were like Indians are neat and it would be an honor for them if we named our team after them. This is a point that Churchill makes but he says that the people who say, "As well as university and public school officials, to announce that they mean not to insult but to honor native people" (537) aren't really being sincere and don't realize the impact that these names are making on the people. I do understand how they can feel like they are looked at as a symbol and not as an actual group of people with this amazing cultural background. They may think that since we have named our teams after them we are not trying to honor them but we are actually now comparing them to a football team and a bunch of sweaty jocks. When someone asks how are the Redskins doing people will respond with football stats and not the actual people. Also this is a derogatory term and it could be taken as an insult to some people. He thinks that the names that we use contribute to the ridicule of the native Americans. "Each competing with the next to make Indians appear more grotesque, menacing, and inhuman" (540). "Plainly, the European American public was being conditioned to see Indians in such a way as to allow their eradication to continue" (540). The names of the teams definatly aren't helping them since they already feel targeted in our society. He brings up the point about assimilation. In other words they have to conform to the dominate cultutre in order to servive. I know this to be true but only with Native Americans but this happens wtih other groups that are targeted. The only difference is that Native Americans have the wide spread controversy over the names of these teams which is very widely known and not helping them but its actually putting them down. It is thus of obvious importance that the American public begin to think about the implications of such things the next time they witness a gaggle of face-painted and war-bonneted buffoons doing the Tomahawk Chop at a baseball or footbal game" (543). I think that when people do this they are over looking the meaning of it and they are just doing it in spirit of the game and they aren't consciously thinking I am putting down Native Americans right now by doing this. But subconsciously they might feel that natives are inferior because what we are doing to them by saying this chat or using their names for our teams and they have no control over it.

Shakespeare in the Bush

In this story Laura Bohannan is telling to story of Hamlett. She starts to tell some people that she thinks will understand the story and enjoy it. So she starts to tell it and not to long into the story the people start asking her questions about some of the things she is saying in the story. They don’t agree with some of the things in the story and they are being very ethnocentric towards it and this starts to bother her as it would me too. “His question barely penetrated my mind; I was too upset and thrown too fat off balance by having one of the most important elements of Hamlet knocked straight out of the picture” (218). I don’t understand why the people can’t just listen to the story and know that since its a story there will probably be some things in it that they themselves don’t agree with. “Two years is too long,’ objected the wife, who had appeared with the old man’s battered goatskin bag. ‘Who will hoe your farms for you while you have no husband?” (219). This is just one of the comments that someone made. They are looking at things from their own point of view and how there culture tells them those things should be. But back in hamlets time the culture told them that they shouldn’t rush into a marriage and they should morn for two years after a death. I think the people that were listening need to understand the other point of view and look at the situation sociologically. They are judging the story based on their own values and beliefs not on those of the time that culture was. The people also had a problem when she was talking about the omen. The were arguing about how omens couldn’t talk and the differences between an omen and a ghost. They weren’t even willing to listen to the story because they were just picking away at it and finding things in it that they didn’t agree with in their culture. “Omens can’t talk! The old man was empathetic” (220). “What is a ghost? An Omen?’ (220). “But again they objected. ‘Dead men cast no shadows” (220). “Dead men can’t walk,’ protested my audience as one man” (220).

Arranging a Marriage in India

Serena Nanda tells us how marriage is arranged in India. She went there on a trip and found that basically their parents set up all the couples. She said that the parents can’t force their children to marry anyone that they don’t want to so they have usually one meeting before and if neither of them object then they will get married if the parents think that the other person is good enough for their child. Nanda said at first she would totally object to this and rebelled. “Had anyone tried to arrange my marriage, I would have been defiant and rebellious” (141). I know if my parents tried to set me up with a person that I only met once before I married them I would object too. I personally don’t think that I could handle that kind of thing. I would feel so forced and I don’t think being forced would be fair to my new husband or me. I also wouldn’t want to have to learn to love the person I marry. I want to already love the person I marry. I think its hard to find a person that will fit you and be good for yourself. How is someone else going to know what’s good for you when you yourself might not even know what is good for you. I think it would be really hard for me to spend the rest of my life with someone that I don’t even know if I get along with them. But the parents did seem very picky and they wouldn’t choose just anyone off the streets. They had a process almost in choosing who was good enough for their child. That is a good thing when it comes to arranged marriages. It makes for a division in social class though because they pretty much only look for people to marry their kids to in the same social standing as them selves. “The basic rule seems to be that a family’s reputation is most important. It is understood that matches would be arranged only within the same caste and general social class, though some crossing of sub castes is permissible if the class positions of the bride’s and groom’s families are similar” (144).

No Name Women

Maxine Hong Kngston told a story about her father’s sister that her mom used to tell her when she was trying to teach her about life lessons. Her mom would use these stories because they were real and actually happened and she wanted her children to learn from what happened. I think that she is actually scaring her children into being good. Her mom would tell them these stories and worn her children against what they did. “Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you” (392). I think the mom is scaring the children into doing what is right and they are not actually learning what the right thing is they just know that is what they have to do. Her mom would say, “Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born” (393). That is a lot of pressure for someone to have to grow up with. I think that having this fear really affected her. Then she was saying that her aunt was probably forced to have sex with the man that got her pregnant and then she had to lie. The women I China didn’t have very many rights. They were second to men. Women in China did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be secret evil” (393). Her aunt had lived in fear and there was nothing she could do about the situation because the man had all the power. “If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again nest week” (394). She also talks about how her aunt would try to change her appearance constantly because, “She wanted him to look back” (394). What her aunt totally shamed the family so they wanted to just forget about her. “Her betrayal so maddened them, they saw it that she would suffer forever, even after death” (400).

A Tale of Two Divorces

Anne Roiphe talks about her family history. Her dad was rich, drank a lot, he was a businessman, and he had ladies on the side of his wife. Her mom took advantage of being rich, she was a chain smoker, and she had the good life. Her dad would come home at night and argue with her mom, beat her, then she would call her sister for support and she would say that she would have to do better. Her mom couldn’t leave her husband even though he would do all that bad stuff to her. She thought that she wasn’t strong enough and that she had to change herself and do better for her for her husband. Roiphe said, “This was a story of a divorce that should have been” (207). Then she went on to explain her relationship and how her parent’s relationship effected her so much. She said her relationship was “This was a divorce that should have been and was” (208). She had tried hard to get away from the man her dad was but some how she ended up with a man that was just like him. “I was married to a man whom I thought was opposite of my father” (208). I think that this happens with a lot of women. We subconsciously look for men that have the same qualities as their father even if what he did wasn’t good. That happened in her case even though she thought she was looking for someone different she ended up with someone just the same. She said her husband would spend all their money and go on “binges”. She was left at home just like her mother and her husband would go to the local bar. Roophie related her problems and struggles to that of her parents. “My divorce was related to her undivorce, so the generations unfold back-to-back handing on their burden […]” (208). I think that this is true because she was raised thinking that what her parents had for a relationship was what everyone has because that was her norm. They set the example for so that was what she thought was normal. “If my mother would have been brave enough to go it alone I might have seen myself differently” (209). I also agree with this because her mom once again was her role model and she set the standard for her. Since her mom was weak but still survived she figures she could do the same thing too. “I know that if my mother had left my father not only her life but mine too might too might have been set on more solid ground” (209). Her parents made it really hard for her to be stable because they set a bad example. Since she actually left her husband she set a better strong role for her children. “The courage it takes to really make things better, to change, is rare and won only at great cost” (209). I agree with this too because it takes women awhile to leave their husbands if they need to because they might think that they can’t provide for themselves or that their husband will change and so on.

Shop Like a Man

Paco Underhill is obviously showing how different men and women are when it comes to shopping. He shows many different examples in not only retail shopping but also in grocery stores too. He starts by pointing out that men don’t really like to shop or at least not in the way that women like to shop. “The conventional wisdom on male shoppers is that they don’t like to do it, which is why they don’t do much of it” (186). He points out that shopping is more geared towards women and this is one reason why women will like to do it more then men. “As a result, the entire shopping experience- from packaging design to advertising to merchandising to store designing and fixturing- is generally reared toward the female shopper” (186). Another difference that he pointed out was how women tend to walk around the store at a slower pace just kind of taking their time and men tend to get in and get out without much distraction. “[…] Men always move faster than women through a store’s aisles. Men spend less time looking, too” (187). I think that this is very true because women just get so overwhelmed by everything and they just want to look at everything and wish they had it. Where men don’t really care as much they just want to go find what they went in for and get out without buying anything unnecessary. He shows some of the differences especially when men go shopping for clothes. “In one study, we found that 65 percent of male shoppers who tried something on bought it, as opposed to 25 percent of female shoppers” (188). He justifies this by saying “[…] Men seem so anxious to get out of the store that they’ll say yes to almost anything” (188). I think that they will say yes not only because of this but also because they just don’t like to waste time. So if they try something they are probably going to buy it. They won’t waster their time just trying things on for fun like women do.

There were a few things that Underhill pointed out that businesses can do to try to cater to males too. I really liked the quote that he used to show how men don’t like to just take all day to shop and this is why women shouldn’t take men around with them because they will just get bored. “If I owned The Limited or Victoria’s Secret, I’d have a place where woman could check her husband- like a coat.” (192). “[…] I’d find a location right next to an emporium devoted to male desire […]” (192). Basically he is saying that if stores that women like are next stores that men like then men can go in their store while the women go in theirs. This way the man can stay occupied while the man shops keeping the women in their own store for longer so they can spend more money. He also says, “[…] More satisfying, strategy would be to find a way to get the man involved in shopping” (192). He gives the example of a glassware store. The men tend to stay away from the silverware and gravy dishes and they usually went to the drink glasses. “[…] He’s interested in all the accoutrements, all the tools of the bartender trade […]” (193). The men are attracted to this so the store noticed that and tried to cater to this liking by guys. “Something so that men would walk in and see that there was a section meant for them, somewhere they could shop” (193). Clearly stores have to market differently to women as they do to men to fit each of their shopping interests. They have to figure out which way will spark both male and female’s interest so they will both spend the maximum amount of money.

Relating The Articles

The Deborah Tannen article and the Mary Pipher articles relate to each other. Both articles talk about how schools treat boys and girls differently. Piper starts out by saying, “Schools have always treated girls and boys differently” (Pipher 279). Pipher thinks that girls start to fade out early on and this is partially from the structure of the schools and the other part is from girls trying to fit in. “Junior high is when girls begin to face academically. Partly this comes from the very structure of the schools, which tend to be large and impersonal” (281). “in junior high girls feel enormous pressure to be popular” (281) She thinks that schools give boys the advantage and girls seem to lose interest. “Girls can’t say why they ditch their dreams, they just ‘mysteriously’ lose interest” (280). Piper thinks that the schools don’t meet the needs for girls therefore putting them at a disadvantage.
Deborah Tennan also touches on the fact that schools structure is geared more toward guys. She talks more specifically about debate in schools but she shows how these debates appeal more to guys. “[…] Not that individual women may not learn to practice agonistic debate or that individual men may not recoil from it” (Tennan 240). She also talks about how because the debates are better for guys because girls don’t participate as much in class. “ […] Girls often receive less attention and speak up less in class” (237). Since it is harder for girls then it gives a disadvantage in the educational system, which relates back to what Pipher was saying about the educational system being unfair. Tennan says that debate is a way that the schools make it unfair for girls. “ […] the risk that women students may be less likely to take part in classroom discussions that are framed as arguments between opposing sides – that is, debate […]” (238). “ […] It might not be fair to women to women students that the agonistic style is more uncongenial to men” (238). This also relates back to what Pipher was saying about the unfairness for women. Tennan shows an example by bringing up the topic about debate in schools. She says that debates are more geared towards boys. Therefore she is supporting what Pipher says about in inequalities in schools by showing it through debate.
Both women show how there is an inequality towards women in the structure of school. Pipher says this more broadly then Tennan by only talking about the outline of school structure. Tennan goes more in-depth pointing out a specific part of the school structure and saying it is unequal. The part she points out is debate.

What are homosexuals For?

Andrew Sullivan talks about in his article about being gay and how it is a hard thing to deal with in this society. I agree with this because we have a heteronormative culture and our society has always looked at being homosexual has being unusual. Most families race their children to like someone of the opposite sex. Sullivan points this out too. “This is how the world can seem to many adolescent homosexuals; and I was no exception. Heterosexual marriage is perceived as the primary emotional goal for your peers.” So when someone likes another person of the same sex then it is looked down upon in society. This is because they are breaking the heterosexual norm and breaking norms cause a reaction within society. He brings up a point that I had never even heard about before and that is, “So many homosexuals find it essential to move away from where they are before they can reign themselves.” I think that this makes sense because they would want to get away from the old feelings that they had associated with that other place. He says that gay people sometimes try to have a kind of cover from society because society looks down on being gay. It is because of this that gay people may hide their sexuality preference from others because society will make it harder for them to survive because being gay is looked down upon. “But to live as an adult homosexual is to experience something else again. By the simple fact of one’s increasing cultural separation, the human personality begins to develop differently.” I think this maybe how gay people get their stereotype. It is partly from their social separation because it is harder for gay people to be socially accepted. At the end of the article Sullivan talks about the role of gay people in our society and he is trying to figure out what it is. “Or perhaps their role is to have no role at all. Perhaps it is the experience of rebellion that prompts homosexual culture to be peculiarly resistant to attempts to guide it to be useful or instructive or productive.” I don’t agree with this because I don’t understand why he thinks gay peoples roles should be different then straight peoples roles in life. Gay people don’t have to go out and protest. They can but that doesn’t have to be their primary goal in life. I think they should primarily focus on being a person no matter what their sexual preference is.

Guys vs. Men

Dave Barry explains some things about boys that I think are mostly true. I agree when he says, “But men tend to attach great significance to Manhood. This results in certain characteristically masculine, by which I mean stupid, behavioral patterns that can produce unfortunate results such as violent crime, war spitting and ice hockey” (102). I don’t understand why boys feel the need to make themselves manly. Of coarse we don’t want girlie men because that would be weird but I think that boys can take it to far sometimes. This is what Barry is pointing out in this quote. Another point that he brings up is, “One of the major characteristics of guy hood is that we guys don’t spend a lot of time pondering out deep innermost feelings.” (103) I agree with this and I think that this might be one reason why boys have to be so masculine. It could be to prove to other people that they are more manly and it isn’t considered manly to be all emotional and sensitive. I also agree when he said that men have the need to have “neat” stuff. I think it is something that adds to the manliness. I don’t agree when he said the space shuttle was a main drive of this need for “neat” stuff. I might be for older men but for teenagers I don’t think so. I really like the part when he talks about the men having pointless competitions because I think that is so true. I have seen that so much in the guys that I know. They will be talking about their cars or something boyish and then they all have the need to see who can do the stupidest thing in their car like going the fastest or peeling out. They always seem to bragging about different features one their cars and they will have a debate over who has the coolest whatever. Of coarse it isn’t always cars that they will have competitions about but that is one thing that I have seen a lot of. I also really like the quote, “When they’re being just plain guys, they aren’t so much actively evil as they are lost.” (407) I think that this is so funny because I agree with the part about guys being good people but sometimes they wonder away from the path sometimes and don’t really think. So they need some sort of unwritten rules to help put them back on the path. “Guys are aware of the rules of moral behavior, but they have trouble keeping these rules in the forefronts of their minds at certain times, especially in the present.

Academic Selves

So Pipher starts out by saying that schools treat boys differently then girls. I think that this is true to an extent. Like sometimes the jocks would get it easier in the classes with a male teacher who liked sports or they would talk about cars but usually I thought the teachers viewed them as being lazy and coming to class late or not raising their hand because they were tired. But Pipher starts out saying that boys get all of the attention and I disagree with this. “In classes, boys are twice as likely to be seen as role models, five times as likely to receive teachers’ attention and twelve times as likely to speak up in class.” I really want to know where she go these numbers from because this isn’t what I have seen during my educational experience. Maybe the boys receive more attention because they need more help with the material. I think that Pipher needs some sociological imagination. She needs to step back and look at the big picture of things. She should ask herself what in the big picture of things could cause teachers to do this. Maybe the boys need help catching up because they got behind because of sports and other extra activities. She said that the message that girls get is “Perhaps you’re just not good at this. You’ve followed the rules and haven’t succeeded.” That I don’t agree with at all. I don’t see where she is coming from when she says this. It says that girls lose interest but I think this is because society has always told us that the girls are supposed to get married and have children and stay home with the children. This has been our mindset for so long so of coarse girls are going to lose interest. I think that society is starting to change its view because girls and now staying interested and realizing that we can do what we want just as well as men do their jobs. I also disagree when she said that girls think they are bad at math because math has always been my strong subject and one of my friends (who is female) is going to be an engineer and that involves tons of math. She is just displaying incorrigible proposition when she says girls aren’t as good in math because it has been proven that girls are just as good but society as this strong belief that they aren’t really as good. I also disagree with her because in high school the top three GPAs were all girls. The valedictorian that spoke at my graduation, with much pride in being smart, was a girl (the top GPA in our class).

Learning to Read

I hadn’t know idea that Malcolm X started out being inarticulate and ill educated. When he said that he had to teach himself and give himself an education that was surprising to me. “But now trying to write simple English, I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even functional.” He said that he copied pages from the dictionary to learn words that he had never known before. Then it goes on to say that he was always reading and you could always find him reading. He said that in prison they had such a good library with so many different copies. “ Any college library would be lucky to get that collection.” So he sets his background, which was good because I didn’t really know it. Malcolm agreed with Mr. Muhammad when he said that the white man had been “whitened”. “When white man had written the history books, the black man simply had been left out.” He also comes on with a very strong statement saying, “You can hardly show me a black adult in America- or a white one, for that matter- who knows from the history books anything like the truth about the black man’s role.” I think that this is very controversial because he said everyone not just most people. I think that there is some people black and white that would disagree with this statement. I also think this is a good point that he brings up because it is something that I have always over looked and not really noticed before. I can’t agree or disagree because I have never taken notice. He sounds like he is saying the white man is out to get the black man who might have been true back then but I think that things are defiantly getting better. He says that you can’t create a black man out of a white man because of the chromosomes and he found this in Gregor Mendel’s book Findings in Genetics. He has a good point and he thinks that this is proof that there had to be black people back from the very beginning. Which I agree with I think that he is taking it to an extreme though. I also think he is taking everything way to personally but there does seem to be a loop hole somewhere as to why there isn’t more emphasis about the black man’s history from back then. He then goes into talking about slavery and how this impacted his views. But I didn’t like when he said “The world’s most monstrous crime, the sin and blood on the white man’s hands, are most impossible to believe.” I take offense to what he said here. I think what was done in the past was a very terrible and it is something that we should not be happy about. But he is almost blaming me and I don’t like that because I wasn’t the one that did those things and I didn’t choose man ancestors background so why is he blaming me for something in the past.