Jonathan Gardner

English 1050
Sue Briggs
12-06-2015

2nd Essay Diversity Issue Reflection

In the United States, we have more people accepting diversity than
ever before. One of the issues that is currently being changed is the
definition of gender. In the past, men were usually defined as leaders and
that is based on the role as a husband as the head of the family putting them
over the woman. It is also where women take the role as the wife and
someone who stays at home and takes care of the children. During this
semester, we have been doing readings and writings about many of the
ideas of gender inequality and diversity throughout America. Going through
all these pieces, Ive been able to see how men try to push blame on women
and that both genders takes advantage of each other in many ways. Over
time, we are starting to see a lot of the inequality dwindle down, and today it
is becoming a lot better. It seems women are gaining more rights and
becoming more equals in society.
During this class, we have had the chance of reading a lot of topics on
gender roles and what society thought over the past 100 years or so. Weve
been able to read and see what people thought in the 1930s 1950s 1980 and
the 21st century. In viewing the posters displayed during WWII, we were
asked to consider what assumptions were being made in these posters. The
posters were attempting to spread awareness about STDs. These posters

made it seem as though women were the main cause of STDs, although it
was not just womens fault. (220-221). This assumption is so far from the
truth. I thought about this long and hard and it made me sick that men would
treat women like this. The truth is that men were equally as guilty for the
cause of an STDs. But for men to push the blame entirely on the women is
just horrible. Men need to take responsibility for their actions, especially
since the world saw men as leaders. Therefore, men need to have more
respect for women.
The next reading I want to address is the The Cocktail Waitress by
James P. Spradley and Brenda J. Mann (417-422). Denise tells her story
about men at the bar who had no morals. On the first day of the job, she tells
us about a customer that would grab her each time she came by the table.
He would try to talk to her and continued to make her uncomfortable. To the
guy, she was just part of the bar and started to assume that if she works at a
bar then she is there for the customers enjoyment. With the society, today
we see that a lot of men are sick people who do things to women. A lot of
men seem to only want sex and think that it is okay for society because as
young kids they grew up with that being one of the things they had access to
on the internet. Some men dont ever learn how to treat women. I am
married and I can relate to this where my wife comes home and she tells me
stories of guys hitting on her even though she has a wedding ring on.
In Delilah, Montoya. Women Boxers: The New Warriors (211), we do
get to see a change. A change where we see a woman stepping out of the

role of a woman and going out as an aggressive and strong woman. This role
is usually placed by men. These women who decided to make a change
were known as Malcriadas. A Malcriada is a woman who will not behave
and is determined to do what she wants, regardless of what society rules or
even good sense dictates (211). Its nice to see that she was able to take
that role even though society frowned upon a woman being violent. The
world is starting to accept women as roles that they can do anything as long
as they put their mind to it.
In Reading the Gaze (208), we see that women are used as a way of
drawing in men. They are being exploiting so that the company can make
money. In all the ads, it is basically saying, These people are sexy. Buy my
brand and you will get to have this body or this happen to you. It may be
used differently, but it is just as obvious as the old public service
announcements were, they still use womens sexuality as a tool. Danielle
Christensen, a peer in our class, said, In advertisements, men are typically
portrayed as strong and assertive where women are usually portrayed as
sexual objects and submissive. If womens value is placed on their beauty
and sexuality and not on their intelligence or contribution to society, then
there can never truly be equality. I feel that is very true. I would also like to
relate these ads in the gaze to the ads in the 1950s and piece we read The
Cocktail Waitress. They both are used in a way where women are there for
men to use. In the STD ads women were blamed for the cause, and the ad
Gucci Guilty (208) was showing that it is women who cheat on men not the

other way around. In the The Cocktail Waitress The men grew up seeing
the ads that are presented in Reading the Gaze (208) and they learned,
that this is how women are supposed to be treated.
We also see gender inequalities in the work settings. In Week 11, the
article we read was, Worked Over and Overworked. (404). This article
talked about workers in Seattle who were forcefully taking pay cuts and
forced to train workers so that the workers who were being trained were
eventually going to take the guys job that trained him. You can relate this
issue to today on how women are working just as many hours as men and
doing the same job as them but they still continually get paid way less than
the male. According to The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap,
women get paid about 80 cents (rounded) for every dollar a male makes.
This gap will never go until women and men are treated the same.
In the end, I feel that gender roles need to be there. I feel that men
have been mistreating women throughout the world and these writings tell
that so much. I feel that the information presented in The Simple Truth
about the Gender Pay Gap, showing women getting paid less than men is an
okay thing under certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is when
a woman has a baby, they physically are the only sex that can take care of
that baby for the first stages of the babys life. Also women need to take time
off to recover from such an event. My wife and I just had a baby in
September and it was amazing but when you become a parent each role as a

gender is so crucial that only the mom or the dad could provide for that
child.
I do feel that the men talked about in the posters on STDs need to
take responsibility for their actions but that goes the same for women
presented in the ads Reading the Gaze (208) need to stop using their body
as a way of drawing men in. Men need to stop using women for money and
using their sexuality for the ads and companys but at the same time women
need to stop exploiting themselves if they ever want it to become truly
equal.

Course Objectives
The First course objective that I wanted to address was examining a
social groups power over another based gender. In most cases, men are
considered superior to women. It seems men have this power because in
most cases men are physically stronger than women. It seems that because
of this then during humans life on earth that men were just placed over
women because in the beginning there was no technology and no laws set in
place so it made sense at the time. But now that those times are over Mens
rights and power have been handed to them, while women fight to be
viewed equally as strong of a gender. Now women have started gaining
traction and have been granted more and more power each year but still it
mainly lies in the hands of the male gender. Our text has stated many cases

that prove inequality between genders, and how it had negatively impacting
the female race.
The Second course objective I felt I should talk about is how we see the
effects of our diverse culture on individuals and groups. In week 14 reading
we talked about Millennials. Millenials: Confident. Connected. Open to
Change (55) presented the results of Pew Research Centers findings
through surveys. This text shows how much the world changes through each
generation you see their cultures and beliefs change just a little. Each
generation grows up with new things and technology making their outlook on
the world so different. As we start to understand more and see the
generation of millennials, its easy to see that generations have grown to
understand each other better and have learned to be willing to subject to
change and growth in confidence. Generations as a whole influence each
other more than we think and it is not till you look at the whole picture is
when it becomes clear. The diverse cultures today not only affect people as
an individual but as a group.
And finally the last course objective I wanted to say is, critically
examining your own beliefs and values and make sure that you can relate to
diverse cultures and understand that they are people to. I started to read the
storys in the text book with an open mind to put myself in others positions.
By doing this I stopped having negative feelings toward certain topics. I will
still always have my own beliefs and attitudes about the diversity of our
cultures but now I can look at things from their point of view.

In conclusion, I understand that everyone needs to realize that we are

all people and that we all need to work together to get where we want to be.
At the start of this course I did not think anything of it and I did not look
forward to taking that class. I now realize and am very happy that it was well
worth my time and I really am glad that I was able to see so many different
points of views. After doing all those readings you start to feel some of the
pain that some of these people went thorough and looking back the past 200
years you really start to see how far we have come as a people. There are so
many things we can learn from different genders, races, cultures and
religions. If you have an open mind you can learn so much. If you can set
aside everything you were taught you can see how much of a benefit all
these challenges that people went through are truly worth it from where we
are today.

Work Cited
Advertising. Reading Culture: Context for Critical Reading and Writing.
George, Diana & Trimbur, John. New York: Pearson. 206-209. Print.
Alan Trachtenberg: "Reading American Photographs, Reading Culture: Context for

Critical Reading and Writing. George, Diana & John Trimbur. New York:
Pearson "489-495 Print
Creating a Public Service Announcement, Reading Culture: Context for
Critical Reading and Writing. George, Diana & John Trimbur. New York:
Pearson. 219-223. Print
Greenhouse, Steven. Worked Over and Over Worked. Reading Culture:
Context for Critical Reading and Writing. George, Diana & John Trimbur. New
York: Pearson. 404-415. Print
Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change, Reading Culture: Context for

Critical Reading and Writing. George, Diana & John Trimbur. New York:
Pearson pp. 55-67. Print
Montoya, Delilah. Women Boxers: The New Warriors. Reading Culture:
Context for Critical Reading and Writing. George, Diana & Trimbur, John. New
York: Pearson. 211-214. Print.
Spradley, James P. & Mann, Brenda J. The Cocktail Waitress. Reading
Culture: Context for Critical Reading and Writing. George, Diana & John
Trimbur. New York: Pearson. 417-422. Print
The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap (Fall 2015) (AAUW: Empowering
Women Since 1881) http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-aboutthe-gender-pay-gap/Gender Roles in