Review of Is The Anything Good About Men ?

I disagree with many of the arguments presented in " Is There Anything Good About Men ?". The first thing I disagree with is that I do not see how the title goes with the article, since the article talks about how supposedly culture assigns roles to men and women that make society more successful, and not about bad mouthing men. The issue the author does not address is who or which group within society makes the role assignments accepted as society's culture.

The author claims that culture assigns men to do very risky activities like sailing, going to war, etc. But he fails to recognize that nature assigned women the risky and at times the life threatening role of bearing children. In poor countries women are pregnant a large portion of their adult years risking their personal lives and their health to keep producing children to work the land. He also fails to mention that many women, especially in developing countries, are forced to work as prostitutes, an extremely risky activity forced upon them because of culture and the economic reality that they face. Finally, he forgets to mention the women workers in factories, meat packing plants and canneries that sufffer tremendous amounts of injuries because of the work society assigns to them. I totally disagree with his argument and after reading the paper I am left with the impression that his research was not very comprehensive.

The author mentions motivation as an explanation for the differences in salary. He says that men are workaholics and are more motivated by work, and that is why they get paid more and promoted more. I think he fails to take into account that it is not that women are not workaholics, but the extra hours the man is working at the paying job the women is working domestic work and child care, for which she is probably not being paid for, and obviously not being promoted either. Domestic work never ends.

The author indicates that women prefer narrow intimate relationships while men prefer larger groups and less intimate relationships, which has resulted in men being more succesful in society. But the author fails to recognize that women's preference may be the result of centuries of staying at home doing domestic work assigned to women where the opportunity women had to develop relationships were with the other women also staying at home instead of with the broader group of business people and workers in town that the men were meeting. This isolation has economic implications. Men at work may meet more people that may be key to get promotions, change jobs or get your artistic piece out in the market where it may be appreciated, while women are isolated in the house. Perhaps the Internet will change this and become a factor in helping women achieve equality. I do not believe that women choose a sphere that led to less power within society than men's sphere. I believe women were not given choices. It seems that from the beginning women had the role of mother assigned to them by nature, and since then society did not give them a right to choose other roles that may interfere with women's role as a mother and child care provider. I believe that women are as workaholic, motivated and creative as men, but society has not provided women the choices it has provides men. Women were not provided choices outside the small sphere of interaction that according to the author women have chosen.

Macho Girl

"She's Got to be a Macho Girl" by Alex Kuczynski presents an interesting points as to how the media has influenced young women to assume the attitude that some men have about sex and relationships. The article calls it "the macho" attitude. It presents the comments of a doctor arguing that one of the ways young people learn about relationships is through the TV and Internet. The doctor argues that because the women presented by the media have an "aggresive" attitude in pursuing intimate relationships with young men, young women have adopted the macho approach to relationships. I agree with this point and I immediately thought of the role played by Cameron Diaz in the movie "In Her Shoes" and how the movie become very popular. But I have a problem with characterizing all behavior in which women are assertive as aggressive.

I believe that women can be assertive without necessarily being aggressive and that is a distinction that is not being shown by the media in their aired programs and songs. The article and the comments it presents do not get into this issue. If a young women takes the first step in seeking a relationship that does not necessarily mean she is aggressive. Aggressiveness depends on a individual circumstances surrounding the event. A women may also assume a "passive role" and may be acting assertively.

There are other comments in the article that seem to point out that a reason why young voters nowadays are "aggressive" in pursuing personal relationships is the result of the feminist movement idea that women should pursue equality with men in all spheres, jobs, school, sports, and therefore women should also "dominate in a sexual relationship". The problem with this inference is that "dominating" a relationship does not reflect equality. A relationship under those circumstances reflects that one party is superior to the other. To really pursue equality women must not imitate that behavior but make men abandon that behavior. I believe the real feminist take on the issue of relationships is that feminist women should be assertive, and this does not necessarily means aggressive or dominating the relationship. The feminist view is not that "She's Got to be a Macho Girl".

Full Frontal Feminism-Chapter One You're a Hardcore Feminist

I like this reading Full Frontal Feminism-Chapter One You're a Hardcore Feminist because it points a few themes that are very real current issues for us women at this point in time. It shows that many women will not identify themselves as feminists, and will run away from this label, because from some reason the word feminist is associated with a women being ugly, fat, masculine, or being a man hater. But the author indicates that if you inquire into those women's beliefs with regard to issues such as birth control, equal pay for equal work and rape, you realize that those women are in fact feminists, but they do not acknowlegde it.

The author says that when she was a student a professor asked in class who was a feminist and she did not raise her hand. She was also a feminist in hiding. But she does not give us an insight into what happened in her life that she evolved and decided to come out of the closet. I wish she would have shared this personal experience with us readers.

I do like it when the author says something about, why do people want to kill feminism if it is already dead ? Well, to me the answer is clear, feminism is not dead, but it isn't as strong as it could be because women are afraid of being labeled . Women need to get the courage to say something equivalent to the African American Community's slogan in the 60's that "black is beautiful".

I am a feminist, isn't that great ?

Themes I Would Like To Study in the Course

Some of the themes I would like to study in this course are: Eleanor Roosevelt's role in the peace process during World War II and the post-war period. I have always been interested in Eleanor Roosevelt as a historical figure, how she influenced the New Deal programs during Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency and how she was interested in social justice in the domestic agenda of her husband's presidency. Nonetheless I do not know much about her role in international affairs, like the peace process during World War II and the post war-period.

I am also interested in learning more about the role of women in recent issues related to peace, like for example the group "Code Pink" and their use of creative tactics of civil disobedience in demonstrating against the Iraq War. Also I would like to research groups like Mothers Against War ("MAW") that were organized as a reaction to the War in Iraq and that use the Internet to create a network of women who oppose the war around the world.