A Woman in a Man's World

In our society, men and women are viewed in to completely different ways. Unfortunately, women seemed to be viewed inferior to men. When you see a Pull-Ups commercial you always see a little boy or girl running up to their mother informing them that they were able to go to the bathroom themselves. Even though these commercials seem cute and it shows that a woman’s role is to potty train their children. Where are the fathers in these commercials? Well you can only then assume that the father is at work while the mother is at home taking care of the children.  I am not at all saying that fathers don’t take care of their children, because I am sure there are fathers that are stay at home parents, but our society constantly tells us that I women should be at home taking care of the kids, doing the cooking and the cleaning while the father is at work taking care of the family finically. The primary reason why society has specific roles for men and women is because that’s what the media tells us. Even though there are more women in the world than there are men, there are fewer women holding higher elite jobs.

In society, women are held to such a high standard when it comes to the way the look. For an example, women are expected to look like the women at the front cover of cosmopolitan. They need to be skinny with big breasts and apparently with no age lines. In all reality no one looks that good as the girl on the cover and that even includes the girl on the cover. But, to me, it is absolutely different for men. Take George Clooney for instance, if he was put on the cover of the Rolling Stones magazine you would see his wrinkles and his grey hairs and according to society that is what makes him so “handsome”. Don’t get me entirely wrong because I am sure the media is still photo enhancing his pictures it’s just not as extreme as the photo enhancements done on women.

In all honestly I am not sure if the stereotype for women has haunted me, at least not at this point and time of my life. I try to be as realistic as I can when it comes to stereo types and I damn well make it a point to the people around me that I will not be a stay at home mother who does the cooking and the cleaning. Though this may seem cliché to other people but it seems to be working for me so far.

I believe that the media needs to change gears and make advertisements, movies, music, video games etc. more diverse when it comes to what they think a man’s role and a women’s role should be. Since I believe media has such a high influence on society, it would be a great place to start for change. I would like the media to view women as powerful, beautiful women rather than a sex appeal.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

I believe that most people's stereotypes and assumptions come from multiple ways. First I believe that people's stereotypes stem from how they are raised. If a child is raised and their parents have a particular opinion about a certain race or a certain group of people then that child will more than likely adopt the same way of thinking.  This can be presented verbally or no verbally by the parent or the community. Verbally expressing your opinion is pretty straight forward. What I mean by non verbally is how a parent or the community acts upon a certain group of people. An example would be that if there is a neighborhood that was predominately white and wealthy and say a wealthy black family moved into the neighborhood some of the white people might outcast the black family or treat them differently even if they don't say it directly. Even though the black family is wealthy, the white people might still treat them different because of the color of their skin.
Another way people might develop stereotypes in through the media. In fact I think the media plays one of the biggest roles into developing people's stereotypes. A year or so ago I took an ethnic literature class and we learned about different ethnicities. Obviously one of the groups we talked about in this class were black people. One of the most astounding things I have ever heard came from this class. It was about black people and during certain periods of history if wealthy black people wanted to be accepted in society they had to pass the brown paper bag test. Meaning if they are "too black" they would not be accepted. Society put a standard by comparing black people's skin to a brown paper bag. I believe this, to some extent, is still carried out today. Throughout my own life I have heard several individuals say that he or she is "too black".
All in all there are many influences that develop people's stereotypes whether its from your parents, your community or the media.

Too Much Too Little Money

My economic and social upbringing has majorly impacted my perceptions of college. I come from a family in which neither my parents nor grandparents received a college degree. Even though neither of my parents have a college degree they both attended community college after high school.  When my parents were around twenty three years of age my father decided to join the Air Force. When my dad was in the Air Force he continued taking college courses while my mom primarily stayed at home to take care of my sisters and I. After my dad left the Air Force he did not have the money to continue college so he got a job working on computers for 10 dollars an hour while my mother got a job working at my high school to help with the financials for the family. It took my father a few years in the computer industry to land a job that paid him a very good salary. Even though my parents took the roundabout way into finding a good job without college degrees they have always instilled in my sisters and I how important it was too go to college and get a good job.

Also I attended a private school in which there were a 100 percent of the students in my graduating class who went to college immediately after high school. Going to my high school has played a major role in my decision to go to go to college. Ever since freshman year of high school my teachers would always say things like, "we are going to construct this class to prepare you for college." So basically my school was always trying to give us the tools  needed to be successful and to promote us to go to college. 

I think that the biggest drawback about attending college was the fact the my family does not necessarily have to money to send me to college. My parents didn't have the money while I was growing up to put money aside for my sisters and I to go to college. And unfortunately according to the government organization FASFA my dad makes far too much money for me to receive any exponential amount of money in grants. So on a financial side college may have not been in the cards for me but my high school and family upbringings had more of an influence on me to attend college anyways. There for most of my college tuition is paid through loans. And hopefully I will graduate from college and get a good job so that I have money to pay off my student loans.