The have two authors, Jane Smiley and

The have two authors, Jane Smiley and

The forming progress of gender and sex roles of women and men is not mysterious. It is traceable, but complex. We have two authors, Jane Smiley and John McMurtry talking about gender and sex roles about women and men respectively. The author, Jane Smiley, as a mother of two girls and a boy, in her article “YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY” argues about Barbie dolls play an important role in the way her girls pursuing beauty. The author, John McMurtry, as a former football player, in his article “KILL ‘EM! CRUSH ‘EM! EAT ‘EM RAW! , talks about American football trains men to be aggressive. Both the two articles shade a light on a point that people can’t form their gender and sex roles by themselves.

There has to be some determinants among which there are two important ones that I am willing to argue: hobbies chosen and influence of people around. Barbie dolls, as a province of girls, help girls to develop a sex role as beauty seeking while influence of people around also contributes to this. We seem to have a common sense on what a beautiful girl should be like, for example, a blond.

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The prettiest girl in school is always a blond. Same thing happens among pop stars and movie stars. It is not hard to conclude that they all look like Barbie dolls. Men have this kind of idea because women try to become just like that to be “beautiful”, in other words, women give men the idea that a blond is pretty.

Where do women get such kind of idea? There is not a girl born to be an expert in knowing what beauty is. Therefore, the answer is explicit, that is due to the most popular entertainment among girls in their child life, Barbie dolls.As the author, Jane Smiley said, “A girl has to have a Barbie doll in order to decide whether she herself wants to be a Barbie. “(P. 238). Do not underestimate the influence of Barbie dolls on the forming of girls’ gender and sex roles. They can gain quite a few Hollywood inspired essentials of American womanhood from Barbie.

Just as Jane Smiley said: Both my girls went through periods where they would wear only pink and purple. I chalk this up to the Barbie influence. Both of them learned how to put on makeup before kindergarten.Lucy could apply lipstick with her eyes closed by the time she was five. (P. 238) Besides this, influence of people around also contributes to the forming of the beauty seeking roles of women. People around, includes brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, etc whose choices of hobbies will subtly influence their younger fellows’.

This can be seen in Jane Smiley’s article, “I discovered the older girls showing the younger girls how to bandage the Barbies with toilet paper when they happened to get into alcohol-related cat crashes with Ken. “(P. 38). In a word, Barbie dolls, the entertainment girls choose, as well as the influence of people around helps a lot in developing beauty seeking gender role of women. American football, as a province of boys, help boys to develop a gender and sex role as violent contact sports enjoying while influence of people around also contributes to this.

Men always like war, which seem to be like a human nature. American football can be easily compared as war, so maybe that’s why so many men love football. Football is closely related to getting injured.Men don’t worry about that, on the contrary, quite enjoy it. It looks like that that should be a true man and a tough guy like. As the author John McMurtry said, “Indeed, it is arguable that body shattering is the very point of football, as killing and maiming are of war.

(In the United Stated, for example, the game results in 15 to 20 deaths a year about 50,000 major operations on knees alone. )”(P. 250). We can barely see the so called sportsmanship in American football, rather than violent contact. One team beats over the other just by hurts more than the other does.This can be seen from the author, John McMurtry, “Now there was a coach and elders to make it clear by their behaviour that beating other people was the only thing to celebrate and that trying to shake someone up every play was the only thing to be really proud of.

(P. 251) Besides this, influence of people around also contributes to the forming of the violent contact sports enjoying roles of men. The words coming out of the mouth of people around the players would push them closer to be enjoying violent contact.Just as John McMurtry said: To grasp some of the more conspicuous similarities between football and war, it is instructive to listen to the imperatives most frequently issued to eh players by their coaches, teammates and fans. “Hurt ’em! ” “Level ’em! ” “Kill ’em! ” “Take “em apart! “(P. 250) Moreover, choices of entertainment of brothers or cousins would also influence one person’s choice. In the article, one brother of the author is also an outstanding football player.

In a word, American football, the entertainment boys choose, as well as the influence of people around helps a lot in developing violent contact enjoying gender ole of men. In conclusion, hobbies chosen and influence of people around are two among many determinants of gender roles, and they are important. However, we can also see the other side on the effect of the two determinants. For example, for the type of beauty that Barbie dolls present to girls, is that enough to fulfill the imagination about beauty that girls should be seeking for? The answer is probably not. Meanwhile, despite the fact that American football makes boys more violent, we should also see that it does train them to be strong and what’s more important, prepares them for the future competitions in business.

Work Cited McMurtry, John. “Kill ‘Em! Crush ‘Em! Eat ‘Em Raw! ” Perspectives on Contemporary Issues:Readings Across the Disciplines (First Canadian Edition). Katherine Anne Ackley, G. Kim Blank, and Stephen Eaton Hume, Toronto: Thomson Nelson, 2008. 248-254. Print.

Smiley, Jane. “You Can Never Have Too Many. ” Perspectives on Contemporary Issues: Readings Across the Disciplines (First Canadian Edition). Katherine Anne Ackley, G. Kim Blank, and Stephen Eaton Hume, Toronto: Thomson Nelson, 2008.

237-239. Print.

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