Paper #1

1. Discuss the pressure that women endure when balancing the roles of student, wife, career woman, and mother when it comes to age norms throughout their lives in our society.

Women are the glue that holds the world together. Woman face many pressures in the present day balancing the roles of woman, student, wife, mother, and career woman. One does not have to be all the roles listed but most women juggle two or more of the listed roles. Why is it that women face these pressures and take on various roles? Naomi Wolf highlights that
Though a woman does full-time paid work, she still does all or nearly all the unpaid work that she used to. In the United States, partners of employed women give them less help than do partners of housewives: Husbands of full-time homemakers help out for an hour and fifteen minutes a day, while husbands of women with full-time jobs help less than half as long—thirty-six minutes (Wolf 2002).
Women are the facilitators of life, without women life would not be able to come into physical existence. Our sole existence is essential to the continual revolving of the earth.
Women who juggle many roles experience pressures to perform the roles and to perform them well. What is well? Unfortunately, society has heavily influenced the criteria for good performance. The majority of TV-characters selling a new Glade candle, Brawny’s ultra-plush paper towel, or Cottonel toilet paper are all women or characterizations of women. The majority of these TV-women seem to be stay at home moms or caregivers always waiting for the next chance to cook, clean, and serve their family to their content. Growing up I was not surrounded by stay at home mothers or caregivers. The majority of the women in my life were the breadwinner, career women, mothers, wives, and community leaders. How did they do it and how did they feel?
These women did these extensive activities and carried out their roles by always being on the go and continually exhausted. These women—one specifically my mother—worked from 7:30 am to 6 pm went grocery shopping, cooked a full healthy meal, paid bills, oversaw her kids homework, and yet found time to try and read her own book. It may seem she balanced her life easily and on task, but to the contrary my mother has a life of daily stress and exhaustion. I am not complaining, but am enlightening society of the pressures that women encounter on a daily basis. I believe that just highlighting the physical or visible effects of the balancing act women encounter whether young or old is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to other aspects of women that is affected. Women also encounter self-esteem issues, boredom, used issues, and feelings of not meeting the standards or pressures that society continues to portray. An example of how society, female roles, and age affect women is discussed in our reading of plastic surgery.
Ann Marie is not at all shy about discussing her face-lift. She actually seems eager to tell me the reasons for her decision. Her appearance began to change in her late thirties and forties when she developed “puffiness underneath the eyes” and “dropping upper eyelids.” Most unattractive, by Ann Marie’s account, “the skin of my throat started getting creepy.” In her words, “You get to an age” when “you look in the mirror and see lines that were not there before.” Because her physical appearance had begun to reflect the aging process, she explains, “all of a sudden, the need [for cosmetic surgery] was there (Gimlin 2002).
Unfortunately, the stress from playing many characters in the musical of life have encouraged or pushed women to head for the knife as a temporary relief. They find that plastic surgery will erase the wear and tear of years of the balancing act.

It is important to discuss such issues so that society can learn and become more balanced in its societal expectations of both man and woman. I joked at the beginning of my answer to the question that women are the glue that holds the world together; however, at this point in time I believe that women are the glue until society equalizes life roles and responsibilities between sexes.









2. Define stereotypes. Identify how people are stereotyped into categories. Consider your experience, have you ever felt the pressure to be a stereotypical image. Specifically, have you ever felt pressure to conform to a stereotype? What was the situation? Reflecting back, what were the rewards or consequences for your response? Please make sure to include the specific situation.

Stereotypes are a simplified opinion or perspective of a person or thing. Stereotypes can be a jock, fat girl, loser, nerd, beauty queen, dancer, smoker, and the list could go on. Stereotypes are a kind of a heuristic; a heuristic is a mental shortcut used to quickly and efficiently understand a concept. In psychology heuristics are used as a quick processing of information. Stereotypes allow people to read and form quick understandings about others. It cuts down on the question and answer phase of meeting someone new and allows for pre-judgment and opinion formation. Stereotypes are not always bad, but for the most part in our body image pop-crazed culture stereotypes are seldom positive.
Various forms of judgment such as: class, financial status, occupation, education, sex, gender, hobbies, sports, material possessions, and personality types stereotype people. These classifications are only naming a few, but unfortunately these are the few that I find most commonly used. Stereotypes are not just pre-judgments from other people, but can also occur within the individuals towards themselves. An individual can notice that they are somehow different than the majority of the population and consider themselves an outsider. Within my college years, I have experienced many moments where I have felt social pressure to fit a stereotype. As a former member of a Pan-Hellenic sorority. I remember my freshman year after I pledged I encountered a whirlwind of stereotypical feedback from friends and family. I knew of the stereotype of sorority girls, but I also new how much more different actual sorority life can be from what is portrayed in movies. From day one to about spring of 2008, I always felt wanted, accepted, and busy; the feeling and acceptance a sorority provides is one that is only given to you with reciprocation expected. To explain this phenomena I will use my example of involvement my freshman year: I was one of the rush picks and so in return I was University Sing lead singer, Big Event Executive Committee member, Dance Marathon Morale Committee member, a Spanish tutor, and held down a job while still making good grades. In return my sorority always publicized what new members are “out there” making their mark on campus promoting the sorority! One does not realize that through all this involvement there is a minimal gain in it for the individual, but more monetary and reputational gain for the sorority.
The over-involvement was not pressure to fit the mold, but I experienced more pressure form friends and family that I was becoming a sorority girl. I remember a specific instance where the boy I was long distance dating at the time loathed the fact that I joined a sorority. He continually would discuss the stereotypes that he had just like Vendela Vida’s Sorority Sisters:
One of the first houses Group 10 goes to is Kappa Kappa Gamma, reputed to have all the pretty girls, cocaine parties, and strict bulimia regimens for its members who are failed anorexics (Vida 2000).
He made it very apparent every time we saw each other, saying my sorority was “changing me.” I kept thinking how was my sorority changing me if I kept up my grades, did not party, and still made ample time for friends and family. One time I was visiting him at his house and he made the remark that did I not have any different clothing than that provided by the sorority. I could not believe that he would label me as just a sorority girl. My own boyfriend at the time placed me in the same group of girls as you see in movies like House Bunny or Old School.
At that point I realized that I enjoyed being a member of my sorority for the involvement and friends, but did not enjoy the label that everyone seemed to be giving me. I continued to participate in my required and extracurricular activities that were encouraged by the sorority, but I also began to branch out and meet other interesting people that were not Greek. I received a lot of questions from my sorority sisters, but I continued to tell them that I wanted a well-rounded college experience instead of a Greek one. It was as if branching out of the stereotype was inconceivable like Kim’s book collection from Vida’s essay.
One of our next parties is at Delta Delta Delta…Once inside; it’s greet-judge-pass all over again…until I meet Kim. Kim is a beautiful funkily-dressed black Tri-Delt (the first funkily-dressed, not to mention black woman I’ve seen during rush) whose bookshelf—which I see when she takes me on a house tour—is not to be believed. Unlike bookshelves at other sororities that seem to serve as no more than display cases for teddy bears holding UCLA banners and photos…Kim’s bookshelf houses an impressive collection of Scandinavian literature (Vida 2000).
The rewards of being involved with my greek affiliation and my campus extracurricular activities allowed me to see that college isn’t about finding our identity in a group but in ourselves. I unfortunately did not come to this realization as quickly as I should have; I realized that the stereotype of sorority girls is not true, but will continue to persist. I also learned that there are stereotypes within the house just like those outside the house. I battled deeply with my identity and defining myself around all the stereotypes in my life. Unfortunately, for me the stereotypes were not helpful until I began to understand that who and what I am should not be affected by other’s perceptions, but by my own decisions and perceptions. It is now that I am finally enjoying life outside of stereotypes; so what if I was once a Greek, it was a good stage for a period of time.








References:
Gilin, D.L . (2002). Body work: beauty and self image in american culture.

Vida, V. (2000). Girls on the verge gilin, d.l . (2002). body work: beauty and self
image in american culture. . St. Martin's Griffin.

Wolf, N. (2002). The Beauty myth how images of beauty are used against women.
New York, NY : Harper Perennial.