Essay #2 _ It's Time For A Change, Sisters (Revision)

I often buy magazines like TeenVouge and Seventeen at the beginning of every school year so I can check out what’s hot and what’s not for the new school year. As I was looking through all the advertisments in the August issue of TeenVouge magazine, an Guess ad caught my eye. The ad in the magazine seems to portray a lot more than just a sophisticated and luxurious new brand of accessories from Guess . The center of the ad is a beautiful woman, with her revealing lingerie on and her hair is beautifully done. She is kneeling on an exotic and oriental-looking couch, a man sitting right beside her, his hand lying on her tiny waist. Despite of the beautiful setting and clothing that she has on, the woman seems to want something else as she looks away from the man, avoiding eye contact. I feel like she doesn't accept the situation she is in but there is nothing she can do about it because that's just what our culture expected from women. In Guess’s ad, gender inequality forces Americans to view women as objects that are owned by men.

Gender inequality appears to be something that would never change. More than a century has passed since the first women’s right revolution started and yet, men is still more superior to women. For example, back in the day, in Aristotle's Metaphysics, the Greeks associate male gender with light and good while female is connected with dark and bad. Similarly, the system of opposite in Chinese philosophy, called the Yin and Yang, associate Yin with female, which are even and darkness whereas Yang are male, odd and light. Even though there're differences between the two systems, the males always ended up with higher prestige. As one know, the Greek male is "resting" and the female is "moving", according to Aristotle's Metaphysics, while the Chinese male is active and the female is passive. Apparently, active is better than passive. However, for the Greeks, to be free of all motion is superior to being a subject of motion. After all, despite thirty years of extreme feminist activism and much social change, virtually every important political, social, culture, and economic institution is still dominated by men. For example, the United States has yet to have a female president and only since January fourth of 2007 that this nation has a woman as Speaker of the House of Representative.

Regardless of all the sour facts and obstacles against women, we have come a long way. Yet, the men still play the more dominant roles. Unless one has been in a la-la land, I think every person must at least once wonder why society always places men in front of women. One of the reasons is described through the ad of Guess. Women are expected to be no more than objects, especially sex-relating objects. The woman in the ad is wearing lacey lingerie and she has animal-print shoes on, which can only be interpreted as sexual appeal to men. She's so beautiful with her makeup perfectly done, along with her gorgeous hair and yet, she seems so empty. There is no emotion in her face, no eye contact, nothing. She looks like a life-sized doll with human flesh and no soul. There isn’t much for her to do beside stand still and look pretty. But that's okay because society doesn't expect much from her anyway. For example, there wouldn't be any surprise for a girl like me to get married right after high school and spend the rest of my life, cooking dinner for my husband and children and cleaning the house. However, if it was my brother who ended up fixing dinner or cleaning the house, my whole family would be in shock and rage. It’s just not acceptable in our culture. In the end, as society stays men-dominated, women continue to be seen as objects, without motivation to follow her heart or intelligence to think for herself, no matter how far away it is from the truth.

As a woman who is working hard to earn her place in society, it’s intolerable for me to accept gender inequality. It’s not fair for a woman to work twice as hard as a man and still ended up lower in this world. It’s time for a change, sisters. It might be hard to achieve gender inequality but it’s not impossible. From Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Alice Paul, American women have done it. They have fought for the rights of American women everywhere. But that’s not enough. The battle is not over. Recently, I’ve read an article about a Manhattan woman, who was fired from financial powerhouse Lehman Brothers Inc. because she was assertive and conducted herself in the manner her boss though only men should. She filed for complaint and Lehman Brothers is reviewing the paper and the company is committed to providing a respectful and inclusive work environment for all its employees. That’s just one story out of thousands when it comes to gender inequality and how society is treating women unfairly. America women need to keep on fighting, fight for her rights, for her future, for the future of her daughters and granddaughters. It is time to demand the power an American woman deserves, the power of equality.

From having more gray matters to being able to do things that men can't possibly do, women are capable of achieving so much more than society assumed. Just because the culture expects women to stand still and look pretty doesn't mean women have to do just that. So to all my sisters out there, the sky is the limits. Gender inequality forces America to treat women as sex objects but with determination, intelligence, and girl power, I know American women are bounded to come out on top.