Language.Gender.Culture.

      I am loving this unit because I have always been one to speak up about the gender differences between men and women and the expectations and limitations that are placed on women. I really feel that in nature, women got the short end of the stick; we are deemed lesser than men, yet we have more standards that we must live up to and I would love to know how it all started. Anyways, women are judged way harder than men are and they are judged in EVERY aspect of their lives. From their body image to the way they speak, there seems to be no wiggle room for girls to just be girls.

     First, girl are so heavily judged by their looks. Just the other day, I was at the gym with my friend and we were in this room where one of the employees was fixing a fan or something. Anyways, as we were stretching, I heard another one of the employees come in and start talking to the one fixing the fan. He started telling him about some girl he saw on one of the ellipticals who had thunder thighs and proceeded to lead his co worker friend out to where she was so he could see. That is a perfect example of this. Some girl who was just trying to work out and exercise was unknowingly being observed by these "men" who felt the need to then gossip like school kids about how she looked. There's a reason not very many women like gyms. They either get hit on by creepy guys or they feel they are being judged because they don't look like the girl on the advertisement for the gym. Young girls are bombarded with pictures of models from day one. We are almost brain washed into thinking that we must all be skinny with the flattest stomachs yet curvy and busty at the same time. For some girls that is not physically possible because there are just some things you're not born with. This just builds up insecurities in these young girls as they get older and become women.

     To get back on track, women also have standards on how they must talk. Deborah Tannen stated in her excerpt "His Politeness Is Her Powerlessness", that "if a linguistic strategy is used by a woman, it is seen as powerless [and] if it is done by a man, it is seen as powerful" (1). In this piece, Tannen is discussing how when women use indirectness, they are seen as sneaky and covert. She mentions that most women don't ask things directly because they feel they don't have the right to. I agree on a certain level with this. I don't think women knowingly feel they don't have the right to ask or say things directly, but most women are raised to have manners and to speak politely which in turn basically means to speak indirectly.

     I apologize for this post turned rant. Things like this really start to bother me when I get going. Anyways, I just think that we all need to recognize that there are still gender expectations that women today struggle with and it is something that needs to be fixed.