rough draft #2

Dear seductive women,

Women have the opportunity to make a living however they choose. The ability to make a living selling their sexuality to music videos or advertisements or the ability to make a living working as a politician, doctor, or lawyer is a personal decision. The industry is competitive about choosing potential employees because it is them who represent their companies. In the eyes of men, women who show too much skin or wear provocative clothing don’t belong in the professional work place because they can’t be taken seriously. If women change their behaviors away from promoting their sexuality, men can focus on the talents women have to offer instead of their sexual appeal.

In some cases, men look at women and determine just by their looks if they are making money by selling themselves or by working a job that doesn’t matter the sex. If a woman is attractive, she will come off as a woman who would sell her appeal to advertisers and if a woman is not attractive, she will come off as a woman who works hard for a living. Models for example just have to look good and display their clothing in a sexual way. Women in music videos just have to wear swim suits and dance around the rapper and look sexy. Men have this mindset that women who are smart are not attractive and women who are attractive are dumb.  Men think women who make money from their looks get off easy because they aren’t working hard for their money. This translates to the work force where as a woman applying for a high position job will most likely not get hired because of her sexual identity. Women who sell their sexuality have made an image for all women that implies a bad work ethic and a bad working environment.

Men are biologically driven by sexual appeal of women and when men see women who are attractive, all they can think of is sex. Men don’t take attractive women seriously in the work force because of their sexual desires. Kilbourne states that men think of “sex as more important than anything else” (578).  This turns away job opportunities for women because having a women who is attractive can get in the way of the professional aspect of working together and in some cases can hinder work ethic.

Men like feeling powerful in the work force and in their personal lives. Men are masculine and dominate in nature and don’t share their femininity because it makes them look weak. In an advertisement in an essay by Kilbourne, a man is forcibly hovering over a woman who is laughing and there is a big “No” on top of the advertisement (579). This demonstrates that women secretly want to be forced around or if they don’t want to be forced around, they don’t have a voice to say “no” to the man. Men are demanding to get their way and women have no power to say otherwise. Men forget that women are human too and fail to treat them with any respect.

Women on the other hand want to be heard and listened to but fail to stand up to their male counterpart.  Women are shown in advertisements obeying orders given by the male. The way an advertisement portrays a young women in an elevator with words saying “push my buttons” (582), implies that she wants to be pushed around and taken advantage of. With this sort of submissive behavior, women are letting men run all over them without even a fight. This sort of behavior translates into the workforce where women are bossed around and told what to do. Women need to not show their submissive behavior when taken advantage of from other men and retaliate. If women want to be taken seriously, they need to stand up and let their voice be heard and if they don’t, men will continue to degrade and dehumanize them.

Women have the ability to stand up against male dominance but it is up to them to do it. Men can’t tell women to stand up for themselves, women have to take the initiative to say no and let their oppressor know their true feelings. Women are by nature submissive, carrying and kind but that doesn’t entail that they can be forced upon and bossed around. Women need to set boundaries for men so when men go too far with their powerful and dominating behavior, they know and stop. Otherwise, if no boundaries are set, women become powerless and therefore can get hurt and abused.   

The women who are assertive and ambitious will prove to men that they do have a position in the job force and the political world. It is those women who fight and stand up for equality that will bring a new era of woman power to our world. In an essay by Reihan Salam called The Death of Macho, men are to blame for the economic downturn our county faced starting in 2008. The economic collapse proved costly for both men and women. However, not only is there less work for men because many jobs are being outsourced, fewer men are qualified with a college degree by one third (630). This gives women a chance to change the playing field and try something new for our country. Society cannot take another financial crisis that mostly men caused based on risky loan selling and buying. Salam sums up that “as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power-the cult of macho- has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world”(630-1). This evidence of how men used their natured and nurtured behaviors to make unsafe financial decisions will persuade the people of America to accept that there needs to be an equal number of men and women working together to find safe and balanced decisions for our society.

A woman saved an economy from a financial collapse. Iceland experienced a financial collapse which was caused by its transformation from “an economy fueled by fishermen to a center for wealthy financiers.”  Men drove this country into the ground by their risky loan selling and horrible financial decisions. The government threw out all the male elite and brought in a new woman as their prime minister (Salam 630). The interests of the male elite were not of the people of Iceland but of themselves and their rich business partners. Now that a woman is in power, Iceland can trust that the future financial decisions will be made thoughtfully and wisely. From this example, women can be trusted to make big financial decisions because they naturally want to do good for others. Different than men, they see that risky behavior is dangerous and that it should be avoided at all costs. They are not driven to be powerful and controlling, but are driven to do best for a society.

Women have shown that they have what it takes to run a society and make intelligent decisions. Do they have the responsibility and reliance that is needed to maintain control of a society? Will they be strong enough to make critical decisions and follow through when the time is most crucial? In the smaller picture, do women have the courage to stand up against men and tell them no and set their boundaries? If women show that they can stand up and be strong, humans must realize that they are capable of working in high powered positions and that they are able to do a job just as good as or better than men.

www.washingtonpost.com

Annotated Bibliography

Fowles, Jib. "Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals." Jfowles.html. N.p., 1998. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.cyberpat.com/shirlsite/education/essay2/jfowles.html>.

This article by Jib Fowles will be useful for my research paper because it has a detailed list of the top 15 appeals used in advertising. Jib wrote about how the marketers appeal to peoples "subrational impulses and desires" which I can use to support my claim. This article would target people interested in knowing what advertisers do to attract consumers. It does a good job explaining the different types of appeals used in advertising and explains that too many appeals might harm the effect of advertising. This article will be good to use in my paper to cover general information about advertising. 

Salam, Reihan. "The Death of Macho." Rereading America. 8th ed. 

Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2010. 629-36. Print.

This article by Reihan Salam was about how male macho behavior is destroying societies financially because of risky behavior men take. I will use this article to suggest that women do have value in high, powerful positions because they can be level headed and make good decisions. I can say if women stop advertising their bodies they can be beneficial to society and have a more respectful role. This article does a good job on using real life situations of how men have destroyed societies and how women have saved them. This article is targeted towards men and women who are curious about how macho behavior influences the success of societies. This essay will help me show how valuable women can be in society if they stop their sexual behavior.   

proposal for paper 2

Title: The Weaker Half

Author: Jacob Imsland

Date: 11/11/12

Topic: How the way society treats women differently than the way society treats men. The expectations that men and women have to live up to to fit into the norms of American society. 

Analysis of argument

Exigence: The unequal treatment women receive in the job force, the political world, and the sports world.

Intended audience: Powerful men in American Society that have the ability to change male dominated industries.

Purpose: To educate the public of our male dominated culture and to make people change the views that women aren’t just objects but valuable assets to our culture.

Claims:  Women are powerless until men accept them as equal parts of society. If women change their behaviors away from promoting their sexuality, men can focus on the talents women have to offer instead of their sex appeal.

What men think of women; men view “sex as more important than anything else” (578). This shows that all men really think of when they are around their girlfriend or wife is sex. How will their views towards women change enough to allow women to fully participate in political decisions and other big decisions? Salam states that men need to embrace women as equal parts of society and that “a new model of manhood may be emerging” to begin the transitioning process (633). Women have showed that they can do a job just as good or even better than their male counterpart. More women are graduating with a college degree than men are now a days. Pretty soon we will see a switch from male domination to equal power between men and women. Women have already demonstrated that they are capable of achieving mass approval which was evident from a  society like Iceland (630). 

If we look at advertisements and look at the way the advertisers are persuading their product to an audience, we can see that much of the advertising is advertised through sex appeal. Marketers do this because they know sex sells. Why does sex appeal entice both men and women to buy the certain products that are advertised? This is a question I will begin to explore in my paper number two. I will be using advertisements to show just how common it is to see sex advertised. I will be using different essays in the book, Rereading America, and other sources to argue the truth behind adverting. I will also look at how the male dominated culture of America has caused the many problems our world has today. With these two ideas combined in my essay, there will be a well rounded message that my readers will take away. 

R.A #3

The essay, The Death of Macho by Reihan Salam takes an in-depth look at the underline characteristics of man. This essay demonstrates just how men make “macho” decisions in life and how these decisions affect society. Reihan Salam has witnessed huge financial decisions that has put America and the rest of the world in a financial crisis.  His first hand experience has made it clear that men are really aggressive risk takers that don’t belong behind the scenes of potential life changing financial decisions.

He wants the public to realize just how dangerous men can be when millions of dollars are at stake.  As America begins to pull out of the recession, the era of male dominance will fade away. 

Salam states that the recession is called the “he-cession”(630) because it has affected mostly men. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “more than 80 percent of job losses in the United States since November have fallen on men”(630). Not only is there less work for men because many jobs are being outsourced, less men are qualified with a college degree by one third(630). Pretty soon there will be a gear shift of power from male to female in the near future. Society can not take another financial crisis that mostly men caused based on risky loan selling and buying. Salam sums up that “as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power-the cult of macho- has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world”(630-1). This evidence of how men use their natured and nurtured behaviors to make unsafe financial decisions in our society will persuade the people of America to accept that there needs to be an equal number of men and women working together to find safe and balanced decisions for our society. 

Consequently, the outcomes of male macho behavior has caused a huge financial crisis in America. Salam uses the strategy of cause and effect to demonstrate how men drove America into the ground. The housing bubble was one example of how men used their risky behavior to generate money that was never even existent. All the jobs that stemmed from making and selling houses was a huge money maker and if any political figure wanted to get to the bottom of the housing bubble’s inflation, it would “have been political suicide”(632). How long could people continue to make money from the housing market before it would collapsed? Greed and ignorance caused the bubble to finally burst which was a huge contribution to the financial crisis we experienced. 

Salam logically used an abundance or facts and real life situations to bring his opinions to life. He used success stories from other counties such as Iceland that threw out the male-elite and elected the first openly lesbian women as their prime minister(630). As a reader, I know the potential women have to change struggling economies into well balanced working systems. He also used failure examples of how macho ruling men can neglect and unfairly treat women in countries like Russia and China. I can image these countries with high poverty rates and high crime rates because of the lack of education women receive. Women are oppressed and don’t have any power to change their powerful, male dominated rulers. With the many examples explained in the text, it becomes clear that the male macho behavior fails to equally distribute wealth and equality to all people. I agree with his opinions because of his well detailed examples and how he shows two sides of what works and what doesn’t.