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