"Make Me A Sandwich"



"A woman is often measured by the things she cannot control..."  Immediately every woman who ever reads this ad is intrigued because they can relate to the statement.  The honors article that we read spoke of the Nike ad featuring a "natural" Marilyn Monroe.  Pictured above is the advertisement that was produced in 1992.  The ad encourages people to measure people from the inside and not from the outside.  Too often do we judge people based on their looks instead of on their character; we can't always get past the outward appearance and never truly get to know the person.  If people started to accept the fact that women's bodies are all different from one another, then the concept of beauty would change.  The article says that "one way of being beautiful will be, for all times and all places, more healthy, more natural and less harmful than all others."

So what exactly is beauty?  Is it your physical appearance or your inside appearance, or a combination of both?  I think that beauty can be defined in many different ways.  The Dove Onslaught video below gives us a good idea of what society has defined beauty to be...

It's incredible how much society can influece children from a young age in their view of beauty.  Young girls like the girl in the Dove commercial should not have to worry about measuring up to society's standards.  That adds so much unneeded pressure to a young girl's life and can lead to her destruction.  So this topic of beauty...what do you think it means?  I think beauty is being confident in yourself and with who you are and how you appear.  I think beauty is natural, and not cosmetic.  The article says that "women should feel their natural selves are beautiful enough."  The only reason that plastic surgery became so popular was because people thought that they had to look a certain way to be accepted in society.  It's interesting to me to think about beauty from different perspectives.  What makes certain people think that some things like being super skinny is attractive, while other people think that having a full-figured body is more attractive.

Recently there has been a growing amount of Feminists in this country.  This is because of the image of male dominance in society and the perception that men are better than women.  These ideals are again taught to young children through the media, and surprisingly enough through the Disney movies that we watched as kids.  I found the following clip to be a good representation of the male dominance shown through the movies...

One scene from the video that I clearly remember is the song from Mulan where one of the men says that choosing a women depends on her cooking skills.  This perception that women are house keepers goes back to the gender role created centuries ago.  The joke today that many men find hilarious is "make me a sandwich", as if that's what they view women good for.  Even my 13 year old brother thinks that because I'm a girl that I enjoy making food for other people!  He asks me all the time to make him a snack, and I return his request by giving him a recipe to follow.  I don't want to prolong the stereotype! 

I refuse to accept the fact that gender roles cannot be reversed.  For example, many dads are becoming stay at home dads while their wives are working to support the family.  I find it extraordinary how some men feel so superior to women when they might not be as intelligent or as hard-working as some women are.  This bothers me a lot in high school because some of the boys in my senior class think that they are so much better than me just because they are male when in reality I have a higher GPA, ACT, and social status than they might.  I know it sounds a little stuck up, but I think that girls eventually start to justify things like this to make themselves feel better about being discriminated against.  I know I find comfort in rationalizing the situation!  I believe that women are just as capable as men in being successful in the world.  It's no wonder why more women go to college nowadays than do men!  Hopefully some day the roles will even out and men and women will be able to embrace each others' differences and use them to their advantage to accomplish things succinctly!  But until that day comes I still won't be making any sandwiches for men...unless of course it would get me a date to prom (totally kidding!, I think if someone asked me to do this I would tell them to have a nice life!)