Writing Log 1B

In “Real Men Don’t: Anti-Male Bias in English” by Eugene August, there were two “hotspots” that really jumped out at me more than others. The first “hotspot” that I noticed was on page 131 “Every responsible study of domestic violence from 1970’s to the present has reported significant numbers of violent women and battered men, but gender feminists fastly deny the existence of abusive women and abused men.” I chose this because I found this quote very shocking upon reading it because of the media you only really ever hear of men being the abusers. When I began to think about it though it makes sense, women are just as capable as men to cause harm to another being. It also shocks me to read this because when ever you hear statistics about abuse it is typically about how many women are abused each year and how many children are abused but you never seem to hear about the men that are being abused. When you read the police reports in the paper you always tend to see where a women called the cops on her significant other for abusing her but you never see anything about men calling it in if they are being abused.

The second “hotspot” that came to my attention was on page 137 “When a male and female are suspected of a crime the male is usually presumed the guilty party.” I chose this because I feel that this is sadly and shockingly true. If you ever watch dateline or 20/20 or any of those type of shows you will probably notice a pattern of men constantly being murders. From time to time you notice that they will say that a women was suspected but never charged, and if she was present at the murder she claims that the man lied to her or even forced her to be there but had no idea that he was going to kill someone. I think that people just come to the conclusion that men are more capable of murder but the reality is that women are just as capable as men. Once my grandma told me that women don’t shot guns because it’s not something ladies do. But its not true ladies do shot guns and women do poison people, and they even kill, but all they have to do to get out of it is to say they were forced or that person abused them and they are off the hook. These two “hotspots” are a sad reality of the way we view abuse and murder in our world today.

In “There is No Unmarked Woman” by Deborah Tannen there were two “hotspots that I really noticed. The first “hotspot” that I came across was on page 141 “The men’s styles were unmarked.” I chose this because I very much disagree with this statement. I believe that no matter what no one is unmarked. If the men were just in a simple and business like manner it was because that is was is expected of them. And just because she felt that were just plainly doesn’t mean that someone else would not have noticed them. Not only that different settings require different ways of dress, so if they were dress in a so called “unmarked” fashion it was just because they had to, and because when it comes to business dress as she even explained women have many more options than men do.

The second “hotspot” that I came across what on page 145 and it is the part were she is talking about being on a talk show and a man in the audience when being asked if he was being bashed; “He answered with disarming honesty. ‘Because she’s a women and she’s saying things about men.” I chose this because before this was said he basically said that he agreed with the things being said that she wrote but since she was a women then she was bashing him. I think this is very upsetting in away because it is like saying that only men can talk about men or its just plain wrong. But in the last essay you read about women at times and it was wrote by a man and this wasn’t considered bashing women in any way. I feel that this was a very chauvinist thing to say, and says a lot bout how people perceive gender in a way.