Writing Log Hotspots

The first “hotspot” that I selected was the following: “A woman who kills her male partner can plead the Battered Woman's Syndrome, a man who kills (or even defends himslef against) a violent female partner cannot plead the Battered Man's Syndrome.” (page 131, paragraph 8). I found this to be particularly interesting, mainly for the reason that it is quite unfair. This idea seems to have been built upon the notion that men are the aggressors and women are the victims, which Eugene August demonstrates is often not the case. To me, the frustrating thing about this is the fact that it does not consider the concept of the woman being the aggressor and the man being the victim. Therefore, it provides the woman with the opportunity to use this to her advantage by simply claiming that the male had beaten or abused her in some such way. It also does not legally give the male a chance to defend himself in the event that a woman abuses or even beats him. I feel that this demonstrates that some women are taking advantage of this concept in an attempt to put the male in a bad light and then switch roles with them. I agree that women should be treated as equals to men and given the same rights and opportunities. However, I feel that this is an example of women working to surpass men and become the dominant gender, which I do not agree with.

Next, I chose the following “hotspot”: “Lacking a favorable or even neutral term to describe the boy who is quiet, gentle, and emotional, the English language has long had a rich vocabulary to insult and ridicule such boys-mama's boy, molly-coddle, milksop, muff, lightweight, twit, softy, cream-puff, pantywaist, weakling, weenie, Miss Nancy, and so on.” (page 133, paragraph 17). I feel this demonstrates that the social norm for males follows the typical male stereotype, in the sense of being strong, tough, and outspoken. Although many men fit this description, there are also many who do not. There are males who are kind, gentle and soft-spoken, though they are really no less of a man for that. However, society seems to cast them off and label them as being inferior simply as a result of their characteristics and personality. I disagree with this notion and think that it is wrong to label males as anything other than a male and to discriminate against “weaker” men.

I chose to discuss the twentieth paragraph on page 143 as my first “hotspot”. I think it is interesting that men only have the option of “Mr.”, while women have three options. I think that this definitely goes along with the notion that men can be “unmarked” while women are always “marked”. I think that this also demonstrates that women really are more complicated than men. However, this complication is not a matter of skill, ability, or even interest, but rather of how a woman expresses herself as opposed to a man. I think that this fact reveals something about women and men as genders.

For my second “hotspot” I found the bit about the species that produces only females in paragraph 26 of page 144 to be quite interesting. I think that it is intriguing that other species, such as the whiptail lizard, see females as being the dominant gender. This is mainly because the female can reproduce on it's own and is the child-bearing gender of the species. I think it is interesting that in our species, the female is also the child-bearing gender, yet the male is often seen as being the dominant gender.