Paper 1...1st prompt

Jenna Tucker
Professor Yaisa Mann
WS 3413.001
October 2, 2009
Paper #1

The dictionary defines the word stereotype as “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” But an even better definition of the word stereotype was found in a cultural dictionary. They define stereotype as “a too simple and therefore distorted image of a group. A generalization usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.” The most common stereotypes seen today are based on gender. There is a certain way both a man and woman should act, dress, live and even in the goals set for their lives. Although women have made huge strides in equal rights throughout history, there is still a stereotype seen in every aspect of life. Friedan, in her book The Feminine Mystique, explains where this female stereotype has come from “in the millions of words written about women, for women, in all the columns, books and articles by experts telling women their role was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers (Friedan).” What is this stereotype? Friedan, as well as the rest of the world would say that a woman’s job is to “devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children.”
I have never really put much thought into the fact that I do not fit the stereotype of women until one day at work. A fellow female coworker approached me one afternoon in the break room and asked me if I was in a relationship. Naturally I said no. She then asked if I ever planned on getting married or having children (she was in the process of doing both of those things). I have never wanted to get married and the idea of children makes my stomach churn. I explained to her that I had never been the marriage type and in fact no, I never wanted children. I could tell by the look on her face that this was not an answer to the question she ever expected to hear. The last thing she said to me before walking off was “What type of real woman doesn’t want to have a family?” Until this point I never really thought about the fact that other women could not understand my stance on such ideas. I could not imagine why it was so taboo for a woman to have dreams of finishing college and having a career instead of dreaming of getting married and having children. But as Friedan explains, women used to have the same dreams as me; but the stereotype has become so prominent in our society that “Some women, in their forties and fifties, still remembered painfully giving up those dreams, but most of the younger women no longer even thought about them.”
At the time I was very annoyed and angry with the coworker. I could not believe that someone could be so naive and conforming to think that a woman’s main purpose on earth was to be a wife and bear children. I was as shocked by her ideas just as much as she was by mine; but at the time I did not know this…I was just angry that my ideas were being questioned. A few weeks after this happened I sat down to write about it and this is when the sadness began to set in. This seemingly innocent conversation that had taken place made my heart hurt. It is not a new stereotype, but I never quite understood that this sort of thing was still being taught today. I always thought that women had become smarter, had moved past the days of dreaming of being wives and mothers, I thought we had moved beyond all this. But I quickly realized that it is not the rest of society that is to blame; it is women themselves. Just like the coworker I had the conversation with, just like the woman who does not question it when her parents tell her she needs to do this or that because it will prepare her to be a good wife; it is women’s fault for believing this stereotype. To this day I still never want to get married and the simple thought of children still makes me nauseous, but I have come to learn that I can always express my thoughts on marriage and children; but that in no way means that the majority of women will ever understand.