Post #3

I found this posting to be really interesting. The responses I got were very intriguing to me. The women's I interviewed has a different look on her experience with gender than I would have thought. When she was younger, she felt like older men had been taught to be respectful of women. Common chivalry, if you will. She feels like with the Women's Movement, has destroyed chivalry and respect for women as it once was. After all, women want to be treated equal to men by everyone, right? While she is all for equal pay and opportunity, she thinks that the chivalry and the ways young boys are brought up to be men are not like it was and should be. Women have caused a lot of this in the strive to equal. Her history with feminism goes along with the belief of having equal pay and opportunity in the workforce as long as a woman is equally qualified for the position. She didn't think a woman should be hired because a company needs to make a quota or simply because of her gender. She strongly opposes the women who think that they have something to prove, like the woman golfer, Annika Sorenstam, who had to play in a PGA tournament. That was utterly stupid in her eyes. She also gets tired of feminist who run an extreme movement thinking they are speaking for all women. To her, they are an embarrassment to women. They don't speak for her and she didn't think they speak for the majority of women. Feminism is movement towards proving equality that women are equal or better than men. Its not just good enough to be a strong women, they have to prove they are superior. I found it refreshing to hear a woman who agreed that equal pay and opportunity in the workforce, something that was a top priority to most women on college campuses, also found many of the topics to be ridiculous and extreme. I do have to admit that I think body image is important for the sanity of young women everywhere and that abortion issues are very prevalent, but some women do take it way to far. The book talks about the third way and how its hard to pinpoint what my generation is actually focusing on. Social hierarchy was a big component and the cultural issues around it. In my life, the only time I was really conscious of gender was when I worked at a restaurant. The managers picked about three people to be supervisors to help them out. These people were to be the examples of what a good employee should be. It just so happened that all three who were chosen were men. Another server who was a woman made note of this and complained. A week later, I was informed that I could also accept the supervisor position. I found it to be an honor that I was chosen out of the women, but did not feel it was necessary because all the men chosen deserved it. I found it to be tactless that she complained about this especially when a server made more money. I did not like the feeling that I was chosen because someone complained about the inequality of gender in the position. I felt that to be a load of bull. This is where I disagree with many things in the book and by what people say. I believe that there was not sexist background to their decision on who was to be supervisor.