Thursday, January 6, 2011
Question E: "The Opening Door Ritual"
I think most human beings are romantic at heart. To sit here and tell you I don't want a man to "take care of me," hold the door open for me, take my coat, etc. would be a blatant lie. I wish for all those things. When my boyfriend remembers to open the door for me, I think to myself, "chivalry is not dead." Though Johnson would argue that "the open door ritual" is in fact a symbol of male dominance, and that it actually goes against what we as women should want. In a world where we are constantly arguing for equality and fair rights why should we want a man to do those things for us? I think we should remember that respect and being polite or chivalrous is not demeaning ourselves as woman or making us weak, but rather proving more to society and ourselves that these things can be done and we STILL can feel empowered.
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Here is Question E: "For this Blog, I want you to write a response to Johnson’s Chapter 8. In particular, I would like you to reflect on the strategies that dominant group members use to deny, minimize and erase the oppression of targeted social groups in the U.S. How do these practices blame the victim and further the cycle of oppression in our culture? What are some things we can do to interrupt this cycle?" What you have written above in no way answers the question, so you will need to re-write it. You need to give an overview of these strategies that he writes about in Ch. 8.
ReplyDeleteI touched upon the same topic in my blog. Although I can't deny that I like the door to be held open for me, I am still all for equal rights. If this is so it shouldn't be abnormal for a women to open the door for a man, yet it is. Society naturally struggles to let go of ideologies and traditions.
ReplyDeleteI believe in the case of opening the door for women is a chivalrous move made by men and is a way of being polite. Howver I think that Johnson went deeper in talking about the fact the men are privileged and they may open the door for women yet they are also unaware of the demeaning and oppressing things they do.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the issue of the "door" is far more complex than a signifier of politeness of poise. What it does is provide expectations and generates assumptions. Example: When men cry ( Speaker of the US House) it is noble and heroic, when women cry ( Hillary Clinton during a campaign speech) it is a sign of "hysterics" and irrationality. Same thing with the door -- hold the door for whomever you want -- I do it all the time, but the ritual of a man "taking care of a women" has a larger implication than the door holding, one of these is traditionally being "in charge of the home" both financially and logistically -- no matter how we look at -- this puts women at a disadvantage
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