Regards to Women

Gentleman, take your hats off for the women around you and thank them for all they put up with.  Margaret Fuller's "The Great Lawsuit" and Gloria Steinem's "If Men Could Menstruate" opened my eyes to the fact that women are oppressed and most people don't even realize it.  Many of the points brought up in both essays were thoughts that anyone could think of, but most people wouldn't realize that they were points made to let people know that women are treated differently than men.  Both articles compared black people being treated differently to white people to women being treated differently than men.  This comparison made a lot of sense in my mind because there was such an uproar regarding segregation and society was able to change that, so why can't society change the way people regard women as well?  People are people.  Race, religion, gender, and anything else that should put them apart from others shouldn't have anything to do with the way they are treated.

The first essay I read was an excerpt from "The Great Lawsuit" and I found that it was difficult to understand because it was written in 1843 and the way Fuller wrote was hard to comprehend; yet, the message was very clear.  One statement I found interesting in this essay was, "All men are privately influenced by women."  This statement reigns true in my mind because men have to be influenced by some woman in their life, whether it be a sister, mother, wife, or friend, but they just won't admit it.  Why not acknowledge how important those women in your life are to you?  Would that show signs of weakness?  Women know what they do for men; yet, they don't ask for anything in return.  That in itself takes a great deal of strength.

The second essay I read was "If Men Could Menstruate" and it made me chuckle to myself multiple different times not only because the entire idea of men menstruating is funny, but because everything that was mentioned could easily be true.  Knowing that women menstruate seemingly does nothing to how they are treated, but if roles were reversed, men would be treated like kings.  Men would spin what is happening with them around and make it seem like it is an unnatural phenomenon and women don't do that at all.  Girls don't brag about getting their period, but would men?  Although this essay took a serious topic and turned it into something funny, it still made me realize that women go through a lot for society as a whole and they don't particularly request any special treatment in return.  Women deserve a great round of applause for all that they do and that should only be the beginning of the gracious thank yous that are owed to them.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Out of the essays I have read so far, I would have to say that this one wasn't very interesting and dragged on for longer than it should have.  Yes, I found that it had some very good points that opened my eyes to what our society is getting used too, but I disagreed with the assumption that the internet is making us stupid.  Towards the end of the essay, Nicholas Carr stated, "So, yes, you should be skeptical of my skepticism."  Meaning that the reader should most likely be questioning the points he is bringing up and I found myself doing that throughout the entire essay.  One comment that I disagreed with was, "deep reading is indistinguishable from deep thinking."  In my opinion, I think that the ability to take an idea or thought and manipulate it in your mind takes a lot more effort than deep reading.  Anyone can get lost in a book, fiction or nonfiction, but not everyone has the ability to take something and create some sort of wisdom out of it.

One point that I did agree with was the fact that society's concentration often starts to drift during reading and it is becoming more and more of a struggle to get into that deep reading that used to come so naturally to us.  People no longer have the patience to sit and struggle through research when they could simply skim or go on to the internet and find their answer within minutes.  Is that a bad thing though?  Is doing that making us stupid?  Throughout this essay, Carr was giving the reader examples as to how the internet is so easily shaping the human mind, but isn't that what is supposed to happen?  The human mind is what has allowed us to come up with so many different inventions.  Those inventions then shape what life is going to be like from here on out and shouldn't that be considered the way of life by now?  Using your resources is recommended by everyone.  Schools encourage students to go on the internet.  That doesn't mean that we rely on the internet so much that we can't find other ways to get what we need.

One last thing I noticed about this essay was that it didn't mention Google until the fifth page and the essay barely had seven pages.  I found it interesting that the essay was named, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" and Google was barely even mentioned and when it was, it wasn't even talked that badly about.  Larry Page stated, "Google is the ultimate search engine and is something as smart as people-- of smarter."  Which is true, but who created Google in the first place?  People.  People have created Google and the internet to help others.  There is nothing wrong with taking a shortcut when doing some research and going on the internet.  That is what it is there for anyways, right?   The internet isn't making us stupid, it is simply allowing us to become more efficient.