(no subject)
the following is a quick homework assignment that i need to post here in order to go online once i get to campus so i can print it out, however feel free to comment, if you feel so inclined
James Sessions
3/29/07
Sociology
Paper 2
I have watched “Girls Just Want to Have Sums”, the nineteenth episode of the seventeenth season of “The Simpsons”. The central theme of this episode is the splitting of classrooms between boys and girls. After a comment made by the elementary school principal insinuating that girls are inherently inferior in math, he is replaced by a woman who is the archetypical “crazy feminist”. She splits the class by gender, and the sexes go on to act in typical gender roles. The boys are all fighting, and making violent overtures to each other, while the girls are told to “feel math” as opposed to doing it, they are told to decide what they though a plus sign “felt like”. The lack of actual math in the girls’ school makes Lisa, an overachieving girl who excels in math, dress as a boy and sneak into the boys’ school. She assumes the name “Jake Boyman” (a play on the words boy and man) and soon rises to the top of the class. When her identity is revealed she makes the case that girls and boys would be better to stay together and that girls may not necessarily be that different and that it is all in the approach.
This episode was a commentary on gender and attacks inequalities on both sides, from the man-hating woman who splits the school, to the principal who just assumes that all girls are inferior at math, to the girls who prefer to “feel” math, and the boys who draw pictures of “a robot with a gun, firing a gun at an airplane made of guns that shoots guns”. The extreme examples of gender bias in this episode show just how often people can make unfair judgments based on gender, but also shows the flip side, that if someone tries too much to alleviate these problems, you can create a gap between the sexes that will be difficult to bridge. Gender inequality may still exist in our world, but if we immediately try to make things perfect, the culture shock will harm us all
James Sessions
3/29/07
Sociology
Paper 2
I have watched “Girls Just Want to Have Sums”, the nineteenth episode of the seventeenth season of “The Simpsons”. The central theme of this episode is the splitting of classrooms between boys and girls. After a comment made by the elementary school principal insinuating that girls are inherently inferior in math, he is replaced by a woman who is the archetypical “crazy feminist”. She splits the class by gender, and the sexes go on to act in typical gender roles. The boys are all fighting, and making violent overtures to each other, while the girls are told to “feel math” as opposed to doing it, they are told to decide what they though a plus sign “felt like”. The lack of actual math in the girls’ school makes Lisa, an overachieving girl who excels in math, dress as a boy and sneak into the boys’ school. She assumes the name “Jake Boyman” (a play on the words boy and man) and soon rises to the top of the class. When her identity is revealed she makes the case that girls and boys would be better to stay together and that girls may not necessarily be that different and that it is all in the approach.
This episode was a commentary on gender and attacks inequalities on both sides, from the man-hating woman who splits the school, to the principal who just assumes that all girls are inferior at math, to the girls who prefer to “feel” math, and the boys who draw pictures of “a robot with a gun, firing a gun at an airplane made of guns that shoots guns”. The extreme examples of gender bias in this episode show just how often people can make unfair judgments based on gender, but also shows the flip side, that if someone tries too much to alleviate these problems, you can create a gap between the sexes that will be difficult to bridge. Gender inequality may still exist in our world, but if we immediately try to make things perfect, the culture shock will harm us all