- "How does your own culture define women as inferior to men? How do you explain this? Do you find Ortner's argument convincing? Are there ways you would argue that women are superior to men? Or do you think that very idea of a "superior" sex/gender is somehow absurd?"
Our culture here in the United States seems to be more so on the side of anti-feminist. Whether it be lower salaries for women, gender roles that our society continually perpetuates, or even more serious issues like rape, or domestic violence. In our country, I do feel as though women are seen as this completely separate entity of society. Ortner argues that, "Even if women are not equated with nature, they are nonetheless seen as representing a lower order of being, as being less transcendental of nature than men are." I could not agree more with her, in our society their appears to be this social order: a social order in which women are below men. Now, I'm not going to tell you that a women can do everything a man can do, because that is not true, both physically and biologically. But that doesn't mean that they should be paid less, have less job opportunities, be expected to play a certain role, or far worse, be outcast-ed and expected to keep silent about rape/domestic violence. That is exactly what happend at the University of Virginia this year. A girl was brutally attacked a fraternity, and the school told her to keep quit about it. Now, what kind of @#$&! society do we live in when we tell a girl who has suffered that she is to keep quite about what happened to her? I'll tell you, its a society that's pretty damn pathetic and disgusting. It seems like all we are concerned about here is maintaining our reputation, and traditional values (and it doesn't sound like we have many values to speak of today). Overall this idea of which gender is better than the other is stupid, and really serves no place, but I will say this, I know I could never endure half the things that a women has to go through. But regardless off that, the argument or idea of which gender is better is one that just needs to stop!
- "What would it mean to have a pluralistic self or selves? Do you find this view plausible? Have you ever felt as though you were somehow a multiplicity or selves or identities? (We're not talking craziness here.) Describe such an experience."
It is very possible to have multiple personalities, or even polar opposite sides of one personality. Aside from psychological disorders such as MPD, even a normal person could feel as if they have more than one personality. I myself feel this way about the way I act sometimes. On one hand I am very patient, kind, thoughtful, empathetic, funny,lazy, care free person. On another hand I can be incredibly serious, slightly withdrawn, hardworking, focused, philosophical, and not so sociable person, which comes in handy for things like this. And in some circumstances I can just become the complete opposite of the person you normally see.With that said, my personality can be separated into three categories 1) Normal, they way I act everyday when I'm in a good mood. 2) My Philosophical mood, this comes over me when I do assignments and get really hyper focused and shut everyone off, I'm not very sociable at this point. Finally 3) A side that I'd rather not go into a lot of detail about, I have a temper lets just say that. But to conclude this, yes, it is possible to have multiple personalities, and I certainly feel like I have a few of my own.