Sexism In English: Embodiment And Language

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Crishwan Green Professor Boateng 5-8-13 Alleen Pace Nilsen, an educator and essayist, wrote about sexism in English: Embodiment and Language, from her most recent book, “Names and Naming in Young Adult Literature”. Nilsen and her family moves to Afghanistan for some time, and while there she noticed how bias their community were, with men playing a strong and active role. When Nilsen returned to the United States she studied American English for bias reasons between woman and men. Nilsen briefly talks about how men play both an active role not only in Afghanistan, but also in the American culture. Both countries having similar characteristics, Afghanistan is by far more bias than America, according to Nilsen. While Nilsen lived…show more content…
An example from the text on page 151, Nilsen says, “Afghan folk stories and jokes were blatantly sexist, as in this proverb: “If you see an old man, sit down and take a lesson; if you see an old woman, throw a stone.” The quote shows how the men in the Afghan treat women, or so describe their role in the community. The quote infers that an old man is wise enough for a stranger to sit down and take a lesson, while when the women role comes into play, she is to be seen as a waste of space in order for someone to throw a stone at her. The quote tells me that women are not wise at all, and don’t show any source of knowledge. The fact that Afghan women barely leave the house and in their society they are not allowed to go to school, due to the Taliban’s strict Islamic movement, is very ironic. it seems as if women in their society is only seen as “house wives”, in which: they only produce children, cook, clean, stay in the house, and nothing more. Although this vision is ironic to the modern day American society, it was once remembered in the American…show more content…
Maya’s graduation day is an event she experienced that portrayed the idea of otherness, or being different, including her school experience, and when Henry Reed had sung the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice & Sing.” The idea of otherness is to be treated different, and that’s exactly what both Nilsen and Angelou had to experience and go through. For Angelou, her whole life was different due to her being treated as an under-achiever when she was an over-achiever. For Nilsen, she noticed that men were treated as if they were more important than women, and proved this theory with both the American and Afghanistan culture. Two bright women, two different situations, with the thought of them being different not stopping their future or
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