Scarlet Letter

In the article, “The Status and Role of Women,” found in the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the role that women play in society is discussed. This article includes four different documentary excerpts that give an overview of where women ranked socially and what role they played in society. A common theme throughout all of the excerpts was that in America, women are considered equal with men in everything. It is very interesting how the role of women in society has changed over time.
In Biblical times, women did not take part in society as much as the men did. They were quiet in church, and stayed home to take care of things rather than participate in work. For a long time women were just supposed to stay home while the husband provided support for the family. Women also did not have much of a say in political issues or in the government. In the early 1900’s women finally earned the right to vote. They had gone hundreds of years having no say in the government and finally they had moved up one more step in society. More recently I have noticed more and more women involved in jobs like construction work and semi truck driving which are jobs intended to be for men. This shows that the line socially separating men from women has become less and less distinct over time. There have also been a lot more women involved in government and political affairs. The most recent example that comes to mind is Hillary Clinton running for president. It was a huge deal for a woman to even attempt to be placed in such a big leadership role in America, but at the same time, it was okay. Women have risen higher socially compared to men over the last one hundred years.
I think it is good that women have proved themselves capable of doing the things that only men have done for so long. I sometimes get offended when people make sexist comments that make women seem inferior to men. The way I look at it, there are certain things that are only for women and certain things that are only for men. Things like hard labor, tough jobs and dangerous jobs are typically things that fit the genetic make-up and capabilities of men. Women should not feel like they have to do these “manly jobs” to simply prove that they can. Women and men were made differently and are good at different things. I do believe that men and women are equal but on different levels. Men are better at tough physical jobs while women are better at things such as bearing children and taking care of household things. Just because it may seem like the jobs that men have are the more important ones to society, without women around to do the things they are good at, things would probably be very hectic.

"Adultery"

In the book “The Scarlet Letter,” by Nathaniel Hawthore, there is a section that discusses adultery laws in the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and New Plymouth in the 1600’s. All of the laws that were created stated that adultery is punishable by death. Although the law stated that an adulterer should be put to death, many times people got away with being whipped severely and being banished from that colony. Today, death as a punishment seems so harsh and unrealistic. In the 1600’s, people held more firmly to the law of God which states that adulterers should be put to death. So what has happened over time that makes adultery much less of a deal than it was 400 years ago? Is it right to be more lenient now or should adulterers be put to death even today?
Today, adultery isn’t such a huge deal. If a spouse is caught having an affair, usually the married couple ends up getting a divorce and that’s it; there is no punishment by law on the adulterer. As soon as I started reading this passage, I thought of the situation that Tiger Woods recently found himself in. He had an affair with more than ten women and no punishment was given to him except humiliation from the media and possible separation from his wife. I don’t even think it crossed anyone’s mind that he should be put to death for such an act. However, if this were the 1600’s, Tiger Woods would be on trial and possibly be sentenced to death.
Although I do not think that anyone should be killed for committing adultery, I think it should be punished by law somehow. When a man and a woman get married, it is a legal covenant between the two where they promise to be faithful to one another. When one of the two breaks that covenant by committing adultery, it is almost like breaking a law since marriage is a legal thing. Society has compromised many standards and laws over the years including whether or not adultery is a big deal. I do not think it is right and I believe there should be some sort of legal punishment for the act.

“Surfin’ the Louvre”

In the writing “Surfin’ the Louvre” Elizabeth Larsen describes her experience with online museum websites. She talked about how she experienced many different paintings and sculptures from many different museums all over the world. Throughout the writing Larsen takes the reader on a tour of three or four different museums starting in Italy and going all the way to Japan. She also mentioned the fact that she does not require every symphony she listens to, to be live. This made me ask, “Is it more beneficial to physically experience a museum, or are online exhibits just the same as seeing them in person?” I believe that it is more beneficial to actually experience a museum in person rather than online.
Larsen makes a good point by describing the vast majority of museums she visited in a short amount of time. By visiting the museums online, she could go to many different exhibits that are hundreds of miles away from each other within a few minutes. I think that it is important to actually visit museums in person. There are many things that a simple picture or video on a website cannot capture that one could see in person. There are many different angles and ways to look at art and with a picture they cannot all be captured. Also artwork has texture and color. With a picture a person cannot fully grasp the whole experience of a piece of art (angles, texture and color) like one could looking at the artwork live.
Although experiencing artwork in person is far better, one does not always have the opportunity to go to many different museums to experience it all. It is good that museum websites have updated and are allowing people to view the work online and get that much of an experience. It is also convenient to be able to go to more than just one museum in a day online. If a person was given the choice between actually visiting a museum and going online, it would benefit them more by going. Seeing a piece of art live is a completely different experience than viewing the work online.

"Coming Home"

The writing “Coming Home” found in the book “The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers” on page 259 describes a sad war story of one man who became a prisoner of war for six years. This man, named Robert Stirm, was finally reunited with his family after spending six years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. The article discusses a photo taken by a nearby journalist and how the photo captures the awesome moment when this man and his family were reunited. However, toward the end of the writing it is stated that this man and his wife ended up getting a divorce a year later. It makes me wonder if the war was a main cause for this divorce. Since the wife could not see her husband for such a long time their relationship grew farther apart and caused a divorce. War can have a negative effect on families.

The concept of war never really made sense to me. Countries fight with each other in order to get on peaceful terms with one another. This is at least the way most countries make it appear. I think the reason for war is selfish. One country wants to be better than the other so they try to prove that by trying to kill more of the opposing country. When government leaders declare war, I wonder if they think about families of the soldiers and how they might be affected. It is important for them to be concerned about the country as a whole, but families and citizens are what make up a country. If war is destroying and tearing apart families, is that bettering the country? In a lot of cases war may not affect a family as bad as it did the Stirn family, but it still makes it hard for families to grow together if one member is gone at war for years. I understand that countries have to defend themselves and sometimes war is the only option. When a country just decides to go to war for no good reason, it is selfish, ignorant, and it tears apart families.

The Homeless and their Children

The writing “The Homeless and their Children” by Jonathan Kozol describes one families way of life in the Martinique Hotel in New York City. This is a hotel that houses around four hundred homeless families. When I first started to read this writing, my first impression of the hotel was a good one. I thought, “Wow that is very nice of that city to have a whole hotel for homeless people to stay.” As I read on my opinion soon changed.

The family described in this writing contains a mother and four children. One of her children is very sick with lead poisoning. This woman does not have a job but is on welfare. She has to pay 1500 dollars every two weeks to stay in this hotel for the homeless. This is outrageous. There is no way that the condition that this woman and her family are living in is worth even half of 1500 dollars. To get a picture in your head, the woman’s room is described as having pools of sewage on the floor, a radiator with a broken valve, a very unstable crib for the baby, and horrible lighting. All the room contains is two chairs, a fridge and a T.V that doesn’t work. By the time the writing had described all this I was thinking to myself, “This woman might be better off living on the street.”

Sometimes cities or organizations are not what they appear to be. Although it looks like something nice is being done for someone, the situation is not as grand as it is cut out to be. There is something seriously wrong with this picture. If someone wants to make an effort to help someone, that’s great, but they should truly help them and try their best to get that person back on their feet. In this woman’s case, this hotel where she was staying was more of a burden to her than it was a help. What is the point of even having an organization like that if it is not going to help anyone? To me it seems as if this city was just in it for the money. The hotel described in this story overcharged this woman for her room and never even made an effort to improve her living conditions. Organizations like the Martinique Hotel should really be ashamed of themselves. They are not helping anyone and would be better off shut down.

Immigrants "stealing" jobs

In the writing, “Do Americans Really want Jobs” Rueben Navarrette discusses the issue of Americans who don’t want to do a certain job until an illegal immigrant takes the job. I find this to be very true in a lot of cases. There are many Americans who complain about their jobs, are lazy with their jobs, and also very picky about their jobs. If a job requires too much physical labor and is not exactly what a person wants, many times he/she will deny the job and search for a “better” one. However, if an illegal immigrant happens to get one of these “throw away” jobs all of a sudden people are offended and upset about a job that they didn’t want in the first place. So what is the issue here? Is it that illegal immigrants are stealing American jobs? Or is it that Americans tend to be picky, selfish, and greedy?

I have experienced in the workplace situations where people just don’t want to work. They do it so they can get paid but they don’t work very hard at it and sometimes decide not to show up or they come in late. Often times a person will quit a job because they don’t like it or it was “too hard on them.” I think that illegal immigrants should be allowed to take these “throw away jobs” if they choose to. It is just wrong for an American to dispose of a job and when someone wants to take it the American suddenly wants it back. This is no different than a person throwing away a hamburger and when a homeless person digs it out of the trash to eat it the person suddenly wants it back. Americans are just greedy with their jobs. If an immigrant wants to take an unwanted job, legal or illegal, I think they have every right to. Americans have no place to complain about illegal immigrants “stealing” their jobs because in all actuality, they are just digging those jobs out of the trash.

Grade Inflation

The article “Thousands of students victims of ‘grade inflation’” by Nancy Mitchell explores the idea of many schools being under the influence of grade inflation. The main argument in this article is that many students are not truly earning their good grades; they are victims of grade inflation. A good way to describe this grade inflation is that students are not challenged and are just given good grades for getting work done. In some cases, students who put a lot of effort in their work but don’t meet the teacher’s standards are still given good grades for their effort. So when we step back and look at it, one group of students get an A for meeting all the standards and putting up no effort and another group get an A for trying really hard but not meeting the standards.

In some ways I agree that grade inflation is bad. In my own life I have experienced this in a negative way. A couple other students and I were chosen to go to a math contest at a local school. We were chosen because we were in the hardest class in our school (calculus) and we all had an A in the class. Honestly it wasn’t too hard for me to get that A. Since this was calculus I did have to give more effort than I did in other classes to obtain good grades. There were, however, students who were trying way harder than I in this class and were struggling to keep a C. When we went to the math contest and faced other schools in a contest, I honestly felt like the dumbest person in the room. There were students there who knew so much more than I did and I didn’t understand why since I came from the top class at my own school. I believe it was because of grade inflation. In the article, a student’s school tried to fix its grade inflation and when it did, her GPA went from a 4.0 to 3.4. It was simply because now she had to work harder to get better grades. She admitted that although her GPA was lower she felt smarter. I wonder if the same thing would happen to me if our school tried to fix the inflation. My GPA probably would drop but I think it would be worth it. I would be able to truly learn and be more knowledgeable about things instead of being seemingly smart on paper.