WRITE AN ESSAY ABOUT GENDER AND SECUAL DIVISION OF LABOR READ ATTACHED PROPOSAL AND PROFESOR’S FEEDBACK ABOUT PROPOSAL.The times we did try to help my mother would stop us and say, ‘That is a woman’s job you have no business doing that’.”
This is interesting and suggestive to me in several ways. To begin with, we see that even the practices of what it means to be man, socially, can be taught by a mother, not just by a father. (In fact, masculinity is taught in many ways, including by the media).
The specific topic so far that I see in this is what is often called the traditional “sexual division of labor.” Some things are said to be masculine chores, tasks, jobs, etc., and some are said to be feminine. As you may realize, this has historically been one of the major ways that women have been oppressed historically. It is beginning to change – for instance, the U. S. now has its first female vice-president. But we have a long way to go before we reach equality- – for instance, the U. S. has never had a female president (and it seems clearly due to deep structural misogyny, which is one of the major things that Trump used to become president). You have done some good thinking but of course, there is much more thinking to do. You’re beginning to think grounded in concrete manner, which is good.
Often writing teachers say that one should focus one’s topic: one should have a tightly focused topic. If a topic is too large, the writer often jumps around the large topic, making superficial remarks. I feel that you might already have decided on a fascinating topic that is large but somewhat focused: the sexual division of labor. I suggest that you might want to stay with this topic, rather than try to tackle too much. It is most usually better to dig deeply into a focused topic than to try to do too much and/or to jump from one subtopic to another. But defining one’s topic can be done in various ways. In any case, the essay should be quite well unified in topic in someway, which may depend on how you develop your ideas and the topic.
By thinking in terms of concrete experience, I believe you can develop a focused topic (e.g., the sexual division of labor) rather than deciding that your topic is a much too large one, such as femininity. If you decide that the sexual division of labor is your topic, then you can work on digging deeply into this relatively focused topic, if you decide to follow this suggestion. If so, you might begin to think of other experiences of your own or other experiences that you know about that are related to the sexual division of labor. Or you may perhaps expand on the experience you mentioned.
What matters is to a) find interesting and suggestive experiences and b) to develop the implications of the experience in an interesting and focused manner. You have a good example about how something that is usually considered a natural and universal — namely, masculine and feminine tasks — is actually quite arbitrary. That might lead to a thoughtful and interesting discussion of the implications of both childhood experience on personality and cultural structures (e.g., traditionally one learns in childhood what is “man’s work” and what is “women’s work”). Outside of the household, society continues to reinforce and develop such gendered discourses and practices concerning the issue of the sexual division of labor. But be careful. It is not easy to develop an interesting discussion of a topic, especially if the writer drifts into vague generalizations that not anchored in real experience, which is a common problem.
If you are able to be honest, thoughtful, analytical, and to stay grounded by paying close attention to the specifics of your (or other’s) experience, and perhaps if you focus on a few specific experiences or events, as you analyze them, your first essay may well be very good. But that is not easy to do. I cannot tell you exactly how to analyze the specifics of the experience(s), or what specific conclusions you may come up with, if any. Use my suggestion if you find it promising and ignore any idea that you do not find useful. You are in charge to create the most interesting essay possible. All I can recommend and suggest is that thoughtful questioning and a probing examination of experience and its context are what are needed.
This is a creative process, so you are in control, and you are responsible to develop your ideas, which are promising. To go beyond commonplaces as you analyze your experience in its specifics and in a probing manner, is not easy to do. You will have to decide exactly how you will proceed in order to make the best essay possible.
Good work so far, and good luck with the rest of the thinking and writing process for Essay 1. You have credit for your interesting and promising proposal, of course.
Best wishes,
Phil Mirabelli, Ph. D.
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