The First of Two Pieces Written by Me in School...PPP

This one was from a prompt that the teacher gave us. He said that the guys have to write why they would rather be female and the girls would rather write why the would rather be male. For social reasons. I thought it was silly at first. I said "Please I love being a girl!" I still do...I don't know if I really could picture my self as a guy...but it did open my eyes to many social issues. I realize now that society is still somewhat sexist, though it has improved greatly.

            I would rather like to be a boy. The reason is because there is much less stress involved. I wouldn’t have to worry so much about being all the things my parents expect. In “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, she felt judged and as if her mother was not seeing her true self, her mother was seeing in her daughter all the things she was trying to warn her against. Her mother was trying to give her the good advice she thought would be important for her daughter to know in order to lead a good life, but failed to realize how her daughter felt. I feel this can be true for many young ladies and is something that most boys do not have to deal with. Boys do in fact have more freedom to do the things they want. Girls must not do a lot of things boys get to do or they will not look proper. A boy rolling and tussling in the dirt with his friends is something that no one would think out of the ordinary, but as soon as a little girl does it others begin to think things like ‘Where are her parents?’ and ‘Don’t they teach her manners?’ What does having fun have anything to do with manners?

            Another reason that I would rather be a boy is that the beauty standards set for girls to be considered beautiful are set so high and narrow that one must work extremely hard to look attractive. I learned from “Killing Us Softly 3” the third documentary out of a series of four that approximately only five percent of women in America posses the physical attributes that are what society tells us is beautiful. One must be “young, innocent, experienced, and sexy” all at once in order to be considered beautiful. Even in “Being a Boy” by Julius Lester the protagonist, a boy, realizes while he was at a dance that the girls felt like if they weren’t asked out to dance then it was their own fault. Most girls do have low self-esteem and depend on whatever they think of themselves and whatever other think of them, and it is not their fault because society makes it this way. If a girl sees beautiful women on TV, ads, and commercials all the time she won’t feel like she can measure up to them and she won’t have confidence.

            Finally, one can say that the things a girl is expected to do when he grows up to be a woman are not only many but also hard work. Once she is a woman she must take care to be a good wife and respectable mother. She must have all the skills necessary to raise a family among them cooking, cleaning, and in this day and age also manage a career too as if all the domestic duties were not enough to handle.

I also want to add that I saw "Killing Us Softly" and I thought it was amazing! I wanted to share it with you and I strongly recommend you watch it! Here is the link: Click Here! It will lead to Youtube!