Anker Susan. Real Essays with Readings with 2009 MLA Update

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READINGS

Chapter 49 • Comparison and Contrast 827

READ CRITICALLY

1. In her ﬁ ve opening paragraphs, which organizational pattern for compari-

son and contrast does Mukherjee use? Why do you think she chose this

pattern?

2. What impression of her sister does Mukherjee create for you? What leads

you to this impression?

3. What impression do you take away of Mukherjee herself? What makes

you think as you do?

4. In paragraph 12, Mukherjee puts the word illegal in quotation marks.

Why do you think she does so? How does this tie into the larger point of

this paragraph?

5. Evaluate Mukherjee’s conclusion. How effectively does it summarize the

essay’s main ideas?

WRITE AN ESSAY

Write an essay comparing and contrasting yourself to a sibling, a relative you

are close to, or a close friend. Like Mukherjee, make sure to establish a con-

text for your relationship with the other person, and provide readers with

details so that they can see the similarities and differences in your personali-

ties, behaviors, and life choices.

Comparison and Contrast: Linked Readings

CONCEPTIONS OF GENDER

Each of the following readings focuses on various aspects of the effects of

gender on people’s behaviors and lives.

Dave Barry, “The Ugly Truth about Beauty” (this chapter, p. 817)

Daniel Goleman, “For Man and Beast, Language of Love Shares Many

Traits” (Chapter 46, p. 781)

Scott Russell Sanders, “The Men We Carry in Our Minds” (Chapter 47,

p. 788)

Amy L. Beck, “Struggling for Perfection” (Chapter 50, p. 829)

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READINGS

828 Part Eight • Readings for Writers

Read the selections, and draw from at least one in addition to “The Ugly

Truth about Beauty” to write an essay titled “How Gender Affects Behavior.”

You can refer to your own experience, but make sure to use material from

the essays as well.

CHASING BEAUTY

Though they have very different tones, both of the following readings focus

on women’s quest for beauty or perfection.

Dave Barry, “The Ugly Truth about Beauty” (this chapter, p. 817)

Amy L. Beck, “Struggling for Perfection” (Chapter 50, p. 829)

Read the selections, and write an essay titled “The Dangers of Chasing Beauty

and Perfection.” You can refer to your own experience, but make sure to use

material from the essays as well.

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829

Cause and Effect

Each essay in this chapter uses cause and effect to get its main point

across. As you read these essays, consider how they achieve the four basics

of good cause and effect that are listed below and discussed in Chapter 17

of this book.

FOUR BASICS OF GOOD CAUSE AND EFFECT

The main point reﬂ ects the writer’s purpose — to explain

causes, effects, or both.

2. If the purpose is to explain causes, it presents concrete causes.

3. If the purpose is to explain effects, it presents actual effects.

4. It gives readers clear and detailed examples or explanations

of the causes and/or effects.

Amy L. Beck

Struggling for Perfection

Amy L. Beck was born in 1979 in Greenwich, Connecticut. After gradu-

ating from Harvard University in 2000, Beck joined Teach for America,

a program that places recent college graduates in inner-city or rural

schools, and she taught ﬁ rst graders in Long Beach, California, for two

years. She has also worked in France as a researcher for the travel guide

Let’s Go and as an intern with the French Public Health Administration.

Beck is currently a resident in pediatrics at the University of California,

San Francisco.

■ IDEA JOURNAL

What event or situ-

ation has inﬂ uenced

who you are?

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READINGS

830 Part Eight • Readings for Writers

In “Struggling for Perfection,” which she wrote for the Harvard

Crimson in 1998, Beck explores eating disorders and domestic abuse.

How are these two problems linked? According to Beck, they are both

partly caused by media images.

GUIDING QUESTION

What is the cause-and-effect relationship that Beck writes about?

1 Sex sells. This truth is a boon

for marketing gurus and the pornog-

raphy industry but a rather unfortunate situation for women. Every

issue of Playboy, every lewd poster, and even the Victoria’s Secret cata-

log transform real women into ornaments, valued exclusively for their

outward appearance. These publications are responsible for deﬁ ning

what is sexy and reinforce the belief that aesthetic

appeal is a woman’s

highest virtue.

2 Some argue that the proliferation

of pornography and other sex-

ually explicit images of women is both harmless for society and in-

evitable. Just this point was made in a recent Crimson column titled

“In Defense of Hooters and the St. Pauli Girl.” In the tone of an expert,

the author boldly claims that the objectiﬁ cation

of women in the media

does not affect the way men treat the real women in their lives, nor

does it give those with pathological

tendencies “the decisive nudge into

misogyny.”

Furthermore, the author says, those women who feel pres-

sure to conform to beauty standards set by the media are suffering from

a classic psychosis in which they “confuse ﬁ ction with reality.”

3 My ﬁ rst reaction was to ask how anyone could possibly believe that

the pervasiveness

of pornography and sexually explicit depictions of

women could fail to have any sort of effect on society. Having spent

twelve weeks working in a psychiatric hospital last summer, I am writing

from a starkly different perspective.

4 During my ﬁ rst eight weeks at the hospital, I worked on an eating

disorder unit in constant contact with anorexics and bulimics. Many

PAUSE: After

reading her second

paragraph, what

do you predict that

Beck will do in her

essay?

boon: a welcome beneﬁ t

aesthetic: having to do with beauty

proliferation: rapid growth

objectiﬁ cation: the treatment of a person as an object

pathological: abnormal, diseased

misogyny: hatred of women

pervasiveness: the extension or spread of one thing throughout something else

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READINGS

Chapter 50 • Cause and Effect 831

patients on the unit were so emaciated

that I could never accustom

myself to their appearance; every time I saw them I experienced the

same shock. Most had been in and out of countless other hospitals

and treatment programs, improving slightly each time but always sliding

back into eating-disordered behavior when released.

5 These people were truly at rock bottom, considered by many to be

incurable. Their eating disorders had consumed them entirely, leav-

ing no trace of the vibrant, intelligent people that once inhabited their

now skeletal bodies. Certainly, these people also had family problems,

alcoholic parents, histories of abuse and clinical depression, to name a

few, all of which contribute to feelings of worthlessness and extremely

low self-esteem — cited by experts as a major cause of eating disorders.

What I ﬁ nd signiﬁ cant, however, is not the root of their problems but

that these women (there were a few men, but never more than ﬁ ve

percent of the patient population) turned to their bodies as a means

of expression and self-healing. Profoundly inﬂ uenced by the depiction

of women by the fashion industry, they had been convinced that the

only way to attain love, respect, and personal fulﬁ llment was through a

relentless pursuit of physical perfection. Most were perfectly aware that

they would never look like a supermodel, but it was inconceivable not

to try to do so. They found that they were good at dieting and that they

were praised and rewarded for their success. And by the time things had

gone too far, they had lost all sense of perspective.

6 Convinced by the media and popular culture to believe that, as

women, they should look a certain way and that only if they looked

that way would they be loved and respected, they turned to dieting as a

means of personal fulﬁ llment and self-deﬁ nition. While cases as extreme

as those I saw at the hospital are rare, many women experience milder

but still debilitating

forms of eating disorders. They may never get sick

enough to require hospitalization, but they nonetheless devote excessive

mental and physical energy to diet and exercise, often jeopardizing their

health in the process.

7 For my last four weeks at the hospital I transferred from eating disor-

ders to a general psychology unit. The diagnoses varied, but the number

of patients with histories of abuse was astounding. After listening to and

reading countless case histories, I began to recognize the patterns. In

many cases, domestic battering was chronic, occurring weekly or daily

whenever the victim broke some sort of household rule, such as serving

dinner late or dressing “too sexy.” The majority of the sexual abuse vic-

tims had been raped by people close to them: relatives, ex-boyfriends,

PAUSE: Underline

the sentence that

best expresses the

main point of

paragraph 5.

PAUSE: Summarize

the main point of

paragraph 7.

emaciated: extremely thin

debilitating: weakening

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READINGS

832 Part Eight • Readings for Writers

or family friends. In one particularly striking case, a patient’s boyfriend

made her have sex with ﬁ ve of his friends on a frequent basis.

8 The men who committed these heinous crimes were rarely patho-

logical rapists or batterers. Few would even be deemed mentally ill or

classically misogynistic. Rather, they are men who view the real women

in their lives in the same manner that they would view a Playboy model,

a waitress at Hooters, or a prostitute — as objects that exist solely for

their pleasure and convenience. These men are not genetically predis-

posed

to disrespect and abuse women. Their attitudes towards women

were societally conditioned.

9 Some would argue that pornography did not contribute to these

men’s behavior towards women. I disagree. Rape and battery are not

new problems, and objectiﬁ cation of women by the media reinforces

historically entrenched beliefs that a woman’s main reason for existence

is procreation and the sexual pleasure of her mate. Pornographic maga-

zines and lewd posters reduce women to a commodity

that can be

purchased and owned, divorcing the physical manifestation

from the

person within. The power of popular culture to affect how we eat, how

we dress, and how we behave is enormous. Conceptions of gender are

in no way immune to this phenomenon.

10 Certainly some of us are more affected by the media than others.

Not all teenage girls develop anorexia, nor do all men who read Playboy

abuse their wives. Nonetheless, the prevalence of both eating disorders

and various forms of domestic and sexual abuse indicate major soci-

etal trends. The American Anorexia/Bulimia Association reports that

5 percent of women will develop a full-ﬂ edged eating disorder, while

15 percent have “substantially disordered eating.” The Family Violence

Prevention Program documents that 4 million American women were

battered last year. And, yes, I am absolutely convinced that the objecti-

ﬁ cation of women by the media is an integral part of both of these prob-

lems, presenting women with unrealistic role models while encouraging

men to think of women solely in terms of their sexuality.

11 Women are up against a long history of devaluation and oppression,

and, unfortunately, the feminist movements have been only partially suc-

cessful in purging

those legacies. Sexually charged images of women

in the media are not the only cause of this continuing problem, but they

certainly play a central role.

predisposed: inclined to something in advance

commodity: a thing of use, value, or advantage

manifestation: a visible presence, an outward show

purging: removing something unwanted

PAUSE: How are

you and others you

know affected by

media images?

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READINGS

Chapter 50 • Cause and Effect 833

SUMMARIZE AND RESPOND

In your reading journal or elsewhere, summarize the main point of “Struggling

for Perfection.” Then, go back and check off support for this main idea. Next,

write a brief summary (three to ﬁ ve sentences) of the essay. Finally, jot down

your initial response to the essay. Do you agree or disagree with Beck’s points?

What else do you think causes eating disorders and domestic abuse?

CHECK YOUR COMPREHENSION

1. Which of the following would be the best alternative title for this essay?

a. “The Alarming Growth of Eating Disorders”

b. “The Causes and Effects of Eating Disorders”

c. “The Media’s Inﬂ uence on Eating Disorders and Domestic Abuse”

d. “Pressure to Conform”

2. The main idea of this essay is that

a. media images of women are not the only cause of eating disorders.

b. publications such as Playboy and the Victoria’s Secret catalog trans-

form women into sexual objects.

c. low self-esteem is a major cause of eating disorders.

d. media images of women contribute to eating disorders and violence

against females.

3. According to the author,

a. women who try to look like supermodels are unable to tell the differ-

ence between ﬁ ction and reality.

b. many of the women she met while working in the hospital had back-

grounds that included abuse, family problems, and depression.

c. patients with eating disorders are often incurable.

d. feminist movements have been very successful in their attempts to

lessen the prevalence of eating disorders and abuse against women.

4. If you are unfamiliar with the following words, use a dictionary to check

their meanings: gurus, lewd (para. 1); inevitable, psychosis (2); anorexics,

bulimics (4); depiction (5); chronic (7); heinous, genetically (8);

entrenched, procreation (9); integral (10); devaluation, legacies (11).

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READINGS

834 Part Eight • Readings for Writers

READ CRITICALLY

1. Why do you think Beck begins her essay by discussing the column “In

Defense of Hooters and the St. Pauli Girl” (para. 2)?

2. Media images of women lead to what two major problems, according to

Beck? How are these problems linked?

3. Describe Beck’s attitude toward men who commit domestic abuse. What

examples from the essay support your response?

4. Does Beck provide clear links between media images of women and the

effects of those images? Discuss some of the supporting details she uses

to show these links.

5. Beck presents some statistics about eating disorders and domestic abuse.

How does she use these statistics to make a further observation about her

main point?

WRITE AN ESSAY

Beck acknowledges the fact that sexually charged media images of women

are not the only cause of eating disorders and abuse. Write an essay about a

different possible cause of one of these problems. You could also choose to

write about a similar problem (what causes some men to take steroids, for

example). If you addressed other causes of eating disorders and abuse for the

Summarize and Respond section above, feel free to use those ideas.

Brent Staples

Just Walk on By:

Black Men and Public Space

Brent Staples was born in 1951 in Chester, Pennsylvania. After graduating

from Widener University, he earned a Ph.D. in psychology from the Uni-

versity of Chicago. He is a member of the editorial board of the New York

Times, writing commentary on politics and culture. In 1995, he published

a memoir, Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White (1994).

In “Just Walk on By,” Staples observes how people, particularly

women, react to him when he goes out for a walk. This essay was ﬁ rst

published in Ms. magazine.

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This image has been omitted intentionally

from your eBook due to electronic permissions

issues. Regrettably, we cannot make this

image available to you in a digital format.

You may be able to find a copy at your local

or school library; the author and title are

included in your eBook’s table of contents.

READINGS

Chapter 50 • Cause and Effect 835

GUIDING QUESTION

How does Staples affect people, and why?

1 My ﬁ rst victim was a woman — white, well dressed, probably in her

early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street

in Hyde Park, a relatively afﬂ uent neighborhood in an otherwise mean,

impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind

her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninﬂ ammatory

distance between

us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black

man — a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both

hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket — seemed men-

acingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace

and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into

a cross street.

2 That was more than a decade ago, I was twenty-two years old, a

graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in

the echo of that terriﬁ ed woman’s footfalls that I ﬁ rst began to know the

unwieldy inheritance I’d come into — the ability to alter public space in

ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the quarry

of a mugger,

a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking

sleep, not defenseless wayfarers. As a softy who is scarcely able to take

a knife to a raw chicken — let alone hold one to a person’s throat — I

was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her ﬂ ight made

me feel like an accomplice in tyranny.

It also made it clear that I was

indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the

area from the surrounding ghetto. That ﬁ rst encounter, and those that

followed, signiﬁ ed that a vast, unnerving

gulf lay between nighttime

pedestrians — particularly women — and me. And I soon gathered that

being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn

a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person

in a foyer somewhere, or make an errant

move after being pulled over

by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet — and they often do in

urban America — there is always the possibility of death.

3 In that ﬁ rst year, my ﬁ rst away from my hometown, I was to be-

come thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy

intersections, I could cross in front of a car stopped at a trafﬁ c light and

elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver — black, white, male,

or female — hammering down the door locks. On less traveled streets

PAUSE: After

reading the title

and the ﬁ rst para-

graph, what do you

predict Staples will

write about in the

rest of the essay?

uninﬂ ammatory: unlikely to cause fear

quarry: one that is chased, as in a hunt

tyranny: the abuse of power

unnerving: upsetting

errant: stray, unintended

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READINGS

836 Part Eight • Readings for Writers

after dark, I grew accustomed to but never comfortable with people

crossing to the other side of the street rather than pass me. Then there

were the standard unpleasantries with policemen, doormen, bouncers,

cabdrivers, and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome

individuals before there is any nastiness.

4 I moved to New York nearly two years ago and I have remained an

avid night walker. In central Manhattan, the near-constant crowd cover

minimizes tense one-on-one street encounters. Elsewhere — in SoHo,

for example, where sidewalks are narrow and tightly spaced buildings

shut out the sky — things can get very taut indeed.

5 After dark, on the warrenlike

streets of Brooklyn where I live, I

often see women who fear the worst from me. They seem to have set

their faces on neutral, and with their purse straps strung across their

chests bandolier-style, they forge ahead as though bracing themselves

against being tackled. I understand, of course, that the danger they per-

ceive is not a hallucination. Women are particularly vulnerable to street

violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among

the perpetrators of that violence. Yet these truths are no solace against

the kind of alienation that comes of being ever the suspect, a fearsome

entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact.

6 It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe old age of

twenty-two without being conscious of the lethality nighttime pedestri-

ans attributed to me. Perhaps it was because in Chester, Pennsylvania,

the small, angry industrial town where I came of age in the 1960s, I was

scarcely noticeable against a backdrop of gang warfare, street kniﬁ ngs,

and murders. I grew up one of the good boys, had perhaps a half-dozen

ﬁ stﬁ ghts. In retrospect, my shyness of combat has clear sources.

7 As a boy, I saw countless tough guys locked away; I have since bur-

ied several, too. They were babies, really — a teenage cousin, a brother

of twenty-two, a childhood friend in his mid-twenties — all gone down

in episodes of bravado played out in the streets. I came to doubt the vir-

tues of intimidation early on. I chose, perhaps unconsciously, to remain

a shadow — timid, but a survivor.

8 The fearsomeness mistakenly attributed to me in public places often

has a perilous ﬂ avor. The most frightening of these confusions occurred

in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I worked as a journalist in

Chicago. One day, rushing into the ofﬁ ce of a magazine I was writing

for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken for a burglar. The

ofﬁ ce manager called security and, with an ad hoc

posse, pursued me

through the labyrinthine halls, nearly to my editor’s door. I had no way

of proving who I was. I could only move briskly toward the company of

someone who knew me.

PAUSE: Summarize

the point that

Staples makes

about himself in

paragraphs 6 and 7.

warrenlike: narrow and having many blind spots

ad hoc: made up of whatever is available (Latin, for this purpose)

PAUSE: In para-

graph 3, what does

Staples mean by

“standard unpleas-

antries”?

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