Much of society operates on assumptions of certain groups of people. Either positive or negative notions arise from these, but each subset of people face some. However, the incorrect presumptions often harm people due to society’s indelible belief of the truth of these stereotypes. In About Men, by Gretel Ehrlich, cowboys are incorrectly thought of as callous brave men when they are actually soft and nurturing. Furthermore, Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan, shows how the author faces prejudice, along with her mother, who people judge for speaking broken English despite the mother’s intelligence. In addition, A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?, by Susan Sontag, represents the equivocal messages women receive about their beauty from society. Lastly, On Discovery, by Maxine Hong Kingston, demonstrates the distorted perception of gender roles in society. The prejudices faced by all these groups shows society’s often ignorant views, which the authors hope to expose.
The authors use presuppositions of groups of people to critique societies about unfair perspectives of people. The Cowboy’s external image in About Men belies his true nature just like the author’s mother’s language in Mother’s Tongue does not resemble her true intelligence. Ehrlich states that the Cowboy’s image in popular culture is one with “stern, humorless looks [that] remind me of no one I know there” (Ehrlich 84). The harsh and glacial perception of the cowboy occurs due to how people perceive their physical actions. Furthermore, the cowboys “lack the vocabulary to express the complexity of what they feel” causing many misapprehensions to occur about their image (Ehrlich 86).
Thus the cowboys cannot properly reveal their personality, leading society to pass their own false judgements of cowboys; this treatment correlates to the attitude toward Tan’s mother as she cannot properly communicate her thoughts either. Tan describes her mother’s English as “broken”, which causes her to previously think “that her [mother’s] English reflected the quality of what she had to say” (Tan 167). However, the narrator learns better when she later notices her mother’s intelligence; her mother frequently reads complex english works and easily comprehends them.
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The narrator, like the rest of society, first thought of her mother as subpar due to her rudimentary language skills; the cowboys too are misrepresented as others do not perceive their personality but only their external characteristics. The societal expectations of men to stick to gender expectations in About Men resembles the female expectations to maintain beautyl in A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?. Ehrlich discusses how society expects cowboys to maintain masculinity, even though “the cowboy is more apt to be convivial, quirky, and softhearted” (Ehrlich 85).
However, society does not allow for cowboys to show this fragility; instead, they must push it aside and cling “to an adolescent dependency on women” for services that society deems inappropriate for cowboys to do. (Ehrlich 87). In this manner, society is restricting the cowboy’s from realizing their true personality, which consists of a mixture of femininity and masculinity. Sontag also addresses the issue of gender roles as women are expected by society to be beautiful. Due to the influence of Christianity, women have become associated with beauty. Now society believes that “to be called beautiful is thought to name something essential to women’s character and concerns” (Sontag 153). This expectation coerces women into maintaining their beauty even if they do not feel the need to. Thus, society forces cowboys and women to unfairly conform to stereotypical gender roles. Societal expectations force both cowboys in About Men and Tang Ao in On Discovery to keep their sensitive personalities hidden. The cowboy’s gamut of activities includes saving a cow by using brute strength to tenderly caring for a sick calf, even going as far as to “massage [the calf’s] legs until dawn” to comfort it (Ehrlich 85).
However, the cowboy’s image in culture, one of masculinity, causes the nurturing side to remain unacknowledged. Tang faces similar problems with the wrapping as it “were like underwear, and they were his” (Kingston 132). Tang’s embarrassment over his bandages demonstrates how he feels ashamed for showing weakness, something unexpected of men. However, Tang also shares feminine qualities as he scrubs his own dirty bandages, a chore commonly attributed to women. Thus, Tang must continue to act masculine despite the femininity growing in him, similar to how cowboy’s must show callousness despite their arcane gentleness.
The narrator’s mother in Mother Tongue and women in A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source? realize the necessity of conforming to societal standards, an activity criticized by the authors. The narrator’s mother notices that she needs help to deal with others as her English acts as an obstacle. The mother utilizes the narrator to achieve this goal, even though the narrator soon realizes that her mom possesses “impeccable broken English” (Tan 168). This shows the narrator’s appreciation for her mom’s language, a feeling that presides unrepresented in society. Furthermore, Sontag realizes the ambivalent views of beauty in society.
Society represses women for neglecting beauty, but also “disparage them (or find them adorable) for being ‘superficial” (Sontag 155). The equivocal statement represents society’s incessant disapproval of women, even when women conform. Sontag admonishes society for this, as it places unattainable expectations on women. Thus, conforming to expectations placed by society seems improper to the authors. The narrator in Mother Tongue and Tang Ao in On Discovery are both discriminated due to stereotypes of their groups. The narrator, like other Asian Americans, excels in math and thus steered by teachers “away from writing and into math and science” (Tan 170).
Even though the narrator gets good math test scores, her true passion lies in English, as evidenced by her writing the essay.The blind push by the teachers based on accomplishments of others of the same race demonstrates how society expects you to act like the rest of your group; similarly, Tang also faces repercussions for his manhood due to the societal expectations of the all- woman land. This land consists of all women and thus “there are no taxes and no wars” (Kingston 133). This signifies that the women link their male-free land to peace and prosperity, thus choosing to convert Tang to a female to secure their land. However, they refrain for even considering the personality of Tang and forcefully change his gender. The stereotypes of society that caused people to act in a generic way towards the narrator in Mother Tongue and Tang show the harm of presuppositions regarding groups of people.
A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source? and On Discovery demonstrate the ability of society to ignore mistakes in relation to some groups. In the old Greek epoch, Greeks considered beauty so paramount to all aspects of life that they “found it quite paradoxical that [Socrates] was so intelligent, so brave, so honorable, so seductive- and so ugly” (Sontag 153). The one feature that counteracts all those positive features demonstrates the significance humans placed on beauty in the past. That perception transferred to the modern era, but now only women remain valued for their beauty. Society allows this, as it seems to benefit most of the community. In addition, the transformation of Tang Ao into a woman leaves him as just another servant, blended into the background of the country. The diners even “smacking their lips at his dainty feet as he bent to put dishes before them” shows how they treat him as if nothing abnormal occurred (Kingston 133).
This treatment demonstrates society’s ability to allow transgressions to pass if they favor the community. The connection between all four essays consists of how groups are perceived by society and the authors’s criticism of this prejudice from society and conformity with the groups targeted. This connection possesses significance because it represents the driving motive of the authors. The authors all wrote the essays to express personal viewpoints, one of which involved admonishing the presuppositions of groups they perceived in society. This thematic element connects all the authors’s purposes and helps engender a stronger argument for all the authors’s perspectives. In this way, the theme connecting all four essays shows societal flaw identified by the essay authors that needs a solution, and thus addressed in the essays. Society’s assumptions of groups of people often involve inappropriate perceptions, as shown by Ehrlich in About Men, Tan in Mother Tongue, Sontag in A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?, and Kingston in On Discovery. The various types of expectations also affect the variegated classes, usually in a negative and nearly always untruthful manner. Only by erasing the stereotypes from society will these improper perspectives disappear from people. However, the proliferation of these presumptions will only cause society to continue its decay.
References
- About Men by Gretel Ehrlich
- The Nuanced Cowboy Culture You Won’t See in Hollywood Westerns
- Mother Tongue by Amy Tan
- Presupposition definition and meaning | Lexico.com
- Misapprehension | Definition of Misapprehension by Merriam-Webster
- Society’s indelible beliefs: concocting, conflating, and inferring
