Ssguys And The Significance Of Gender Stereotypes example essay topic

What is the definition of a! SSguy!" ? Dave Barry, a humorous columnist in the United States, effectively uses the power of language to explore gender stereotypes and indirectly answers the above question in! SSGuys vs. Men!" . His purpose is to show how language affects people's views regarding gender stereotypes. To make his argument clear and convincing, he points out critically that males consist of two types: !

SSguys!" and! SSmen. !" In other words, the level of maturity and masculinity differs between! SSguys!" and!

SSmen. !" Furthermore, Barry uses his humorous writing style, logical diction, and allusion to critique the gender stereotype that formed in society degrades the characteristics of! SSguys. !" Barry creates a stereotype that degrades!

SSguys!" through his establishment of a clear and focused tone in his essay. He opens his essay by indirectly mentioning the tone for his essay is humorous rather than serious in order to inform his readers about his attitude towards the gender stereotype. He states, ! SSThis is a book about guys. It's not a book about men. There are already way too many books about men, and most of them are way too serious.

!" Clearly, the topic he is emphasizing on is! SSguys!" and not! SSmen. !" Also, he is making a distinction between the characteristics of! SSguys!" and!

SSmen!" by interpreting! SSmen!" as more serious and! SSguys!" as not. The purpose of making the distinction between! SSguys!" and! SSmen!" is to allow readers to understand the gender stereotype that he is creating.

The stereotypical comment he makes is that! SSguys!" are not as serious as! SSmen. !" Furthermore, by informing his readers that he is writing about! SSguys!" he is purposely to tell them the tone of his essay is not going to be serious, because he mentions the books for! SSmen!" are too serious.

Furthermore, the development of a specific tone in his essay creates a persuasive argument that is effective because it allows Barry to write as a guy and to critique the stereotype of! SSguys. !" For example, from the section of! SSGuys Like A Really Pointless Challenge!" he is criticizing his guy coworkers, who! Share middle-aged guys, supposedly adults! K. [however], bragging about their performance in this stupid juvenile footrace!

K!" These coworkers are in their middle ages, who are supposed to be men and more maturity from our cultural attitude and logical thinking; however, the gender stereotype classified them as! SSguys!" because they are participated in the immaturity! tupid!" game. In the first three paragraphs of this section, he is criticizing seriously that he is annoyed by their! SS ridiculous!" ! SSguys! |!" action. Then all of the sudden, he changes the tone of the section from serious and annoyed to humorous and supporting their! tupid!" game by adding, !

SSI could beat 5.75 seconds. !" He is humorous when he is making the statement because he is contradicting his pervious statements and proves that he is one of the! SSguys!" too. After classifies Barry as a! SSguy, !" then it allows him to make valid arguments about the characteristics of! SSguys!" because he is making arguments from!

SSguys! |!" views. It is important to know his arguments are valid and acceptable so readers can accept his stereotypical comments about! SSguys. !" For example, readers would know Barry is making valid argument when he critiques! SSguys! |!" actions are! tupid. !" The word! tupid!" has a negative connotation in its meaning, so we do not use the word! tupid!" to honor someone but to critique someone.

Therefore, he is degrading the characteristics of! SSguys!" when he is referring! SSguys!" as! tupid. !" Barry can use any word to claim his argument, however, to make a clear and strong argument he must careful about his language. Barry makes the distinction between the categories of! SSguys!" and!

SSmen!" through the development of careful diction and connotation in his language then he reinforces the language to critique! SSguys. !" One of most important assertions that Barry makes is, ! SSthis results in certain characteristically masculine by which [he] [means] stupid, behavioral patterns that can produce unfortunate results such as violent crime, war, spitting, and ice hockey. These things have given males a bad name. !" Here, he is listing all of the bad actions that can give males a bad name.

In other words, violent crime, war, spitting, and ice hockey degrade males. However, if we consider violent crime and war are serious problems then spitting and ice hockey would be irrelevant problems. The denotation of these crimes is the bad names that given to males while the connotation of them implies the creation of characteristically masculine. To differentiate the masculinity he hints that! SS There is another way to look at males: not as aggressive macho dominator's; not as sensitive, liberated, hugging drummers; but as guys. !" Here, he is degrading the characteristics of!

SSguys!" by connecting! SSguys!" with the negative words of males. By interpreting these two assertions together then it allows readers to understand how gender stereotypes are playing role of shaping our values. He is degrading the masculinity of! SSguys!" when pointing out the serious crimes that they are capable of doing are spitting and ice hockey which connote their lack of power in our cultural attitude and values.

In the section, ! SSGuys Like Neat Stuff, !" Barry further explains how gender stereotypes degrade! SSguys!" through his diction. He conveys, !

SS [his] computer is chock full of RAM and ROM and bytes and megahertz es and various other items that enable a computer to kick data processing butt. !" In our cultural values, computers or anything that relates to technology are stereotyped as males! | talent, so he purposely provides computer as one of his examples to help support his argument of making stereotypes of males. The words! SS kick someone's butt!" are an informal language and an incomplete thought, which should never appear in an academic writing.

We hear these words more often from! SSguys!" than! SSmen!" because! SSmen!" are more serious in their lives, we know this from his pervious assertion, and they would not use these informal words to express their feelings. However, ! SSguys!" are associated with the negative connotation of males and he uses these words to suggest his attitude toward the gender stereotypes of!

SSguys!" is not serious and incomplete. Furthermore, because he is writing about guys, and more specifically, its about the gender stereotype of! SSguys!" , therefore, his arguments would be more effective if he uses words that are relating to! SSguys.

!" Barry uses personification to define and critique the characteristics of! SSguys!" at the same time. We must first look at his arguments about language in order to understand the effectiveness of the language. Barry applies the role of personification to further suggest the relationship between the stereotypes about guys and language.! SSGuys are similar to my small auxiliary backup dog, Zippy, a guy dog. !" He relates guys to his guy dog because he finds the same characteristics between them.

They both have the similar thinking process, where they! SS never really understood why. !" Moreover, from the cultural attitude and values of our society, humans compose more ability and dignity compared to animals. Therefore, relating guys to dogs is practically humiliating towards! SSguys! |!" characteristics. In other words, by degrading guys ability to dogs is a way to dis empower guys.

By interpreting the dog's action of always messing things up in contrast to his female dog, he concludes that! SS morally, most guys are just like Zippy! Guys are aware of the rules of moral behavior, but they have trouble keeping these rules in the forefronts of their minds at certain times, especially the present. !" He points out abruptly through his allusion imagery that not only do guys have low moral behavior like animals, but they also have the potential of breaking rules under any circumstances.

Finally, Barry effectively uses different strategies in the function of language to shape the cultural attitude and values toward the stereotypes of! SSguys. !" He does not merely tell readers the negative connotation of! SSguys!" rather he uses the power of language to point out critically the stereotypes of! SSguys. !" By realizing the powerful language and strategies he uses to convey his argument, readers will have better understanding of the characteristics of!

SSguys, !" and the significance of gender stereotypes.