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Women and Men (Doing Without
Dad)
When I was
fifteen years old my mother came to me to tell me my perfectly healthy
father had passed away. I felt as if my whole world had fallen apart.
How could a forty-five-year-old man die from a heart attack after exercising
and watching his diet for his whole life? My father passed away leaving
me, my two sisters and my mother to form new lives for ourselves. This
loss changed my life forever.
I was always the daddy's-girl type who waited by the front door for my dad
to come home every day from from work. We would go to the backyard and toss
a ball around or hit golf balls. I was the son my father never had. In my eyes
my father was not only my mentor and confidant, but my protector. With my father
around I was able to sleep better at night. If my parents went out to dinner,
I would stay awake up in my bed until I heard them come home. I felt a sense
of security having my dad just a few feet a way. I knew if I was ever in trouble
my dad would be there to protect me. I looked to my father as a safety net,
not because he was a big man, but because of how television portrays the male
sex.
Even today, men are still portrayed as the dominant, protector type on the
television screen. Despite the fight for women's rights and the increase in
women working, females are still not seen as equals. Growing up as a television
addict, I modeled my beliefs after what I saw on television. I remember one
time telling my dad that I wished he could be like the protective, Michael
Brady type. Without my father around I felt unsafe and vulnerable. When my
father passed away I had trouble sleeping for months. I forced my twin sister
to sleep in my room so I could have some sense of security. I had an unsettling
feeling thinking about how four women would survive without a man to protect
them. We had no one to set an example for us. All of my parents' friends had
the typical nuclear family and television made our situation worse. We had
no one to model our lives after.
When I think about how television portrays gender roles, Seinfeld sticks out
in my mind. Elaine is the perfect example of the 1990s working woman. But has
there ever been an episode where Elaine is without a man? Of course not! Every
week a different man enters her life to care for and protect her. This makes
the 90s woman look weak and submissive. Because of shows like Seinfeld I believed
for a very long time that a woman needed a man to protect her. This twisted
mentality changed with the loss of my father. I learned from my mother's strength
and ability to survive as a single mother. My mom has managed to hold down
her teaching job while taking over my father's business. It is still difficult
today to watch her come home from a day of work exhausted and worn out, but
I see that mother has succeeded at what she does. She worked to send her twin
daughters to college while her older daughter moved on to medical school. When
my mom left me in my dorm room freshman year, I cried my eyes out. I did not
cry because I did not want her leave me there, but because the thought of leaving
her alone scared me to death.
My mother's strength has proved to me that there is not always an objective
point of view behind television. Women can just as easily be the bread winners
and the protectors of a family. My mother is one of the most amazing women
I know. The past five years have been very hard on her, playing the role of
both mother and father. But it has made me realize that women must seek out
their goals in order to succeed. Although women have come a long way, we must
realize there are many people out there that will not offer us the same opportunities
as the average male. By portraying women as Little-House-on-the-Prairie types,
television will destroy what women have fought for for many years.
Although the loss of my father was extremely difficult to deal with, I have
become a stronger and more independent person as a result. I have set high
goals for myself and have learned to question what I view on television. I
look to television as a form of entertainment, not for an objective, honest
opinion on life. I am too skeptical to believe in the way men and women are
portrayed on television in the same way. As a citizen of The United States,
I have chosen to enter the television industry after graduation. I would like
to make a difference in the world by providing society with an honest approach
to the gender roles of the United States. I do not know which aspect of television
I would like to be in, but I hope to create a better representation of American
women in the public eye.
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