We are all human beings, we may have different shades of color whether it may be brown, caramel, black or white we are all the same. I remember going to a meeting where there were all shades of races but instead of being together or mixed; each formed their own group with the same ethnic in each group, nobody different just all the same. I came into the meeting and realized how everyone was categorized by their ethnic groups but I decided to join any group. As I sat in this group I didn’t care if everyone seemed so much lighter than I was but others in the group did as they gave me funny looks or would even pretend I wasn’t even there. I knew why they were doing this but I didn’t let it bother me neither did I get up to join a group of  my ethnicity. I don’t see why its seen as such a big deal, why we are looked at as different when were really not. Society wants us to believe that we are all different and that its fine to just stay in our category but Its actually not because we are then just used to the same thing everyday when their are other cultures there to explore. Living in America all groups of ethnicity are all clammed together and there are many who dont mind blending in with other shades of people but there are also many who still do. The world is still a racist place but there are many things we can do ti change, even though it may seem impossible with having a soon to be racist president. If we come together we can make a change

Not every women’s first sexual experience is the same. For some its what they expected and for others its nothing like what they thought it would be. Both Ifemelu in Americanah and Esther in The Bell Jar experience having sex for the very first time and it didn’t seem to be what they expected it to be. They both had different experiences but the same outcome, which is they weren’t as satisfied with the feeling afterwards. Ifemelu’s first time starts when she is giving Obinze a massage because his muscles are aching after he has played basketball. Obinze is enjoying the pleasure of the massage and decides to take things further by undressing Ifemelu. Now Ifemelu wasn’t new to the feeling of him undressing her except this time he would be undressing all over her, “when he undressed her, he did not stop, as usual, at her underwear (Adichie 71 pdf). Ifemelu imagined it happening differently she “assumed they would make a carefully planned ceremony of it” (Adichie 72 pdf), Obinze did not use a condom and I’m guessing that’s not how she planned it; especially since she could get pregnant. Obinze didn’t mind not using a condom since they “we’re going to get married anyways” (Adichie 72), but Ifemelu feels that hes only saying that in the moment. Ifemelu loves Obinze very much and thought her first time having sex with him would be special and although it may have been “the unplannedness of it all had left her a little shaken, and also a little disappointed. It seemed somehow as though it had not been worth is after all” (Adichie 72). A women’s first sexual experience should feel like everything she hoped but Ifemelu did not feel this way. Instead she was worried the whole time about what she would say to Obinze’s mom and how she would react and just how unplanned it all had been.

In The Bell Jar Esther also had an unsatisfying first sexual experience with an math professor named Irwin. Esther feels that Irwin would be a good man to sleep with being that he was smart, experienced being an older guy, and no one really knew of him so it no one would ever know. As there about to have sex Esther awaits for the big change in her life that’s about to happen, ” I lay, rapt and naked, on Irwin’s rough blanket, waiting
for the miraculous change to make itself felt” (Plath 120 pdf). As it is happening all she can feel is a sharp pain and in the end she starts to bleed, Irwin treats it as its nothing, “Oh, that often happens, Irwin reassured me. You’ll be all right” (Plath 120). Esther imagined a completely different feeling of being a new person, ” I wanted to brood over my new condition in perfect peace. But the towel came away black and dripping” (Plath 120). Esther and Ifemelu are both females who had sexual intercourse with the opposite sex and played the role of being a virgin who was experiencing sex for the very first time. In the end, after their sexual experience neither of them feel satisfied. The consequence of having sex Ifemelu ends up having stomach pain, she throws up in fear that she is pregnant and wonders what will happen, just full of worries and disappointment. Esther is feeling pain instead of pleasure during and after her sexual experience and doesn’t seem to really feel a change in herself so much like she wanted to feel. Both women’s first sexual experience was different but both felt very unhappy with the outcome.

In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah one of the symbols shown throughout the novel is the symbolism of hair. Most of the novel takes places in a hair salon where Ifemelu is getting her hair braided. The majority of women who usually go and get their hair braided at a hair salon, or more specifically an African hair salon are black women. Living in Princeton, New Jersey where its mostly white dominated it was hard to find a place where you can go and get your hair braided the right way. As quoted in the novel “It was unreasonable to expect a braiding salon in Princeton the few black locals she seen were so light-skinned she could not imagine them wearing braids”(Adichie 8 pdf). I would imagine only black women wore braids around that time and even now today mostly black women wear braids although some white women have now become found of hair braiding. For most of the women especially Ifemelu in Americanah hair represented an identity between being Nigerian and a black American.

Coming to America was a big change for women like Ifemelu and Aunty Uju it wasn’t the same as living in Nigeria where you could get away with whatever hairstyle you wanted. Being in Nigeria Ifemelu would always braid her hair but when she came to America she had to learn to wear her own hair out but not natural and poofy hair, it had to be relaxed or straightened. If hair wasn’t straightened people would see it as unprofessional, so living in America meant that she had to wear her hair the way white women wore their hair. As quoted in the novel Aunty Uju “I have to take my braids out for my interviews and relax my hair. Kemi told me that I shouldn’t wear braids to the interview,” (Adichie 90 pdf) it was seen as unprofessional to have your hair in braids. The pressure for black women like Ifemelu and Aunty Uju to straighten their hair, making it resemble a white womens hair is a sign or symbol of racism in the American culture.

In The Color Purple by Alice Walker there is an interesting relationship between the characters Sofia and Celie. The two definitely have their differences but also have similarities in some ways. One of the difference between Celie and Sofia which is the most obvious is the fact that Sofia has a stronger character than Celie because she can stand up to men and refuses to have her freedom taken away by anyone. Celie is the opposite in which she isn’t strong enough to fight for herself when she is being beaten by her husband, who’s in control of Celie’s freedom and what she does with her life. Sofia is a fighter who didn’t let the fact that she is a black women stop her from moving up. Around that time blacks worked for whites and the women usually had to follow the rules of their husband. Sofia wasn’t having it and wouldn’t be controlled by the white men who controlled the state or the black men who had power in the household, which is what made her the strong women that she is. Celie who is always told she isn’t good enough and is constantly subjected to violence in her household makes her feel weak and useless, which is why she’d rather keep to herself and God and stay invisible. Quoted in the text ” You got to fight. You got to fight. But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive” (Walker 19 pdf). This quote shows that Celie isn’t much of a fighter as Sofia and she believed the way to make it through the harsh life she lived was by taking in all the pain, at least she was able to live another day rather than to fight and be killed. The only similarities between the two seemed to be that they are both black women living in Georgia. The relationship between the two women represent later on in the book because Sofia becomes a role model in Celie’s life and finds herself finally being able to stand up for herself. Quoted in the text ,”You a low down dog is what’s wrong, I say. It’s time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need.” Celie is finally able to stand up to Albert and I would say its from watching Sofia and the ways she stood up for herself. Women around that time were very loyal to their husband and would usually be a slave in their own home; so Celie wasn’t the only women who couldn’t stand up to the horrible abuses she was subjected to.

Essay 1 Outline.

1. Title: Define Your Own Life.
2. Introduction: Analysis of how society views gender roles in relation to The Bell Jar.
3. Thesis Statement: Esther has expected gender roles as a female from people in her everyday life but throughout The Bell Jar, you see her sometimes ignore those expectations and decide that this is her life.
4. Body Paragraph 1: Shows the way the people involved in her everyday life push her to follow societies expectations. People such as her mother, Mrs. Greenwood, Doreen, Betsy, and Mrs. Willard have their own interpretations of the female roles Esther must play in her life.
5. Body Pargraph 2 The way Esther ignores the expectations being thrown at her and what results from that. Also the way in which it effects her, causing her mental illness.
6. Body Paragraph 3: The connection my thesis statement has in relation to The Feminine Mystique.
7. Conclusion: Restating my thesis and more details that support it, along with a closing statement of the effect societies expectations have on peoples lives.

In the “Components of Gender,” Laura Franks speaks on her view of what exactly makes you who you are. She obviously does not agree with the way society defines gender roles or how those roles form a person. She speaks of 5 components of gender which are gender assignment, gender roles, gender identity, gender expression, and gender attribution. Each having their own definitions of what specifically describes a persons gender. Laura Franks is someone who has “refused to play gender games,” in other words she doesn’t follow up with the rules society has set up for what makes a male a male and a female a female. Like a game there are rules you must follow and if you don’t follow them you lose, she basically feels like society is playing the same game with gender. If your a male you have to be masculine and be the head of the household, and if your a female you have to be feminine and love being a housewife. Some people fear if they break societies expectations they would be looked at as the opposite of their gender or seem different from everyone else, like they don’t belong. Laura feels its time to break these rules and when you do your still who you are no matter society says.

With Esther in The Bell Jar she doesn’t but does seems to experience fear or discomfort  when she isn’t following the role that is expected of her by society. In the scene in chapter 11 where it says, “I was still wearing Betsy’s white blouse and dirndl skirt, I hadn’t wash them in my three weeks at home. I hadn’t wash my hair for three weeks either” (Plath 67) Esther isn’t performing proper femininity. Esther thought it would be silly to wash her clothes and her hair when she would have to just do it again the next day. Her mother thought she should have done so because as society would believe its dirty for a female to not wash her clothes, being that its one of the jobs they believe females should have which is cleaning and washing. I would say wearing Betsy clothes instead of her own was her choosing to perform gender roles properly because she maybe feared her own clothes wasn’t as fancy, or less feminine than what others would expect a female to wear to a special occasion.

The female character I’m going to go with from The Bell Jar is Doreen. Doreen is societies idea of the perfect woman, shes blonde, blue eyed, perfect slim body, and just plain girly but as an adult. I see Doreen as one of those girls you would have wanted to be in high school, the popular girl. She’s not the boring type who just wants to sit around and do nothing, she wants to be out there, enjoying life. Her looks are her top priority, she has to look good in everything she puts on, you have to be able to notice her. I believe her primary job is to make sure she looks good, making sure to keep up with all the rules there are for being a woman. Such as not eating too much, wearing lots of make-up, wearing tight dresses and etc. Doreen is definitely someone who values her reputation and is mostly interested in looking good, and enjoying life with whatever man that’s looking to do the same.

Esther is very envious of Doreen as she says in the text, “I guess one of my troubles was Doreen.” (Plath 4) Esther sees Doreen and wishes that could be her, the beautiful one, the one that gets all the handsome guys like Lenny, just the perfect woman that she is. At the same time Esther is very annoyed with Doreen, being around Doreen makes it hard for her to be herself. When they are at the bar with Lenny and his so called friend Frankie, and shes orders a vodka straight up while Doreen order a “old-fashioned”, the waiter gives her a very odd look because it isn’t a girly drink like Doreen’s. I feel as if she has to pretend to be someone else when shes with Doreen just to fit in. If Doreen was a true friend to Esther she wouldn’t make it so hard for her and then basically throw it in her face, and that’s why they eventually being to drift apart.

In my opinion I don’t feel that Doreen represents a positive role model for women.She makes it seem like woman must be perfect and must have all the feminine qualities society sets out for them. A woman shouldn’t have to work hard to be beautiful and limit the things they want to do,or be someone other than who they are to fit in with society. Esther doesn’t dress to impress like Doreen she wears what makes her comfortable, what she feels she looks beautiful in. Like when they were going out Esther wore a dress that wasn’t even as expensive as I’m pretty sure Doreen’s own was as she wore a “white lace dress” (Plath 6) that hugged her body and showed off her curves.”This dress was cut so queerly I couldn’t wear any sort of a bra under it, but that didn’t matter much as I was skinny as boy, and I liked feeling almost naked on the hot summer nights.” (Plath 6).Most females like Doreen wouldn’t dare not wear a bra because then her boobs wont pop out the way she would want. Doreen just does too much.

Hello everyone! My name is Berline but you can just call me Bee. My preferred pronouns are she and hers. I’m originally from Brooklyn but both my parents are from Haiti, so I’m also Haitian and do speak some creole. My major is Nursing and for many reasons. One is that I love caring for those who are in need and I’m really looking forward to caring for the little ones. I absolutely love and adore babies, so I’m really excited about my future as a pediatric nurse, in God’s willing. Besides loving babies I also have a love for music and dancing. Dancing is one of the many things I do on my spare time and sometimes all the time. I mostly do Hip Hop but I also enjoy other styles of dancing, I find it to be very relaxing and stress free. Besides this class I’m also taking philosophy, history, and public speaking which brings me to one of the things I dislike and that is speaking in public. I do happen to be a shy person, so I would get really nervous when it comes to speaking in front of a crowd. Being not only in my public speaking class but also in this class I hope to overcome this fear. Everyone seems very nice and since they’re only a few of us in the class, it shouldn’t be so hard. I also hope to gain a lot of knowledge about women rights and the many roles they played to be where we are today.Well I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you and hope we all have a great semester.