How Do Men View Women
There are different variables that play into why women are viewed as objects. In today’s society media plays a role on how men view women. As one can see on television commercials and magazines, this adds to why men view women as sexual objects. Although all women are not the same and are individually different, the question remains how should a man look at a woman? In the passage, Looking at Women written by Scott Russell Sanders, he uses different examples to demonstrate the connection between how women present themselves and how they are viewed by men.
The following rhetorical strategies are being used by Sanders to make his argument: begging the question, causal relationship, and backing. Sanders uses begging the question when he describes his first sexually attracting experience at the age of eleven. Him and his friend Norman sat in their car as the young girl with the pink shorts walks by. He tried to understand how the young girl had the ability to make him feel the way he did. He states, “I sank into the seat, and tried to figure out what power had sprung from that sashaying girl to zap me in the belly” .
Did the young girls dressing in reveling clothes and walking around presenting her self the way she did cause him to shift from one world to the next? The passage mentions that the girl left very little to the imagination as her pink halter bared her stomach. Sanders also demonstrates begging the question in his passage when he goes into depth explaining his first encounter with a naked woman through photographs. He explained as he entered college his roommate hanged photos of playboy magazines. Further he describes that he would dwell over the poster and ask himself why did he see them as objects and not human beings.
As mention before this contributes to why woman are viewed as sexual objects. The second rhetorical strategy used by Sanders is casual relationship. He explains how he invented mythical lives for the woman in the playboy photos. Further he adds how he has put woman in just another category of objects for sale along side sports car and liquor. Nonetheless, he felt that the women in the photos humanity were reduced. He elaborates on how this effected on how he viewed women as he mentions, “How did it affect my way of seeing ther woman, those who would never dream lying nude on a fake tiger rug before the million- faceted eye of a camera” . Sander feels that through pornography that respect for woman has been lost. Sadly women are no longer seen as human beings with goals and a life of their own, but rather as objects. As Sanders describes, “woman in the photo would become merely another category for sale” . Casual relationship is demonstrated by the way men view woman due to how they are presented. As Sanders explains in the passage whatever the women’s motives, these women had chosen to put themselves on display.
Lastly the author demonstrates backing by using other sources in his passage to substantiate his argument and make his point. Sander states, “While he was president, Jimmy Carter raised a brouhaha by confessing in a playboy interview . . . that he occasionally felt lust in his heart for woman” . Sanders used numerous backing when talking about men lusting over women. He emphasizes that media causes men to focus on women’s sexuality. Sanders also used American poet and physician Carlos Williams to further elaborate on backing. Williams admits, “I am extremely sexual in my desires . . . A man does with it what his mind directs”.
Sanders explained how William has spoken for men and how they think. The author also demonstrates how writers did not have respect for women, as Simone de Beauvoir clarified in his novel, The Second Sex, refusing to show the good in women; but rather focus on women’s sexuality. Beauvoir states, “She arouses in him in submissively making herself a thing” . Sander further explains that women dress themselves as dolls, and he doubts that men are entirely to blame for the women turning into sexual dolls. The author is explaining that not only men are to blame for women being viewed as sexual objects.
Yet, women add to this view by how they present themselves through the media. In the beginning of Looking at Women Sanders tell a story of seeing a young girl walking down the street. That was the beginning of his never-ending battle, for trying to see women for what they are human beings and not objects. He sums up why he thinks men degrade women, and how men should look at women. Throughout his passage he uses the above rhetorical strategies to persuade his audience in his argument.
Works Cited
- Sanders, Scott R. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. 13th ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2012. Print
