Pollit and Staples both tell stories about the way in which society reacts to different kinds of people and different social groups. They also both suggest that these reactions say more about society and the way in which people learn their behaviour than they do about individual members of the groups involved. However, there are also big differences between the essays, especially in relation to a sense of hope and also a sense of power. This paper will compare the two in order to make this clear.
Pollit’s essay, “Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls,” begins with a conception of the power that exists for women for and shows how progress has been made in women’s rights. She notes that the national organization for women exists and that it has made at least some changes in the life of every woman in the country. It is from this starting point that she goes on to discuss the fact that people still discriminate between boys and girls and also that children still learn that certain behaviours are right for boys and certain behaviours are right for girls. She also argues that even though science suggests that there might be some ways in which the sexes are fundamentally different, these findings are almost always exaggerated by people who are comfortable with strict gender roles. This argument uses examples from her own experience, as well as more general ideas and facts. Both of these are used in the essay to make a positive argument, backed up by real life examples back this up; for example number of women medical students has increased, as has the number of men applying to train as nurses. Importantly, therefore, Pollit’s essay should be seen as essentially hopeful and as suggesting that discrimination between men and women might be changed in the future and that this is already happening.
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"Comparison Essay: Pollit and Staples".
In his focus on race, Staples makes it clear that he is also discussing the way in which society makes people react in a certain way to certain people. In particular, this is made clear when he describes how once when he was in his early twenties a woman ran away from him as he was simply walking through Chicago because she saw that he was black and simply assumed that he must a mugger who had emerged from the poor area of the city in order to attack rich people. He describes how this was a confusing and upsetting experience for him, and also shows how it has led to a rage and anger within him that he had to suppress. Several different examples are also given of this, all of which come from his own life, rather than statistics or crime reports, although he does mention that every African American person that he knows has had similar experiences of harassment and of being assumed to be a criminal. It is clear, therefore, that Staples’ prime aim in the essay is the describe the situation from his own life in which society makes people assume as if African Americans are criminals and to treat them like them, even when they have no evidence.
One of the biggest difference between Pollit and Staples is that fact that the first seeks to make a sociological argument based on a mixture of personal history and of fact, whereas the second makes his argument based on personal experience and the experience of friends. There is also, however, a major difference in the conclusion that this experience leads to. Whereas Pollit is able to use a light and witty tone in order to show that even though gender roles are still present, they are falling away, Staples is does not offer any serious hope of a change in the way that people relate to individuals of a different race. Indeed, it could even be said that Staples’ argument would have to say that as long as American society continues, there will be racism, something which is very different to Pollit’s argument that discrimination between sexes is still present but is getting better.
It is possible, therefore, to describe Pollit’s essay as a positive argument, and Staples’ as a negative, and purely critical, piece. This is something which is also backed up by the way in which the two authors draw on specific evidence in their writing. Pollit makes use of both anecdotes and empirical evidence and is specific about the way in which this evidence helps her argument, as well as how it relates to her own experience. In contrast to this, Staples is more concerned with creating a general atmosphere that serves to make clear what the everyday life of African Americans is actually like. As such, he does not make write an essays that is interested in establishing or refuting particular trends, but he rather takes the fact of racist as already established and assumes that this fact will be present the lives of all African Americans. The fact that he starts from the existence of racism, rather than attempting to establish it empirically, is another factor that adds to the pessimistic an negative aspect of his essay, in contrast to Pollit’s costive argument for change.
In conclusion, therefore, it would it is possible to argue that both Pollit and Staples use a similar combination of empirical and anecdotal evidence in their work, but that the essays are very different in tone and intention. This essential can be boiled down to the fact that Pollit seeks to make a positive argument, while Staples is concerned entirely with a negative presentation of the nature of reality, rather than an attempt to show it may change.
