It's a Man's Job, Honey

As many of my American Studies classmates such as Callie, Ben, and Sara also decided to blog about gender roles, it is obvious to me that the issue of racial and gender injustice is one that is pressing even in today's "more liberal" society. I find it so interesting that though many consider our nation to have progressed in terms of equality for women and minorities, however, as shown in The Soiling of Old Glory, the U.S. is still far from perfect. It is so amazing to me that a photo taken in 1976 of a white man attempting to hit a black man with the shaft of an American flag can so closely resemble a painting depicting the Boston Massacre which was painted in 1856, over 100 years earlier. Not much seems to have changed: "'Now, as evidenced by this attack, the black people of Boston have very little reason to celebrate the Bicentennial, for they are still not free to safely walk the streets of this city"' (Masur 69). Now, Boston has improved the situation for its minority population in more recent years and the city is no longer as segregated. The state of Massachusetts even passed a law in 2004 allowing people of the same sex to get married. I wouldn't say that the rest of the nation has exactly followed suit with Boston.

 No, I wouldn't say that it is very realistic to think that changing the nation's outlook on gender and minorities will happen overnight. But, change must and can be done. In AS class a few weeks ago, Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor asked the whole class to close their eyes and think of the image that pops into your head when you think of "an American." Though not everyone in the class shared their mental image, I think it is fair to say that nearly everyone thought of a middle or upper-class white man. Why is it that "an American" is not a Hispanic female? I interpret the fact that people automatically think of a man to represent the average American to mean that many people subconsciously believe that modern American society is dominated by white men. Just as Louis Masur compares the photograph of The Soiling of Old Glory with a painting of the Boston Massacre, we can say that the U.S. is still dominated by rich white men like the framers of the constitution. So, has our society's viewpoint really become more progressive since the time of the Founding Fathers?