The Man We Carry In Our Minds Summary

Though, gender roles can be seen another way through different eyes. For example, someone living in the city may see men as stuffy, rich, relentless business men who make a game of knocking others down to get where they want to go. Meanwhile, in a poor, underprivileged countryside village, a man is viewed as a hard-worker who does what he can to provide for his family. Either way, in both cases, he is a slave to his own sex, just as a woman can be. Scott Russel Sanders, in his essay “The Man We Carry In Our Minds’, discusses this idea. “Warriors and toilers: those seemed, in my boyhood vision, to be the only chief destinies for men.” He writes. “They weren’t the only destinies, as I learned from having a few male teachers, from reading books, and from watching television…I could no more imagine growing up to become one of these cool, potent creatures than I could imagine becoming a prince.” (Sanders) Sanders’ words enforce the idea that if a small child is taught to believe a certain idea, they will believe that idea their whole lives. …show more content…
But if that same mother tells her young child that their father was a bad man, this child will, naturally, believe that. Such is the same with gender stereotypes: if a child is introduced to a type of man, like a worker or a business man, and they are around those type of men for the majority of their childhood, they are influenced to believe that this is all a man can become. If a child is around women who clean, cook, wear dresses and makeup, they believe that this is all a woman is- at first. Perspectives such as these are bound to change after a child experiences something new or sees something contrary to what they