Katha Pollitt

Katha Pollitt’s “Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls” correctly argues that there is no possible way to avoid gender norms when raising children due to adult’s assumption and implementation of gender norms from a young age and society as a whole. Pollitt confronts the idea that even though parents are raising and shaping their children to be unique individuals they truly have no choice regarding gender norms because they are presented everywhere and simply cannot be avoided. “I Want a Wife” written…

of The Nation, Katha Pollitt writes an article entitle, "It Takes Two: A Modest Proposal for Holding Fathers Equally Accountable." In her essay, she attacks Newt Gingrich's current Personal Responsibility Act (PRA) saying that this act only recognizes the responsibility of mothers on welfare and the actions needed to be taken against them. Pollitt argues that the fathers of these children on welfare be held equally accountable by the legislature. To summarize the article, Pollitt states that…

In the essay, Why Boys don’t play with Dolls, by Katha Pollitt, the ethical issue of children being forced to follow roles that our society has based on gender. Pollitt’s essay was written 22 years ago, so the essay was written about how gender stereotyping was being handled back in 1995. Pollitt mentioned how NOW (National Organization of Women) was organized 28 years before she wrote her essay, and how, after almost three decades after the organization was formed, our society had not done much…

Pollitt provides a personal example, when she describes how her daughter is being exposed to gender stereotypes. The author mentions seeing progression of more women being the lead role in literature. Even though there are more books than shows that have a girl as a lead character, there are still way more books about boys. Pollitt states that girls, as early as preschool, are already learning sexism stereotypes. An…

article “Abortion With Apology”, Katha Pollitt persuasively argues that it is simply the woman’s body and nothing should stand in the way of what she wants for herself. Pollitt asks, “What’s praiseworthy about bearing more children than you can--or want to--take care of?” (Abortion Without Apology). She argues that abortion is a good thing for women and the society. She sees abortion as an agonizing decision to make in which all women feel somewhat bad about. Pollitt says that society doesn’t…

the should and shouldn 't do. Katha Pollitt in, "Why Boys don 't play with Dolls," she says, "Instead of looking at kids to "prove" that differences in behavior by sex are innate, we can look at the…

There must be a problem with society and the entertainment industry when there are people like Katha Pollitt that care so strongly about just a single essay like The Smurfette Principle, but it’s not quite as bad as she makes it out to be. She starts the essay by giving her child The Little Mermaid, and even though Ariel looks just like the other princess, she is active, brave and also the heroine of the story. This is not a common happening in movies because she states that only 9 out of the…

“But the thing the theories do most of all is tell adults that the adult world in-which moms and dads still play by many of the old rules even as they question and fidget and chafe against them-is the way it’s supposed to be” (Pollitt 2). In agreement with Katha Pollitt, even though gender roles are considered to be immoral in some cases today, mothers and fathers continue to implement them into their children. The principle of gender roles has been discovered by unconsciousness that has been…

fight against laws that are stripping them away. After the clandestine videos were released Planed Parenthood location started closing across the nation. After reading Katha Pollitt article “Come Out, Pro-Choicers!” I got a better idea of just how many people stand behind this issue and why they need to start fighting for it. Ms. Pollitt said this in response to Planed Parenthoods closing across the nation “Nearly one in three women in the United States will have had at least one abortion by the…

acquire freedom by banning an essential part of what makes us unique. Katha Pollitt seems to agree that banning their dress code on the sole belief that they only dress as such for religious purposes will not allow women to live freely. The only viable reason for banning their dress code on the grounds of limited freedom is “if wearing them were enforced by Muslim communities regardless of women’s own preferences” (Katha Pollitt, 2016, The Nation). Regardless of the reasons used to justify their…