I felt that Dave Barry’s “Guys vs. Men” was a very humorous essay, but in some ways, it was also informative. Whether or not a person (especially a woman) wants to admit it, this essay’s content was pretty correct. Although I do not feel that guys are quite as simple as Barry tried to make them out to be (for instance, “And think how much happier women would be if, instead of endlessly fretting about what the males in their lives are thinking, they could relax, secure in the knowledge that the correct answer is: very little,” p. 81), I do feel that for the most part, guys are more relaxed and carefree than women, as this essay points out. Furthermore, I agree that there are two types of males: men and guys. However, I think that every male possesses about half and half. For instance, when a male sees another male hitting on his girlfriend, he might want to fight the offensive male. At this point, he would fall into the “man” category. However, only moments before the fight he might have been sitting at a bar with all of his friends seeing who could burp the most letters in the alphabet.
Burping males certainly fall into the “guy” category. Even though I am a female, I do see myself possessing some of the “guy” characteristics, like wanting “neat stuff. ” I am the type of person who will buy anything that looks impressive. My purchases range from a wireless cordless phone system that is far too sophisticated (and expensive) for my lifestyle to the perfect pancake maker (as seen on TV! ). Yet I do not feel that I am a guy, so I guess there is a female counterpart to the guy. I suppose we could call it being a chick.
However, I am not sure exactly what the characteristics and requirements for being a chick are. I do know, though, that if you ever witness a large group of females together, you can observe some of these less womanly characteristics. Dave Barry did an excellent job of making all people, male and female, question, observe, and understand both their serious and more whimsical sides. David Thomas’s essay deals with the differences in mental capabilities between guys and girls and factors that hinder their development.
He talks about how boys and girls have been scientifically proven to be better in different subjects (although there are always exceptions to the rule). Then he discusses the recent findings that girls are testing better and performing better in a classroom setting. He explores possible reasons for this including a prominence of female teachers in the classroom. I agree with Thomas’s opinion that boys suffer when taught primarily by woman teachers. The same is true of little girls; they will suffer academically and developmentally if taught strictly by men.
This brought me to the opinion that it is helpful to teach elementary and middle school aged children in same sex classrooms. However, I also agree with Thomas that older students should be in a mixed gender setting. As long as students are provided with proper training in their developmental stages, they will do fine when mixed with the opposite sex in high school, and social interaction between the two genders is essential for a teenager’s developing social skills. Nevertheless, Thomas does not discriminate against woman.
He recognizes double standards that females experience in the classroom. On page 121 he says, “In both Britain and America, researches have found that a woman who speaks as much as a man in a conversation, class or meeting will be though, by both male and female observers, to have been hectoring and domineering: we are, quite simply, used to men taking the lion’s share of conversation. ” I did not experience this in my high school courses, because I came from a small school where there were often ten people in a classroom.
However, I have experienced this double standard in my college courses. Guys in class are always spouting off facts (often incorrect) randomly and leading class debates, but when a girl tries to project an opinion, she is laughed at, shunned, or even drowned out by the guys leading the discussions. Yet I do not think this is the fault of the educational institution. The fault probably lies with the differing nature of males and females both physically and mentally that society has pressed upon us since an early age.
Dave Barry established himself as a “guy” in his essay, and uses the term “we” and “us” to group himself with the rest of the group as he writes. I feel that he would call David Thomas a “man,” because Thomas is using an awful lot of thought in conveying his message to the reader. Therefore, I imagine that if you put these two males in a room together, they would result in talking about the differences between Barry’s two categories of males and where Thomas falls into this. Or maybe Thomas would try to have an intellectual conversation while Barry passed gas or tried to provoke Thomas nto a burping contest. I feel that Dave Barry is trying to take the reader into the mindset of what he calls “a guy. ” He does this by using many examples, both personal and not. For instance, when discussing a guy’s passion for “neat stuff,” he talks about his own computer as well as “Star Wars, the recreational boating industry, monorails, nuclear weapons, and wristwatches that indicate the phase of the moon” (p. 374). I feel Dave Barry does indeed take the reader where he wants them to go, and he does this in an entertaining manner.
David Thomas is trying to explain to the reader the differences in males and females and the factors that affect their academic, emotional, social, and behavioral development. He uses studies, statistics, interviews, and personal experiences to present the reader with different situations that hinder education, especially for males. Although his article was not as humorous or entertaining as Barry’s, he did accomplish his task, and I felt the essay was interesting and worth reading.
