Response to Blog

I am responding to Amy Rosvally's blog. Amy posed the question about whether or not society will change or if it already has changed. There are many ways in which one can answer this question and many different aspects that must and need to be considered. Personally I feel that even though our particular society has experienced some amount of change there are still many elements of society that remain the same and they go far beyond just merely what is beauty but also how we should live or lives.
We cannot deny that many of the images that children are exposed to can lead to things like eating disorders and very negative consequences later in life, and this is one aspect of our society that I feel has not changed at all. If anything it is getting worse, the addition of things such as America’s Next Top Model and shows about weight loss only reinforce in children and young girls that how they are now is not good enough. I am not a size 2 or even a 4 so I must be deficient in some way. This is the message that young girls and adolescents are receiving on a day to day basis. There are other aspects of society that has not changed that in some ways, though not as obviously, are detrimental to the health of individuals.
I feel that many people to this day still view life in more “traditional” ways. We are still encouraged to believe that someday we have to get married, have children and have that ever elusive white picket fence. What I do believe has changed are some of the things that I like to call the accessories. Now it is expected that both the mother and the father work when in the past this was looked upon with some amount of disdain, a mark of a lower class if you will. What has failed to change is the belief that in order to be a true family we must in fact marry someone and that children must and should result from the union. That aspect of our society has not changed and I have little hope that it will, at least not in the near future.
Other aspects of our society that many feel have changed for the better in recent history are those of gender roles. I agree that these roles have changed to a certain degree, yet when one looks below the surface they will see the iceberg that still remains. All one has to do is walk into any daycare in this country and see how many male employees they find. Or go to any technical school and see how many women are enrolled in their engineering program. Both of these two fields or professions are still dominated by one gender. This division can also be seen when one looks at people who are entering into a field that is more commonly for the opposite gender by societies standards. When women try to step out of their socially approved field and enter into what has been more commonly referred to as a male position they are commemorated for their efforts, they are seen as trying to step up in the world. The same cannot be said for when a man does the same thing. A man who makes the choice to work in a field that is viewed as women’s work he is generally seen as working beneath his potential or in some cases as a pedophile, because why else would a man want to work with little kids. These are the aspects of society that are truly engrained into are very thought process and instilled into the youth of society from birth. So while society has changed a little bit, there are still remnants of past gender segregation that are still present here in the 21st century.
So do I think that society will change, or are we going to forever dream about that fairytale ending? I think that society will continue to change in small increments over time, but if one looks closely enough they will still be able to see remnants of that fairytale, after all who does not want a fairytale ending?

Question: Why in a world that is obviously far from ideal are we still holding on to this romanticized ideals?