Ethnography--continued

To continue my analysis:
From reading the Barker chapter this week I found that men also feel pressured to
conform to a certain ideal of masculinity, they are not being given alternatives to their
typical gender role, and are almost being forgotten in the rush to help women. As the
text says, "the central problem's of men's lives...are rooted in the adoption of impossible
images of masculinity that men try, but fail, to live up to."
DeBeauvoir would say that my observations show that women are still regarded as "the
Other" and can only define themselves in opposition to what a man is. All things
considered, I am tempted to say that neither man nor woman has a definite identity
without the other. Certainly man is tradtionally dominant, but without womans'
subordination they would be "up a creek without a paddle." So, what I'm trying to say is
that the signs of woman and man are equally interdependent on each other for their
meanings (and in the meanings is where the inequality begins).