Are those
who tend to criticize others simply trying to mask their own insecurities? Do
people have a tendency to get more upset about a critical (and perhaps
tactless) girl than they would about a boy?
Should girls be encouraged to speak up more, even when it is judged to be impolite?
First of all, a good question is, why people do criticize. I would divide our society into tree categories. The first category include those who want us to be a better person, or to do the things better. This usually covers our parents, bosses, and all the people that somehow rely on us. A good and maybe obvious example is, when you work in a restaurant and your boss sees you talking to a customer in a not decent way. Of course he mentions this fact as soon as he talks to you. Not to make you feel ashamed but to increase the quality of his restaurant. The people who want to make us ashamed fall into the second, and I would say the most popular category. Those are the people who want to mask their own insecurities and the only reason why they do so is, that they are just jealous. As an example, a girl at school is well-dressed, has a noticeable make up and every man who sees her has hearts instead of eyes. She will be attributed the word "bitch". And, clearly, all the haters will be women. The third group of people are just expressing their own opinion, without any kind of deep sence. They say the advertisement is ugly, because they do not like it. And this is what should be called the honesty. Honesty is something where Angelina Jolie's advice "Different is good." should be the main rule. From my point of view, the honesty in this case is telling YOUR opinion straight on a particular thing, no matter whether the opinion is positive or negative.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, another important part of criticizing people is the result. The main reason why people are not always honest or do not accept the criticism is, that our society is not used to hear the truth. When Natalie told something which was critical and honest from her point of view, she was called "a female dog". I cannot really tell how the world would look like, if everybody was honest and had no barriers in expressing opinions, as I guess this will never happen. However, I think that when you truly think about it, it would be good to know that you are stupid for what you did. Bacause you may not repeat same mistake again. But this does not happen because, as I said, the people are not used to hear the criticism and always bear it too personally.
Last of all, I do not think that people like Natalie have a bad personality. However, to fit into our world they have to learn how to live and feel the world. By feeling I mean to know when it is appropriate to express opinion. Beacause we, the mankind, have created the society full of intrigues. I would say the point of being a part of the society is politeness before honesty. On the other hand, we have always an opportunity to keep calm and be ourselves. We can be different and we can handle the pressure of society. We can be true, and we can die as humans. We can be the ones who will make the world better and we can be those who will be the instance. We can... so let's do it.
For a start, I would like to focus on a question whether and when it is good to criticize people and their actions. Let’s get back to Anet’s situation with a girl boys were attracted to, and other girls purely hated and criticized. Anet lately claimed that it would be good to know what you did wrong and criticism could help us to avoid making these mistakes again. However, if the pretty girl listened to the criticism from the jealous ones, she would probably never come out of her flat dressed like that even though she did not make any mistake and thus, criticism in this case would be clearly misunderstood.
DeleteOf course, I agree with the Anet’s point that criticism can help us. However, according to my opinion, criticism can be helpful only in the case that we belong to the first group Anet mentioned. And that is the problem. How can I know if the person wants to help me or just does not like me and his desire to criticize and insult me is only due to masking his own flaws? Probably it is impossible to know. For instance, in the case of Natalie Reilly and her experience with a man who called her “fat bitch”, has she ever thought of the possibility the man just wanted to help her and showed her she should lose some weight due to her health? I doubt it. Although it is improbable that the man meant it in that way, since his vocabulary and the way he said it shows us the contrary I still believe it is important to take into consideration also the other option.
The most crucial point is to take the criticism itself into consideration. Just into consideration and nothing additional. I believe we know ourselves better than anyone else and therefore we are the ones that should see our own mistakes and not let anybody persuade us about his opinion, just consider it. And the only way to achieve this point is to be honest at first with ourselves, and not think that we are flawless and everybody is against us.
Firstly, I admire the author Natalie Reilly because of how she survived her childhood. I do not take into the consideration the reasons why and whether she deserved that people acted and behaved towards her like that. I think there are two main types of people: these who would fall into a depression and it can slowly destroy them if it is not stopped and these who are able to benefit from it and become stronger. I just feel inspired by how she withstood it and can talk about it now.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, the remark of Pauline Frederick that when a man gets up to speak, people listen, then look. But that "when a woman gets up, people look; then, if they like what they see, they listen," is very inspiring and worthy to think about. These problems of not dealing with women equally and not respecting them come from history. It is not a long time ago, when women were not treated the same as men and had less rights as men had. Even though it is democracy nowadays (or at least we are told so), and the way people thing has changed a lot from the last century, we cannot expect things to get changed so quickly and rapidly. I do not consider women less important and impolite when criticising and speaking up, however there are still people who do. In my opinion the whole case needs only time supported with a plenty of respect from the both men and women.
In addition, I suggest that people should replace criticising and mocking with being honest towards others. However, a lot of people excuse their tactless behaviour by claiming that they are only honest. For this reason, being “honest” is either positive or negative attribute. Once I read a joke which perfectly describes it.
Job interview:
Interviewer: What are your negative attributes?
Applicant: I‘m very honest.
I: I don‘t think that’s a negative one.
A: I don’t give a damn about what you think.
I consider being honest towards the others as a fair behaviour unless I can really hurt someone. It is only a matter of the way we present what we think. Telling the truth or one’s opinion can be done in a mild way and can be useful for both sides. That is why I find Natalie’s fault finding hobby and giving loud mocking opinions on everything as tactless. As she said: “If I'm really honest I'd call myself a bully.”
Last but not least, being opinionated as Natalie’s male family members is something different than being boisterous and critical from my point of view. I believe that opinionated people have a big chance to succeed although this kind of behaviour can only be useful for people who behave like that while being tactfully honest can be useful for both sides. On the other hand, being critical and boisterous does not make anything good and useful as people behaving in such a way often become hated as Natalie did when she was young. Despite these facts, there should be no differences made between men and women no matter how they behave.
This comment is by Domink Bolerac:
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I have to admit that I do agree with A.Jolie's advice to be different. Many people in the world have their role models and they try to be as similar to them as possible. However, every human being is different in his/her own way, so we should try to be different.
Another point of her was "don't fit in." In our society, if you do not fit you are regarded as weird. It used to be a really serious problem if you disobeyed and did not fit. Let's get back to the era of Jacobinism in France. If you did not fit and said something that they did not like, you were sentenced to death. Yet, it has changed - you can freely say whatever you want unless you offend others. Since we can express ourselves and our opinions wherever and however we want, we should be more tolerant and should not "doom" others if they have a different opinion or they do not fit.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with actress Pauline Frederick. She was right when she said that when we, men, speak, we are firstly listened and then looked at, on the contrary, women are firstly looked at and then listened to. Majority of people would be interested in listening to a women who is tanned, skinny, with a big bust than to a women who is completely opposite to the first one. However, their opinions have the same value. The appearance have really great effect on the audience you, especially women are speaking to.
I really admire the author Natalie Reilly for her patience and self-control. In my opinion, many of us would not act the way she did, when a teacher called her a bitch, or if you were telling a joke to a friend and a stranger would shout at you: "Shut-up you fat bitch." We would definitely flew into a rage and "fight back".
What I really liked about the author was her criticalness. People should be more critical and should express their feelings and opinions honestly more often. We are told lies many times and lying is one of the worst options, as the truth is always revealed. Even though the truth sometimes hurts, many people would be rather told the cruel truth than a lie which would not "hurt" you.
Personally, I would say that people always need someone who starts doing something in order to get courage or to find a "soul-mate" as the author found in Tina Fey. When she saw that there were no negative consequences after Fey had mocked people and expressed her opinion, she found a woman in whose glory she could revelled. Then she could be more encouraged to express herself even more freely.
Although there are many points I agree with, I disagree with her point how to become a "bitch". I do not like the opinion of that boy who called out that women are good only for one thing. There is a different meaning between a "bad boy" and a "bad girl". As she mentioned, a bad girl is a definition to slender limbs, heavy eye-liner and a penchant for emotional manipulation. However, she added that being a bad girl accompanied with a mocking tone and calling shit out is enough to become a "bitch". However I would say, that being something like that is more about behavior and the way you act and how many boys you have had and so on. There are many pictures on the Internet and pictures from e.g. Snapchat are added in which are girls only in underwear and everybody regards them as bitches.
Here is the second part of Dominik's comment:
ReplyDeleteIn general, I would say, whether people get more upset about a critical girl or boy is more about your relationship to them. If we were told something by our very good female friend, we would take it much more serious than if we were told something by a stranger man or a man who does not know us that good.
Not only girls but everybody should speak up more, and mainly honestly, in order to make the World better. Many things would be solved if we were only honest. As I already mention, many people I know would be more satisfied with a cruel truth than to be told a lie.
The last point, or a piece of advice, of my is that the people who criticize the most should firstly look at themselves and at their behavior, and then judge others.
As Dominik has partially mentioned in his last paragraph, the only useful and meaningful way of criticism is to approach the people kindly. We, as human beings, have tendency to be over sensitive and easily offended. Consequently, the most important matter we cannot forget while criticizing the others is the careful choice of words and the way we pronounce the words. Moreover, especially good relationship with the person who we want to criticize or give advice to is essential. Only after accomplishing all the enumerated demands of mine, criticism may obtain the attribute - constructive.
DeleteAnother remarkable fact mentioned in the article and in Dominik's comment is frequently discussed gender inequality connected, this time, to criticism. Why should be there any difference between a woman speaking up and a man expressing his opinion? We live in the 21st century and thus everyone, not regarding the gender, has the right to freedom of speech. Our opinions can't be judged based on our gender, appearance and common prejudice people harbour. Moreover, there is a considerable difference between the way people look at a ‘bad boy’ and on the other hand at a ‘bad girl’. Bad boys are more likely to be loved and moreover admired thanks to their rude, vulgar behaviour while bad girls simply do not fit people’s convections connected to polite and obedient girls whose job is to cook and sit at home. The people who have sexual and gender prejudices as I have mentioned are, in my opinion, politely said, at least not intelligent.
Here is Sona Langova's comment:
ReplyDeletePeople criticize all the time. They are not satisfied with their lives, with the way the others live their lives, with politics, with the small salaries they have - and what is the only thing they do to enlarge their ego is criticizing. Maybe it substitutes a kind of satisfaction for them, to say bad things about someone else so they do not look so poor. A lot of those obstinate critics criticize just to mask their internal instability, unhappiness or anger.
Nevertheless, we can see a difference between a person who is criticizing just to make himself feel a bit better from a person who actually has a point and constructive criticism. The first type of people are those who are always against new ideas, whatever they are. They are not satisfied with anything you say, not depending on how big compromise you make. As they criticize, they have less and less friends, because people simply do not like staying and arguing with this kind of people. Eventually they become rancorous because their situation has not gotten better, in fact it has gotten much worse. However, the other type of people do not have a need to refuse every idea which is not theirs. They can accept other people’s opinions, and if they do not agree, they always have good arguments for their attitude. It is the most important thing if you do not want to look like a fool when criticizing - to have a good argument. Otherwise others don’t take it seriously and you only embarrass yourself.
On the other hand, if you do not exaggerate your criticism and somehow contribute to the discussion with what you say, it is always good to have a strong opinion. I remember that when I was at elementary school, I did not have an opinion on a lot of things, but those I had were mostly controversial ones and people usually did not accept them. It is sometimes hard to keep your opinion when others think it is not right. But if you really believe in it, keep it and say it aloud. I agree with what Angelina says, that being different and a little rebel can lead to success. Maybe your opinion is exactly the right one and people just do not understand it, but if you stand for it, you can change the way they look at the issue. It should be the same for men and also for women, even though we know that some people still think of women as of the weaker and not so self-assertive. What’s more, also a lot of women think of themselves that way, they have not enough confidence and therefore they are afraid to publicly say their opinions. Hence I think this should be changed, and if they want to be successful in their lives, they have to learn how to say what they want to say and be encouraged to do it even if it is considered impolite, even if others do not approve it.
I agree that some people criticize just for the sake of criticism to make themselves feel better. On the other hand I do not agree that we can distinguish the two types of criticism so easily. Soňa made it two simple to put people into two categories as if there were just good guys who make constructive criticism and bad guys who just criticize to enlarge their ego. The reality is far more complicated. All the people do both types of criticism and sometimes you just cannot distinguish which one it is without a huge amount of insight.
DeleteI do not agree that it is hard to keep an opinion if other do not share it. If you have good arguments which support it you do not change it just because if the most think something different. It is the quality of argument not the amount of people. Furthermore if you understand your arguments as much as you think you do you should be able to explain them properly and get some people to adopt the opinion and therefore not stay only in opposition for too long.
The problem with the non-assertive women is getting better every day. There are still more and more women who are not afraid to express themselves loudly for everyone to hear. And a lot of these women are smarter than the men who have been the only loud ones until now. So I have a message for all the men. BRACE YOURSELVES, WOMEN ARE COMING.