This is the last post you can comment on for October.
It certainly
makes sense that American women would apologise more than say American
men. What other factors come into play
to make someone an apologiser? Does culture
come into play? How much do Slovaks
apologise? As an individual, do you
think you apologise too little or too much?
What about your society?
The article bring up an interesting topic of how “sorry” lost it’s meaning.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with most of the article’s points as they are very relatable to me.
In this day and age, people throw the word “sorry” around all the time. I struggled with over-apologizing for things I sometimes haven’t felt sorry for.
I think it has to do it how I’ve been raised. As a youngest child of 4, after every argument I had with any of my siblings, I was mostly the one to apologize as I felt inferior and “dumber” because I was the youngest.
This made me very over apologetic and as Zoe mentioned in the article, it made me think that my mistakes and imperfections were a much bigger deal than they really were.
I had very close friend until I did something that she thought was distasteful, as I realised that, I immediately apologized. The real issue lied that since I was the one apologizing all the time, I felt like I shouldn’t confront her with my issues with some of her flaws. So I totally submitted to her and later realised that it evolved into her manipulating me. Being over apologetic really gives power to your inner demons.
One of the worst feelings is hurting someone you care about, apologize, then hurt them again some time later the same way. Saying sorry is like taping a leaky pipe. It’s only a temporary solution to a bigger problem. The real solution was to learn from our mistakes and work to improve but throwing sorry at every mistake might make us skip the learning part.
Feeling regret without learning from it, basically leaves behind only a trail of suffering.
Finally, I do not like how the author is very vague about the issue addressed. Is it the issue of being overly apologetic in general? Is it how over-apologizing is the product of women still being subordinate in some cultures? The article begins with statements without any supporting evidence and then proceeds to very generally address the issue of over-apologizing without any mention of how it correlates with the initial statements or the title. I think the article should give some background about how women are expected — from birth or even before — to serve others' needs at the expense of their own, or not making this issue gender specific at all.
Reading the article really made me think about how much I personally apologize and how often the word “sorry” in the apology has an actual meaning. I never really thought of this issue until now, and realized there really should be boundaries and limits for letting the word “sorry” out of your mouth.
ReplyDeleteThe author’s point in the article about “sorry” loosing its value due to being used too often in sometimes even the wrong context, I can truly agree with. If you think about all the situations when you used sorry in the last week for example, you start realizing that it was way too often- when you were late to a meeting, when you accidentally bumped into someone’s chair, when you felt sorry about something someone else did… And these are just a few of the examples. The valid question should be: “When is the word sorry appropriate to be used without loosing its value?”.
The experiment the author talked about trying, when she didn’t use the word “sorry” at all, was interesting, but I personally wouldn’t live by it longterm. Its effects of feeling better when not apologizing for every single little thing is worth it, no objections there. But there are certain situations in my opinion when the the apology requires to contain the word “sorry”. If you say something rude to a friend or offend them in a way, even if you didn’t mean to at first, you should apologize. Sometimes it happens that you offend someone and they really take it personally, and that is the situation when you should feel truly sorry and let them know that you do.
When it comes to the gender and how women are believed to be apologizing more than men, even though there are not any concrete examples provided by the article, I have to agree with this one. It is generally believed that women have a higher rate of EQ than men and are generally more emotional. This confirms the fact that women do apologize more than men but I wouldn’t say it is always the “pressure” of society but the fact that they think differently from men.
In conclusion, I must agree with Marek about the part that the article firstly addresses the gender issue, but later speaks of it only in a very general way. It doesn’t provide background information about culture nor gender equality in this topic even though the article is supposed to be facing this issue. I cannot agree more with Marek with the statement where he mentions that: “I think the article should give some background about how women are expected — from birth or even before — to serve others' needs at the expense of their own, or not making this issue gender specific at all.” This was the part of the article, which I disliked the most as well, since it kind of contradicted with the initial idea.