In our class we will explore texts from Greek drama and philosophy, as well as biblical passages and world literature, to examine the importance of the individual's struggle in the search for the Good Life. Here in this blog, we will question the concepts of “courage,” “free speech” and “civil disobedience” as well as attempting to discover the characteristics of the hero/martyr/saint.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Courage and Chastity
What kind of courage can women exhibit? Is it unique to the sexes? Or does it ask the same of each of us? How was this virtue denied to woman in the past?
Answering this question requires a definition of courage, so I will utilize mine: courage is the pursuit of good through accurate reasoning and perseverance. In this sense, women and men can exhibit the same kind of courage. Miller spends time explaining the position of women martyrs in early Christianity. In the issue of chastity, women and men have the same expectation of courage: to be chaste. Women have been denied courage by society attributing courage with manliness and positions that women did not have. Society also compares weak men with women, asserting an anti-courageous attitude upon women.
Using my definition of courage, that it is requires a consistent and conscious will that holds true to its values regardless of cost, I believe that women can exhibit courage in the same way as men. Because with this definition of courage, the variation for each individual is not that of gender or any demographic, but of their values. A woman can hold true to her values just as a man can hold true to his. Now, maybe these situations play out in different circumstances, but that does not take away from the courageous behavior of either. Courage is not unique to the sexes, but it can be played out in different scenarios for men and women. This virtue has been denied to women in that their courage was limited to their purity. However, I would argue that the courage that comes with remaining pure, for both men and women, especially in today's society, is certainly proof of courage, for it truly requires the consistent, conscious, and sacrificial spirit that sums up my definition of courage.
To begin with, I’m going to define courage (as I did in my paper) as knowing one’s fears but proceeding despite them. Using this definition, any logical modern person would say “Of course women and men both exercise courage!” Courage in its purest form is universal, unbiased, and completely HUMAN. Courage demands exactly the same amount of sacrifice, fortitude, and strength from a woman as it does from a man. As Miller explores in the text we read, women could not claim courage as their own until very recently. Historically, women simply were not allowed access to situation in which their courage would be seen. They could not fight, they could not work, they could not argue, they could not THINK without losing some other part of their virtue. It was virtuous, CHASTE, if women were quiet, obedient, soft... where, when living inside these chastity restrictions, could women even stretch their legs enough to be considered courageous? Miller talks about courage being denied women because in language it developed with masculine connotations. The connotations of the word itself made it incongruous for a woman to be given the title. All women could have was “chastity,” reducing their virtue to nothing more than how they handled sex. Pure courage, when stripped of its testosterone, is universal. However, there is a special strength in womanhood. There is strength in the generations of women that lived under oppression, violence, and prejudice. There is strength in the capability to create life within them. There is certainly strength in any mother anywhere for enduring childbirth. I had a Behavioral Science teacher in high school that taught us that women have a higher pain tolerance than men simply because what is biologically demanded of us is far more painful than anything biologically demanded of men. Women may not have a different “feminine” courage, but they have different, uniquely feminine strengths to draw upon to find their courage.
My definition can equally be applied to women. Although my paper did use masculine-preferred, that is more because of the nature of the language, as opposed to any particular notion about a lack of courage in females. I believe that it was denied to women in the past, just like women in the past constantly attacked men about their courage, as an evolutionary safeguard. In a sense, the women had to stay safe. You really only need one man to jump-start a population, but many more women. A man's masculinity was constantly tested because men had to always be on the lookout, to avoid getting soft, for the sheer survival of the species.
To me, courage relates to the personal identity of each person and its correspondence with the surrounding situation. In this sense, courage is different for everyone, one man's to another man's to a woman's to another woman's. I won't re dictate my entire paper, but I basically believe that courage is intentionally performing acts of goodness.
I agree a lot with what Kirby said about the history of courage's association with women. The natural role of a female creature (I'm talking just animal, not necessarily human) is typically to stay at home and raise/feed her children while the male defends the habitat. This proved consistent with tribes and cultures early in the arrival of humans, and the tendency carries today; no matter how hard men try, they cannot lactate. I think that this domestic role can be a very courageous thing, but it was not necessarily perceived as such. Courage used to be viewed as going into the battle field with your head high or facing a beast with only a spear or something like that, and when the men came back with an arm cut off, they were deemed courageous out of respect for their sacrifice of a limb for the colony (or city or country or wooly mammoth meal, whichever they were pursuing). Or perhaps out of pity. What do you say to someone who's just had their arm ripped off? "It's just a fleshwound?"
Using my definition of courage (courage means confronting fear, change or opposition while upholding high moral standards), women can of course exhibit all kinds of courage. However, the way in which they do so may be unique to femininity, just as the way men exhibit courage is unique to masculinity. This doesn't mean that courage asks different things of each of us; just that the way we each present courage might be different. Physically, women have always been able to apply this virtue. Mentally, however, women have not always been able to apply courage because of opposing forces and threats, which is ironic in reference to my definition since it has to do with confronting opposition...
Courage is the name for a manifestation of reason. Reason is accessible to all humans, regardless of gender. This, among other things, is what separates us from other life and in a sense "makes us human." Logically, if courage is an extension of reason, and reason is accessible to both men and women, then courage is accessible to both men and women.
The reason Miller cannot come to a conclusion so quickly is because he is looking at the societal judgement of "courageous" vs courage the virtue. While it is a worth while topic for exploration, it is irrelevant when talking about the virtue, because societal acceptance has nothing to do with how an act lies in accordance with ones nature.
Courage is the ability to physically and/or mentally overcome something which possesses characteristics of fear, difficulty, or uncertainty whilst at the same time maintaining one’s composure even when faced against overwhelming odds. My definition of courage applies to both sexes simply because it is an ability, and abilities are universal between the sexes. This virtue was available to women in the past, however, publicity of such virtues was suppressed compared to their masculine counterparts. Courage, in the past, has remained a relatively masculine form of virtue. However, recent changes in civil rights have completely changed this relatively narrow-minded worldview.
Courage: willingly facing a universal fear or danger for a noble cause.
By my definition obviously women can be just as courageous as males. Men have no special advantage making them more entitled to courage. In the past, women's role in society was never expected to surpass anything but family duties. Women were seen as weaker and not able to handle any type of danger outside of the family duties. This restriction on their lives made if difficult for them to be ever placed in a situation to show true courage (at least courage in the eyes of men.) Men were always placed in situations of war, or politics, where they easily got credit for anything worth mentioning. Women stayed behind the lines, watching the family. Obviously now days this has changed. Women are given just as many possibilities. It never had anything to do with women not able to be courageous, it was simply they were never allowed to opportunity to be courageous in the eyes of men.
Women can exhibit the same kinds of courage as men. There can be many different kinds of courage, and I would argue that the definitions that exclude women (or any person biased on factors of race or ethnicity) are erroneous definitions and not true courage. Courage should have no distinction between the sexes. Though the article we read brings up an interesting point about how courage can be viewed in different terms based on cultural aspects. Before modern times when there is relative (though still not complete) equality between the sexes, men and women were separate entities in the same society. In essence, they lived within different cultures (masculine vs. feminine), that each had their own definitions of courage. While each culture’s definition of courage may have validity, they were erroneous in the sense that they excluded certain people from ever obtaining their brand of courage; they sometimes just chose not to recognize those acts. However, men and women were just as capable of performing the acts that the other sex would define as courageous. I hope this makes sense, it sounds good in my head.... feel free to call me out if not. Women were once denied virtue because of their exclusion from definitions of courage that involve aggressive physical tasks. They were not allowed to fight, so they could never exhibit the virtues that a soldier is praised for. By this same standard, they were excluded from the cowardice that those men were venerable to. It is interesting that sometimes when society tries to suppress a group they give them some sort of trade off, as in this case. The article we read generally concludes that women once were excluded from any aggressive form of courage. Their courage came from passivity and endurance.
Courage is not unique to the sexes. My understanding of courage is that is the adherence to one’s belief especially through adversity. Both men and women can do this equally. In the past women were denied courage by suffering through oppression that allowed them little to no opinions or principles. Any notion that courage is “manly” demonstrated through valiant acts on the battlefield or facing their fears is untrue. One only needs to look at woman soldiers or any woman that left an abusive boyfriend.
I find myself in a bit of a conundrum here. My answer was very clear up until the second-to-last paragraph in the reading, but that small bit of text threw my entire view into question. Courage should be universal and completely sexless. Note: should. I am ashamed to admit that while I think women can and do commit courageous acts at level with those of men, I (personally) don't consider women cowardly when they don't. Thus, I must question if I truly believe women can be courageous at all. But now I'm talking about myself too much. Back to the question.
Certainly women of the past were denied courage by being physically restrained from committing courageous acts (though they had the potential if only given the opportunity). But that is clearly no longer...well...much less the case.
I'm gonna be a bit crazy. I think it would be best to use courage in the conventional sense rather than give it an operational definition as did everyone else. It allows more open interpretation for the reader. I like people taking things the way they want it to be taken. Woman’s rights. Where to start? A priori reasoning oppressed women and had forced them to live in kitchens and make sandwiches all the time (well, in layman's terms.) They eventually were tired of being used, broke-down, reunited, and stood for equal rights. Knowing that they were weaker, they still stood up for something that was ethically appropriate: the degeneration of social barriers (NOT to be sexist, but conventional social structure at the time implied that women were weaker than men legally.) Women then have courage, because the fought against a power and issue in which they had no idea the possible outcome. I, however, don't think that courage is a prejudice concept. Everyone (well, gen pop) has to face the same sort of challenges (except for maybe childbirth) in the same quantity, same degree.... that's just life.
First of all I must say that I particularly enjoyed reading this text and I definitely agreed with some of the main points made. I defined courage as a virtuous act of free will involving the existence of fear and the strength to overcome it. In this regard courage is indeed universal and can be displayed by both men and women alike. However, while I am entirely for women’s rights and equality I do feel that physical courage is more easily displayed by the male species. Now I am not saying that females cannot display physical courage, all the female soldiers out there fighting in war is an example that this is true. However due to the natural biological make up of our bodies I believe that males in general may be physically stronger and thus better able to display this physical courage. It is important to note though that courage is not all about the physical strength as this alone may not even be courage in itself. Courage requires a subjective evaluation of the inner struggle, it requires endurance of not only the body but the mind and I believe this is where women (in general) display courage still but in a different form. I do agree that in the past courage was denied to women based on what was seen as the traditional roles to be in the household taking care of their husbands and children. Now that there is some sense of equal rights in today’s society opportunities open for women to display courage and maybe eventually the stereotype that physical courage is displayed by mostly men would be completely removed.
Reinforcing my own theory of courage, courage is dependent on the person, not the action. I don't think that there is any difference between a man being courageous and a female being courageous. As long as the individual is facing fears in order to better his or her life, he OR she is being courageous. Since there is no standard for specific ACTIONS being considered courageous in my own definition, courage is not unique to the sexes.
By its nature, I don't think it is possible to ever DENY someone courage. I can't fathom a situation where courage is taken away from someone, either. It is not a tangible thing that one can refuse to let someone else have; Courage is made within the individual. Thus, courage was never DENIED to women in the past. They weren't treated equally or fairly, but they were never denied their own courage. They lived in different situations than men, so they used their courage in different ways, historically. (Also, I don't consider courage to be a virtue)
Although I don't think that women were ever denied the kind of courage that I defined, I believe that the conventional definition of courage has been used historically to refer to men. Women were denied courage in that the word courage was a masculine term.
Women can exhibit any type of courage they want. I believe anyone can do anything as long as they have the drive and ambition to do so. Courage is not unique to sexes, but I believe that because it has been portrayed so in society, everyone just goes along with the same mindset. Courage is all defined as the same thing. Everyone has the same requirements. Anything otherwise would be considered discrimination. Women in the past were seen as too frail, and the men, naturally more powerful, probably originally physically took power. Women used to be seen as objects as well, so this solidified the men's power.
having stayed up till now finishing a lab report, I am extremely tired and want to keep this briefer than normal ^__^
In my opinion, women can and do indeed express courage the same way men can. Courage is a HUMAN virtue, and women are indeed human, last I checked. Because courage is a human virtue, it is applied to each and every one of us. Courage is based upon the circumstance, not upon the gender or the person. Perhaps the reason people may think that women express a different virtue is because in the past, women were viewed as "inferior" to men, thus many rights were denied to them. Because of such oppression, and fear of consequences and punishment (to a certain extent), this may have prevented women from expressing any sign of resistance, and thus may lead to the misconception that they are unable to show courage.
My definition of courage is the ability to intend and act in accordance with one’s own beliefs in the face of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual adversity. I believe men and women can practice courage in the same manner. However, since my definition of courage discriminates by individual, then it's safe to say that identity factors into courage. Therefore, I think gender may play a part in courage. For example, a woman may have to work harder to be accepted into an environment with men. On the other hand, men may be, by nature and within their societies, held to certain "courageous" tasks women may not--like a draft.
Like Joe, I agree that you can't deny anyone courage. Courage is a value that depends on the individual and putting an outside label on someone does not stop someone from exhibiting courage. The true judge of courage has to be the individual, but if the individual does not recognize one's self as courageous, that power cannot pass on to anyone else.
That being said, as an outside label, courage has been denied to women in that their honor lay not in how many or how often women conquered tasks considered difficult, but in how well they protected their maidenhood or remained pure for one man to protect his lineage and future inheritance.
This gender discrimination for courage still exists--at least it did for me. Girls weren't brave--or at least as brave as boys had to be. Boys were brave. Girls were obedient and subservient. Boys didn't cry. Girls could. It really wasn't until middle school that I started thinking of the potential for girls to be equal to boys--that it was okay for a boy to cry and that a girl could be the one in the couple to drive the car.
Women can exhibit the same kind of courage than men can. However, since courage has become synonymous with manliness, people in our society have deprived women of the distinction of having courage. The gender inequality that is present between the men and women allows men to gain the virtue of courage while deny it to women. In reality, both groups are able to attain the same kind of courage.
I absolutely feel that women are able to be courageous. The definition of courage has nothing to do with gender. I feel like the only reason that this question is relevant is because of the traditional male dominance that exist in almost every society in history. no where in the definition of courage is anything mentioned about gender, so of course women can be courageous.
I believe that both sexes have the same general capacity for courage. However men and women have differing traditional roles in society, and if they decide to conform to these roles, then they will end up with overlapping but different sets of responsibility in which they are obligated to be courageous. This is not a unique distinction to the sexes. A writer must demonstrate a different kind of courage than a police officer and their is likely to be more overlap between there courage of a policeman and a policewoman than there is to be between a male writer and a policeman. But average variation in courage is undeniable in areas like child rearing. These areas are decreasing in their prevalence and importance on average. Women and men can now fill almost all of the same roles in American society, but some genetic differences and predispositions remain as do cultural norms. Although women and men have identical capacity for courage in the abstract and comparable capacity for courage in the particular, the expectations for the two sexes are radically different. This is true today and has been in most past societies. I am unsure to what extent this denies women (or men) courage.
I believe that courage, the ability to adhere to one's beliefs in spite of fears and obstacles, is harder for women at achieve. This is because of society and the progression of the ages. Double standards exist everywhere and women have had to work harder to get in the same position as men. That means their fear is a lot greater because the consequences of their actions are harsher.
Answering this question requires a definition of courage, so I will utilize mine: courage is the pursuit of good through accurate reasoning and perseverance. In this sense, women and men can exhibit the same kind of courage. Miller spends time explaining the position of women martyrs in early Christianity. In the issue of chastity, women and men have the same expectation of courage: to be chaste.
ReplyDeleteWomen have been denied courage by society attributing courage with manliness and positions that women did not have. Society also compares weak men with women, asserting an anti-courageous attitude upon women.
Using my definition of courage, that it is requires a consistent and conscious will that holds true to its values regardless of cost, I believe that women can exhibit courage in the same way as men. Because with this definition of courage, the variation for each individual is not that of gender or any demographic, but of their values. A woman can hold true to her values just as a man can hold true to his. Now, maybe these situations play out in different circumstances, but that does not take away from the courageous behavior of either. Courage is not unique to the sexes, but it can be played out in different scenarios for men and women. This virtue has been denied to women in that their courage was limited to their purity. However, I would argue that the courage that comes with remaining pure, for both men and women, especially in today's society, is certainly proof of courage, for it truly requires the consistent, conscious, and sacrificial spirit that sums up my definition of courage.
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, I’m going to define courage (as I did in my paper) as knowing one’s fears but proceeding despite them. Using this definition, any logical modern person would say “Of course women and men both exercise courage!” Courage in its purest form is universal, unbiased, and completely HUMAN. Courage demands exactly the same amount of sacrifice, fortitude, and strength from a woman as it does from a man.
ReplyDeleteAs Miller explores in the text we read, women could not claim courage as their own until very recently. Historically, women simply were not allowed access to situation in which their courage would be seen. They could not fight, they could not work, they could not argue, they could not THINK without losing some other part of their virtue. It was virtuous, CHASTE, if women were quiet, obedient, soft... where, when living inside these chastity restrictions, could women even stretch their legs enough to be considered courageous?
Miller talks about courage being denied women because in language it developed with masculine connotations. The connotations of the word itself made it incongruous for a woman to be given the title. All women could have was “chastity,” reducing their virtue to nothing more than how they handled sex.
Pure courage, when stripped of its testosterone, is universal. However, there is a special strength in womanhood. There is strength in the generations of women that lived under oppression, violence, and prejudice. There is strength in the capability to create life within them. There is certainly strength in any mother anywhere for enduring childbirth. I had a Behavioral Science teacher in high school that taught us that women have a higher pain tolerance than men simply because what is biologically demanded of us is far more painful than anything biologically demanded of men.
Women may not have a different “feminine” courage, but they have different, uniquely feminine strengths to draw upon to find their courage.
My definition can equally be applied to women. Although my paper did use masculine-preferred, that is more because of the nature of the language, as opposed to any particular notion about a lack of courage in females. I believe that it was denied to women in the past, just like women in the past constantly attacked men about their courage, as an evolutionary safeguard. In a sense, the women had to stay safe. You really only need one man to jump-start a population, but many more women. A man's masculinity was constantly tested because men had to always be on the lookout, to avoid getting soft, for the sheer survival of the species.
ReplyDeleteTo me, courage relates to the personal identity of each person and its correspondence with the surrounding situation. In this sense, courage is different for everyone, one man's to another man's to a woman's to another woman's. I won't re dictate my entire paper, but I basically believe that courage is intentionally performing acts of goodness.
ReplyDeleteI agree a lot with what Kirby said about the history of courage's association with women. The natural role of a female creature (I'm talking just animal, not necessarily human) is typically to stay at home and raise/feed her children while the male defends the habitat. This proved consistent with tribes and cultures early in the arrival of humans, and the tendency carries today; no matter how hard men try, they cannot lactate. I think that this domestic role can be a very courageous thing, but it was not necessarily perceived as such. Courage used to be viewed as going into the battle field with your head high or facing a beast with only a spear or something like that, and when the men came back with an arm cut off, they were deemed courageous out of respect for their sacrifice of a limb for the colony (or city or country or wooly mammoth meal, whichever they were pursuing). Or perhaps out of pity. What do you say to someone who's just had their arm ripped off? "It's just a fleshwound?"
Using my definition of courage (courage means confronting fear, change or opposition while upholding high moral standards), women can of course exhibit all kinds of courage. However, the way in which they do so may be unique to femininity, just as the way men exhibit courage is unique to masculinity. This doesn't mean that courage asks different things of each of us; just that the way we each present courage might be different. Physically, women have always been able to apply this virtue. Mentally, however, women have not always been able to apply courage because of opposing forces and threats, which is ironic in reference to my definition since it has to do with confronting opposition...
ReplyDeleteCourage is the name for a manifestation of reason. Reason is accessible to all humans, regardless of gender. This, among other things, is what separates us from other life and in a sense "makes us human." Logically, if courage is an extension of reason, and reason is accessible to both men and women, then courage is accessible to both men and women.
ReplyDeleteThe reason Miller cannot come to a conclusion so quickly is because he is looking at the societal judgement of "courageous" vs courage the virtue. While it is a worth while topic for exploration, it is irrelevant when talking about the virtue, because societal acceptance has nothing to do with how an act lies in accordance with ones nature.
I just want to say that I love Emma's comment that "Pure courage, when stripped of its testosterone, is universal."
ReplyDeleteCourage is the ability to physically and/or mentally overcome something which possesses characteristics of fear, difficulty, or uncertainty whilst at the same time maintaining one’s composure even when faced against overwhelming odds. My definition of courage applies to both sexes simply because it is an ability, and abilities are universal between the sexes. This virtue was available to women in the past, however, publicity of such virtues was suppressed compared to their masculine counterparts. Courage, in the past, has remained a relatively masculine form of virtue. However, recent changes in civil rights have completely changed this relatively narrow-minded worldview.
ReplyDeleteCourage: willingly facing a universal fear or danger for a noble cause.
ReplyDeleteBy my definition obviously women can be just as courageous as males. Men have no special advantage making them more entitled to courage. In the past, women's role in society was never expected to surpass anything but family duties. Women were seen as weaker and not able to handle any type of danger outside of the family duties. This restriction on their lives made if difficult for them to be ever placed in a situation to show true courage (at least courage in the eyes of men.) Men were always placed in situations of war, or politics, where they easily got credit for anything worth mentioning. Women stayed behind the lines, watching the family. Obviously now days this has changed. Women are given just as many possibilities. It never had anything to do with women not able to be courageous, it was simply they were never allowed to opportunity to be courageous in the eyes of men.
Women can exhibit the same kinds of courage as men. There can be many different kinds of courage, and I would argue that the definitions that exclude women (or any person biased on factors of race or ethnicity) are erroneous definitions and not true courage. Courage should have no distinction between the sexes. Though the article we read brings up an interesting point about how courage can be viewed in different terms based on cultural aspects. Before modern times when there is relative (though still not complete) equality between the sexes, men and women were separate entities in the same society. In essence, they lived within different cultures (masculine vs. feminine), that each had their own definitions of courage. While each culture’s definition of courage may have validity, they were erroneous in the sense that they excluded certain people from ever obtaining their brand of courage; they sometimes just chose not to recognize those acts. However, men and women were just as capable of performing the acts that the other sex would define as courageous. I hope this makes sense, it sounds good in my head.... feel free to call me out if not.
ReplyDeleteWomen were once denied virtue because of their exclusion from definitions of courage that involve aggressive physical tasks. They were not allowed to fight, so they could never exhibit the virtues that a soldier is praised for. By this same standard, they were excluded from the cowardice that those men were venerable to. It is interesting that sometimes when society tries to suppress a group they give them some sort of trade off, as in this case. The article we read generally concludes that women once were excluded from any aggressive form of courage. Their courage came from passivity and endurance.
Courage is not unique to the sexes. My understanding of courage is that is the adherence to one’s belief especially through adversity. Both men and women can do this equally. In the past women were denied courage by suffering through oppression that allowed them little to no opinions or principles.
ReplyDeleteAny notion that courage is “manly” demonstrated through valiant acts on the battlefield or facing their fears is untrue. One only needs to look at woman soldiers or any woman that left an abusive boyfriend.
I find myself in a bit of a conundrum here. My answer was very clear up until the second-to-last paragraph in the reading, but that small bit of text threw my entire view into question. Courage should be universal and completely sexless. Note: should. I am ashamed to admit that while I think women can and do commit courageous acts at level with those of men, I (personally) don't consider women cowardly when they don't. Thus, I must question if I truly believe women can be courageous at all. But now I'm talking about myself too much. Back to the question.
ReplyDeleteCertainly women of the past were denied courage by being physically restrained from committing courageous acts (though they had the potential if only given the opportunity). But that is clearly no longer...well...much less the case.
I'm gonna be a bit crazy. I think it would be best to use courage in the conventional sense rather than give it an operational definition as did everyone else. It allows more open interpretation for the reader. I like people taking things the way they want it to be taken.
ReplyDeleteWoman’s rights. Where to start?
A priori reasoning oppressed women and had forced them to live in kitchens and make sandwiches all the time (well, in layman's terms.) They eventually were tired of being used, broke-down, reunited, and stood for equal rights. Knowing that they were weaker, they still stood up for something that was ethically appropriate: the degeneration of social barriers (NOT to be sexist, but conventional social structure at the time implied that women were weaker than men legally.) Women then have courage, because the fought against a power and issue in which they had no idea the possible outcome.
I, however, don't think that courage is a prejudice concept. Everyone (well, gen pop) has to face the same sort of challenges (except for maybe childbirth) in the same quantity, same degree.... that's just life.
First of all I must say that I particularly enjoyed reading this text and I definitely agreed with some of the main points made. I defined courage as a virtuous act of free will involving the existence of fear and the strength to overcome it. In this regard courage is indeed universal and can be displayed by both men and women alike. However, while I am entirely for women’s rights and equality I do feel that physical courage is more easily displayed by the male species. Now I am not saying that females cannot display physical courage, all the female soldiers out there fighting in war is an example that this is true. However due to the natural biological make up of our bodies I believe that males in general may be physically stronger and thus better able to display this physical courage. It is important to note though that courage is not all about the physical strength as this alone may not even be courage in itself. Courage requires a subjective evaluation of the inner struggle, it requires endurance of not only the body but the mind and I believe this is where women (in general) display courage still but in a different form. I do agree that in the past courage was denied to women based on what was seen as the traditional roles to be in the household taking care of their husbands and children. Now that there is some sense of equal rights in today’s society opportunities open for women to display courage and maybe eventually the stereotype that physical courage is displayed by mostly men would be completely removed.
ReplyDeleteReinforcing my own theory of courage, courage is dependent on the person, not the action. I don't think that there is any difference between a man being courageous and a female being courageous. As long as the individual is facing fears in order to better his or her life, he OR she is being courageous. Since there is no standard for specific ACTIONS being considered courageous in my own definition, courage is not unique to the sexes.
ReplyDeleteBy its nature, I don't think it is possible to ever DENY someone courage. I can't fathom a situation where courage is taken away from someone, either. It is not a tangible thing that one can refuse to let someone else have; Courage is made within the individual. Thus, courage was never DENIED to women in the past. They weren't treated equally or fairly, but they were never denied their own courage. They lived in different situations than men, so they used their courage in different ways, historically. (Also, I don't consider courage to be a virtue)
Although I don't think that women were ever denied the kind of courage that I defined, I believe that the conventional definition of courage has been used historically to refer to men. Women were denied courage in that the word courage was a masculine term.
Women can exhibit any type of courage they want. I believe anyone can do anything as long as they have the drive and ambition to do so. Courage is not unique to sexes, but I believe that because it has been portrayed so in society, everyone just goes along with the same mindset. Courage is all defined as the same thing. Everyone has the same requirements. Anything otherwise would be considered discrimination. Women in the past were seen as too frail, and the men, naturally more powerful, probably originally physically took power. Women used to be seen as objects as well, so this solidified the men's power.
ReplyDeletehaving stayed up till now finishing a lab report, I am extremely tired and want to keep this briefer than normal ^__^
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, women can and do indeed express courage the same way men can. Courage is a HUMAN virtue, and women are indeed human, last I checked. Because courage is a human virtue, it is applied to each and every one of us. Courage is based upon the circumstance, not upon the gender or the person. Perhaps the reason people may think that women express a different virtue is because in the past, women were viewed as "inferior" to men, thus many rights were denied to them. Because of such oppression, and fear of consequences and punishment (to a certain extent), this may have prevented women from expressing any sign of resistance, and thus may lead to the misconception that they are unable to show courage.
My definition of courage is the ability to intend and act in accordance with one’s own beliefs in the face of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual adversity. I believe men and women can practice courage in the same manner. However, since my definition of courage discriminates by individual, then it's safe to say that identity factors into courage. Therefore, I think gender may play a part in courage. For example, a woman may have to work harder to be accepted into an environment with men. On the other hand, men may be, by nature and within their societies, held to certain "courageous" tasks women may not--like a draft.
ReplyDeleteLike Joe, I agree that you can't deny anyone courage. Courage is a value that depends on the individual and putting an outside label on someone does not stop someone from exhibiting courage. The true judge of courage has to be the individual, but if the individual does not recognize one's self as courageous, that power cannot pass on to anyone else.
That being said, as an outside label, courage has been denied to women in that their honor lay not in how many or how often women conquered tasks considered difficult, but in how well they protected their maidenhood or remained pure for one man to protect his lineage and future inheritance.
This gender discrimination for courage still exists--at least it did for me. Girls weren't brave--or at least as brave as boys had to be. Boys were brave. Girls were obedient and subservient. Boys didn't cry. Girls could. It really wasn't until middle school that I started thinking of the potential for girls to be equal to boys--that it was okay for a boy to cry and that a girl could be the one in the couple to drive the car.
Women can exhibit the same kind of courage than men can. However, since courage has become synonymous with manliness, people in our society have deprived women of the distinction of having courage. The gender inequality that is present between the men and women allows men to gain the virtue of courage while deny it to women. In reality, both groups are able to attain the same kind of courage.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely feel that women are able to be courageous. The definition of courage has nothing to do with gender. I feel like the only reason that this question is relevant is because of the traditional male dominance that exist in almost every society in history. no where in the definition of courage is anything mentioned about gender, so of course women can be courageous.
ReplyDeleteI believe that both sexes have the same general capacity for courage. However men and women have differing traditional roles in society, and if they decide to conform to these roles, then they will end up with overlapping but different sets of responsibility in which they are obligated to be courageous. This is not a unique distinction to the sexes. A writer must demonstrate a different kind of courage than a police officer and their is likely to be more overlap between there courage of a policeman and a policewoman than there is to be between a male writer and a policeman. But average variation in courage is undeniable in areas like child rearing. These areas are decreasing in their prevalence and importance on average. Women and men can now fill almost all of the same roles in American society, but some genetic differences and predispositions remain as do cultural norms.
ReplyDeleteAlthough women and men have identical capacity for courage in the abstract and comparable capacity for courage in the particular, the expectations for the two sexes are radically different. This is true today and has been in most past societies. I am unsure to what extent this denies women (or men) courage.
I believe that courage, the ability to adhere to one's beliefs in spite of fears and obstacles, is harder for women at achieve. This is because of society and the progression of the ages. Double standards exist everywhere and women have had to work harder to get in the same position as men. That means their fear is a lot greater because the consequences of their actions are harsher.
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