Looking at women by Scott Russell Sanders

Looking at women, an article written by Scott Russell Sanders has described how men look at women and how they perceive them. The article argues about mentality of men and describes their way of looking at women. Scott doesn’t agree with men’s perception even he has the same sex; he believes that men shouldn’t perceive women as objects rather they should give respect to women which they deserve. The author also agrees with the fact that woman is an integral part of the society and she should be respected and valued for her role in the society.

In the article, Scott demonstrates men’s negative perceptions about women. Indeed, he uses different factors to describe these issues. He underlines classification of men to describe their mentality. For him, saying that men having negative perceptions about women generally fall into three main categories which include construction men, adolescents and writers. He speaks about construction men as how they perceive women. For such men, atmosphere changes when a woman arrives in their work area and almost all of them start perceiving that woman as an entertaining object.

Scott doesn’t like this mindset of construction men and wants them to respect women because of their mothers, daughters, and sisters also belong to the same gender. Scott also describes how adolescents view women living around them. He speaks about the mentality of his roommate regarding women. Adolescence is a stage of life in which men perceive women as sexual objects and always think of them as sources of getting sexual satisfaction. Scott didn’t like the viewpoint of his roommate who believed that women are the sources of entertainment.

In the article, Scott wrote that whenever his friend passed by a poster of a woman, he used to observe the body of that woman from every angle. Thus, he opposes the mentality of his roommate and tries to explain that women are not to be perceived as objects; rather men should give them their due respect. The mother of his friend, Norman, also played a considerable role in shaping his viewpoint regarding women. Norman’s mother taught Scott that women are not to be viewed as objects as they also have feelings and emotions and it is the responsibility of every individual to respect the dignity of women.

She told Scott to think from the women’s perspective for a while in order to understand how a woman feels when she receives embarrassing comments from men. This question of Norman’s mother made Scott considered the emotional wellbeing of women. The viewpoint of feminist writers also played a considerable role in shaping the personal angle of Scott. Feminist writers used to portray a positive image of women in their novels and stories, which positively influenced the viewpoint of Scott.

Feminist writers appreciated the role of women in a society and tried to eradicate the negative concept of women from the minds of men. This attitude of writers really helped Scott to construct a positive picture of women in his mind. In the article, Scott quotes feminist viewpoints several times, which shows his personal part regarding women. The cause and effect relationship has been also shown in the article by the author. Scott describes how women feel when men look at them and convey awkward signals to them.

In the article, it is shown that women don’t feel comfortable when men stare at them. Scott tries to think about the feelings of women being stared by men. He illustrates that women start feeling like pieces of meat or sex objects when men stare at them. He believes that women’s perspective about themselves is affected by the negative assumptions of men about women. Scott always seems to be stressing on his viewpoint that all men and women are equal and there should not be any kind of difference between them.

He believes that women are a respectable part of society and no one has the right to play with their dignity by passing negative comments to them. Scott is against the general mindset of men regarding women. “If men have been brutal toward women, that doesn’t mean we have to continue being brutal” (Scott). He believes in the importance of women in a society. He appreciates the fact that women play for the upbringing of their children. He is against the mentality of those men who have little or no respect for women.

Scott believes that women also have self-respect and dignity but no one has the right to spoil their dignity by passing negative comments to them. In the article, Scott seems to be opposing the viewpoints and mentality of different groups of people. He seems to be shaping his viewpoint in accordance with the analysis of different viewpoints of other groups of men. The viewpoint and teachings of Norman’s mother influenced the personal angle of more than any other viewpoint or his own personal experiences.

Scott provides the viewpoints of different types of people about women in the essay and describes the effects of viewing women as objects. In the whole article, he seems to be questioning how men should look at women and how should they perceive them. Scott has left it up to the readers to shape their personal viewpoints about women. If readers feel that public’s viewpoint is true about women, they can support it whereas if they feel the way Scott feels about women, they can easily find the answer that men should stop viewing women as objects and should give them their deserved status in the society.