Why Boys Don t Play With Dolls By Katha Pollitt And Silko...

In our society today, there are many ways identity plays a role in how people live their lives, as well as how people are viewed or treated by others. A big part of a person’s identity comes from their gender. Men and women are raised differently, whether it be their beliefs and ways of thinking, how they view their future, or the actions they choose to take throughout their lifetime. In both Katha Pollitt and Silko’s essays, they discuss the differences in the lives of men and women and how these differences result from society’s expectations by using metaphors and life examples to explain their message to the reader, as well as allow the reader to connect to this message. In â€Å"Why Boys Don’t Play With Dolls,† Pollitt writes about the differences between growing up as a boy growing up as a girl. She brings up the stereotypes that society naturally creates between genders in early ages, which leads to the lifestyle and path that boys and girls are raised in. Parents and feminist alike play a big part in establishing these sex roles. They raise their kids wanting them to be successful at what they are expected to be good at based on their gender and the trend that has been set before them. In an excerpt from Pollitt’s essay, she references a metaphor of the lives of boys and girls through a doll and a truck, as well as Mars and Venus when she says, â€Å"A girl with a doll and a boy with a truck ‘explain’ why men are from Mars and women are from Venus, why wives do housework and