My PoSiTiON PaPeR

My position paper is about how the society indoctrinates the girl into adulthood with the paternalistic values. In the story Boys and Girls, I think that the society has a more powerful influence in initiating the girl into adulthood rather than the nature. Naturally, a child will experience self-discovery on their gender roles and initiated biologically into adulthood through a rigid process called puberty. However, I believe that the girl’s initiation is basically influenced by the society. Her freedom for self-concept is denied through the indoctrination process. The word ‘indoctrination’ simply suggests that the girl is trained to be the ‘girl’ as expected by the society –who is weak, dependent and timid to their male counterpart and timid. According to the girl, the word ‘girl’ is no longer as innocent as the word child which indicates the girl’s oppression of becoming a ‘woman’ as defined by the society.

The society in the story has many ways to implicitly instill the paternalistic values on gender roles in initiating 'the girl' into adulthood. First and foremost, I believe that the grandmother and the parents are the obvious agent for the society to implement and demonstrate the values. They have many ways to control children's personalities and directly denies for the freedom in developing own self-concept. Besides, the parents’ chores simply demonstrate that men’s job is outside the house while the women remain with the household chores. I believe the rigid boundaries between the gender roles allow the society to prejudice and discriminate women existence. In fact, the word ‘girl’ in the story has negative connotation as function to belittle the women. After all, I think that other than the story ‘Boys and Girls’, there are many other story which demonstrate how the society contribute in the initiation process.