Women and Society an Example by

Women and Society The novel Bridget Jones Diary is a good depiction of how a woman struggles to cope with the people around her while keeping in mind about the things that matter to her. It reflected how a woman balanced her life despite the challenges that she constantly face. One of these challenges is how to remain beautiful as time goes by, as people around you grow old. It showed a struggle to look beautiful, feel beautiful, and stay beautiful; a struggle to conform to the womens beauty myth. Need essay sample on "Women and Society" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed In this novel, the beauty myth was that women should stay sexy and beautiful no matter what happens. This is shown by the main character, Bridget Jones. In the novel, she is a woman in her 30s who s still single and overweight. She smokes a lot, and when she tries to quit, she finds it hard to do so. When she realizes that she is way off the womens beauty myth, she tries hard to do away with her vices and lose weight, as well as find herself a man to settle down with. Looking at Bridgets situation, we can say that she is clearly trying to fit in to the beauty myth, wherein the physical aspect is the most important factor of a persons beauty. In order to do so, she is willing to give up everything that she was used to, and is very willing to change her way of life (Kesselman, McNair and Schniedewind). She seemed unhappy with herself at that time, wherein she was single and overweight. Here we can see that the beauty myth is stretched out to mean that a woman cannot attract a man if shes old-looking and weighs a little more. They view that falling for someone is purely physical attraction, and that if you want someone to fall for you, you have to make yourself physically appealing, just like what Bridget Jones think. She lacks confidence in herself, thats why she is willing to do anything just to change. Another beauty myth being shown in the novel, Bridget Jones Diary was regarding aging. At the start of the novel, we see Bridget Jones as a 30-something single woman who doesnt have any love life. For her, she is trailing n the relationship bandwagon and she needs to catch up. Age seemed to be a defining factor in this novel, considering that as a 30-something-year old, Bridget thinks of herself as getting old, and that she has to change the situation. Bridget fears that at her age, no one would get attracted to her anymore thats why she resorted to flirting with her boss at work. Despite knowing that her boss is a known womanizer, Bridget still pushed her luck since she feared that it would be the last chance for her to have a relationship. At her age, she was fearful tat she might be too old to be liked by someone else. She then turns to making herself look younger in order to attract men. She tried to loose weight along with her bad habits, all these just to be young again. There are a lot of other people just like Bridget Jones. Even though the novel slightly exaggerated on her experiences, there are still a lot of women who can relate to her story. There are a lot of Bridgets out here living up to their beauty myths. Despite the negative connotation that the beauty myth has on people, the novel still turned out well for Bridget. She was able to find the man for her, as well as conquered her own problems with the beauty myth. Whats important is that you are confident that youre lovable. Physical traits are just superficial; in the end, all of us will grow old and look old, wherein which the beauty myth is impossible to apply. What matters most is what is inside, what we really feel and not how we look. Work Cited: Kesselman, Amy, Lily D McNair, and Nancy Schniedewind. Women: Images & Realities, a Multicultural Anthology. Third ed: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2002.

Population Geography Overview

Population Geography Overview Population geography is a branch of human geography that is focused on the scientific study of people, their spatial distributions and density. To study these factors, population geographers examine the increase and decrease in population, peoples movements over time, general settlement patterns and other subjects such as occupation and how people form the geographic character of a place. Population geography is closely related to demography (the study of population statistics and trends). Topics in Population Geography Closely related to population distribution is population density - another topic in population geography. Population density studies the average number of people in an area by dividing the number of people present by total area. Usually these numbers are given as persons per square kilometer or mile. There are several factors which affect population density and these are often subjects of population geographers study as well. Such factors can relate to the physical environment like climate and topography or be related to the social, economic and political environments of an area. For example, areas with harsh climates like Californias Death Valley region are sparsely populated. By contrast, Tokyo and Singapore are densely populated because of their mild climates and their economic, social and political development. Overall population growth and change is another area of importance for population geographers. This is because the worlds population has grown dramatically over the last two centuries. To study this overall subject, population growth is looked at via natural increase. This studies an areas birth rates and death rates. The birth rate is the number of babies born per 1000 individuals in the population every year. The death rate is the number of deaths per 1000 people every year. The historic natural increase rate of population used to be near zero, meaning that births roughly equaled deaths. Today, however, an increase in life expectancy due to better healthcare and standards of living has lowered the overall death rate. In developed nations, the birth rate has declined, but it is still high in developing nations. As a result, the worlds population has grown exponentially. In addition to natural increase, population change also considers net migration for an area. This is the difference between in-migration and out-migration. An areas overall growth rate or change in population is the sum of natural increase and net migration. An essential component to studying world growth rates and population change is the demographic transition model - a significant tool in population geography. This model looks at how population changes as a country develops in four stages. The first stage is when birth rates and death rates are high so there are little natural increase and a relatively small population. The second stage features high birth rates and low death rates so there is high growth in the population (this is normally where least developed countries fall). The third stage has a decreasing birth rate and a decreasing death rate, again resulting in slowed population growth. Finally, the fourth stage has low birth and death rates with low natural increase. Graphing Population Developed nations usually have an equal distribution of people throughout the different age groups, indicating slowed population growth. Some, however, show negative population growth when the number of children are equal or slightly lower than older adults. Japans population pyramid, for example, shows slowed population growth. Technologies and Data Sources In addition to census data, population data is also available through government documents like birth and death certificates. Governments, universities and private organizations also work to conduct different surveys and studies to gather data about population specifics and behavior that could be related to topics in population geography. To learn more about population geography and the specific topics within it, visit this sites collection of population geography articles.