February 18, 2012
English 101
Do You Stereotype? Have you ever judged a book from its cover? Have you ever judged a person by his or her looks or, maybe something you heard about them? If so this is merely a common mistake people make. This is called stereotyping. Usually you have some prior concept on the topic or person. In “About Men” the author, Gretel Ehrlich stresses these simple mistakes that are made when coming up with a judgment of cow boys and their characteristic. The same stereotypes cowboys face as do poets. Poets are sometimes looked at as reclusive and over sensitive and in some case this may be true but not in all cases though.
In today’s society, the general concept of cow boys is covered by old western horse backing, shoot outs and salon fights portrayed in movies. This idea foreshadows the real concept of cowboys and what they stand for. Poets are very much alike. The concept of poets to the general public is that they are overly sensitive, stuck up and lonely. These stereotypes are untrue. I believe that the general public mistaken poets passion for their work as character. The Ehrlich gives prime examples of how in the case of cowboys, they can really be tender and caring and how society views can be so judgmental not just only on cow boys but on men in general or in this case poets . She goes to talk about the occupation of cow boys, which is to care for the farm animals, mostly cows though. Ehrlich goes to say that “ on some nights a cow boy can be caught sitting in front of an oven fire holding and caring for a struggling baby calf”(105pg) . This relation to animals is one of the author’s main points. Poets to some degree can have a relationship