Advertising’s Effects on Body Image
Over 90% of Americans households have televisions and, on average, an American watches a bit less than a thousand television ads weekly. With such intense exposure to ads, surely they are affecting the viewers. Nowadays, women are often portrayed in ads as seductive, flirtatious, beautiful, and incredibly thin. Women are bombarded with these images of “the perfect woman” and become insecure about themselves when they are unable to achieve such beauty. Especially in ads, even the models are enhanced to have absolute beauty. How can women with no such filter on them be expected to compare? Particularly in TV shows, characters are often seen eating or snacking with no weight gain. Women are confused by the fact that characters on TV can maintain their less than average weight while not paying attention to the food that they consume or making sure they are eating a healthy, balanced meal. Mass media tells people that only certain standards and types of beauty are acceptable in current society and that they should conform to fit in with those standards. Unfortunately, it is portrayed through advertisement that the way to achieve such beauty ideals is through using their product, a cream or new diet that is “sure” to show quick results. Because women in such advertisements are essentially unreal (airbrushed to perfection), these ads foster body dissatisfaction among women. Advertisement in modern society is having a negative effect on women’s body image and letting women watch such ads is detrimental to their well-being.
Advertisements can be harmful to people’s mental health as shown by an experiment done by Philip N Myers Jr and Frank A Biocca. Surprisingly enough, immediately after exposure to advertisements starring women airbrushed to perfection, women actually felt better about themselves and saw themselves as closer to their ideal body size. The authors hypothesize that advertisements have a short term euphoric effect until women see the reality of the issue: that they happiness do not look like the models in the ads. After the euphoria wears off, women are hit with reality and feel worse about themselves than they did before the advertisement. The study even uncovered signs of mild depression in the women after the initial euphoria ended. Essentially, women are watching ads that make them happy enough to make them purchase the product but that then cause depression and the feeling of inadequacy.
Because of current technology, it is possible for advertisers to enhance images of people in ads and movies. People use programs like Photoshop and Aftereffects to create perfect images of women without flaws. Although unrealistic, these images are being imprinted onto the minds of teens and children as being the social norm for appearances. In fact, even people who are aware of the blatant misrepresentation of women in ads are affected by them. In an experiment done by Howard Lavine, Donna Sweeney, and Stephen Wagner, feminists and non-feminists alike were found to be negatively affected by ads and, “although feminists were more rejecting of the sexist ads when explicitly asked to evaluate them, they were no more impervious to their influence than were nonfeminists” (Lavine 1056). Women are affected by advertisements even when they know that they are watching ads that show women who are incredibly digitally enhanced.
Showing such unreal representations of people is harmful to the physical health of both women and men. While women feel as though they are overweight, men are afflicted with the opposite insecurity: they wish to be bigger. Being shown images of muscular men showered with attention by beautiful women makes men insecure about their size as well. There is a new term for men afflicted with body dissatisfaction: bigorexia. Men have increasingly wanted to make themselves bigger and stronger because of the way that men are portrayed in the media. Surprising as it is, studies have shown that men imagine themselves as much thinner than they actually are (Lavine) and may exercise excessively to remedy their insecurities about their size.
The term “bigorexia” is a play on the word “anorexia”. Anorexia, also called anorexia nervosa, is an eating disorder that causes distorted body image, and continuous attempts at weight loss. People with anorexia force themselves to stop eating in order to lose weight, and often become underweight to the point of being unhealthy. Women are ten times more prone to this disorder than men- because of advertising. In fact, advertising has been linked to causing body image dissatisfaction- the main cause of anorexia. Women with anorexia are often very successful women who feel as though they are out of control of their body. Studies show that “weight loss becomes a sign of mastery, control, and virtue...success or failure at weight control becomes a symbol of the ability to control life in general” (Myers 113). Unfortunately, anorexia is a very dangerous mental condition which often leads to health problems and even death.
Another disorder that is prevalent among young people is bulimia nervosa. Very similar to anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa is when people binge eat and purge by vomiting, or using laxatives. About one percent of women are said to have bulimia nervosa. Although it is more common than anorexia nervosa, it is said to have less long term side effects and it is less dangerous. Bulimia nervosa is also linked to body image dissatisfaction which is an effect of advertising. Obviously, men and women are both negatively affected by advertising. They are unhappy with their personal body image and ruin their physical health trying to become satisfied with themselves.
Because many other countries are being influenced by Western media, many countries in the world are trying to help their residents by reducing the amount of sexist and unrealistic advertisements that they are exposed to. Fijians, in particular, were always known for being proud of having a larger body size, but “after the arrival of television in 1995, dominated by Western broadcast programmes and films, Fijian society noted a drastic increase in eating disorders and general dissatisfaction with physical appearances” (Sepulveda 54). Advertisements completely changed the way that an entire society functioned by making them insecure about their natural body types. This statistic seems to prove that advertisements have a negative effect on society because a community which once prized heavy weight had a drastic change in the time period after they were introduced to Western culture. In addition, women who spent most of their lives in the United States had the highest likelihood of getting an eating disorder- no matter what culture they belonged to before. A solution to this increasing problem will only be found once the media begins to promote a more normal body image and healthy strategies for achieving it.
Children, teens, women, and men all over the world are being affected by advertising. Teenagers are looking to TV shows for role models and all they are shown are stick thin beauties. As they watch their favorite television shows, the message is being ingrained in their minds that to be beautiful is to be thin. To be beautiful is to weigh less than others, have hip bones, ribs, and collar bones jutting out- to be beautiful is to be the perfect airbrushed images shown in advertisements. “Beauty” in today’s society is unachievable without computer enhancement. Beauty should not be a term that is constrained by size, shape, color, or any other physical element. Advertising as a whole should be revised in order to make people feel better about themselves- not worse. Perhaps if advertising began to promote a healthier lifestyle and more achievable body images, people would have higher self esteem and the world would be a happier place.
Works Cited
Sweeney, Donna, and Stephen H. Wagner. "Depicting Women as Sex Objects in Television
Advertising: Effects on Body Dissatisfaction."
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. By
Howard Lavine. 8th ed. Vol. 25. N.p.: Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 1999.
1049-058. Print.
Ana R. Sepúlveda and María Calado (2012). Westernization: The Role of Mass Media on Body
Image and Eating Disorders, Relevant topics in Eating Disorders, Prof. Ignacio Jáuregui Lobera
(Ed.), ISBN: 978-953-51-0001-0, InTech
Myers, Philip N., Jr., and Frank A. Biocca. "The Elastic Body Image: The Effect of Television
Advertising and Programming on Body Image Distortions in Young Women." Journal of
Communication (1992): 108-32. Web. 22 May 2013.
Fly on the Wall Project- Noctua Pronuba
The life-bringer abruptly brightens the space around me. Too much light floods my sensors at once: I am too far aboveground. The winged monster could easily find me here and fall out off the blue expanse to snap me up in its lethal jaws. I feel no hunger, no need for the nutrition brought by digesting plant offspring, so what has brought me away from the safety in the tunnels in the moist, succulent, earth? The life-bringer gives off a strange light at this time of day. I must burrow. I nudge and push through the dirt around me, taking comfort in the familiarity of the scent around me. An unfamiliar scent. What IS that? I MUST burrow to survive.
I continue scooching directly beneath the topsoil. I propel myself forward. The seemingly artificial light emanating from the life-bringer above makes my gut churn. It makes me uneasy and I want to move away from the unknown, strange smell. Suddenly, my body refuses to continue downwards. I have hit the bottom of earth, and there to greet me is an invisible rock. I can see what appears to be quite a distance under the rock: wood, like the bark of a skinned tree, polished clean by my friends, the termites. Bark. My stomach scrapes the invisible rock as I make my way around. I am in an enclosure with no known way out. How did I get in then? I am exhausted from the digging. My energy is gone and I need to resurface to find nourishment. Hopefully, that strange smell will have disappeared by the time I am able to crawl back. I stretch my vision centers above the earth, no visible threats but the sky has suddenly become cloudy. Very cloudy. In my twelve cycles of the moon I have never seen such a thing. I am surrounded by strange plant life. An unfamiliar purple flowered stem lies next to me. Plant offspring have been harshly ripped from their mother and are scattered around my long body. The green has not yet escaped their limbs but they seem withered. A buzzing around my head. My light sensors swivel to detect the origin of the noise. Another prisoner has been trapped with me in this world full of invisible rock. A companion. She is smaller than my thorax and seems to be in a perpetual state of frenzy. She flits about my head, her wings grazing the invisible walls, her multi-faceted eyes barely missing the low sky. She appears harmless so I signal her attention.
“Greetings, miss, I am he called Noctilus. Noct to friends. What are you called?”
She notices me and dives behind the purple flowers. Out of sight. I hear her buzzing again; it is not a language that I have learned in my burrowing time. I do not lose interest but I can feel my need for nourishment more strongly now. My transformation is almost upon me. I can feel it settling in as a shadow over the sun. Soon I will have wings to escape this prison. I scootch my way across the dirt, I smell food-stuff that seems to promise nourishment. It is not far, I think that nothing is far in this invisible dungeon and there is an excess of food. My companion (I have no name for her) has eaten none of it. I feel my body expand as I gorge myself. In this new, strange world, who know when I will eat again?
Suddenly, the ground moves beneath me, jarring me away from the sustenance I have found. It begins to roll toward me. I am unsafe. I must burrow. I must burrow. What will become of my companion? I must burrow. Under the dirt, against the invisible rock, the wood disappears and it seems that I am flying yet falling. Is this how it feels to have wings? I am jostled from the safety of the dirt. The sky brightens suddenly, and a hand enters my enclosure. I am poked and prodded by its appendages- and my story floods my mind:
Under the leafy protection of the underbrush, I crawled towards the scent of rotting fruit. It smelled heavenly to my growing and molting body. The dirt surrounded me as I made my way through it and the life-bringer warmly embraced my back. I had never smelled something so delicious. Suddenly, the dirt disappeared underneath me. I fell into a white containment device. Others had already fallen victim to the trap and I was accompanied by a beetle and a small, eight-legged creature, frantically trying to attach silk to the smooth surface around us. Moments later, the hand covered our enclosure and the ground began to shake beneath us. I took cover beneath the fruit and waited out the ride. As we rode for what seemed an eternity, the fruit fell onto me and my vision went out. My memory of events after that faded.
The hand pinches its long appendages around my body, squeezing me uncomfortably. I feel the ground disappear beneath me and I am suspended in the sky by the pinching appendages. I am placed into a different environment where I am able to see my captor more clearly. A stranger animal I have rarely ever seen. Its hand alone seems many times bigger than my body, and its body is larger still. Where have I been transported? Why have I not yet been eaten by this monster? My vision sensors adjust to the strange light around me. I am in a huge box. It is big enough by far to hold many of these large monsters. Perhaps it is a nest of some sort? The light is coming from a circle in the ceiling. There is noise coming from a smaller box in front of me. This box also emanates light and what appear to be monsters of the same species (but no bigger than me) run around behind a screen. It is strange. Why are they so small while the others are so large? Are these beings behind the screen babies or just a smaller size? I must burrow. My curiosity is sparked by my environment, the monster stands in front of me, and a mechanism in its hands lets off bright flashes of light while making clicking noises. I must burrow. I try, but there is no dirt beneath me. How do these monsters live in a world without dirt? Will I be eaten or will I be freed? Or is there no freedom from this strange new life?
There are more than one monster. The one that has taken me from my prison is the smallest. It has long fur on its head curling away from its scalp. It is the one that handles me most often. There is also a smaller species of monster. Fur-covered and four-legged. That monster is the scariest. It seems to have no rational thought, it instead wants to eat me. MY monster protects me from this ruthless beast. My monster. It seems strange to think, but I do feel a sort of fondness to it. It gives me nourishment, it has not yet hurt me. I feel no need to constantly burrow. The world is so much more beautiful than ground is. How have I never noticed before? Perhaps when I begin my ascent after my transformation, the world will always appear this light to me. Will my transformation cause me to lose the feelings that I have? I sometimes find myself dreaming of wings. Wings. Speckled, striped, colored. Fluttering in the gentle morning breeze. Wings. In these dreams, I am joined by others, winged and flawless. Mine are brown, plain, with a flash of yellow underbelly but the others’, their wings are colorful, exciting. My breath catches in my throat just to imagine such a thing. Do these beings of such magnificent beauty exist? Or are they confined to my imagination? Of course not. They could not be contained by such a feeble thing as imagination. And they are too amazing for me to have thought up.
I am replaced in my prison, but my thoughts are not as collected as before. My mind spins. Maybe I am merely dizzy from my descent into this container. But, no. My physical body appears usual to me. It is my mind that is causing this disorientation.
What am I meant to do? I think of my companion. Where has she gone? Worries flow through me. Perhaps she was killed....perhaps I am next.
My days slip by in a haze. I am surrounded by thoughts and abnormal daylights. The hand periodically comes to me, but the monster attached to it has not approached me recently. My days are silent and alone.
Another earthquake. They come frequently. But I have no cares to be underground and in safety. All I wish for now is company. Or excitement. Or wings. Where has my companion gone?
The hand enters then exits my prison, leaving behind another piece of nourishment. I am vulnerable. I must burrow. Under the dirt, my body begins to betray me. My spinnerets emerge. My brain begins to rewire, I must find a safe place to begin my change. I crawl my way back to the surface. I am momentarily shocked by the dramatic change that my environment has undergone. The life-bringer has disappeared suddenly and my sensors can not adjust to the sudden darkness. I am caught in a strange, breezeless, moonless night. How can I find a safe twig in this utter black that surrounds me? My mind reels. In other such unusual situations, I have escaped into the safety of the earth but now I have no such option. I must find a safe place. Safe, but aboveground. I wonder after my companion. I do not hear her buzzing, which has now become familiar in this strange world that I have entered. I must find a safe place. I crawl along the sides of my enclosure, my stomach clenches as I silently beg my body not to continue its changing. My body brushes against the purple flowers as I pass. Flowers. Flowers grow on plants. I vaguely remember a stem extending to the edge of each side of my prison. If I can find my way to that plant, I will be relatively safe. Not safe, but I can think no other choice. I must find a safe place.
I crawl my way to the plant. I need nourishment. I must find safety. After I change, what will I become? Will I begin to understand such languages as my companion’s? What will I remember from my past? I must find safety. My body spins silk even as I work my way up the plant. I am beginning to stiffen on one end as my body engulfs itself in the fabric of my chrysalis. I can see myself, licking the sweet juice from brightly colored flowers, some such as the purple ones in this prison. Maybe they will be my source of nourishment after I have transformed. No, once I transform, I will leave this place and return to the freedom of my past. My sensors begin to blur. I can no longer see the world around me. Pain fills my stomach. I feel as though I’m being ripped apart as my body spins out thread. I am digesting myself from the inside out. Am I safe? I must continue spinning. My body is halfway covered in silk, and I no longer feel anything. Is this the beginning of my transformation, or the beginning of my death? The darkness settles around me.
I continue scooching directly beneath the topsoil. I propel myself forward. The seemingly artificial light emanating from the life-bringer above makes my gut churn. It makes me uneasy and I want to move away from the unknown, strange smell. Suddenly, my body refuses to continue downwards. I have hit the bottom of earth, and there to greet me is an invisible rock. I can see what appears to be quite a distance under the rock: wood, like the bark of a skinned tree, polished clean by my friends, the termites. Bark. My stomach scrapes the invisible rock as I make my way around. I am in an enclosure with no known way out. How did I get in then? I am exhausted from the digging. My energy is gone and I need to resurface to find nourishment. Hopefully, that strange smell will have disappeared by the time I am able to crawl back. I stretch my vision centers above the earth, no visible threats but the sky has suddenly become cloudy. Very cloudy. In my twelve cycles of the moon I have never seen such a thing. I am surrounded by strange plant life. An unfamiliar purple flowered stem lies next to me. Plant offspring have been harshly ripped from their mother and are scattered around my long body. The green has not yet escaped their limbs but they seem withered. A buzzing around my head. My light sensors swivel to detect the origin of the noise. Another prisoner has been trapped with me in this world full of invisible rock. A companion. She is smaller than my thorax and seems to be in a perpetual state of frenzy. She flits about my head, her wings grazing the invisible walls, her multi-faceted eyes barely missing the low sky. She appears harmless so I signal her attention.
“Greetings, miss, I am he called Noctilus. Noct to friends. What are you called?”
She notices me and dives behind the purple flowers. Out of sight. I hear her buzzing again; it is not a language that I have learned in my burrowing time. I do not lose interest but I can feel my need for nourishment more strongly now. My transformation is almost upon me. I can feel it settling in as a shadow over the sun. Soon I will have wings to escape this prison. I scootch my way across the dirt, I smell food-stuff that seems to promise nourishment. It is not far, I think that nothing is far in this invisible dungeon and there is an excess of food. My companion (I have no name for her) has eaten none of it. I feel my body expand as I gorge myself. In this new, strange world, who know when I will eat again?
Suddenly, the ground moves beneath me, jarring me away from the sustenance I have found. It begins to roll toward me. I am unsafe. I must burrow. I must burrow. What will become of my companion? I must burrow. Under the dirt, against the invisible rock, the wood disappears and it seems that I am flying yet falling. Is this how it feels to have wings? I am jostled from the safety of the dirt. The sky brightens suddenly, and a hand enters my enclosure. I am poked and prodded by its appendages- and my story floods my mind:
Under the leafy protection of the underbrush, I crawled towards the scent of rotting fruit. It smelled heavenly to my growing and molting body. The dirt surrounded me as I made my way through it and the life-bringer warmly embraced my back. I had never smelled something so delicious. Suddenly, the dirt disappeared underneath me. I fell into a white containment device. Others had already fallen victim to the trap and I was accompanied by a beetle and a small, eight-legged creature, frantically trying to attach silk to the smooth surface around us. Moments later, the hand covered our enclosure and the ground began to shake beneath us. I took cover beneath the fruit and waited out the ride. As we rode for what seemed an eternity, the fruit fell onto me and my vision went out. My memory of events after that faded.
The hand pinches its long appendages around my body, squeezing me uncomfortably. I feel the ground disappear beneath me and I am suspended in the sky by the pinching appendages. I am placed into a different environment where I am able to see my captor more clearly. A stranger animal I have rarely ever seen. Its hand alone seems many times bigger than my body, and its body is larger still. Where have I been transported? Why have I not yet been eaten by this monster? My vision sensors adjust to the strange light around me. I am in a huge box. It is big enough by far to hold many of these large monsters. Perhaps it is a nest of some sort? The light is coming from a circle in the ceiling. There is noise coming from a smaller box in front of me. This box also emanates light and what appear to be monsters of the same species (but no bigger than me) run around behind a screen. It is strange. Why are they so small while the others are so large? Are these beings behind the screen babies or just a smaller size? I must burrow. My curiosity is sparked by my environment, the monster stands in front of me, and a mechanism in its hands lets off bright flashes of light while making clicking noises. I must burrow. I try, but there is no dirt beneath me. How do these monsters live in a world without dirt? Will I be eaten or will I be freed? Or is there no freedom from this strange new life?
There are more than one monster. The one that has taken me from my prison is the smallest. It has long fur on its head curling away from its scalp. It is the one that handles me most often. There is also a smaller species of monster. Fur-covered and four-legged. That monster is the scariest. It seems to have no rational thought, it instead wants to eat me. MY monster protects me from this ruthless beast. My monster. It seems strange to think, but I do feel a sort of fondness to it. It gives me nourishment, it has not yet hurt me. I feel no need to constantly burrow. The world is so much more beautiful than ground is. How have I never noticed before? Perhaps when I begin my ascent after my transformation, the world will always appear this light to me. Will my transformation cause me to lose the feelings that I have? I sometimes find myself dreaming of wings. Wings. Speckled, striped, colored. Fluttering in the gentle morning breeze. Wings. In these dreams, I am joined by others, winged and flawless. Mine are brown, plain, with a flash of yellow underbelly but the others’, their wings are colorful, exciting. My breath catches in my throat just to imagine such a thing. Do these beings of such magnificent beauty exist? Or are they confined to my imagination? Of course not. They could not be contained by such a feeble thing as imagination. And they are too amazing for me to have thought up.
I am replaced in my prison, but my thoughts are not as collected as before. My mind spins. Maybe I am merely dizzy from my descent into this container. But, no. My physical body appears usual to me. It is my mind that is causing this disorientation.
What am I meant to do? I think of my companion. Where has she gone? Worries flow through me. Perhaps she was killed....perhaps I am next.
My days slip by in a haze. I am surrounded by thoughts and abnormal daylights. The hand periodically comes to me, but the monster attached to it has not approached me recently. My days are silent and alone.
Another earthquake. They come frequently. But I have no cares to be underground and in safety. All I wish for now is company. Or excitement. Or wings. Where has my companion gone?
The hand enters then exits my prison, leaving behind another piece of nourishment. I am vulnerable. I must burrow. Under the dirt, my body begins to betray me. My spinnerets emerge. My brain begins to rewire, I must find a safe place to begin my change. I crawl my way back to the surface. I am momentarily shocked by the dramatic change that my environment has undergone. The life-bringer has disappeared suddenly and my sensors can not adjust to the sudden darkness. I am caught in a strange, breezeless, moonless night. How can I find a safe twig in this utter black that surrounds me? My mind reels. In other such unusual situations, I have escaped into the safety of the earth but now I have no such option. I must find a safe place. Safe, but aboveground. I wonder after my companion. I do not hear her buzzing, which has now become familiar in this strange world that I have entered. I must find a safe place. I crawl along the sides of my enclosure, my stomach clenches as I silently beg my body not to continue its changing. My body brushes against the purple flowers as I pass. Flowers. Flowers grow on plants. I vaguely remember a stem extending to the edge of each side of my prison. If I can find my way to that plant, I will be relatively safe. Not safe, but I can think no other choice. I must find a safe place.
I crawl my way to the plant. I need nourishment. I must find safety. After I change, what will I become? Will I begin to understand such languages as my companion’s? What will I remember from my past? I must find safety. My body spins silk even as I work my way up the plant. I am beginning to stiffen on one end as my body engulfs itself in the fabric of my chrysalis. I can see myself, licking the sweet juice from brightly colored flowers, some such as the purple ones in this prison. Maybe they will be my source of nourishment after I have transformed. No, once I transform, I will leave this place and return to the freedom of my past. My sensors begin to blur. I can no longer see the world around me. Pain fills my stomach. I feel as though I’m being ripped apart as my body spins out thread. I am digesting myself from the inside out. Am I safe? I must continue spinning. My body is halfway covered in silk, and I no longer feel anything. Is this the beginning of my transformation, or the beginning of my death? The darkness settles around me.
Essay #1- Compulsory Service
CEO of Youth Service for America, Steven A. Culbertson said that “Young people are powerful change makers around the world. They possess the energy and ingenuity to help tackle the world’s most complex problems, which make them assets and resources for our communities” (Greenya 595). Since the beginning of our nation, compulsory service has been regarded as a utopian idea instead of an actual possibility. However, community service is the founding idea of many well known organizations such as the YMCA, YWCA, Boy Scouts, Girl Scout, and the Peace Corps. When compulsory service is mentioned, the draft is often brought up in conversation because it is a prime example of community service gone wrong. There are many stories of young men moving to Canada or being deceitful to avoid having to serve in the military fighting in a war that they disagreed with so they found ways to avoid having to perform their civic duty. But, community service is a very valuable asset to the American community and should be mandatory because it helps create a better country to live in.
There were three main government funded community service organizations in 2006. They were the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), and AmeriCorps State- all part of a larger organization called AmeriCorps. The AmeriCorps programs provide assistance to various religious associations, other organizations, and alleviation of destruction caused by natural disasters. All of the programs that AmeriCorps hosts hire people to do community service in exchange for a stipend. There was a bill that was considered that stated that every American would be required to perform individual compulsory service for a couple years. The idea of the bill was that a person could choose to enter the armed forces, or they could perform community service in AmeriCorps. On one hand, people enjoy helping others and think that serving others is very important to society. On the other hand, Americans have an intense aversion to anything that is forced upon them--people want to be able to make their own choices and life decisions. Gary L. Yates, the president and CEO of the California Wellness Organization thinks it is only fair that young adults give back to their community, he says that “mandatory national service would provide a way for the youth of this nation to give something back for the freedoms they enjoy and to work side-by-side with other young Americans for a common national purpose” (Greenya 582). But, upon further inspection, it is obvious that compulsory service is valuable for the community as a whole. Not only that, but many people feel as though community service helped to shape them as people and give them a greater respect for the world and people surrounding them.
Compulsory Service helps to create community and nationalism in the American culture. Because of the nature of current community service, it is often only done by lower social classes who have no other options because they either need the money, or because they feel indebted to those who helped them in their time of need and wish to give back to the community. Many army recruits come from low income families and have no other options. Representative Rangel, who greatly supports national service, said that , “Right now, the only people being asked to sacrifice are those men and women who with limited options chose military service and now find themselves in harm’s way in Iraq...I dare anyone to try to convince me that this war is not being fought predominantly by tough, loyal, and patriotic young men and women from the barren hills and towns of rural and underprivileged neighborhoods in urban America where unemployment is high and opportunities are few” (Greenya, 594). Doing service for the government, whether in the military or in a community service program like the NCCC or the Civilian Corps provides them education and enough money to support their families. If such service was mandatory, it would eliminate the social barrier between classes because everyone would be required to work together for the betterment of society. People of high class and lower class would work side by side to help others around them without having to think about material needs or desires. Many people in low economic groups are forced to do dangerous civil service in order to support themselves. Those individuals would be supported by a diverse group of others if national service were mandatory, and America would no longer send mostly the underprivileged into dangerous situations. In addition, many people are not familiar with the civic duty of community service. If more people participated in a mandatory community service program as young adults, it would inspire them to continue doing good in later life. Also, children with older friends would feel more mature when doing community service because their elders would also be participating. Creating a mandatory community service program would instill selflessness into the youth of America and inspire them to continue serving others in later life.
America would benefit from such compulsory service because it would provide a young, capable workforce to assist in times of danger. Many people volunteer with the NCCC to help provide relief after natural disasters or terrorist attacks. After Katrina, a destructive hurricane that killed almost 2000 people, and injured many others, New Orleans was utterly reliant on the help of volunteers to rebuild itself. Over one million people volunteered to clean up after the disaster. Of course, those people were incredibly generous and should be celebrated, but, Katrina would not have been such a big issue had the levee system in New Orleans worked. If qualified young people were in compulsory service, they could innovate and create better versions of outdated technology and prevent such catastrophes as hurricanes from taking such a huge toll on the community. Many others not only assist others but also put their lives in danger to help others. Volunteer firefighters are such people. Volunteer firefighters work without being paid for their service. About seventy percent of all American firefighters are actually volunteers, many have other jobs and only work part time as firefighters. If community service was mandatory, these brave men would not have to sacrifice their pay to protect the community. They could instead feel comfortable knowing that there were qualified youths helping to fight fires. Another obvious instance of volunteers protecting the community is in military personnel defending their country abroad. Without the military, the United States would be defended haphazardly by untrained men and women carrying sub par weapons. The brave people that fight in the military are all volunteers. With more trained individuals fighting for causes that they believe in, more could be accomplished in less time and with fewer casualties. America has many volunteers to help aid in its times of need, but there are still many things that need fixing. If the volunteer force in America was bigger and stronger, it would help to create a safer community for every citizen.
The compulsory service program service in Israel is quite functional. All Israeli Jews have a mandatory serving period of either two or three years depending on the amount of training required to perform certain tasks. This period of time is called Regular Service. Regular Service can be completed in a military program, whether it is in the infantry or decoding, or engineering new equipment. After serving their time, Israeli citizens are still called to the Army about once a month per year to refresh their training in case of war. A person who begins attending college before they begin training can be exempt from service unless they drop out of their higher education program. A positive effect of the Israeli Defense Force is the education given to recruits. During their service, people are allowed to take advantage of advanced courses and research opportunities that are only available to people in the military force. Many people take that opportunity to begin credits for college that they do not have to pay for. There are, however, alternatives for those who want to serve the country but do not want to be in the military. They can serve in community service instead of in the military to aid their own communities. It is quite easy to see how mandatory service would work in America because of this example for how compulsory service is possible in a democratic country.
Greenya, John. "National Service." National Service (2006): 586-99. CQ Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.
There were three main government funded community service organizations in 2006. They were the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), and AmeriCorps State- all part of a larger organization called AmeriCorps. The AmeriCorps programs provide assistance to various religious associations, other organizations, and alleviation of destruction caused by natural disasters. All of the programs that AmeriCorps hosts hire people to do community service in exchange for a stipend. There was a bill that was considered that stated that every American would be required to perform individual compulsory service for a couple years. The idea of the bill was that a person could choose to enter the armed forces, or they could perform community service in AmeriCorps. On one hand, people enjoy helping others and think that serving others is very important to society. On the other hand, Americans have an intense aversion to anything that is forced upon them--people want to be able to make their own choices and life decisions. Gary L. Yates, the president and CEO of the California Wellness Organization thinks it is only fair that young adults give back to their community, he says that “mandatory national service would provide a way for the youth of this nation to give something back for the freedoms they enjoy and to work side-by-side with other young Americans for a common national purpose” (Greenya 582). But, upon further inspection, it is obvious that compulsory service is valuable for the community as a whole. Not only that, but many people feel as though community service helped to shape them as people and give them a greater respect for the world and people surrounding them.
Compulsory Service helps to create community and nationalism in the American culture. Because of the nature of current community service, it is often only done by lower social classes who have no other options because they either need the money, or because they feel indebted to those who helped them in their time of need and wish to give back to the community. Many army recruits come from low income families and have no other options. Representative Rangel, who greatly supports national service, said that , “Right now, the only people being asked to sacrifice are those men and women who with limited options chose military service and now find themselves in harm’s way in Iraq...I dare anyone to try to convince me that this war is not being fought predominantly by tough, loyal, and patriotic young men and women from the barren hills and towns of rural and underprivileged neighborhoods in urban America where unemployment is high and opportunities are few” (Greenya, 594). Doing service for the government, whether in the military or in a community service program like the NCCC or the Civilian Corps provides them education and enough money to support their families. If such service was mandatory, it would eliminate the social barrier between classes because everyone would be required to work together for the betterment of society. People of high class and lower class would work side by side to help others around them without having to think about material needs or desires. Many people in low economic groups are forced to do dangerous civil service in order to support themselves. Those individuals would be supported by a diverse group of others if national service were mandatory, and America would no longer send mostly the underprivileged into dangerous situations. In addition, many people are not familiar with the civic duty of community service. If more people participated in a mandatory community service program as young adults, it would inspire them to continue doing good in later life. Also, children with older friends would feel more mature when doing community service because their elders would also be participating. Creating a mandatory community service program would instill selflessness into the youth of America and inspire them to continue serving others in later life.
America would benefit from such compulsory service because it would provide a young, capable workforce to assist in times of danger. Many people volunteer with the NCCC to help provide relief after natural disasters or terrorist attacks. After Katrina, a destructive hurricane that killed almost 2000 people, and injured many others, New Orleans was utterly reliant on the help of volunteers to rebuild itself. Over one million people volunteered to clean up after the disaster. Of course, those people were incredibly generous and should be celebrated, but, Katrina would not have been such a big issue had the levee system in New Orleans worked. If qualified young people were in compulsory service, they could innovate and create better versions of outdated technology and prevent such catastrophes as hurricanes from taking such a huge toll on the community. Many others not only assist others but also put their lives in danger to help others. Volunteer firefighters are such people. Volunteer firefighters work without being paid for their service. About seventy percent of all American firefighters are actually volunteers, many have other jobs and only work part time as firefighters. If community service was mandatory, these brave men would not have to sacrifice their pay to protect the community. They could instead feel comfortable knowing that there were qualified youths helping to fight fires. Another obvious instance of volunteers protecting the community is in military personnel defending their country abroad. Without the military, the United States would be defended haphazardly by untrained men and women carrying sub par weapons. The brave people that fight in the military are all volunteers. With more trained individuals fighting for causes that they believe in, more could be accomplished in less time and with fewer casualties. America has many volunteers to help aid in its times of need, but there are still many things that need fixing. If the volunteer force in America was bigger and stronger, it would help to create a safer community for every citizen.
The compulsory service program service in Israel is quite functional. All Israeli Jews have a mandatory serving period of either two or three years depending on the amount of training required to perform certain tasks. This period of time is called Regular Service. Regular Service can be completed in a military program, whether it is in the infantry or decoding, or engineering new equipment. After serving their time, Israeli citizens are still called to the Army about once a month per year to refresh their training in case of war. A person who begins attending college before they begin training can be exempt from service unless they drop out of their higher education program. A positive effect of the Israeli Defense Force is the education given to recruits. During their service, people are allowed to take advantage of advanced courses and research opportunities that are only available to people in the military force. Many people take that opportunity to begin credits for college that they do not have to pay for. There are, however, alternatives for those who want to serve the country but do not want to be in the military. They can serve in community service instead of in the military to aid their own communities. It is quite easy to see how mandatory service would work in America because of this example for how compulsory service is possible in a democratic country.
Greenya, John. "National Service." National Service (2006): 586-99. CQ Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.
I needed to edit a lot of my essay because I wrote it very quickly and without paying much attention to it. I had to completely revise my conclusion and fix a lot of transitions between paragraphs. Thankfully, I did not have many grammar errors so I think I did pretty well on the essay as a whole.