Critique No.2

     “It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling highlights the issue of less attractive women being shunted despite their intelligence, skills and talents.

     Since the writer is overall biased towards women, she tends to make the assumption that people are more judgmental towards the physical appearance of women compared to men. She instilled the idea that unlike men, women are always being scrutinized by their looks through a statement from the well-known British presenter Fiona Bruce, who admits that female newsreaders were often judged on their appearance in a way that their male counterparts were not. The writer not only emphasizes on the fact that women were being judged by their looks but also tried to impose the idea that women are being discriminated throughout the years and had to strive hard to earn the respect of the society through the examples given. The writer took for granted that in real, everyone, that is both men and women, are constantly being judged by the modern society.

     Overall, the writer should not be too biased towards a certain group of people. The examples given are mainly from a female’s point of view. Opinions from other groups of people, like the men should be included so that there is a balanced contribution of ideas from both sides and the actual situation at hand can be fully understood.  

Hi!
Sorry I could not post any postings earlier. I hope that all of you are happy and healthy. Judging from the discussion thread, it seems that you are on the right track. Kindly respond to each other. React to the thought of your classmates. Interactivity is also given marks.

Good luck for your mid semester exam

Critique No.1

  “It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling is regarding the widespread biasness towards women who have an appealing appearance despite their weaker skills, talents and knowledge.

     The writer is not very clear in elaborating the examples given and some of them may be irrelevant. She stated that usually women with an appealing appearance tend to get better jobs compared to obese women. However, she failed to elaborate on whether the women who were more attractive fulfill the job requirements better than the obese women. The example regarding the British swimmer Rebecca Adlington and the weightlifter Zoe Smith who had insults thrown at them due to their physical appearance does not necessarily mean that the people discriminate them. Since they are able to make the team to represent their country in the Olympics, it just shows that they are selected based on their skills, talents and athletic knowledge and not their appearance. Therefore, the example given is not in coherence to the title “It is still beauty before brains”.

     Overall, the examples given are not clear enough and some do not illustrate the central idea of the writer, that is, women are being judged mainly by their looks. The examples given tend to spark ambiguity among readers regarding the issue. Thus, solid examples that are from reliable sources and relevant to the issue should be included to strengthen the idea that is trying to be delivered by the writer.

Critique 2 (:

In this article "It is still beauty before brains", I think the choice of words is good enough in conveying the message to the readers.

Generally, the words are easy to understand. The writer is also able to describe and elaborate her opinion interestingly. For instance, I like how the writer uses “…a thicker corpus callosum…” to describe women being smarter. Although many say that the word choice is inappropriate as general, common readers will not be able to understand, I don’t think a writer should just simply use simple words in his or her writing. It does not matter if the words are a little hard. I would prefer an article with more difficult and unfamiliar words, because that is where I can learn new words and where I can improve my language. Although there is also some sensitive choice of word, like “So, why do we need men again?”, the writer managed to pique the interest of readers and make us think deeply on the fact that women nowadays indeed have proven themselves to be equally, or maybe even more capable than men.

Everyone has his or her own preference. In conclusion, I would like to say that I think the writer has done a good job in writing this article because I have learnt a few new vocabularies, which I am sure I won’t be able to learn if the writer chooses to use simple layman terms for the sake of the readers’ convenience.

Critique 1 : "It is still beauty before brains"

The article "It is still beauty before brains" by Choi Suat Ling highlights the author's disappointment in the way women are still being judged by their looks and not their competency.

Firstly, we can identify an obvious bias towards women when the author mentioned “Women are wired differently and are thus better than men in many respects. (So, why do we need men again?)” If we take it in a different perspective, men are also being judged by their appearances too. This shows that the author lacked breadth in the matter.

Moreover, the abundance of examples which are not elaborated clearly contributed to the ambiguity faced by the audience. The author did not provide clear and reliable sources from which she cited her statistics or evidences. For instance, she mentioned that “78 per cent of respondents agrees that being attractive helped them to get better in their jobs”, but did not mention the name and date of the woman’s magazine in which the statistics were taken from.

Concisely, the author was successful in presenting her point of view in the matter. However, I do find that the author lost focus on the central idea as the paragraphs progresses. The sources require further elaborations and the jargons need to be defined clearly to avoid misconceptions. 

Critique : “It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling

     The article “It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling is mainly about the unfair judging of women according to their looks but not their potential.

        The idea provided by the writer is unclear as there is a lack of elaborations in a few of her points. There are examples or other issues that are not further elaborated by the writer. For example, the sentence “So, why do we need men again?” is not elaborated at all. The writer failed to explain and relate men and the judging of women by appearance. It is not stated that only men will judge women by their looks or is it that both men and women judge women by their physical appearance.

      Moreover, the writer is vey biased toward the female. In the text, the writer only focuses on the problem where women are judged by their looks but men are not. But, the writer did not provide or discuss any evidence to support her statement and it is only her opinion that females are being judged by their looks.

      Overall, the writer is elaborating about how women are being judged by their looks and how that is unfair. The author is found to be bias towards the female and some of her statements are not elaborated enough.

Critique – It is still beauty before brains

The article ‘It is still beauty before brains’ discussed about  how women are still judged by their physical appearance and their achievements are overlooked.

Although the author is biased towards female, some of her opinions are actually true and worth to be debated over. I agree with the opinion of author that female nowadays are too often assessed on their physical appearance and how they dress up rather than their performance. The author has provided a few convincing examples, showing that female are actually still be judged based on their look. For instance, ‘During the London Olympics this year, female athletes spoke out against the public scrutiny of their body size rather than their fitness and skills’. It is very disappointing that all their effort and achievements are overlooked while their physical appearance become the main topic of discussion, noted the career of an athlete has nothing to do with their physical appearance. In this modern era, if female were to be judged, they should be judged based on their working ability and NOT based on their outlook.

Human, regardless of their age, sex and race, do judge people.  It is true that female too judged male by their physical appearance. However, in my point of view, female are often the victims of judgment as female are more likely to be affected by judgments on their physical appearance. Judgments directed to female are doing more harm than that directed to male - ‘…the athletes might be at a higher risk of succumbing to eating disorders.’

In a nutshell, people, no matter male or female, should stop judging people based on their outlook. There are things that are far more significant than outlook itself. Physical appearance should not be the barrier that holding women back.