Critique 2 – It is still beauty before brains

            The article ‘It is still beauty before brains’ by Chok Suat Ling is a very brainstorming article that raise up the issue of physical appearance judgment directed to female.

Speaking of the structure and organization of the article, the article is well-organized in the sense that it guides the readers to understand the issue step by step, exposing the readers slowly to the issue from the surface issue-the abilities of women illustrated by the awards that women received- to the core topic. The author starts the article with the relentless match forward and remarkable achievements of female in various fields. In my opinion, it is of utmost importance that the readers acquire some before hand knowledge on the achievements before they further analyze the author’s stand of female should not be judged by their physical appearance. The author then exposed the readers with all the evidence that female, including the athletes, are judged by their outlooks. The flaw present in this article is that though the evidence and examples provided in the article are plenty but some of the evidences are of unknown source. For example, the author had extracted the statistics from a women magazine which stated that being attractive helps in getting and the overweight people are often being discriminated. However, the name of the magazine is not stated. This will make the readers question the extent of credibility of the evidence. The tone of this article is accusatory in which male are accused to have the responsibility over the effect resulted from physical appearance judgment. The strong opinion and the choice of word used by the author – ‘so, why do we need men again?’ may lead to the arise of another controversial issue of stereotyping.

In general, this article is a mind-triggering article that is worth reading.

Conclusion from David

“It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling is a simple article with lots of example. However, the author is strayed away from her main objectives of writing this article.

For this article, its main purpose is to make the society realize that we are on the wrong path and we are doing something bad - that is we are judging the women based on their appearance more than their ability and knowledge. Besides, she should have to increase the awareness of the society that this issue will lead to what problem and there is a need that we need to solve this problem RIGHT NOW.

However, the author had only manage to achieve one of the three objectives. She successfully make the reader realize that we are discriminating the women by judging them based on their appearance more than their knowledge. Although there are a lot of question popping up in the reader's mind when reading the article, but she manage to bring this message to reader that we are now having this phenomena.

But, the author fail to give us an illustration of how bad this phenomena is. How bad its affect the women and  the effect of this to the women will affect the men and also the society. Will it affect only the women or it will cause a bad cycle that it eventually affect the whole development of the nation. Due to this failure, the author are not able to rise up the feeling of the reader that they need to stop this phenomena. The reader will not feel that this is a bad thing and it give a lot of problem and it need to be solved immediately.

In conclusion, the article does not give any impact toward the reader. It does not create ripple in dead water of the heart of the reader. I have to admit that it is a failure. I would like to suggest the author to give some suggestion to solve this issue.

Chok Suat Ling :D

Chok Suat Ling, the author of the article ‘It is still beauty before brains’ mentions that in the current modernized era, women are still being judged by their looks and not for who they are. The author has a high command of the English Language because she uses lofty verbosity in her article which can only be understood by readers who are on same wavelength as the author.

She has substantially elaborated her article with reliable evidences. For example, she cites a survey by a woman’s magazine that shows how appearance can help women thrive in their careers. She also quoted Fiona Bruce on how female newsreaders are judged on their complexion but their men counterparts are void of their looks.

The main factor that causes this issue to be enigmatic is the mentality of women who place significance on their appearance. Women are obsessed with their looks to attract men and to have better careers as well and are willing to undergo all kinds of treatments to beautify themselves. The younger generation of girls nurtured to look beautiful further excruciates the problem.

The author of this article asserts that women can live without the prejudice of men on their appearance. She mentions about few role models who have gone against the typical woman mentality and achieved greatness in the eyes of the public without the influence of men in their lives. However, as she gave further examples, they are no evidence such as statistics or citations to prove that women have achieved all that she mentioned in her article.

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.