Blog Deep Dive—Why Should Anyone Care?
Pollan’s essay is as much about the problem of problem-solving as it is a proposal for dealing with climate change. What do we do with the feeling that as individuals there is little we can do to influence really big issues such as homelessness, hunger, war, or climate change? Who wants to be just a drop in the bucket? Explore this dilemma by having a conversation in writing with an imaginary companion on a big issue you care about. First explain in writing what problem you think needs to be solved and why. (You might want to write about your potential research topic, if you want.) And then respond to your companion’s first question: You don’t think you could ever really do anything about it, do you? Carry on the conversation with your skeptical companion as long as you can.
For most people when they hear about the issues going on in the world the most they do is fund charities, share awareness or most of the time nothing. Most people just feel bad about what’s happening but still don’t do anything about it. The feeling of guilt just increases the fact that the problem still exists and is a massive issue. An example of this that I would like to look into for my research topic is how to close the gender gap within communities. Being a girl who plays sports I have been faced with many gender based barriers and I have always hated it. Now even if I can’t forever close the gap between genders I can do my best to share awareness and the problems which have occurred in our community. For example, in sports, why is it that at sports games student sections only exist in male teams. Such as football, ice hockey, boys lacrosse and boys basketball? I have asked the question of is it because they win more but remembered that in 2019 girls lacrosse went to the state championship and the boys didn’t even make it to the finals, yet they still had more fans. Why is that? This is only one example, and it isn’t even close to the different issues like this around the world. That’s why I would like to do more research about the issues surrounding gender gaps throughout the world and figure out why.
Test your understanding of Pollan’s argument. After reading “Why Bother?” Compose a fast paragraph that summarizes how Pollan answers his own question: Why bother? What is the core reason and what are other compelling reasons?
Why bother truly is the question to ask. Why bother changing your diet for others in the world to just do the opposite, why walk to the restaurant instead of driving when the food you eat was produced and shipped by trucks shipping it, why grow plants when you will still be buying food? All of these questions were challenged by Pollan's argument and he explained that the idea of changing the world isn’t easy and that most of the time your actions truly have no meaning. But in the end he shared his true feelings and ideas about how if you stick to your actions of making the world a better place, it will spread to other people like a virus taking over. The more you do it and share the positives about it the more other people are going to want to do it and that’s the whole idea that Pollan was trying to get people to understand.” If enough other people bother, each one influencing yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change, markets for all manner of green products and alternative technologies will prosper and expand.” Everything is a choice and it’s your decision in which you decide if you are going to think and do, instead of think and think.
Use both the “believing game” and “doubting game” to evaluate this claim from Wendell Berry and from Pollan: “the deep problem standing behind all of the other problems of industrial civilization is ‘specialization,’…the disease of the modern character." What will help us become healthier as a society?
I believe the act of thinking and doing will help others become healthier, not only health wise but also physically and mentally. This is because if you put your mind to something you feel rewarded and accomplished which helps build your self confidence and happiness within yourself. If people only thought about the ways they could help the world but just stayed there and still did nothing about the problem then they would live a very sad and unhealthy life. Not only are they not helping the world, they are creating negativity which surrounds them and haunts them for the rest of their lives. Why would you want that? Why live a sad life when simply growing a garden can impact you so much and takes minimal effort. Try it, and share with the world the outcome of it, even if your garden doesn’t grow. At least you put forth actions and effort to change the world for the better.
Take a look at the Persuasive Research Proposal Assignment. What can we learn from Pollan's essay about our own upcoming assignment? (Note that there is no first person allowed in our essay, which must be fully objective.) Will you make sure to clearly define the problem and provide essential details about how your solution will address the problem you are writing about?
We can learn that it doesn’t have to be a personal problem, in which we chose to write about. It can be a worldwide problem in which you want to learn more about. We can also learn that there aren't going to be clear solutions to things because then they wouldn’t be very good research topics. If something has a clear solution then people should already be fixing it. I want to make sure I don’t make the problem about my life but someone else’s life because that’s the whole point of researching, finding problems in the world which others teach you and share with you, not finding them in my life. We also can learn that everything can be accomplished by working together and I really want to connect with those words delivered by Pollan.
Gender gaps within society
Think back to when you were younger and your teachers would call on students to help her move something heavy. Who would they call on? Almost every single time the teachers would call on the boys to help them move something heavy. This is because of the stereotypical assumptions that males are stronger than females. Although it is scientifically proven that men are more physically rewarded than women, it doesn’t change the fact that females face gender gaps as early as the age of five years old in their own school. In addition, at this age in time both girls and boys usually have similar if not the same physical strength, which proves my statement on the gaps between genders. The gender gaps within the world have challenged each gender in different ways. This shouldn’t be the case, each woman or man shouldn’t have to be faced with challenges or differences due to their gender. But society has continued to share inequalities between the two and I have decided I would like to share those differences and provide awareness to the fact because everyone should be treated equally.
Equal pay is one of the biggest issues which women have faced for a long time in the world of sports, occupations, etc. In professional women's soccer a recent law was just passed ensuring that both the women's team was paid the same amount as the men's team. Now, that should be considered a good thing but did it really have to take longer than six long years for women to finally have equal pay to mens? Shouldn’t it have been the same from the start? “For six years, the members of the World Cup-winning United States women’s soccer team and their bosses argued about equitable treatment of female players.” Only after women soccer players decided they were done getting underpaid compared to men and started fighting against the commission of professional soccer, did people start fighting for and making changes.
Another problem which arises in the face of gender gaps is the stigma of mental health around men. As many know, many acts have been made to help face tissues of mental health surrounding women but what about men? It’s hard to think about as a woman but after reading Sarah Mckenzie’s article from the National Library of Medicine, about men's mental health, I became more knowledgeable about this problem. ‘“Globally, men are more than twice as likely to die by suicide than women (World Health Organization, 2021). Despite these higher rates of suicide, men have lower reported rates of depression, a significant suicidal risk factor (Kilmartin, 2005).”’ After furthering and deepening my knowledge about the mental health stigma around men I have realized that there are further gaps within genders than just barriers of females. For so long we have been worried about the mental health of women because they aren’t shown the respect of men and are shown as mentally weak, we haven’t realized the impact it has on men. The stereotype that men should always be stronger than women and are smarter than women could affect men very negatively. And this has shown in recent data as shown before of the impacts these problems have had on men.
Now a solution. Although there may not be an exact solution to this problem within society, there are countless numbers of ways in which we as individuals in society can work together to fight through the gap made by the world between the genders. As you can see we already have made efforts in the equal pay barriers within sports. It will be a long and painful journey but in the end if both genders work together to fight against the gaps then changes can be made.
Work Cited
McKenzie, Sarah K, et al. “Men’s Experiences of Mental Illness Stigma across the Lifespan: A Scoping m Review.” American Journal of Men’s Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2022, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8832600/#bibr65-15579883221074789.
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