Amira Gouri

Mr. Block

English 3

Introduction:

My goal is for readers to learn more about women in the military. I focused on the pros and cons of having women in the military. I’m proud of my analysis because I picked really good quotes to support my statement.

Essay:

As of 2017, women make up 16 percent of the active-duty military. During World War I from 1914 to 1918, women didn’t have any role in the military, but they were working in other fields such as munitions factories and farming to replace men who had gone to fight in the war. They had a role in providing soldiers with military equipment including weapons. Women’ role increased as in during World War II, about 350,000 women had the ability to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces, both at home and abroad. Most of these women didn’t serve in combat because they were afraid of public opinion. To this day, the military is still mostly men. This made people wonder how women's roles in the military differ from men? And how women in the military are changing over the course of years.

Women representation in the military is small and it is slowly growing. Many female stories tend to be ignored in favor of legacies left by men who have shaped the statement of service to the country. Despite the disagreement, servicewomen are successfully creating new career paths for themselves and the next generation as they enter jobs that were once only for men.

Being a woman also means facing criticism from the men. According to the New York Times magazine titled, “40 Stories From Women About Life in the Military” an article about women's experience in the military. Here is a quote from the article, “In 2006, a male shipmate got into my barracks room and placed a camera in my bathroom and set it to record. I found it only after getting out of the shower. I took the camera to my male chief, whom I had known for only about a month. He assured me that he would get to the bottom of it. By lunchtime, the strange looks from everyone became obvious. Another shipmate told me that everyone in the company office had passed the camera around and saw the video of me naked, getting into and out of the shower.”. We can see many different views from women, some claim they enjoy their job and they are proud of what they are doing, while some claim to be experiencing hardships such as sexual assault, and discrimination due to being a woman. This quote clearly shows the hardship women experience at a job where there is a majority of men. We can clearly see how some men view women as sex objects to the point where a man had to place a camera into the woman's bathroom. Some women chose to change themselves in order to blend in with the men. They eliminate their feminine characteristics, and cut off their hair, just so they could be respected by the men.

Now not all women were treated as inferior or experienced bad moments such as sexually assaulted. In fact, some women actually enjoy their job because they are following their passion, and they like being a minority, so they could be role models for other women who wish to pursue that career.  According to the same source New York Times magazine titled, “40 Stories From Women About Life in the Military”, there are stories about women who showed pride. A quote states, “I am currently Mrs. Texas Galaxy. When I was a National Guard recruiter, I came across many young women who said they couldn’t join because they were too “girlie.” So I started to compete in beauty pageants again to prove that you can still be and feel beautiful and follow any career path you want.”. This quote is a good example of a woman breaking stereotypes since the military is often considered as a job for masculine men. But in this case, the woman decides to also join a beauty pageant to prove that you can still be too “girlie” but also join the military or any other job that is considered not appropriate for “girlie” girls. She’s proving that a woman can do whatever she wants, and the stereotypes followed by society shouldn’t be a barrier to following your dreams.

This issue matters because it’s followed by stereotypes. Gender stereotypes act as a barrier for girls to follow their certain dreams such as being in the military. Gender stereotypes are one of the root causes of discrimination, abuse, and violence in various areas which can lead to violations of a wide array of women and human rights. Female participants argued that they are treated really different compared to men. For instance, women had to work twice as hard as men to prove themselves. Also, most of the time men did not trust women’ opinions and ideas or value the quality of their work, particularly in male-dominated ratings or specialties. Although it seems hard and it may take time, women have to continue to fight for their rights including the equality of treatment as men to create more freedom, jobs, and opportunities for the next generation.

Sources (MLA format):

Katzenberg, Lauren. “40 Stories From Women About Life in the Military.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/magazine/women-military-stories.html.

“How Roles Have Changed for Women in the Military.” Norwich University Online, online.norwich.edu/academic-programs/resources/how-roles-have-changed-for-women-in-the-military.

McKay, Dawn Rosenberg. “Options for Women Who Want to Join the Military.” The Balance Careers, The Balance, 30 Apr. 2019, www.thebalancecareers.com/women-in-the-military-4177666.

“How Gender Stereotyping Affects the Enjoyment of Human Rights.” OHCHR, www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WRGS/Pages/WrongfulGenderStereotyping.aspx.

Introduction:

The purpose of my essay is for my audience to learn about identity, what

influences identity and how it can change due to their surrounding. Something I’m proud of in this essay is having the courage to write about a personal experience that was painful but I learned a lot from it. Next time, I will use more quotes and connect them to my thesis. I also plan on writing an outline for my next essay so it would be more organized.

Advanced Essay:

I remember when my parents, my brother and I visited Algeria in 2016 to spend our summer vacation there. I was excited to see my family again because I haven’t seen them for 5 years and I miss them very much. We will have a great time as we did in 2011. My cousin and I planned to do many things once I get there, from bean boozled challenge to playing Uno with the family to filming some movies on my Ipad.

It was still Ramadan when we went on the plane, and we had to stay there for 21 hours. I was so excited I didn’t want to sleep. I watched movies most of the time while my brother sat next to me drawing and coloring. After what felt like forever, we finally made it to Algeria. But I never realized that this time everything was going to be different.

After a long day, my family and I finally arrived at my aunt's new house. It was bigger and better than her old tiny apartment. It was in the middle of nowhere. As we walked down the hill, it took us a while to spot the house, due to the tall grass covering it. After a couple minutes of walking, we entered her new home. First thing I noticed was that the house was huge. The house was still disorganized because it needed a while to put everything in place. We entered the living room and there I saw my favorite cousin sitting on the couch waiting for me. I was so happy and I went to give her a hug.

“Your new house is really nice!” I exclaimed excitedly as I embraced her tightly.

“Yea I know we’ve been building this house for 6 years.” She responded with a hint of pride.

After that moment, we went to have dinner. It was couscous with chicken which is a really popular food in Algeria. Some of us had to sit on the floor due to the lack of chairs. I felt uncomfortable but I had no right to complain.

After dinner, we all prepared the mattresses on the floor so we could go to bed.

“She’s acting different,” I thought to myself.

And I was right. Ever since that day, I noticed that she was wearing a mask. A mask filled with kindness and love, but I noticed it slipping off. I sensed her true feelings. Envy, pride, and greed. I was shocked, to say the least, after 5 years of being in America, I came to be treated like that. I realized her jealous facial expressions when I would talk to my other cousins, and how she would be angry when I gave something to them. I sensed her pride aura while she was walking around her new home, and how she felt like she is better than me. I remember when she told me that I didn’t give her anything while wearing my clothes that I gave her the day we made it to Algeria. She was never like this, she was always very sweet and loving. She would call me every day and sometimes we would talk for hours. We would always talk about the great moments we had together when we were younger. Moments that most likely won’t happen again. After understanding her true intentions, I still stayed positive because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. In other words, I wore a mask as well but behind my mask is pain, sadness, and frustration. I felt like I didn’t belong there, and I wanted to go back to America. I was wondering, what made her change?

People wonder what shapes an individual's identity, and what makes them act the way they are. According to Rorty, “The contrast between the inner and outer person becomes the contrast between the individual and the social mask, between nature and culture.” (Brainpicking). This quote gives us a good explanation of the complexities of one's identity. This quote really helped me understand why a person’s identity will suddenly shift. From his point of view, we see that it’s the environment that shapes a person's actions. This is why we are all different in everything, and sometimes these changes in life will make us change our entire identity to either better or worse. A person has an inner and outer personality, that they show at different times. For example, some people might show more of their inner personality around the people they are close with such as their friends and family members, while their outer personality might be used towards strangers or social media.

Another quote from the same source and author states, “Many identities are relational in the West, such as those of parent, child, group member and so on. What we think of as different notions of self are largely a matter of differences in what aspects of self are expressed where and when.” (Brainpicking). This quote gave me a good understanding of how the people around you can affect your identity. This articles even explained how parents can shape their children’s personalities, as he shows us an article about the differences in children who are raised by Asian and Western parents. It suggests that all children everywhere can benefit from being brought up to think more about effort and their relations to others than their own abilities and personal development. In this case, it’s possible that my cousin’s parents or friends influenced her to act that certain way.

In conclusion, our identity is an important aspect of everybody's life, in other words, it shapes up who we are. Our identities can be influenced by our parents, culture, and people around us. Which makes it possible for our identities to change. Sometimes people’s identities can be interpreted through their actions, even if they don’t say it clearly and decide to wear a mask to cover it.

Hi, my name is Amira Gouri. And my topic is about ASD also known as autism. Which is a developmental disorder that can be noticed on children at early age, generally between two and three years old. It’s when the child start showing poor social skills, trouble of communicating with others, speech delay and/or difficulty of learning. Till now, scientists don’t know the exact causes of autism which makes it hard to invent a medicine that will help cure autistic people.
According to my last post, I interviewed a mother with an autistic son, she shared really important information about her experience with her son, and the adventure she had from the diagnosis of her child when he was 2 years old until today. Her journey is an inspiration and a hope for all mothers with autistic children. In the beginning, I decided to do a presentation but then I changed my mind and wanted to do a poster instead because I want the whole school to know about my issue not just my advisory. And making a poster would fit that criteria. After doing my research I discovered that the percentage of autism is dramatically increasing, but many people still don’t know much information about it, I want to spread awareness by making  a poster that presents information about autism that most people should know such as the definition of autism, facts, causes, symptoms, and the best treatment. I feel confident and proud about this project because I was able to share a lot of information about my passion issue with many people. I chose to do a poster as an effective way of raising awareness about autism among people because it is a permanent method that can last for a long time so many people can see and read it. I also chose to hang the poster in the hallway because that's the place where a lot of students and teachers have the ability to learn from it. I feel like I should have done more posters, so I can hang them everywhere at school, or make brochures with information about autism and give them to people in and outside the school. I learned many facts about autism that I never knew before, for example I never knew that there is a strong debate about whether vaccines are the cause of autism or not. I also learned that some treatments can be beneficial for some autistic people but not for others. In my opinion, autism is a serious issue that affects innocent children and their families as well, so me and others in the community should spread awareness everywhere, accept these people in our society, ask for their basic rights in autistic support schools and colleges where they can learn, have degrees and have jobs in the future, we should also donate to many non-profit organizations that offer them free activities such as sports, art and music, and most importantly, support their families and offer them help, love and hope.

This is an image of a paper of the free after school programs that have been offered by the Penn University to help people with autism.
Annotated Bibliography

Hello, My name is Amira Gouri. I am a freshmen at Science leadership Academy. My topic is about Autism. Autism also known as ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) is a disorder that can be noticed on children on early age, generally between two and three years old. It’s when the child has trouble of communicating with others and/or difficulty of learning. Most of the time, autistic people don’t have friends because they have difficulties building friendships. Autistic children need special treatment.

This is an image of the autism awareness symbol. It’s a symbol of a puzzle piece with different colors which represents the mystery and the complexity of autism. The different colors represent the diversity symptoms of the autistic individuals.

Over the last decade, scientists have identified a number of rare gene changes associated with autism in around 15 percent of cases. However, in most cases autism can be caused by a combination of genetic risk and environmental factors such as advanced both parents age at time of the conception, illness during pregnancy, difficulties during delivery, prematurity and low birth weight, all these can cause difficulties in the oxygen deprivation to the baby’s brain which can lead to damaging the brain cells. All the nongenetic factors, by themselves are not enough to cause autism unless they are combined with genetic risk factors. There is a crucial debate about vaccines that many believe that it is the cause of autism because many kids suffer from high fever and severe diarrhea after taking it, then their mood and behavior started changing. On the other hand, others argue that vaccines can’t be a cause of autism because every child takes it but just few who have those reactions. It is important to keep in mind that these studies were done on some cases, and the exact cause for autism is still a mystery.

The statistics showed that boys are four times more likely to have autism than girls.There are some autistic people that have a strength in some things and a weakness in others. For example, my brother really excels in math and has a strength in memorizing and learning quickly, but he has a weakness in social communication.

No two people with autism have the same symptoms, some of them have few symptoms which means their autism is mild, but others may have all the symptoms and suffer from severe autism.

The most common symptoms among people with autism are: poor social skills, which includes showing very little or no eye contact, lack of relationships, having difficulty with back and forth conversations, they also have difficulty with controlling their emotions, and understanding others emotions such as pain, and sadness. They also could be very obsessed with certain topics or objects such as numbers, places, toys and facts such as science topics. Hyperlexia (knows how to read but doesn’t understand it) is also common in individuals with autism. Secondary symptoms may include using unusual gestures (and some could also be repetitive) such as clapping, walking on their tippy toes, hand flapping, and closing their ears, some require having repetitive behavior such as rocking, twirling, rearranging objects, and repeating words or phrases that they hear which is called echolalia.

Amira gouri
Soy yo
La hija de los padres de Argelia,
La hermana de un hermano menor,
Nacido y criado en Filadelfia,
Producto de América y Argelia.

Ves mis ojos verdes
oyes mi voz
Hueles y saboreas mi comida favorita, el cuscús
Usted siente emociones como cualquier humano

Bailo con alegría.
Soy bilingüe, hablo árabe, inglés y un poco de francés.

Saliendo de Argelia, no quiero volver.
Necesito América, es mi país.

Somos productos de Argelia
Somos Argelinos
Hablamos árabe
La lengua de arroz y cuscús

Somos Americanos, vivimos en America

Y somos árabes. Argelia está en nosotros, pero no tengo casa.
Mi familia y yo estamos en el medio
Y
no sabemos qué elegir.

Characters:

Lando como Alejandro

Nasya Ie como Adaline

Amira como Candace Former member: Olu como Zanny
#WalkingCorpseShy