The Friday Everything Changed
The essay provides a detailed concept of events and also stipulates different roles assumed by both boys and girls as per the regular weekly routines. “The Friday Everything Changed” puts into open the bias of gender roles and, at the end, provides a settled score to put a term into the long-existing division. This paper presents in detail the natural response of gender roles in the essay.
The water bucket in the school always provided the most important phenomena. As stated in the essay, big kids made paper cups to attract teachers’ attention to have drinking water (Moodyap, 2020). The challenge of who would carry water from the pump was always a battle to fight for. In the essay, not everyone had that chance. Strong, able-bodied boys were prioritized to befit the criteria’s. Even the small young boys were victims of stigmatization as they were allowed to join the girls. From my point of view, the school is administering its authorities undermined the efforts of big girls. It subjected weakness to girls, a measure that undermines females and empowers males. Each individual should first be tested to check whether they meet the postulated dimensions but not to assume generally that they can’t perform those operations. As depicted in the essay, the author writes “carrying water indicates you are a big guy and guarantees your absence in school for about half an hour”, this shows that even the girls wanted to reap the same benefits sowed by the boys. Still, due to restricting issues it wasn’t possible.
As if charged by situations at hand, the school girls formed an opposition to retaliate the humiliating treatment endured for most prolonged periods. Alma Niles, one of the girls, “Why can’t girls go for the water, too?” makes a remarkable statement that provides the onset of change in the school. From my point of view, for the first time, the girls are empowered to face the problem they’ve been quiet about. Girls in the school begin to share the challenges they have, and none of them seems to care whether she’ll be laughed at or not. Sharing provides a standard of dealing with a common enemy, and from it, the girls learn to give support to one another, “Even though we helped to rescue Alma we were covered in few bruises” (Moodyap, 2020).
The rivalry between boys and girls propagated in that no one was able to resolve the undisputed conflict, “But all their picking on and bullying did was to keep us together”. In the softball field, for example, the boys did not allow the girls to go through (Moodyap, 2020). From my point of view, due to self-awareness culminated by Almas remarkable term, and the understanding of Miss Ralston to give the girls a chance, posed a severe threat to the dominating male was in no position to share his authority. Boys fear competition, especially from their female counterparts and would do anything to regain power.
In conclusion, “The Friday Everything Changed” depicts how societal roles are stereotyped. The emphasis of superiority for boys is considered the way of norms even though he is weak to meet the requirements. There are smarter girls than boys, and therefore other considerations of sharing responsibilities should be more encouraged than applying underlying assumptions.