Blog Post #2

The "Working Girls of New York" really sparked my interest once we discussed it as a class. Many valid points were brought up. I know that I already stated this in class, but when I first read the title of this text, I immediately thought,"great I'm going to be reading about prostitutes!" That was not the case at all though. Fern uses the title to bluntly illustrate the differences in class among women.

While reading this text, there was a cliche that I kept thinking about. It was "Women think with their heads, and men think with their penis'." This cliche is appropriate because Fern is continuously describing the differences between the way men think, and the way women think. Traditionally, men make rationale decisions. They base what they do solely on how their decisions will effect them in the long run. They are driven by money, and how others perceive them: maticulous, straightfoward, and their ability of being a 'real' man. Women however, think with their mind. They think about every possibility and how they each will give a different outcome. We as women are nutorious multitaskers. We can rarely concentrate on one task at a time. It's why we get so much done in such a short period of time.

This piece emphasizes the difference in social class during this time era. Women in poorer families were expected fort the first time to take on an additional jobs to help contribute to their families income. Women had to help contribute because the economic structure of society was falling apart. Now, women not only had the role of motherhood to think about, but also as a contributing money maker to their families. We had to multi-task even more duties on a daily basis.

Women are criticized for "selling their bodies". In my opinion though, during this era, women had to go to extreme lengths to receive money to help their families survive. The title of this is appropriate because it shows the class structure of women. We come in all different sizes, all wanting to achieve a similar dream: success. The title of this piece is ironic because New York, specifically NYC, is a place where people go to fulfill to live their dreams, goals, and ambitions. However, in this piece, Fern illustrates the common women's struggles as they reach for success.

"Fanny Fern" is a pen name for Sara Payson Willis. She used this pen name because she felt it was a better suit for her, and it reminded her of the memories of her mother picking ferns when she was a child