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Susan Faludi The Naked Citadel

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Behavior is a feature of one’s self that is commonly influenced by many different things. This can include the environment one grew up in and one’s biological makeup. The diversity of the world makes each of us unique but not necessary different from one another. By means of that, we are all members of human society yet we’re easily distinguished by our habits, cultures, and sex. However, does this mean that we are made to function according to the expectancy from our society? In order for one to answer this question, it is essential to understand the effect of the adopted set values that play into our daily lives which can be seen in Susan Faludi’s essay “The Naked Citadel” in which Faludi describes an all-male military academy after it accidently …show more content…

Perception is not only the way one perceives their surroundings but also the key to many disagreements within society. This holds true with the situation at the Citadel when a female cadet named Shannon Faulkner was accepted into the institution. The perception at the Citadel is that women shouldn’t be a good fit for the institution because it will damage the institution’s long standing tradition. Tradition has been a major part of the Citadel in which the institution is intended to train “real men.” The Citadel has always been an all boy school as “except of course, they weren’t really boys at all. These were college men” (Faulkner 78). Who’s to say what defines a man? In society, men are expected to think, act and live in a masculine manner. However, when a men show his sensitivity or emotions, society tend to considered this a threat or taboo among the males. Not only that, society saw the Citadel as an all-male school and wanted to keep it that way. According to Gladwell, this aspect of perception of character is referred to as FAE or the Fundamental Attribution Error. “The mistake we make in thinking of characters something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information” (Gladwell

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