It relayed the idea that women were not adequate enough with their femininity, and would have to ignore it to be career successful.
Many children do not recognize external characteristics of people as different or inferior until it is brought to their attention by an adult. In Ortiz Cofer's essay, "The Story of My Body," she illustrates the hardships she dealt with growing up as a "white" person in Puerto Rico, and a "dark" person in America, being the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and Caucasian father. In one example, she is asked to a dance by a white boy she has been interested in for quite some time. Ecstatic about the dance, she spends a whole week preparing for that night, only to be dumped by the boy because his father has pointed out that she was Puerto Rican and they live "like rats." This boy obviously liked her for who she was and did not attach any sort of stigma to her color. This example depicts how discrimination, even including sexism, can be taught. People's perceptions of race and sex are often relative to the culture they live in, and in that context, how it will be categorized. By categorizing, attention is drawn to the differences, and no longer has what is inside us defined who we are, but our differences make us who we are. At the end of Cofer's essay, she conveys her final understanding of what is important by saying, "My skin color, my size, and my appearance were variables-things that were judged according to my current self-image, the aesthetic values of the time, the places I was in, and the people I met, (Cofer 432)." Those attributes were all relative, but she knew that her brain defined her. .
Alongside old myths of gender that are learned, the media has exploited the basic ideas of gender. In Jean Kilbourne's essay, ""Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt": Advertising and Violence," the author illustrates excellent examples of sexism in advertising.
