In the first essay, “The Death of Pretty” is about how women in today’s society would rather portray themselves as hot instead of pretty. The author, Pat Archbold, claims that he believes women have changed and they no longer wish to be seen as innocent. The second essay, “Dadbod: A New Word for a Timeless Physique” is about many women nowadays are attracted to the dadbod figure. In the past things were different, and now women want their men to have a belly but also still look good. I feel like these essays are very similar but in opposite ways. For example both essays are talking about how the views of one sex have changed throughout the years, and both essays reflect on if the modern view of men/women have changed in a positive or negative way. In “The Death of Pretty” essay I feel like the author made a negative correlation between the words pretty and hot, but in the dadbod essay I feel like the author created a positive correlation between the standards of an attractive man then vs. now. The negative correlation is shown in the essay when Archbold says, “When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.” He is saying that if women want to be seen as “hot” then we should be okay with men looking down on us. The positive correlation is shown in the second essay when Kornhaber says, “It almost goes without saying that the dadbod regimen of play sports, eat pizza is exactly what pop-culture has long said guys should be doing while women strain to maintain what Vilkomerson calls "the holy size zero." Overall I feel like both essays make it seem like women have to look or be a certain way for men so they will be good enough, while men are told to just eat a lot of pizza and sometimes workout because that's what people expect of them.

Mackenzie Rosales