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Essay / Happiness and happiness among tomboys: the state of...
Lynda Barry describes two types of girls separated by social class in 100 Demons, there are tomboys and “girlish girls”. The girls wore dresses, had cute dolls, and lived in a different neighborhood where most of the girls were girls. Meanwhile, in the author's neighborhood, most of the girls were tomboys and didn't have all the nice things that girls had. For girls, happiness came from playing with their pretty dolls while for tomboys, happiness came from playing in the mud. I believe we are conditioned, to some extent, to what is appropriate to be happy or sad when we are young and impressionable, such as how our environment, our upbringing shapes the way we react to different situations and stimuli emotional. This reminds me of a concept from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the conditioning undergone by babies, which taught them how to behave as well as what to like and not like. I believe that our society operates a form of subtle conditioning, through the way we are raised as children, what we are chastised and praised for will have a huge influence on how we respond to emotions. Unconsciously, we will almost always make connections between personal experience and childhood stories that can influence how we perceive or act in a situation. We will always be unconsciously influenced by what we have been conditioned to believe is right and wrong, even if we cannot act or think in accordance with what we have previously been taught to be right and wrong..