An Investigation on the Perception of Eve and Women Through Literature and Learned Behavior Rosalia Jaber

What Do You Mean? My research is based on finding out whether or not your  Age, Gender, Education, and time of exposure to literature Affects your perception (or understanding) of women through what you’ve read and learned about Eve,historically.

Interview I conducted an interview with Dr. Carmela McIntire, Chair of the English Dept. at Florida International University. She guided me towards another option for my research. It seems that I hadn’t taken “the other side” into account. At the time, I was looking only at works which portrayed women negatively. She directed me to look at Shakespeare, who mainly portrayed women positively. With this new addition to my research, and it being one which most people are familiar with, it brought a new dimension to the research I was about to conduct.

Survey Conducted at FIU, random sampling of both male and female college aged individuals. What I found Women were feminist and seemed schooled in the story of “Eve in the Garden of Eden” Men didn’t care about the subject and even less about helping a fellow student out People asked me why I cared to conduct research on this. I found some really inappropriate and uneducated answers such as “Stupid” when asked to describe Eve.

Survey Continued Of the men who did take my survey (only 2) they responded to less than half of the questions.

Focus Group With my findings from the survey, I was inspired to find out who thinks what (about women and Eve) and why exactly they think it. Is it a learned thought? Did it come from your education? Does it completely reflect personal beliefs? Does it have to do with the era in which you were raised? Do your age and gender play a factor?

Focus Group Continued My focus group consisted of people whom I specifically chose for purposes of gender, age, and education. 1 male, age 22, holds a college degree 1 male, age 32, didn’t finish high school 1 female, age 52, holds a degree in English 1 female, age 20, currently a student at Miami Dade

Findings and Conclusions Your education does play a crucial role in what you believe on this subject. Your upbringing (era) is also a large influence on your beliefs. Gender does not play a major role. Age is only a factor when you are stuck in the “school of thought” for the era you’re from.