Throwing Like a Girl by James Fallows

¶ … Throwing like a Girl" by James Fallows and Sherry Turkle's essay "How Computers Change the Way We Think"

Personalization is the key to any effective expository essay. Even while addressing highly technical subject matters, such as the mechanics of throwing a ball or the impact of technology upon the brain, essayists James Fallows and Sherry Turkle use anecdotes as well as scientific information to justify the claims they make in essays such as Fallows' "Throwing like a Girl" and Turkle's "How Computers Change the Way We Think."

In his essay Fallows combines science and popular and personal anecdotes to debunk the common myth that women throw balls differently then males. Fallows wrote his essay during the Clinton presidency, and he notes how, despite the considerable accomplishments of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, the fact that Hillary was perceived as 'throwing like a girl' when she tossed a historic first pitch of a baseball game was seen as significant. Structurally speaking, women are physiologically capable of throwing in the same manner as males. Many female tennis players show great strength and power when using the same parts of their shoulders as their male counterparts to hit a ball. The reason that the myth of 'throwing like a girl' was generated was because women are often not schooled in the same throwing techniques as their male colleagues. Even men who are good baseball players and not ambidextrous 'throw like a girl' (facing the target, not rotating the body) when they use their non-dominant hand because their muscles are not properly conditioned and trained to do so.

Fallows writes his essay to point out that 'throwing like a girl' is due to cultural constructions and norms, not to something innate within the female psyche or range of physical abilities. However, while he does use science and compelling anecdotes (including a very funny example of John Goodman's difficulties learning how to pitch left-handed when playing Babe Ruth in a film) he never asks what may be a more obvious question: why is throwing such an important part of one's leadership skills? Why is a woman seen as less competent than her husband if she does not throw as well as he does at a baseball game? Must women meet certain male benchmarks of excellence to be taken seriously within the public discourse?

In Sherry Turkle's essay "How Computers Change the Way We Think," Turkle also uses personal anecdotes, in this case, stories drawn from her experience as a professor, to examine the troubling ways in which computers have changed the ways that human beings think and process information. Even the political discourse has been changed because of online technology, she argues. For example, today young people who have come of age online do not seem troubled by government surveillance in the manner of previous generations, because they are so accustomed to sharing everything online via Facebook and YouTube. After sharing her own experiences, Turkle creates a list of bullet points of issues of concern, such as how the multiplicity of identities allowed by the Internet can prove confusing for young people when establishing an autonomous sense of self.