Joan Didon On Self Respect

A person with a strong sense of self esteem will have a more positive outlook on life and will be strong enough to handle difficult situations through life.

Writer Joan Didion in her essay “On Self-Respect” describes the value of self-respect in regards to her own perspective of what it means. Didion’s purpose for this explanatory essay is to explain what self-respect means and its purposes to the intended audience, women. Women are the intended audience because when this essay was written in the 1960’s, expectations of women were developing in a way that was no longer related to their roles in society, but their actual character, specifically physical characteristics and abilities. Didion chooses to write about self-respect toward women because of a personal anecdote mentioned in the text, in which she receives a sudden realization of what self-respect truly means and decides to share it with other struggling women in the 60’s. Didion uses the rhetorical devices of personal anecdotes, allusions, and repetition in her essay often, which makes her essay overall strong by punctuating many different meanings of self-respect. These rhetorical devices also give her audience an easier understanding of self-respect by providing multiple perspectives and situations of self-respect, allowing the audience to make personal connections with the text.

To start let's define what exactly self-respect is. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary the meaning of self-respect is

Self respect is being confident, proud, and knowing your own worth. Self respect and pride go hand in hand; you can’t have one without the other. One must be confident in their actions and abilities to reach

Self-respect comes from within. Self-respect by definition means pride and confidence in oneself; a feeling that one is behaving with honor and dignity (Webster). Dilion uses personal experiences to pull the reader in the essay to help get her point across. She begins with the essay in her early

It means I accept, value, and respect myself”. – Having a good self-esteem is essential, it is having respect for yourself and having a realistic view of your own abilities.

However, there are still more areas and things that I would need to grow and improve on. For example, I would need to improve on my confidence. Most specifically, I would need to improve on my confidence to stand and talk in front of a crowd. In addition, I believe that there are many factors in my life that would help to build my self-confidence. For instance, the factor that I think contribute the most to help me build my confidence is that I do not want to look dumb. Furthermore, I do not want people to think that I do not know what I am doing and would just look down and laugh at me. I don't want people to have the chance to laugh at me. Instead, I want the other to respect me and appreciate my effort. Therefore, I think that I need to be confident about myself first before people can respect me. In general, I only need time and my determination to help me improve and grow in this

This measure comes in two degrees: high and low. For example, people with high self-esteem tend to feel good about themselves, while those with low self-esteem think poorly of themselves. Although many people, myself included, frequently associate self-esteem with body image, it involves much more than how you feel about your physical appearance; how you feel about your capabilities and achievements affect your self-esteem too. It is suggested that self-esteem can be increased by “attacking self-destructive beliefs, seeking out nourishing people, working on projects that will result in success, and securing affirmation” (DeVito 60-61). Additionally, self-esteem can influence how you communicate with others and how they communicate with you. Thus, along with increasing your own self-esteem, it is important that you help build up others’ self-esteem as

In order to build a good society we need successful people who have enough self-confidence and self-esteem. For example, “In the 1980’s a politician decided that he wanted to fix the rising in crime problems so he turned to self-esteem, he said that self-esteem was social back seen needed to decrease crime problems as people become more confident crime would decrease.” (Cichocki,The Rise of the Self-Esteem Movement) The author connected self-esteem with a number of crimes. Where she explained that if individuals have self-esteem they will become more confident in themselves which can make them take the right choices and decrease the number of crime problems. Another example states, “A psychologist decided that self-esteem wouldn’t only decrease crime, drug abuse, and bullying, but it will also increase the health and happiness of people as well as increasing successful marriage rates have greater employment opportunities, and increasing educational success.” (Cichocki, The Rise of the Self-Esteem Movement) Besides decreasing crimes and drug abusing and all the problems that our community is facing, but also increasing the opportunities for many people like being healthier and happier in addition to more marriage and employment opportunities and educational success. Regardless of all of these benefits and privileges, Some people still have a different opinion about

Self-esteem is achieved when we accept the fact that we were not put on this Earth to serve the demands of others and by doing so we surrender our lives to be used as property for the sake of another’s gain. Once these values can be grasped and understood and we learn to fight for our personal happiness above all else will we “will learn to live like men” because we will accredit pride as the reason and sum of our virtues.

Self-esteem is a human need to feel respected and valued by others. There are two levels of self-esteem: a lower and a higher level. The lower level of self-esteem is the need for respect from others. This may include a need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. This is most visible among celebrities but the fundamental need indwells in all of us. The higher level is characterized as the need for self-respect. For example, the person may have a need for strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence, and freedom. The higher level

Self-respect is a very powerful term. Self-respect is something that has to be earned; it has to be earned from you for yourself. Self-respect has to be learned by oneself, nobody is born with self-respect for himself or herself; it’s not an instinct. Many people take pride in their sense of self-respect. Self-respect is a vital part of ones existence. Self-respect is developed throughout a persons lifetime through many different experiences and encounters with other people, oneself and society. According to Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary the meaning of self-respect is 1: “a proper respect of oneself as a human being” 2: “regard for one’s own standing or position”. Self-respect can come in many shapes and forms. There is no mandated definition for this word. It is all what meaning you make of it.

Do you believe in yourself and in your abilities? Can you handle rejection and criticism in an objective and healthy manner, or does one negative comment completely shatter your self-view? Self-esteem is an important part of personal happiness, fulfilling relationships and achievement. Self-esteem is used to describe a person's overall sense of self-worth. Research has shown key differences between individuals with high and low self-esteem.

“It’s not what you are that is holding you back. It’s what you think you are not”. Before self esteem was believed to be a necessity to one's happiness, the concept seemingly held little to no value to practically anyone. In the past, society didn’t have the time or the want to focus on something as miniscule as self esteem while, there was much more to worry about such as appearances. Today however, self esteem is a key aspect to being truly contempt and successful with the life we have all been given, aiding in the advancement of not only our individual lives but, what we could do to help further society as a whole.

Self-esteem reflects a persons overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Psychologists usually regard self-esteem as an enduring personality characteristics, it has become the third most frequently occurring theme in psychological literature. Self-esteem has been defined as the “level of global regard one has for self”(Harter,1993), or how well a person “prizes, value, approves, or likes” him or herself (Blascovish & Tomaka,1991),Self-esteem is all about how much people value them, the pride they feel in themselves, and how worth while they feel. Self-esteem is all about how much people value them, the pride they feel in themselves, it is important because feeling good about yourself can affect how you act.