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This is America Ferrara's monologue, but you could use the whole film.

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America Ferrera's Iconic Barbie Speech | Barbie | Max

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Ignore the subtitles!

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Boys Don't Cry (1999) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers

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Gender Identity & Roles | Feminine Traits & Stereotypes

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Examples of Gender Stereotypes | gender-equality-law

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Leah Purcell on reinventing The Drover’s Wife three times: ‘I borrowed and stole from each’

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The actor, playwright and screenwriter’s first novel solidifies her take on Henry Lawson’s classic: first a play, now a book, soon a film

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Belonging and identity in Australias multicultural society

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The two-roomed house is built of round timber, slabs, and stringy-bark, and floored with split slabs. A big bark kitchen standing at one end is larger than the house itself, veranda included.

Bush all around - bush with no horizon, for the country is flat. No ranges in the distance. The bush consists of stunted, rotten native apple-trees. No undergrowth. Nothing to relieve the eye save the darker green of a few she-oaks which are sighing above the narrow, almost waterless creek. Nineteen miles to the nearest sign of civilisation - a shanty on the main road.

The drover, an ex-squatter, is away with sheep. His wife and children are left here alone.

Four ragged, dried-up-looking children are playing about the house. Suddenly one of them yells: "Snake! Mother, here's a snake!"

The gaunt, sun-browned bushwoman dashes from the kitchen, snatches her baby from the ground, holds it on her left hip, and reaches for a stick.

"Where is it?"

"Here! Gone in the wood-heap;" yells the eldest boy - a sharp-faced urchin of eleven. "Stop there, mother! I'll have him. Stand back! I'll have the beggar!"

"Tommy, come here, or you'll be bit. Come here at once when I tell you, you little wretch!"

The youngster comes reluctantly, carrying a stick bigger than himself. Then he yells, triumphantly:

"There it goes - under the house!" and darts away with club uplifted. At the same time the big, black, yellow-eyed dog-of-all-breeds, who has shown the wildest interest in the proceedings, breaks his chain and rushes after that snake. He is a moment late, however, and his nose reaches the crack in the slabs just as the end of its tail disappears. Almost at the same moment the boy's club comes down and skins the aforesaid nose. Alligator takes small notice of this, and proceeds to undermine the building; but he is subdued after a struggle and chained up. They cannot afford to lose him.

The drover's wife makes the children stand together near the dog-house while she watches for the snake. She gets two small dishes of milk and sets them down near the wall to tempt it to come out; but an hour goes by and it does not show itself.

It is near sunset, and a thunderstorm is coming. The children must be brought inside. She will not take them into the house, for she knows the snake is there, and may at any moment come up through a crack in the rough slab floor; so she carries several armfuls of firewood into the kitchen, and then takes the children there. The kitchen has no floor - or, rather, an earthen one - called a "ground floor" in this part of the bush. There is a large, roughly-made table in the centre of the place. She brings the children in, and makes them get on this table. They are two boys and two girls - mere babies. She gives some supper, and then, before it gets dark, she goes into house, and snatches up some pillows and bedclothes - expecting to see or lay or hand on the snake any minute. She makes a bed on the kitchen table for the children, and sits down beside it to watch all night.

She has an eye on the corner, and a green sapling club laid in readiness on the dresser by her side; also her sewing basket and a copy of the Young Ladies' Journal. She has brought the dog into the room.

Tommy turns in, under protest, but says he'll lie awake all night and smash that blinded snake.

His mother asks him how many times she has told not to swear.

He has his club with him under the bedclothes, and Jacky protests:

"Mummy! Tommy's skinnin' me alive wif his club. Make him take it out."

Tommy: "Shet up you little ---! D'yer want to be bit with the snake?"

Jacky shuts up.

"If yer bit," says Tommy, after a pause, "you'll swell up, an smell, an' turn red an' green an' blue all over till yer bust. Won't he mother?"

"Now then, don't frighten the child. Go to sleep," she says.

The two younger children go to sleep, and now and then Jacky complains of being "skeezed." More room is made for him. Presently Tommy says: "Mother! Listen to them (adjective) little possums. I'd like to screw their blanky necks."

And Jacky protests drowsily.

"But they don't hurt us, the little blanks!"

Mother: "There, I told you you'd teach Jacky to swear." But the remark makes her smile. Jacky goes to sleep.

Presently Tommy asks:

"Mother! Do you think they'll ever extricate the (adjective) kangaroo?"

"Lord! How am I to know, child? Go to sleep."

"Will you wake me if the snake comes out?"

"Yes. Go to sleep."

Near midnight. The children are all asleep and she sits there still, sewing and reading by turns. From time to time she glances round the floor and wall-plate, and, whenever she hears a noise, she reaches for the stick. The thunderstorm comes on, and the wind, rushing through the cracks in the slab wall, threatens to blow out her candle. She places it on a sheltered part of the dresser and fixes up a newspaper to protect it. At every flash of lightning, the cracks between the slabs gleam like polished silver. The thunder rolls, and the rain comes down in torrents.

Alligator lies at full length on the floor, with his eyes turned towards the partition. She knows by this that the snake is there. There are large cracks in that wall opening under the floor of the dwelling-house.

She is not a coward, but recent events have shaken her nerves. A little son of her brother-in-law was lately bitten by a snake, and died. Besides, she has not heard from her husband for six months, and is anxious about him.

He was a drover, and started squatting here when they were married. The drought of 18-- ruined him. He had to sacrifice the remnant of his flock and go droving again. He intends to move his family into the nearest town when he comes back, and, in the meantime, his brother, who keeps a shanty on the main road, comes over about once a month with provisions. The wife has still a couple of cows, one horse, and a few sheep. The brother-in-law kills one of the latter occasionally, gives her what she needs of it, and takes the rest in return for other provisions.

She is used to being left alone. She once lived like this for eighteen months. As a girl she built the usual castles in the air; but all her girlish hopes and aspirations have long been dead. She finds all the excitement and recreation she needs in the Young Ladies' Journal, and Heaven help her! Takes a pleasure in the fashion plates.

Her husband is an Australian, and so is she. He is careless, but a good enough husband. If he had the means he would take her to the city and keep her there like a princess. They are used to being apart, or at least she is. "No use fretting," she says. He may forget sometimes that he is married; but if he has a good cheque when he comes back he will give most of it to her. When he had money he took her to the city several times - hired a railway sleeping compartment, and put up at the best hotels. He also bought her a buggy, but they had to sacrifice that along with the rest.

The last two children were born in the bush - one while her husband was bringing a drunken doctor, by force, to attend to her. She was alone on this occasion, and very weak. She had been ill with fever. She prayed to God to send her assistance. God sent Black Mary - the "whitest" gin in all the land. Or, at least, God sent King Jimmy first, and he sent Black Mary. He put his black face round the door post, took in the situation at a glance, and said cheerfully: "All right, missus - I bring my old woman, she down along a creek."

One of the children died while she was here alone. She rode nineteen miles for assistance, carrying the dead child.

It must be near one or two o'clock. The fire is burning low. Alligator lies with his head resting on his paws, and watches the wall. He is not a very beautiful dog, and the light shows numerous old wounds where the hair will not grow. He is afraid of nothing on the face of the earth or under it. He will tackle a bullock as readily as he will tackle a flea. He hates all other dogs - except kangaroo-dogs - and has a marked dislike to friends or relations of the family. They seldom call, however. He sometimes makes friends with strangers. He hates snakes and has killed many, but he will be bitten some day and die; most snake-dogs end that way.

Now and then the bushwoman lays down her work and watches, and listens, and thinks. She thinks of things in her own life, for there is little else to think about.

The rain will make the grass grow, and this reminds her how she fought a bush-fire once while her husband was away. The grass was long, and very dry, and the fire threatened to burn her out. She put on an old pair of her husband's trousers and beat out the flames with a green bough, till great drops of sooty perspiration stood out on her forehead and ran in streaks down her blackened arms. The sight of his mother in trousers greatly amused Tommy, who worked like a little hero by her side, but the terrified baby howled lustily for his "mummy." The fire would have mastered her but for four excited bushmen who arrived in the nick of time. It was a mixed-up affair all round; when she went to take up the baby he screamed and struggled convulsively, thinking it was a "blackman;" and Alligator, trusting more to the child's sense than his own instinct, charged furiously, and (being old and slightly deaf) did not in his excitement at first recognize his mistress's voice, but continued to hang on to the moleskins until choked off by Tommy with a saddle-strap. The dog's sorrow for his blunder, and his anxiety to let it be known that it was all a mistake, was as evident as his ragged tail and a twelve-inch grin could make it. It was a glorious time for the boys; a day to look back to, and talk about, and laugh over for many years.

She thinks how she fought a flood during her husband's absence. She stood for hours in the drenching downpour, and dug an overflow gutter to save the dame across the creek. But she could not save it. There are things that a bushwoman cannot do. Next morning the dam was broken, and her heart was nearly broken too, for she thought how her husband would feel when he came home and saw the result of years of labour swept away. She cried then.

She also fought the pleuro-pneumonia - dosed and bled the few remaining cattle, and wept again when her two best cows died.

Again, she fought a mad bullock that besieged the house for a day. She made bullets and fired at him through cracks in the slabs with an old shot-gun. He was dead in the morning. She skinned him and got seventeen-and-sixpence for the hide.

She also fights the crows and eagles that have designs on her chickens. He plan of campaign is very original. The children cry "Crows, mother!" and she rushes out and aims a broomstick at the birds as though it were a gun, and says "Bung!" The crows leave in a hurry; they are cunning, but a woman's cunning is greater.

Occasionally a bushman in the horrors, or a villainous-looking sundowner, comes and nearly scares the life out of her. She generally tells the suspicious-looking stranger that her husband and two sons are at work below the dam, or over at the yard, for he always cunningly inquires for the boss.

Only last week a gallows-faced swagman - having satisfied himself that there were no men on the place - threw his swag down on the veranda, and demanded tucker. She gave him something to eat; then he expressed the intention of staying for the night. It was sundown then. She got a batten from the sofa, loosened the dog, and confronted the stranger, holding the batten in one hand and the dog's collar with the other. "Now you go!" she said. He looked at her and at the dog, said "All right, mum," in a cringing tone and left. She was a determined-looking woman, and Alligator's yellow eyes glared unpleasantly - besides, the dog's chawing-up apparatus greatly resembled that of the reptile he was named after.

She has few pleasures to think of as she sits here alone by the fire, on guard against a snake. All days are much the same for her; but on Sunday afternoon she dresses herself, tidies the children, smartens up baby, and goes for a lonely walk along the bush-track, pushing an old perambulator in front of her. She does this every Sunday. She takes as much care to make herself and the children look smart as she would if she were going to do the block in the city. There is nothing to see, however, and not a soul to meet. You might walk for twenty miles along this track without being able to fix a point in your mind, unless you are a bushman. This is because of the everlasting, maddening sameness of the stunted trees - that monotony which makes a man long to break away and travel as far as trains can go, and sail as far as ship can sail - and farther.

But this bushwoman is used to the loneliness of it. As a girl-wife she hated it, but now she would feel strange away from it.

She is glad when her husband returns, but she does not gush or make a fuss about it. She gets him something good to eat, and tidies up the children.

She seems contented with her lot. She loves her children, but has no time to show it. She seems harsh to them. Her surroundings are not favourable to the development of the "womanly" or sentimental side of nature.

It must be nearing morning now; but the clock is in the dwelling-house. Her candle is nearly done; she forgot that she was out of candles. Some more wood must be got to keep the fire up, and so she shuts the dog inside and hurries around to the woodheap. The rain has cleared off. She seizes a stick, pulls it out, and - crash! The whole pile collapses.

Yesterday she bargained with a stray blackfellow to bring her some wood, and while he was at work she went in search of a missing cow. She was absent an hour or so, and the native black made good use of his time. On her return she was so astonished to see a good heap of wood by the chimney, and she gave him an extra fig of tobacco, and praised him for not being lazy. He thanked her, and left with head erect and chest well out. He was the last of his tribe and a King; but he had built that wood-heap hollow.

She is hurt now, and tears spring to her eyes as she sits down again by the table. She takes up a handkerchief to wipe the tears away, but pokes her eyes with her bare fingers instead. The handkerchief is full of holes, and she finds that she has put here thumb through one, and her forefinger through another.

This makes her laugh, to the surprise of the dog. She has a keen, very keen, sense of the ridiculous; and some time or other she will amuse bushmen with the story.

She has been amused before like that. One day she sat down "to have a good cry," as she said - and the old cat rubbed against her dress and "cried too." Then she had to laugh.

It must be near daylight now. The room is very close and hot because of the fire. Alligator still watches the wall from time to time. Suddenly he becomes greatly interested; he draws himself a few inches nearer the partition, and a thrill runs though his body. The hair on the back of neck begins to bristle, and the battle-light is in his yellow eyes. She knows what this means, and lays her hand on the stick. The lower end of one of the partition slabs has a large crack on both sides. An evil pair of small, bright bead-like eyes glisten at one of these holes. The snake - a black one - comes slowly out, about a foot, and moves its head up and down. The dog lies still, and the woman sits as one fascinated. The snake comes out a foot further. She lifts her stick, and the reptile, as though suddenly aware of danger, sticks his head in through the crack on the other side of the slab, and hurries to get his tail round after him. Alligator springs, and his jaws come together with a snap. He misses, for his nose is large, and the snake's body close down on the angle formed by the slabs and the floor. He snaps again as the tail comes round. He has the snake now, and tugs it out eighteen inches. Thud, thud. Alligator gives another pull and he has the snake out - a black brute, five feet long. The head rises to dart about, but the dog has the enemy close to the neck. He is a big, heavy dog, but quick as a terrier. He shakes the snake as though he felt the original curse in common with mankind. The eldest boy wakes up, seizes his stick, and tries to get out of bed, but his mother forces him back with a grip of iron. Thud, thud - the snake's back is broken in several places. Thud, thud - it's head is crushed, and Alligator's nose skinned again.

She lifts the mangled reptile on the point of her stick, carries it to the fire, and throws it in; then piles on the wood and watches the snake burn. The boy and the dog watch too. She lays her hand on the dog's head, and all the fierce, angry light dies out of his yellow eyes. The younger children are quieted, and presently go to sleep. The dirty-legged boy stands for a moment in his shirt, watching the fire. Presently he looks up at her, sees the tears in her eyes, and, throwing his arms around her neck exclaims:

"Mother, I won't never go drovin' blarst me if I do!"

And she hugs him to her worn-out breast and kisses him; and they sit thus together while the sickly daylight breaks over the bush.

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Short Stories: The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson

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The two-roomed house is built of round timber, slabs, and stringy-bark, and floored with split slabs. A big bark kitchen standing at one end is larger than the house itself, veranda included. Bush all around - bush with no horizon, for the country is flat. No ranges in the distance.

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Make your writing sound academic

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As a "part of speech" transition words are used to link words, phrases or sentences. They help the reader to progress from one idea (expressed by the author) to the next idea. Thus, they help to build up coherent relationships within the text.

Transitional Words

This structured list of commonly used English transition words - approximately 200, can be considered as quasi complete. It can be used (by students and teachers alike) to find the right expression. English transition words are essential, since they not only connect ideas, but also can introduce a certain shift, contrast or opposition, emphasis or agreement, purpose, result or conclusion, etc. in the line of argument.
The transition words and phrases have been assigned only once to somewhat artificial categories, although some words belong to more than one category.

There is some overlapping with prepositions and postpositions, but for the purpose of usage and completeness of this concise guide, I did not differentiate.

Agreement / Addition / Similarity

The transition words like also, in addition, and, likewise, add information, reinforce ideas, and express agreement with preceding material.

Opposition / Limitation / Contradiction

Transition phrases like but, rather and or, express that there is evidence to the contrary or point out alternatives, and thus introduce a change the line of reasoning ( contrast).

Cause / Condition / Purpose

These transitional phrases present specific conditions or intentions.

Examples / Support / Emphasis

These transitional devices (like especially) are used to introduce examples as support, to indicate importance or as an illustration so that an idea is cued to the reader.

Effect / Consequence / Result

Some of these transition words ( thus, then, accordingly, consequently, therefore, henceforth) are time words that are used to show that after a particular time there was a consequence or an effect.

Note that for and because are placed before the cause/reason. The other devices are placed before the consequences or effects.

as a result

under those circumstances

in that case

for this reason

in effect

for

thus

because the

then

hence

consequently

therefore

thereupon

forthwith

accordingly

henceforth

Conclusion / Summary / Restatement

These transition words and phrases conclude, summarize and / or restate ideas, or indicate a final general statement. Also some words (like therefore) from the Effect / Consequence category can be used to summarize.

as can be seen

generally speaking

in the final analysis

all things considered

as shown above

in the long run

given these points

as has been noted

in a word

for the most part

by and large

to sum up

on the whole

in any event

in either case

all in all

Obviously

Ultimately

Definitely

Time / Chronology / Sequence

These transitional words (like finally) have the function of limiting, restricting, and defining time. They can be used either alone or as part of adverbial expressions.

Many transition words in the time category ( consequently; first, second, third; further; hence; henceforth; since; then, when; and whenever) have other uses.

Except for the numbers ( first, second, third) and further they add a meaning of time in expressing conditions, qualifications, or reasons. The numbers are also used to add information or list examples. Further is also used to indicate added space as well as added time.

Space / Location / Place

These transition words are often used as part of adverbial expressions and have the function to restrict, limit or qualify space. Quite a few of these are also found in the Time category and can be used to describe spatial order or spatial reference.

List of Transition Words

Transition Words are also sometimes called (or put in the category of) Connecting Words. Please feel free to download them via this link to the category page:
Linking Words & Connecting Words as a PDF.

It contains all the transition words listed on this site. The image to the left gives you an impression how it looks like.

Usage of Transition Words in Essays

Transition words and phrases are vital devices for essays, papers or other literary compositions. They improve the connections and transitions between sentences and paragraphs. They thus give the text a logical organization and structure (see also: a List of Synonyms).

All English transition words and phrases (sometimes also called 'conjunctive adverbs') do the same work as coordinating conjunctions: they connect two words, phrases or clauses together and thus the text is easier to read and the coherence is improved.

Usage: transition words are used with a special rule for punctuation: a semicolon or a period is used after the first 'sentence', and a comma is almost always used to set off the transition word from the second 'sentence'.

Example 1:
People use 43 muscles when they frown; however, they use only 28 muscles when they smile.

Example 2:
However, transition words can also be placed at the beginning of a new paragraph or sentence - not only to indicate a step forward in the reasoning, but also to relate the new material to the preceding thoughts.

Use a semicolon to connect sentences, only if the group of words on either side of the semicolon is a complete sentence each (both must have a subject and a verb, and could thus stand alone as a complete thought).

Further helpful readings about expressions, writing and grammar: Compilation of Writing Tips How to write good ¦ Correct Spelling Study by an English University

Are you using WORD for writing professional texts and essays? There are many easy Windows Shortcuts available which work (almost) system-wide (e.g. in every programm you use).

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transition words list connecting  transitional transitions phrases  sentences example rule comma semicolon

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A List of Transition Words - With Examples on how to use these transitional devices in writing to connect one idea with another.

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there is no essay without one

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Last year, I had a strange dream. My father and I were wading in an industrial canal, reminiscent of a subway, as thousands of hatchery-raised fish were being released into it. The fish crowded, slimy, around our legs, and I knew (in the way that one knows in a dream) that they thought, as they hit the water, that they were drowning-that they had to experience death before entering adulthood. The next day, I told my father about the dream. He revealed that, when I was three, when we were living in Pittsburgh, he took me to see a truckful of catfish being pumped into an artificial pond. I was too young to remember this. But somewhere in my mind the vision of fish being spewed into water had lodged itself, resurfacing more than twenty-five years later.

These days, it's common to find an image emerging, unbeckoned, from the reservoir of the past. We spend hours wading through streams of photos, many of which document, in unprecedented ways, our daily lives. Facebook was invented in 2004. By 2015, Kate Eichhorn writes in " The End of Forgetting: Growing Up with Social Media," people were sharing thirty million images an hour on Snapchat, and British parents "posted, on average, nearly two hundred photographs of their child online each year." For those who have grown up with social media-a group that includes pretty much everyone under twenty-five-childhood, an era that was fruitfully mysterious for the rest of us, is surprisingly accessible. According to Eichhorn, a media historian at the New School, this is certain to have some kind of profound effect on the development of identity. What that effect will be we're not quite sure.

Eichhorn sees both sides of the coin. On the one hand, she says, children and teen-agers have gained a level of control that they didn't have before. In the past, adults refused to acknowledge children's agency, or imposed on them an idealized notion of innocence and purity. Adults were the ones writing books, taking photos with expensive cameras, and commissioning paintings, all of which tended to commemorate childhood-to look back at it-rather than participate in it. The arrival of cheaply made instant photos, in the nineteen-sixties, allowed children to seize a means of production, and the arrival of the Internet gave them an unprecedented degree of self-determination. "If childhood was once constructed and recorded by adults and mirrored back to children (e.g., in a carefully curated family photo album or a series of home video clips), this is no longer the case," Eichhorn writes. "Today, young people create images and put them into circulation without the interference of adults."

This practice can be hugely beneficial. New technology-especially the smartphone-allows us to produce a narrative of our lives, to choose what to remember and what to contribute to our own mythos. For Eichhorn, this is the latest instance of a long-held, if mysterious, practice. "Long before children were able to create, edit, and curate images of their lives," she writes, "they were already doing so on a psychic level." Freud called these images "screen memories"-no pun intended-and he thought that we used them to soften or obscure painful experiences. Humans have always tried to cope with the difficulty of memory, to turn it "from an intolerable horror to something which is reassuringly innocuous and familiar." Social media just makes us more adept at it.

On the other hand, Eichhorn writes, such media can prevent those who wish to break with their past from doing so cleanly. We're not the only ones posting; our friends and family chronicle our lives, usually without our consent. Growing up online, Eichhorn worries, might impede our ability to edit memories, cull what needs to be culled, and move on. "The potential danger is no longer childhood's disappearance, but rather the possibility of a perpetual childhood," she writes. We may, in short, have traded "screen memories for screens."

This is of particular import for those who yearn to establish new identities. People who transition, for instance, often rely on having a clean break, visually, with their previous appearances; as Eichhorn points out, one of the early promises of the Internet, when it was just "texts and clip art," was that it "presented itself as a safe place [for transgender youth] to try on an aspect of their identities they could not explore in their material lives." Now that the Internet is more permanent, and more pervasive, it's hard to avoid the relics of past identities. Eichhorn cites one of her students, Kevin, an aspiring film critic from a small town in upstate New York. By his second year of college, Kevin says, his Facebook stream "was getting really weird. I had my new friends from New York posting about queer performance art and these guys from my high school posting about dirt biking in a gravel pit and tagging me in photographs from high school. I needed to move on." Although he deactivated his social-media accounts and created new ones under a pseudonym, he continued to be tagged in old photos. "I guess that Kevin is out there for good," he says. "I just have to live with him and all those people he was trying to escape."

The persistence of certain images is more of a problem for some than for others. There are moments, elevated not by the fact of being recorded but by the impossibility of being erased, that become traumatic. These situations-in which a naked photo or an offensive tweet destroys a person's public life-are unfortunate, and widely covered (for example, in Jon Ronson's " So You've Been Publicly Shamed "). Eichhorn details the case of Ghyslain Raza, a Canadian teen-ager who, in 2002, recorded himself wielding a golf-ball retriever as though it were a lightsabre. The video, which was found by a classmate, titled "Star Wars Kid," and uploaded to the Internet, was viewed by millions of people; as Eichhorn points out, this all happened at a time when virality, as a phenomenon, wasn't really a thing. Raza was bullied at school and ended up in a psychiatric ward. In 2013, still unable to escape the video, despite legal action, he spoke publicly about his experience, describing his contemplation of suicide.

Everyone, Eichhorn writes, benefits from experimentation in adolescence. During that time, we exist in what the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson called a psychosocial "moratorium"-a stage in which we hover "between the morality learned by the child and the ethics to be developed by the adult." The moratorium is a period of trial and error that society allows adolescents, who are permitted to take risks without fear of consequence, in hopes that doing so will clarify a "core self-a personal sense of what gives life meaning." The Internet interrupts the privacy of this era; it tends to scale up mistakes to monumental proportions, and to put them on our permanent records. Colleges and employers now look at social-media accounts for evidence of character. Eichhorn spends less time than she might have on how this affects today's teens. What is it like to live under threat? What are the ramifications when an entire generation never gets the chance to experiment freely or to remake themselves?

Eichhorn does lightly gesture to a kind of universal human right, one that runs counter to the whims of companies that use data. "Forgetting-that once taken-for-granted built-in resource that all humans possessed-is now being pitted against the interests of technology companies," she writes, implying, with an endearing idealism, that we have a right to forget. (For some, this belief might reflect a distinctly American approach to the rest of the world.) More plausibly, she cites the right to be forgotten, which is the nickname of both data privacy regulations in Europe and movements against naming minors in the media. Either way, the implication is that the ability to detach from one's past self-to move laterally, as an individual, into a new body or personality-is a democratic ideal. We also have the right to stay as we are. In some cases, retaining our sense of self across chasms that might destroy it is more important than having a rebellious phase. Take, for instance, the case of migrants, which Eichhorn touches on briefly: "Family members left behind can now stay in constant touch with their sons and daughters and even track their footsteps across Europe." Here, memory is almost a form of political representation, enabled by social media; groups are able to preserve their history as they travel across continents.

Are all photos documentary? In " The Social Photo," Nathan Jurgenson puts forth the useful proposition that most online photos are about sharing experiences, not creating memories. In one passage, Jurgenson, a founder of Real Life magazine, writes that selfies are "less an accurate picture of me at this time in this place and more . . . a visual depiction of the idea of me." They're units of communication, more emojis or hieroglyphics than portraits; they have little context, aren't discernibly located anywhere, and typically come in the aggregate. For the most part, it wouldn't really matter if they existed in twenty years. This explains the prevalence of disappearing photos, like Instagram stories and Snapchat. (Jurgenson is also a sociologist for Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company.) It also explains photos of food, which are rarely artful or worth saving.

For Jurgenson, taking social photos changes the way vision works-a process that began with the advent of cameras and is still evolving today. Teen-agers are cyborgs, and their phones are mechanical eyes that help them interpret their experience. "To document," Jurgenson writes, "is to be involved with our own experience instead of passively letting it float by." On this subject, Jurgenson has all the right, if somewhat dutiful, opinions: nostalgia is overrated, but he's not into "digital austerity." We shouldn't hark back to an era in which we were less attached to technology-mostly because that era doesn't exist. "Our reality has always been already mediated, augmented, documented," he writes, "and there's no access to some state of unmediated purity." We shouldn't ask whether social photography is good, but how it can be good.

Jurgenson, unlike Eichhorn, isn't worried about the Internet making it hard to bury past versions of ourselves. If anything, he fears the prevalence of death. Photos, he writes, "embalm" their subjects, encasing them in a "stilling sadness that kills what it attempts to save out of a fear of losing it." For him, the risk of constant documentation is alienation: a sense that our bodies are generating still moments rather than constant movement. He cites Wolfgang Schivelbusch, a German scholar who wrote about the effect of the railway on human perception. With its speed and glass windows, "the train flattens nature into something smooth and predictable, not something traveled within but something easily seen and consumed," Jurgenson writes. "As more of life is experienced through camera screens, does it occur at a similar remove, where the messiness of lived experience is made into something merely observable?"

It would, indeed, be stunning if we were able to see painful moments from the past-the ones we meditate on for years-as dead and embalmed. The trouble is, most difficult memories aren't captured by photos, videos, or tweets. Screens, like screen memories, are avoidant; they turn away from the painful. There are few crying children on Instagram. A friend, whose mother digitized all her family's old home videos, recently told me about a significant birthday party at the roller rink. What she remembered was the drama beforehand: at the time, she was obsessed with Rollerblades, and when the rink had only roller skates her mother rushed to a sports store to get an inline pair, barely saving the day. None of this, it turned out, was captured in the video. All it showed was the triumph-a redemptive moment after tears, and a happy loop around the rink.

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Nausicaa Renner writes on how the Internet-especially social-media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat-makes it difficult for people to escape their previous identities.

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Is your identity given or created? | Marcus Lyon | TEDxExeter

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What factors influence identity formation? In a sense, every stimulus we experience consciously and subconsciously throughout our lives has an impact on the way we and society create and label our identities. Identity formation and evolution are impacted by a variety of internal and external factors like society, family, loved ones, ethnicity, race, culture, location, opportunities, media, interests, appearance, self-expression and life experiences.

1. Society

Does our identity begin its cultivation from the moment we're born? Surprisingly not. Our identity is influenced long before we are even conceived. The fact is that our society - indiscriminate of the customs or cultures within it - has already begun shaping one's identity through years of categorization and labeling based on traits and expected behaviors. Before we're born, these pre-determined groups are already crafted so we can be sorted.

Many of these broad traits are based on appearances such as gender and skin color. Others include ethnicities, religious, financial and social statuses. Even aging, a natural part of life for all men and women, incurs a pre-determined assumption. These pre-determined thoughts within our society can be helpful or harmful, particularly in instances in which one group is either celebrated or discriminated based on elements of their identity.

Society can act as a positive and negative force on our identity. The concept of collectivism, in which we view ourselves in relation to others within our society, is just as important as individualism. Finding a group that shares aspects of our identity and either helps us accept or change how we identify ourselves helps us throughout our lives.

2. Family and Loved Ones

While all of our relationships with our society are influential, our families and loved ones have a significant impact on our identity formation. As they are the first we are exposed to, we consciously and subconsciously look to our parents, siblings and extended family members for the building blocks of our identity formation. Unsurprisingly, this influence is a two-way street - as we learn and develop our identity, our loved ones' identities evolve because of our impact on their lives.

Throughout our early developmental years, we may embody the title of son, daughter, brother or sister. How strongly we identify with these labels is influenced by variables like the size and type of family we belong to and the level of support or conflict that we receive from our family. In many cases, the level of support or conflict is influenced by factors in our parents' lives that contribute to their identities, such as financial status or level of education.

Aside from our familial relationships, our platonic and romantic relationships also change who we are. As our relationships become more serious, the valence and size of our concept of self changes as well. We can gain and lose traits - both positive and negative characteristics - that become hallmarks of our identities. These relationships can also positively and negatively influence important facets or our self-concept, such as causing us to lose interest in things that we enjoy or fall out of touch with our religious or cultural attachments.

3. Ethnicity, Race and Culture

One of the most complex and multifaceted factors that influence identity formation is ethnicity, race and culture. These aspects of our lives are continually evolving, both in the way the members of each group define their group and how society chooses to define these groups. While we have no control over our race and ethnicity, we can decide to immerse or distance ourselves from the cultures, religions and customs that we're born into.

All of these factors influence our identities from the moment we're born, especially when our families identify strongly with these associations. Along with creating a foundation for our system of beliefs, these factors also influence our behaviors and attitudes. Each cultural group may express their emotions, approach problems or conduct their lives in a way that is vastly different from another group.

Many people have a strong sense of pride when it comes to these factors. However, how our environment reacts to features like our skin color, heritage or cultural customs can either strengthen or weaken our sense of pride in that aspect of our identity. The attitudes and behaviors directed at us influence the way we respond, specifically in the way we express or repress this aspect of our identity.

4. Location and Opportunities

Location and opportunities are perhaps two of the most variable influences on our identities. The country we're born in, the town we live in and the community we're part of impact our sense of self. The current government, economy and even the time in which we live impacts how we see ourselves and the world. The geography and cultures of our town influence our productivity, creativity and happiness.

Our contentment with our identity has a lot to do with the opportunities our location affords us. If we feel isolated, out of place or unaccepted in the collective identity, we may come into conflict with our personal identity. Research has found that different variables within our physical surroundings can change the way we perceive our lives. While it might not change our personality, it can reinforce our existing thoughts about our identity.

5. Media

Like society, the media influences how we should - and consequently, how we do - see ourselves. Media has an immediate impact on our perceived reality. Consciously and subconsciously, we receive messages through advertising, television shows, movies, games and music that reinforces or conflicts with our beliefs about life and whether or not we should be content with who we are. These false depictions of reality can harm our self-perception.

The internet provides a wealth of information and communication that we can use as a guide for social comparison and to find others who share our collective identity. However, too much information and exposure can make us question aspects of our identity. Exposure to media in any form is just as influential in shaping our identity as our family, friends and society.

As a social concept, the advances in internet technology help transform our identities in new ways. Social media specifically gives us a platform to showcase our physical identity and create a virtual identity. This virtual identity can embody elements of our true identity and allow us to withhold certain aspects of ourselves that we may not embrace confidently. We also have the choice to create an entirely different identity as a way to further explore ourselves or cope with our real identity.

6. Personal Interests

Our hobbies and personal interests are also essential elements of our identity. When we first get to know someone else, a common conversational thread concerns their interests. Their favorite movies and bands, how they relax or have fun and what activities they like and dislike give us information on which we base our initial opinions. The intangibles, such as their hopes, dreams and favorite memories, can also shed light on how they seem to perceive themselves.

Our careers are also strongly tied to our identities. While our perception of ourselves can enhance or limit our potential as employees, the role that we hold can influence our personal identity. Job insecurity can strain our sense of self, while success in our role can reinforce our identity. However, those who hold several positions in different industries may find that their multiple career identities challenge their sense of singular personal identity.

7. Appearance and Self Expression

How we look and present ourselves to the world says a lot about who we are. It can also impact how others perceive and treat us, which in turn shapes identity formation. Our physical identity is not superficial - it's actually an aspect of ourselves we tie to our sense of identity. Our appearance and way we express ourselves are how we choose to represent this identity visually. We may choose to project our culture, personal interests or status through our appearance.

Allowing our appearance and self-expression to influence a majority of our identity formation is not healthy. Sadly, society projects false realities to skew our perception of what constitutes the ideal appearance. Though it is healthy for us to be comfortable and confident in the way we present ourselves to society, being overly critical of our appearance is unhealthy. If we believe that society's depiction of approved and unapproved likenesses is accurate, those who do not meet the standards may experience discontentment with their sense of self.

8. Life Experiences

Past experiences can also contribute to our identity formation. Developmental trauma experienced in childhood shapes who we are as adults, with earlier instances of distress leading to more profound levels of negatively impacted identity formation. Thankfully, we can work through our "traumatic self" brought on by childhood events to create a healthy adult identity.

Our positive life experiences also shape our identities. Overcoming difficult times through adolescence or adulthood can help us build resiliency in our sense of selves. Even positive emotional support we receive as children can have a positive effect on our relationships decades later. Whether the experience is inherently positive or negative, how we experience it and process those experiences shape the way we perceive ourselves.

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Y Studios - INSIGHTS | People | Y Studios - What Factors Really Influence Identity?

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When we consider who we are - or rather, who we believe ourselves to be - many of us cite our backgrounds, beliefs, experiences and interests. But what is our true identity, and what are the building blocks that create the person we identify as throughout our lives? Read on.

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This week, Insight writer and English teacher Melanie Flower outlines steps you can take to write your best comparative essay. - The comparative essay is still a relatively new element of VCE English, only becoming part of the Study Design in 2016.