How to Write an Expository Essay in Women and Female Studies

To get a clearer understanding of what an expository essay is, let’s consult etymology. Its name comes from the word ‘exposition’. When you come to the exposition of paintings, for instance, you are presented with a lot of pieces of art with tags underneath them.

Those tags give information about the piece but it does not provide any critic or side opinion. This is what an expository essay wants you to do – to explore the topic from many different angles and do not take any part. Unlike in the argumentative essay where you need to take the side and prove your opinion with arguments and support them with examples.
It is objective and is usually written in the third person. Keep in mind the disparity between the descriptive and expository essays. The descriptive essay tells about something, without getting into analyzing it. While the writer of an expository essay has to explain something in his writing. Generally speaking, it can be something between an argumentative and descriptive essay. The bounder is really easy to cross without noticing, so keep reminding yourself of these things.

What Are the Specifics Of Women’s Studies Discipline?

Women and Female studies are a field of knowledge that has a tight bound with feminism and its main concern is the role of women in the world. Writing an essay in this field demands a lot of research on historic events, documents, books, and movies. You are also required to analyze, compare.
Like any other essay, it must be well researched, with clever use of arguments and examples. By the way, the topic of women’s rights is very relevant nowadays so finding statistics, quotes and citations for your paper would be a rather exciting process.

Some and Examples of the Topic of Expository Essay in Women Studies

There is a ton of spheres that are somehow connected to the topic of women’s rights. However, if you have trouble find the perfect topic, seek help in books and movies. For instance, you can read these books:

‘Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy’ by Barbara Ehrenreich,
‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath,
‘The Feminine Mystique’ by Betty Friedan.

Remember, that you can even choose a piece of literature of a movie to use as a base for your essay. For example, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood.
Here are some examples of topics and thesis for them.

Labor rights
Women are commonly paid less than men even if they perform the same functions at the company. Governments need to control the payment systems of genders.
How the American Revolution Influenced Women’s Rights and Movement In the 18th Century?
Even though the rights of women did not change officially, women felt the power of revolution and, understood their significance for society and started to take an active role in social affairs.

Domestic Violence and Rape
Threats from intimate partners can easily turn into sexual abuse, which can not be justified under any circumstances. In your paper, you may discuss the cases and the consequences of domestic violence in couples.

Gender Equality
Living in the 21st-century women can still experience gender inequality in the countries of the third world. The paper may discuss the need for gender equality in education, medicine, and society in general.

Early marriage as a national tradition
Child marriage is a common occurrence in India and some other countries. It violates the rights of children. Your essay may cover the consequences of early marriage for young girls and how governments of the third world countries should eliminate this problem.
Keep in mind that you should choose a topic that you would be passionate about writing. Only juice yourself when you are given a specific topic by a teacher.
Also, try to choose a topic that is relevant these days. In other words, it is not necessary to choose a subject of the essay from the 19th or 20th century. Feel free to examine today’s situation with women’s rights. To paraphrase, you can talk about Instagram trends and whether this social media site deepens or eliminates gender boundaries.
Having difficulties to choose a unique topic? Go to Quora, there are plenty of interesting questions and profound answers to them. What is more, you can collect different people’s opinions to show the contrast between people’s views on the subject. Use forums and local issues, news outlets. Never forget about your personal experience. Ask your friends and relatives to drop you some ideas.

How to Write an Expository Essay in Women and Female Studies – Step by Step Hints

Once determined with a topic, conduct research.
Start with digging the information which is already in your head. Use the brainstorming method. Put a sheet of paper in front of you, focus for a minute and think of as many possible arguments as possible. Try questioning. Take a sheet of paper and write down questions ‘What?’, ‘Who?’, ‘Where?’, ‘When?’, ‘Why?’, ‘How?’. Try to provide the broadest answer you are able to.
Now you can use the help of the Internet. While researching take short notes of your findings in each source. You can screenshot useful parts of the source to review it later.
Besides, do not be afraid to research topics that are a little bit out of the field of knowledge you are researching. There is a great possibility to find some interesting clues.
Once you have conducted thorough research, you are ready to develop a thesis. The thesis is just one or a few sentences. But remember that this is the core of your essay and it serves you a reminder.

How to Write an Engaging Introduction For Your Essay?

The introduction is the ‘cover’ of your book. Although you should not judge the book on its cover, it still has to be eye-catching.
Start with a hook sentence. This is a sentence which “hooks the reader” and makes him or her want to read your essay. Even though your teacher is not a reader who can choose what he wants to read or not and is basically forced to read your ‘masterpiece’, you still need to come up with a creative intro. What can a hook sentence be?

A surprising fact or statistic. For example, each year there are 12 million girls who get married by the age of 18 – that is approximately 33000 kids who become child brides every day.
An interesting question. For example: Would you enjoy being forced to marry at 13?
Wise quote. For example: ‘Age does not matter in most relationships, but in marriage, it matters a lot’― M.F. Moonzajer.
Contradiction. For example: In some developing countries child marriage is a hardened tradition – should nations change customs that have created thousands of years ago because of today’s principles?
The sentence that tells why the topic is important. For example, Most girls who are married before 18 get deprived of education and, therefore, possibilities for a successful future.

After this, you need to provide some background information that serves a bridge between your hook and thesis statement. It can be a definition, another statistic or fact but it must not be repeatable, different opinions that people have on your topic, history.

And now the thesis sentence. Remember that a thesis is an answer to your prompt. For the question of child marriage, the thesis for your expository essay may be as follows:

Child marriage in developing countries must be eliminated because marriage is an agreed union of two hearts, which are ready to make a common commitment and are sensible enough to take decisions.

How to Cope With Structurizing Your Main Part of the Essay?

Regardless of how much attention you need to dedicate to the introduction, body paragraphs are much more important as this is where the fruits of your work are displayed. In this part of the essay, you explain your thesis. Each body paragraph should have this structure:

topic sentence;
textual evidence;
explanation of evidence;
concluding sentence.

It is also better to include transition sentences at the end of the paragraphs. Obviously, it glues your text together. Do not omit words like ‘Firstly’, ‘Secondly’ and so on, ‘Therefore’, ‘Thus’, ‘Hence’.

How to Conclude Your Expository Essay?

In conclusion, you make another emphasis on the most important points of the paper and mention the “But” aspects as well. It consists of thoughts, not new ideas. Some people feel uncomfortable repeating sentences that they have already used in the essay. But this is what conclusion actually is.
In short, it consists of a minimum of three sentences: thesis restatements, a summary of the main ideas and the main impression. You can also add a “positive sentence” with hopes for the future, possible solutions to the problem and propose topics for further research.

What Should You Keep In Mind While Writing An Expository Essay?

Facts, facts, and more facts. There is no place for bias here. All that you are expected to do is present all your findings from resources and make up an argument from them.
An expository essay is not about being logical in your thoughts. Obviously, your arguments should not be placed absolutely chaotic. You are just informing a reader about something, laying out all your knowledge on the topic.
There are different types of expository essays, so it is better to choose one pattern first and stick to it while writing.

Problem-solution. The prompt provides you with a problem, you are offering its resolution – everything is simple.
Cause-effect. There is a case, which can have positive or negative consequences. This type of expository essay does not require you to suggest solutions to the problem. However, you can include a couple of sentences about it in the concluding paragraph.
Comparison-contrast. You are required to show the differences between something. In your case, it can be the contrast between the presence of child marriage in developing countries and its absence in developed countries or the comparison of women’s role in society in the 1950s and 2010s.
Process. This type of writing predicts you to describe the steps that are used to solve a problem. For instance, you can describe how the role of women in society has changed throughout human history.
Description. A simple definition of characteristics of a certain topic in Women and Female studies. Pay attention that it is not the same as the descriptive essay. You are still required o provide pieces of evaluation, analysis.

Some Interesting Facts and Statistics in Women and Female Studies for Your Essay

Traffic rules are oriented on men and hence women have more chances to die in a car accident. It is common knowledge that women’s body has some differences from men’s one. They usually have smaller height, weaker neck and upper body and a different sitting position.
Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Nicaragua are the countries where women have the most comfortable lives.
Recent World Economic Forum’s report concluded that humanity needs more than 100 years to fight gender inequality completely. This gap is most pronounced in the political sphere.
A study, conducted by Cornell University, informed that women doubt their scientific abilities, even though they are often as good at science as men.
Almost 50 % of low-wage workers are colored women. Afro-American women get 61 cents for every white man to earn. And in the Latin countries it is even lower – 53 cents.
Many nations are making a bit to close the gap in terms of having females at the top of the companies. The top 5 countries which succeed in this project are Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, Finland.
70% of aliterate adults are women.
50% of working women are employed in elementary occupations.

Conclusion

Be sure now you have everything to get started. But keep in mind the most important thing – female studies are tricky, and there is always a high risk of starting expressing your personal views. An expository essay does not accept this approach so do everything you can to stay formal and use our guidelines as a flashlight in the academic darkness!