Feminine Stereotypes In Tara Westover's 'Educated'

How Feminine Stereotypes and Values Enforced During Childhood Affect Perception Women are often expected to demonstrate traits that are specific to their gender, such as modesty and submission. The belief of these stereotypes is more likely to occur in religious or conservative households. This sentiment is explored in the memoir Educated by Tara Westover in which Tara is raised in a pious household that adheres to Mormon teachings. Tara is subjected to several of the family's beliefs which are difficult to grasp at a young age. This mixed with the fact that she is heavily sheltered and homeschooled alter her perception of others and herself. In Educated by Tara Westover it is shown that when feminine stereotypes and values are enforced during childhood it has a deep effect on a person's ability to perceive

By perceiving herself as a future homemaker due to these enforced ideas the perception she had of herself was a future submissive wife. An excerpt to enforce this claim is “From the moment I had first understood that my brother Richard was a boy and I a girl, I had wanted to exchange his future for mine. My future was motherhood; his, fatherhood. They sounded similar but they were not. To be one was to be a decider. To preside. To call the family to order. To be one was to be the other was among those called” (Westover 259). In this quote Tara refers to a woman's role as being called to order as opposed to calling the family to order. This constructs Tara’s perception of a mother and wife being one who is submissive and obedient to a husband. When these ideas are put into someone's head it fabricates a perception of all mothers and wives. It generates the idea that all married woman should succumb to the stereotype of being that acquiescent wife and that was how Tara perceived it until getting involved in gender