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Gender Equality In The Great Gatsby

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Today there are about 1.45 million stay-at-home dads according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Latshaw). The United States Department of Labor states that 57% of women currently participate in the workforce (“Data & Statistics”). Although these numbers are not quite perfect, they exemplify how society is changing from its sexist and stereotypical ways. Many people today are still fighting for gender equality, but there has been a significant change recently. Although it has become acceptable for women to work and men to take care of the kids, men and women were subjected to different roles in the 1920’s. Men worked to pay the bills, while the wife stayed at home to take care of the house and the kids. Women were seen as inferior to men …show more content…

Fitzgerald’s depiction of men and women in The Great Gatsby articulate the gender roles of the 1920’s in a patriarchal light where women are submissive and compliant because of ignorance and male …show more content…

Tom Buchanan feels his role in society is to control others because he feels superior in status and gender. Lehan, in The Great Gatsby: The Limits of Wonder, studies how Tom’s brutality and impulse for power affects others: “The idea of power in The Great Gatsby is embodied in Tom Buchanan. He is not only a man of powerful build and commanding presence, but he exudes a kind of authority as he ushers people about as well as forcing moral pronouncements on them” (80). Tom Buchanan’s brutality and force within the novel represents a strong sense of male supremacy in the Jazz Age. He shows his superiority in society by using authoritative language and actions to dominate the easily oppressed women. The self-confidence and hubris Tom Buchanan possesses diminishes the dignity of his peers because masculinity was shown through suppression of others. After describing the desolate and grotesque valley of ashes, Fitzgerald labels Tom as the archetypal callous man in the Jazz Age by degrading not only his wife, Daisy Buchanan but his

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