ipl-logo

Gender Stereotypes

732 Words3 Pages

Lastly, God’s gift of breast milk for Christina to quench her hunger comes across as a sexist food choice for women are viewed as the stereotypical nurturers to the children of men. During one of Christina’s frequent treetop adventures, she becomes unbearably hungry, and prays God will send her down some food. She appears hopeless as she begs for God’s help, thus fully giving into the female stereotype of being a weak, passive being. God steps in like the dominant and protective figure he is to rescue Christina. De Cantimpré describes, “without delay, turning her eyes to herself, she saw that her dry virginal breasts were dripping sweet milk against all laws of nature” (185). Being the creator of all things, God is known to preform some pretty …show more content…

God exercises his male dominance by allowing Christina to drink her own milk because he is the one in control. He grants Christina’s wish, preforms the miracle of lactation without pregnancy, and is responsible for lifting her hunger. Similarly to God, Thomas de Cantimpré can also be viewed as discriminating against Christina’s gender for the way he portrays the scene in which Christina drinks her own breast milk. De Cantimpré focuses heavily on sole the image of Christina’s breast as a source of food. In Caroline Walker Bynum’s Fast, Feast, and Flesh: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Bynum speaks of the eating habits of medieval women and the overall significance of food in relation to their lives. According to Bynum, “when male [writers] spoke of God’s motherhood, they focused more narrowly on the soul being nursed at Christ’s breast, whereas women [writers] were apt to associate mothering with punishing, educating, or giving birth as well” (Bynum 15). The term “nursing” does indeed have multiple meanings. Male writers fixating on the association of “nursing” to the “breast” appears discriminatory towards the female gender. Thomas de Cantimpré is an offender of this discrimination for the way in which Christina’s breast milk is mentioned to simply fulfill her hunger. He neglects to correlate this form of mothering to “punishing, educating or giving birth”. The choice

Show More
Related

Lucy Westenra Motherhood Analysis

159 Words | 1 Pages

Lucy Westenra presents a rejection to motherhood when she eats the body of a child and throws it away. ‘the new woman represented a threat not only to the social order, but also to the natural order. ’-101 ‘the child that she had clutched strenuously to her breast’ p.188 ‘scientific research defined a woman entirely in terms of body, one which characterised women’s bodies as devoid of passion. Science greatly feared sexual excess, which it felt could lead to men’s debilitation, which in turn could weaken the entire race. Since men’s passion was considered strong and more naturally inclined to excess, the controls were, instead, placed on women.

Read More

Traditions Subordinating Women Summary

486 Words | 2 Pages

In the article “Traditions Subordinating Women”, Bonnie S. Anderson and Judith P. Zinsser explore the very strong opinions, theories and beliefs of female subordination within the eyes of various origin cultures through stories, passages and history itself. This article gives a vast understanding of a woman’s role, the purpose of her body, what is expected of her, society’s double standards and how literature and poems portray women. Before Christianity, there existed many old cultures such as the Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, Germanics and Celtics, who all came in agreement to preserving the subordination of women. A woman’s main duties were to remain faithful to her husband, to be fruitful and to preserve and nurture her home. A woman was incapable

Read More

Child Protective Services In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

1057 Words | 5 Pages

During these times, Rose Mary never took the blame for her children’s lack of nutrition. “Well,” Mom said, “We should have saved the margarine just in case the gas gets turned back on, Miracles happen, you know.” It was because of my and Lori’s selfishness, she said, that if we had any bread, we’d have to eat it without butter”(pg. 69). Rose Mary deliberately excused herself from blame. The gas had been shut off, no bread was made, yet she still got angry at the kids for eating margarine and butter.

Read More

Symbolism In Christina Of Markyate

697 Words | 3 Pages

Objectification and Patriarchal Control in “Christina of Markyate” written by Anonymous Authors Like any other female during the beginning of the twelfth century, Christina of Markyate, formally known as Theodora, was considered to be inferior to the male sex. Women were expected to respect the wishes of their parents, oblige to marriage and live a life according to stereotypical heterosexual norms. However, given the strict expectations Christina was supposed to submit to, she dismissed traditional gender roles and continued to strive towards the goal of preserving her virginity and living the life of a nun. In the story “Christina of Markyate,” anonymous authors use examples of objectification and patriarchal control to portray Christina’s lack of freedom in a time period consumed with male dominance.

Read More

Mother Archetypes In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

614 Words | 3 Pages

The essay will also tackle three characteristics of the Mother archetype, such as life giver; maternal solicitation and sympathy; terrifying and inescapable. This archetype is also related with the concepts of “fertility and fruitfulness” . Whereas a contrasting characteristic related to this archetype includes being terrifying and inescapable. These above-mentioned characteristics will be the subtopics in which the main body will be divided. Such distinctive features are depicted in Amy Tan

Read More

Book Report On A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

562 Words | 3 Pages

In the book, it mentioned that when you are born as a girl, your life is going to have pain. The women that play role in the book can handle emotional and physical pain. Like in real life, it is more common for us to handle emotional situations better than men can. Also, in some areas we women belong in places where men do not. As mentioned in the book, when we think of childbirth that is an area where we are supposed to be in.

Read More

Sheela-Na-Gig Analysis

2015 Words | 9 Pages

To reflect this flaw in sight and consumption Eve then had to remove her clothes as a sign of humility, revealing her body as sin. For this reason nearly all of the female monsters within the Middle Ages reflect some deformity of women’s turpitudinem. The Sheela-na-gig (Figure 1), as example, represents the likeness of a female figure but only demands attention to four fragments of the body; the vagina, breasts, mouth and eyes. Importantly these are areas of the body that are also associated with a transgression between life and death in the abject; the vagina menstruates, the breasts lactate, the mouth speaks, swallows and spits, and the eyes reflect something non gendered, tears. The structures of the real therefore begin to ‘meld into one another in a cascade towards the absurd’.

Read More

Temple Of The Holy Ghost By Flannery O Connor

920 Words | 4 Pages

The Eucharist represents the body and blood of Christ, which are considered holy and sacred. Through the Eucharist, Catholics are reminded of the sanctity of their own bodies, which are temples of the Holy Spirit. In the story, the child's realization about the value of her own body mirrors the Catholic belief in the sanctity of the body. In the story O’connor states "It was hard to believe that she had a soul to save, and easy to see that she had a body that could put on weight(O’connor). " This quote touches on the idea that the body is temporary and that the soul is what is truly important.

Read More

Eva Luna Character Analysis

610 Words | 3 Pages

We read at the very beginning of this story of Consuela’s shame of being born female when the author writes, “…so they draped her in a diaper to cover her shame…” (Allende 2). This gender imbalance continues with the story of Lukas Carle and his opinion of his wife. “To Lukas Carle, his wife was an inferior being, closer to animal than to man, God’s only intelligent creation” (Allende 27). Towards the end of this story, even Eva could not understand why Melesio wanted to be a woman, when ironically she says, “I had told myself so often that it is a curse to be born a woman that I had some difficulty understanding Melesio’s struggle to become one” (Allende 212).

Read More

Like Water For Chocolate Book Analysis

1431 Words | 6 Pages

In both Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquirel and Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the role of motherhood is emphasized. Everybody has a version of what they picture a mother to be, but some qualities, such as being nurturing and protective, can be agreed upon. In these two books the main roles of motherhood, protector and emotional supporter, are both explored. One of the roles of motherhood is to be a protector to the children, especially when a father isn’t in the picture.

Read More

Columbus Day Analysis

1911 Words | 8 Pages

These women were first brought over from the African continent as wet mothers for rich white women’s babies. While it is true that a mother’s breast is used for feeding a new born child, this is still perceived as sexual abuse. That being due to the harsh mistreatments and forceful

Read More

Protagonist In Everyday Use

792 Words | 4 Pages

Being a single mother, she crosses gender boundaries and works hard in order to provide for her family. Although a man's job is harder, she has physically built for it and describes herself as a " large, big-bone woman with rough, man-working hands" (109). As a single mother, she acquired skills that are usually reserved for a man and takes pride in being able to "kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. work outside all day, [and] [break] ice to get water for washing. One winter she [knocks] a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and hang the meat to chill by nightfall" (109).

Read More

Essay On Viking Expansion

3874 Words | 16 Pages

Some women were profoundly respected, whether as representatives of effective families, or for their age, intelligence and wisdom. There is no evidence that women' capacities were questioned in the pre-Christian period, and their relationship with wisdom and enchantment was outstanding. Their connections with both nature and the otherworldly were a wellspring of

Read More

Corruption In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

1671 Words | 7 Pages

Additionally, the use of the metaphor ‘make me fruitful’ contributes to how the Handmaids want to become pregnant and fulfill their role in society because this role has been justified to them through religion. Some of them truly believe that they will be fulfilling their spiritual duties if they bear children, rather than obeying the oppressive laws that use them for their bodies’ reproductive capabilities. Moreover, during the nighttime prayers, Offred explains that the Handmaids pray to become pregnant: “What we prayed for was emptiness, so we would be worthy to be filled: with grace, love, with self-denial, semen and babies” (Atwood 224). It is quite apparent that the Handmaids have been manipulated into believing that their worth is based on their ability to bear children because then they will be ‘worthy’. Also, the fact that the Handmaids ‘prayed’ shows that the Handmaids are following the spiritual

Read More

The Hoodwinking Of Madeline: Skepticism In The Eve Of St. Agnes

539 Words | 3 Pages

In “The Hoodwinking of Madeline: Skepticism in The Eve of St. Agnes,” Jack Stillinger discusses some possibilities of feminist readings of the poem. First, the romantic poem is about two young lovers—Madeline and Porphyro. Madeline dreams of her lover and her visionary imagination comes true as she wakes to find Porphyro present in her bed. The feminist presence of this poem and essay are pointed out by the internal and external conflicts of the dream and the world. As Madeline is mentioned as a saint and as Porphyro is seeking his heart’s desire of sexual encounters with Madeline, we discover that Madeline is an independent thinker as she decides to run away with Porphyro.

Read More

More about Gender Stereotypes

Related Topics

Open Document