ipl-logo

Women's Voice

1503 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender equality in literature

The Necessity of Listening to the Women’s Voice and of Cooperation “We talked and talked. We took long walks together. She showed me things, explained them, interpreted much that I had not understood. Through her sympathetic intelligence I became more and more comprehensive of the spirit of the people of Herland.” (Gilman, Herland 114) This quote from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, though indirectly, shows one of the main features of utopian novels, genre to which Herland belongs: the attempt to give voice to the oppressed. In fact, it shows how the male narrator listening and talking to Ellador, one of the women of the utopian world, comes to know and comprehend the women’s viewpoint on things. Gilman suggested the fact that women could …show more content…

Whereas in the existing patriarchal society women did not have occasion to express themselves and their desires, ambitions, problems, having to submit to the will of men, in Gilman’s utopia the situation is almost completely reversed. However, there is an element of difference that would not be present in a precisely upside-down reality: the men are not deprived of their voice. Despite being the minority in an entirely matriarchal world, they can express their own ideas and the Herlanders are very much interested in what they have to say, “We have been waiting you see, for you to be able to speak freely with us, and teach us about your country, and the rest of the world. You know so much, you see, and we know only our land” (74). The dialogical structure is present in whole Gilman’s novel and is proposed by Laura Donaldson as one of the main features of feminist utopian texts, opposed to the monological structure of masculinist utopianism. In this case, this element of non-hostility and interchange could be interpreted as an expression of Gilman’s own ideals. She did not regard herself as a “feminist” but as a “humanist” (Lane xx), and as a result, she supported a mutual exchange of opinions and ideas between men and …show more content…

He, indeed, is the one who most of all the men tries to get an insight into the Herlanders’ world, as his relationship with Ellador shows, and is therefore the one whose consciousness grows the most and the reader directly perceives it, “I found, after my ideas of what was essential had changed, that my feelings changed also” (147). His sociological perspective on the things allows him to welcome the new world and to avoid the extreme attitudes that his companions have. He does not strongly try to impose his masculinity as Terry does and does not completely idealize the new “femininity” as

Show More
Related
1356 Words | 6 Pages

She understands that women feel weak and are bullied by men, so she targets the female audience’s delicate emotions toward male oppression to enhance her argument for gender equality. In her introduction, the author employs pathos to engage women’s feelings into her argument, and she uses these emotions to call for women to gain ambition and strength to fight for civil rights. Wollstonecraft tells women that “men endeavor to sink us lower, merely rendering us as alluring objects for a moment” (307). She claims men treat women as “alluring objects,” which expresses her point that men treat women as inferior creatures (307). Also, she directly relates to the female audience when she uses the first person pronoun “us” (307), for she “acknowledges that she too is a victim of oppression” (Smith 559).

Read More
682 Words | 3 Pages

She emphasize on the word “he” referring to men dominating women. She talks about education to even marriage being controlled by the men. Women never had the say so for their life. It also addresses the freedom and equality for women in the courtroom. Women never got the chance to have the positions that left them to make decisions for justice it was always men.

Read More
650 Words | 3 Pages

Gilman incorporates the literary techniques of tone and diction to provide the reader with a clear understanding of how the narrator falls into the beliefs of society, while she is confined and oppressed by her husband’s diagnosis of her being “Nervously Depressed”. Gilman’s use of both techniques allows the work to come together as a whole, and demonstrates the idea that women are content with living in a world were men is seen as more intelligent, able-minded and higher in standard than woman,

Read More
1203 Words | 5 Pages

People such as John Stuart Mill were passionate advocates for women’s rights. In document 1, Mill begins by saying that traditionally, the vocation of a woman is the place of a wife and mother. He believes that one is supposed to consider of women in that way, but in truth, he recognizes that by denying women the same opportunities as men, the world is denied of the talents of women. He wrote The Subjection of Women with the help of his wife. Though he was already an advocate for fairness, his wife educated him on the real-world consequences of women’s legal submission.

Read More
273 Words | 2 Pages

During the gathering, the women having common interest to improve women conditions in the new republic

Read More
958 Words | 4 Pages

Gender Equality Throughout America’s history, women have struggled to obtain basic human rights, gender equality, and general respect from men. These issues continue on into our current day-to-day life and will seem to continue for many years to come. In American literature, there are two women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth, amongst many, who voiced their struggles as women in America. Stanton’s piece, “Declaration of Sentiments”, is a revised version of the “Declaration of Independence”, and it outlines the many rights women have been withheld from.

Read More
544 Words | 3 Pages

Many women were in fact belittled by the ideal of true womanhood and exhibited characteristics such as submissiveness or piety. Gilman also employs somber diction throughout the story, such as “crawl”(55) and “creep”(58) to suggest that covert agency is the only way for women to improve their situations at

Read More
1067 Words | 5 Pages

Gilman investigated what went on in the progressive era within gender inequality. After gathering evidence of how women were treated in their marriage, she wrote her book “The Yellow Wallpaper” to educate readers on this obnoxious idea of separate spheres ideology, where the husband is to control, and the wife is to obey by his rules. In her book, she wrote a fantasy of a single woman from the progressive era. By using just a single woman she was able to explain in detail how all women were treated because that one woman from Gilman’s fantasy represented many women from that time period. When looking back at the book that Gilman wrote and re examining the quote, “Investigate, educate, legislate”, it seems blatantly obvious that Gilman was a muckraker.

Read More
2199 Words | 9 Pages

She has been brainwashed by the patriarchal society of her time to worship the man, her husband, and perform her duties and daily rituals as a means to please him. Welter outlines several characteristics that constitute the perfect or true woman; however, the most crucial and detrimental so-called “virtues” exhibited by Gilman`s the narrator are her submissiveness and domesticity. Although the artistic narrator clearly has her own desires to be free and write as she pleases, her desire to satisfy the patriarchal construct of the household by attending

Read More
1295 Words | 6 Pages

Gilman writes “ he is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.” (Gilman 648),this statement shows the mindset of women during the 1800’s and how men were superior even in the eyes of a woman. During the late 1800’s the current social issue was women’s rights. Many women like Charlotte Gilman were women rights activists. Not all women were in support of women having the same rights, and very few men believed in women 's suffrage.

Read More
818 Words | 4 Pages

Court Cases Contributing to the Civil Rights Movement America: Land of the free. Or is it? Not that long ago, equal opportunity seemed far away as the moon to many African-American citizens. This is the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement, which has been taking on serious publicity in the late 1960 's, but dates as far back as American colonial times.

Read More
750 Words | 3 Pages

Mary Wollstonecraft’s A vindication of the rights of women written in 1792 can be considered one of the first feminist documents, although the term appeared much later in history. In this essay, Wollstonecraft debates the role of women and their education. Having read different thinkers of the Enlightenment, as Milton, Lord Bacon, Rousseau, John Gregory and others, she finds their points of view interesting and at the same time contrary to values of the Enlightenment when they deal with women’s place. Mary Wollstonecraft uses the ideas of the Enlightenment to demand equal education for men and women. I will mention how ideals of the Enlightenment are used in favor of men but not of women and explain how Wollstonecraft support her “vindication” of the rights of women using those contradictions.

Read More
1141 Words | 5 Pages

From the outset, literature and all forms of art have been used to express their author’s feelings, opinions, ideas, and believes. Accordingly, many authors have resorted to their writing to express their feminist ideas, but first we must define what feminism is. According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, feminism is “the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state”. As early as the fifteenth century is possible to find feminist writings. Centuries later, and although she never referred to herself as one, the famous English writer Virginia Woolf became one of the greatest feminist writers of the twentieth

Read More
1091 Words | 5 Pages

Gender Inequality: A Woman’s Struggle in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the lives of women in a society based on societal expectations during the late nineteenth century. She focuses on the issue of gender inequality where women were often discriminated against and expected to fulfill the role of a perfect wife and mother. The narrator is based on on Gilman’s personal experience of suffering from her treatment for postpartum depression due to the social restrictions on women which represents a reflection on women's social status in society. The narrator, who remains anonymous, is depicted as a depressed and isolated prisoner who is oppressed under her husband’s control and struggles to break free.

Read More
787 Words | 4 Pages

Women have less to say about what they need or want but they have to pay much and also to face the results when the men around them botch. It is dreary to see these frail willed men delineated in the novel who failed to stay up for women, who recognize an overall population where women are set backs of their

Read More

More about Women's Voice

Related Topics

Open Document