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Women portrayed in literature
Feminism as a special topic in literature
Feminism as a special topic in literature
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In society many find that males hold dominance and make all of the major choices. This is just a stereotype that many people seem to believe. There are many stereotypes for a variety of concepts but that does not mean they are true. There are few females that stand up against sexist stereotypes, but for the few people who have spoken out against them literature has been an effective way of getting their message out. Feminism has impacted literature in several ways; it allows people to share their messages about stereotypes.
During the course of this past week and a half, I have been wearing the letter I chose to represent me. My results I received were very weak and almost unresponsive. But didn’t I wear it all day for a week? Yes, people tend to mind their own business while walking in-between classes.
The work is not yet complete, and is evident by looking at the domination of women throughout the centuries, specifically the 19th and 20th century, which was the height of the women’s rights movement. By analyzing two literary works from two different eras, “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the late 19th century and “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” written by Adrienne Rich in the mid-20th century, one can conclude that while there have been improvements to women’s rights, there is still discrimination prevalent. Although set in two different time periods, the main
In contrast with the previous decade, when women have just begun to stand up for their rights, the following period was not much of a favorable. As the 1930’s began with the depression, millions of American citizens, among them women were homeless and hungry. Some of them, avoided the stark deprivation, however still struggled to get by - “We didn’t go hungry, but we lived lean.” – as people often said during those hard times. Women received a clear message from the media – as getting a job was enormously hard, and so was its keeping, they were supposed to stay at home, not in the workplace. Female individuals, who had a job, were viewed as stealing it from men.
But thanks to the women’s suffrage movement courage and tenacity women gained their right and went on to fight for equal representation in other fields such as in the courtroom, marriage, and job market. A world without women’s rights would look like Margaret Atwood famous dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In the story, the government suspends the US Constitution and revokes all women’s rights, and establish a new regime largely based on the hierarchical model of the Old Testament inspired social and religious fanaticism. In this society women’s rights are strictly curtailed, the women are physically segregated by the color of clothing — blue, red, green, striped and white - to signify social class and assigned position ranked highest to
How does this all relate to modern day issues? While the aforementioned essay within her book was not necessarily written all too long ago, feminism has changed and adapted to fit in with younger generations. As of right now feminism is currently quite the hot topic throughout the media in both western regions as well as more conservative regions. Oppression continues to remain hidden within “chivalrous” behaviors and ideals as presented by male dominated institutions that attempt to make decisions on behalf of women. Take for example, the war on Planned Parenthood and female healthcare.
Changes, occurring in the 1920’s and continuing into the 20th Century have been significant in the lives of women. However, today, women are still treated unequally with men still being considered the dominant gender. Women were considered as being naturally weaker than men. Since early times, women have been the strength in the home and family. Connecting those periods from the early, nineteenth century into the 20th Century, life for women have changed in so many ways.
Many women are often victims suffering from physical abuse and political injustices. Society portrays them as submissive and silenced. Even though now women are able to join the workforce, they are still getting paid less than men. Despite America’s status as a civilized country, the degradation persists in too
From the 1800’s to the 20th century, women had gained a lot more independence than they had before. In the year 1777 when voting started to become more relevant, women were decided not to be allowed to be apart of voting, unlike now in the 21st century where women are allowed to vote. From the beginning of the 18th century, women were discriminated against until the middle of the 18th century. After the mid-1750’s, women started to gain more ground on rights and things that they were more freely allowed to do. Women slowly started to gain more ground on things to do such as being guaranteed equal pay starting from the year 1872 to current present time.
This all started to change with the suffrage movement in that women started to enter the professional workforce, obtain higher levels of education, and became more involved in political life resulting in a shift of gender roles as women were entering long held male domains (McCammon et al., 2001, p. 53). Haferkamp and Smelser (1992) discuss further changes regarding social equality and how in the 1970’s the social movements of the 1960’s shifted towards women’s rights. This is when women focused on equal opportunities both in private and public capacities (Haferkamp & Smelser, 1992, p.
Identity Most people believe that identity is a fixed factor of your personality, but as Mel Schwartz says in her article, “we are perpetually re-framing, re-organizing, re-thinking, and re-considering ourselves”. With all the changing we as humans do it would be impossible to constantly be grounded to the same couple of words that we claim to be our identity. Schwartz mentions that there are two extremes when it comes to identity; those who know themselves and those who don’t know themselves. The perfect balanced between these two extremes is said to be ideal for truly creating your identity, but unfortunately is a very difficult task.
Looking back to the Puritan society, the equality between males and females is one of the most controversial faults of the time. The Puritan’s did not view males and females as equal. The Puritans thought of women to be not important in comparison to men. The authorities gave specific rules and expected the people to follow the rules, or they would be punished. In modern day American society, men and women have some of the same roles.
In what ways are women abused and discriminated against inside literature and throughout history? In many patriarchal societies, men have held authority over women due to gender. This power imbalance between men and women sometimes led to unjust treatment of women; men exert their authority over many women in the play, The Crucible. In The Crucible¸ male characters intimidate women to achieve specific outcomes and mark their superiority. Elizabeth Proctor, the protagonist’s wife, shows the standard for Salem women as she is submissive and does not defy her husband or the traditional role as a housekeeper.
Women face getting treated differently, lower paying positions, the opinions of men, and the idea that because they are women they are not capable of the same kind of work men are capable of. The more people that support the different movements for women’s rights the better chance of this issue becoming more well known. Although some may know the struggle women go through to be compared as equally to men, there is still room for more to learn about this issue. Just because women were brought on earth to make more lives does not mean they are weaker and should have to go through this everyday of their
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
