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Sexism In The Great Gatsby

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In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays Myrtle and Daisy as minorities to Tom, this idea of women has changed because women have more rights and opportunities now. Women were considered a minority group because they didn’t share the same power, privileges, rights, and opportunities as men. This idea caused a lot of sexism because men thought they were better than women in multiple ways. It was also normalized that women were a minority group. This caused women to be treated as second-class citizens and it also caused major uprisings for women’s rights in the United States. When Fitzgerald was alive women were viewed as servants to their husbands and they didn’t have rights as a citizen of the United States. Women also stayed at home and …show more content…

Many people have the American dream as a goal because it means that you have made it in America. People want as much money as they can get and want it as easily as possible. Not many people realize that “It involves hard work, financial security, career success, and confidence that each new generation will be better off than the one before it,” (Lopez). The American dream is extremely hard to achieve because it is different for everyone. For some people, the American dream doesn’t include having as much money as possible. Even when people get to their American dream, they usually aren’t happy when they get there. This is because it takes so much work and time to get where you want to be. Fitzgerald related Gatsby to this idea because Gatsby wasn’t happy when he reached the American dream. He was always wanting more and was never satisfied with his life. Gatsby also set a lot of goals to get where he wanted to be. This relates to, “Americans setting life milestones as a part of attaining the dream: graduating from college, owning a home, raising a family, and giving your kids a life that’s better than your own,” (Lopez). Gatsby’s American dream was to be rich and maintain a higher social status. Gatsby was able to reach the milestones he set to get to that point, but he ended up not being happy with his life because he couldn’t win Daisy over. Daisy was …show more content…

One example of women gaining rights is the passage of Title IX. This is an amendment that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities. This, “remade sports and education. Female athletes in college could suddenly get scholarships. Colleges and high schools began offering sports to women and girls,” (Curran). Women's rights have changed for the better and it allows women to have more opportunities. Women are now able to get scholarships and are offered the opportunity to play sports, just like men. This relates to Fitzgerald because he mentioned that women were treated unfairly and was hoping it would be fixed. Another example of women's freedom changing for the better is the American national government body, the USSF, which is going to pay women and men equally. “The USSF will now pay members of its men's and women's teams equally. The USSF is the first soccer federation in the world to promise both sexes matching money,” (Equalizes Pay). Women are starting to become equal to men in sports which is something that Fitzgerald wanted to happen. He wrote about women being minorities because he was hoping people would realize it and change their views. His writing had an impact on how people viewed the world and

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746 Words | 3 Pages

For women, they were finally given some rights to join the armed forces and new jobs that were originally only given to men (History.com

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1429 Words | 6 Pages

Their rights were being matched to men. An example of this is the”Federal Divorce Act was changed in 1925 to permit women the same right to a divorce as a man - adultery” (Freeman 31). Women’s rights were changing, and their rights were similar to that of the men. This introduced an era where women were treated as equals to men. Lastly, women were getting involved with more significant work in society.

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It is always so close but still so far out of reach. Gatsby’s past with Daisy was keeping him from achieving true happiness because she would never love him the way he loved her. The fact that Gatsby managed to amass such wealth was impressive itself, but even though he managed to do that, he did not achieve his goal. This is proof of how unattainable the American Dream was in Fitzgerald’s opinion.

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Since there was many educational opportunities for women it began to lead more and more women to find their potential meaningful of their individual professional career. Also women 's salaries increased but not to the amount that men received. Even though women did not quite make as much as men do, it still felt like a huge accomplishment because it was much better circumstances than they had before. In 1972 the Equal Rights Amendment passed which lingered around congress for nearly fifty-five years. The wording of the ERA was simply understood: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

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339 Words | 2 Pages

Women were granted the right to be just like men. Women were denied many things like jobs, an education, and the right to vote. Activists created the women’s suffrage movement, which helped them achieve their goal of equality and become a more powerful force in the nation. One of the great positives was that women’s right

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459 Words | 2 Pages

The novel, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, conveys that Fitzgerald was a misogynist by illustrating the gender roles women endured. The measures of these women show that at this time women needed a man to supplement their needs. For example, Daisy gets mad at Tom and screams, “‘That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of A——’” (Fitzgerald 15). As the story progresses, we learn that Daisy only married Tom for his money and not for love.

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Specifically, women gaining the right to vote, free education, right to work, to divorce, own property and wages, and the right to have custody over their children helped build America to be the country that it is today. Economically, women’s rights increased labor force participation and created “meaningful participation in economic decision making” (“Facts and Figures: Economic Empowerment”). This participation ensured economic progress. Women’s rights provided increased educational opportunities which benefited the economy in the same way child labor laws did. These opportunities gave women the skills people needed to become a significant part of the community, having a job and earning a reasonable amount of money.

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The American Dream suggests that every American citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work. One of the major ways that Fitzgerald portrays this is by alluding to outside events or works of literature specifically from that time period. Another major relationship that develops in The Great Gatsby is between Tom and Daisy. F. Scott Fitzgerald alludes to things such as the World’s Fair and “The Love Nest” to display the eventual dismantling of Tom and Daisy’s relationship. Both of these separate plots consolidate under the idea of Gatsby trying to become the epitome of the American Dream, as seen through his strive for a “perfect life.”

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Daisy had to hold a reputation as a rich woman living in a society where women could not move so freely. Fitzgerald says, "It's a great advantage not to drink

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680 Words | 3 Pages

Women in The Great Gatsby Throughout the 1920’s, the role women played in society was changing. Fitzgerald shows this in The Great Gatsby by the characters: Daisy, and Jordan. The morals and iimages of the woman changed. During this time period females began to go against the “norms” of society.

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Gatsby pushes himself to achieve this goal which is another portion of the American Dream, to have a loving wife. Gatsby found himself saying “And what's more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time.” which shows his love is spread from what happened in their past, and gives reason to his decisions. Among all of this though, F. Scott Fitzgerald puts forth his opinion on the American Dream.

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Just as the American Dream- the pursuit of happiness- has degenerated into a quest for more wealth, Gatsby’s powerful dream of happiness with Daisy has become the motivation for lavish excess and criminal activities. He used his dream to escape from his past, but then was stuck on hold for when he lost Daisy the only part of the dream he really cared for. Gatsby made a dream just for Daisy so she could be apart of his, but saw the meaningless of it when she didn’t choose him in the end. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….

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1399 Words | 6 Pages

Through use of comparison between Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s message about women and feminine power is that having a man deprives the women of their power, ranking higher in social standards deepens the wound of selfishness, and being deceptive

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878 Words | 4 Pages

Scott Fitzgerald reinforces the oppression of women through his menial depiction of women. Fitzgerald uses his character, Daisy Buchanan, to represent the selfish and shallow perspectives on upper-class women during his era. He contrasts this image of wealthy society by using Myrtle Wilson, a needy mistress, to manifest the greed existent within the women at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Jordan Baker embodies a highly modernized and independent female during the time, yet she is constantly treated unequal to men. Fitzgerald creates females that are subjected to constant inferiority in his novel, rather than giving them more original characteristics.

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777 Words | 4 Pages

We all know that women didn 't have as many rights as men, and they still don 't. Women can now do more than they used to, but they still aren 't equal with men. They have had to fight for so many things like the right to vote and to be equal to men. The 19th amendment, the one that gave women the right to vote, brought us a big step closer. The Equal Rights Movement also gave us the chance to have as many rights as men. Women have always stayed home, cleaned the house, and didn 't even get an education.

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