Who Is Joyce Carol Oats Where Are Women Held Back By Their Fear Of Men?

Are Women Held Back By Their Fear of Men?

Joyce Carol Oats uses her short story entitled as Where Are You Going, Where Have You

Been? In order to depict a young girl named Connie and her entrance into adulthood. Her mother is jealous of the fact that Connie is now beautiful and while her mother was equally as pretty at one point in time, she no longer is. She constantly compares her to her older sister, June, who despite being twenty-four years old, still lives at home. Their father spends most of his time at work and when he is not at work he is most certainly not spending time with his daughters.

Later, Connie has a very strange interaction with a man named Arnold Friend. This very clearly alters Connie and the way in which she views herself

Connie wishes to have a life separate from her family but when put in a position where she is forced to be alone, she begins to regret her new found independence. Similar to

Connie, many young women within modern day society begin to demand independence at a young age yet begin to fear it due to selfish men, despite recent attempts to lessen diversity between men and women.

The first initial sign of a girl blossoming into womanhood is her desire to become independent. In the beginning of this story the readers are clearly introduced to the toxicity within Connie's home life. Her mother constantly scolds her for simply being pretty and her father makes it abundantly clear that he could care less about her or June. In an attempt to

Hayes 2 describe Connie’s father it is said that “He didn't bother talking much to them, but around his bent head Connie's mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was all over.” (Oats). Within this quote it can be understood how strongly she desired independence and a life separate from her family. In a study performed on adolescent children in Australia it was found that ““By 12-13 years, almost all girls (92%) and two-thirds

When looking at Joyce Carol Oats short story not a whole lot of information surrounding this topic can be found. This is likely because it is meant to focus on the inequalities between men and women.

However, when describing Arnold Friend's car it is said that “The left rear fender had been smashed and around it was written, on the gleaming gold background: DONE BY CRAZY

WOMAN DRIVER.” (Oats). Connie was not offended by this graffiti and instead she found it kind of funny. In a study done at Lund University in Sweden it was found that “,women primed with the dominance of men were much more likely to believe that a researcher’s career success is out of his/her control as compared to a control group.” (Tellhed/ Jansson). This type of study alone supports the claim that efforts are being made to acknowledge inequalities between men and women but no changes are being made. How many people are gonna say that there’s a problem before the problem is actually solved?

As previously stated, many young women within modern day society begin to demand independence at a young age yet begin to fear it due to selfish men. Connie in Joyce Carol