She felt the first two groups were more honorable in comparison to the last two. The concept of socioeconomic status is very evident in her approach. McDougald points out that the “superficial critics who have had contact only with the lower grades of Negro women, claim that they are more immoral than the other groups of women.” Just because a woman doesn’t go to college and maintain a career does not mean she is corrupted or shameful. This shallow view of women is the same view that some White Americans had of Black Americans. McDougald was participating in the torment of her own race and she did it with selfish reasons.
Maya Angelou’s book ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’ also deals with the problems of being female. How each woman deals with the stigma of being female is a deeply personal journey. Atwood’s Offred and Churchill’s Marline each have their own individual ways of coping. Maya Angelou has to deal with not only the fact that she’s female and the problems that causes but also the stigma of being black in a radically racist community. Because all three characters want to fit into their communities they are forced to hid their true identities and become either what society needs them to be, in Offred’s case ‘QUOTE’ And in Marlines case she’s changed because society demands that she has to be tough, rough and ruthless to reach the top.
A longitudinal study by Farrington and Painter into female offenders showed that they have poor or erratic parenting which meant that they did not get the right socialisation from their mothers which could have led to this crime being committed, showing a gender difference in crime. This shows that women want to be like their mothers but if they don’t
Sean Hopper Welch ENGL1301-086 15Sept2009 Rhetorical Analysis of Sex, Lies, and Conversation The author’s goal in this essay seems to be to point out differences in the way men and women communicate in an attempt to eliminate a major contributing factor to divorce. She likens men and women’s difficulties in communicating with difficulties in communicating between cultures. She identifies several factors that contribute to why men and women have these difficulties. I feel she identified situations that are seen and experienced in everyday life of men and women and by doing so has helped relationships worldwide. She begins with a real life situation to set the scene for the essay.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" motivated the female mind of creativity and mental strength through a patriarchal order of created gender roles and male power during the nineteenth century and into the 20th century. While John represented characteristics of a typical male of his time, the yellow wallpaper represented a controlling patriarchal society; a sin of inequality that a righteous traitor needed to challenge and win. As the wallpaper deteriorates, so does the suppressing affect that male hierarchy imposed on women. Male belief in their own hierarchy was not deteriorating. Females began to think out of line, be aware of their suppression, and fight patriarchal rule.
Simone was referring to how females of the female sex assume the feminine gender-gender meaning the restrictive, socially prescribed attitudes and behaviors that we associate with femininity. Not the same but similar….. 1. Feminist and gender criticism are not exactly the same, but also are not opposites. They exist along a line of attitudes towards sex and sexism, sexuality and gender, language and the literary canon. Distinctions of Difference…… 2.
However, not everyone agrees with the heavy stereotypes laid down by the social order such as male dominance and proper courting. Marie de France is one of these people. She depicts her views of gender expectations through literature. Within the poem Guigemar, Guigemar and his lady fulfill and contradict what would be considered as gender norms within society: female inferiority, traditional courtship, and male dominance. Marie de France does this to criticize and combat the societal expectations and inherent inequalities in Norman England.
Gender Constraints: Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” “Boys and Girls” written by Alice Munro uses several literary strategies to engage in the problems of oppression within a patriarchal society. In this story, a young girl is searching for her identity but realizes the restrictions that are going to be set on her because she is female. Munro’s text reveals the specific gender roles, which cause problems of oppression within a patriarchal society. Society sets certain standards and roles that are apparent for men and women to specifically follow; most members of society fall into these just by blindly doing what is expected of them, but like the main character who is a binary of what is expected of women in society, not all think they fit these standards. From the vivid descriptions, it is known that the girl is physically strong, adventurous and enjoys working outside, as the text states: “Besides carrying water I helped my father when he cut the long grass, and the lamb’s quarter and flowering money-musk, that grew between the pens”(572), typical characteristics used to describe male characters.
Women are under a constant pressure to adhere to roles that are specific to their gender and so are men. The woman by norm is relegated to the private domain and is allocated the affective role, while the man has full access to the public domain for he plays the role of the bread-winner. Devdutt Pattanaik, in his book, ‘The Pregnant King’, strives to show how gender plays an important part in defining roles and relationships, while at the same time also accounting for the interesting change in gender roles of men and women, which appears extremely contemporary and unthinkable at the time and context in which the story is set. Based at the time of the Mahabharata, Pattanaik’s ‘The Pregnant King’ brings forth a wide new range of ideas that are exceedingly modern in nature. These ideas question the societal norms that privilege the men and not the women, the norms that prevent both men and women from adopting occupations and indulging in activities that majorly interests them.
Anthony Ornelas Ornelas 1 Sociology 440 6/10/2013 Professor Inoue Gender Inequality The tendency of society to favor males and their masculinity has been a recurring theme throughout history and culture. As a result of these ideas, to be masculine is synonymous with dominance, while femininity directly correlates to weakness. These attitudes are responsible for the belief that women should stay at home and out of the way while men rule the world and control the money and society. That males enjoy social privilege is apparent even in American culture, though males do not often realize their own biases against women or the male privilege that they regularly enjoy and manipulate. Since claiming their role in society as capable human beings, women have been treated unfairly in the society when they haven’t been directly excluded from various fields that are socially less “suitable” for a woman.