In this novel, Julia Alvarez manages to capture and express the true feelings of women which deconstructs the stereotypes through Yo. Feminism is defined as “a political movement that works to achieve equal rights for women and men” (Hirsch 113). For the past ages, women were seen in the society as inferior to men and were greatly excluded from education and the right to property ownership. A British feminist named Mary Wollstonecraft argues, “educational restrictions keep women in a state of ignorance and slavish dependence” (Blake 117). The shattering of classifications and stereotypes, and the subversion of traditional gender roles, and the concept of sisterhood or unity among women are among the main tenets of feminist criticism.
Assignment 1 Legal rights and privileges of women in Blackstone’s day with those of American women in the mid-twentieth century bear no resemblance. Over the years women have fought long and hard to be able to obtain and maintain legal rights and privileges that the male gender is born into. Females were molded and primed to play the part as an obedient wife and mother with instruction that your thoughts and opinions are kept to yourself. The perseverance of brave women helped today’s generation of women such as myself have the same equal rights as that of men. During the Blackstone era women lost the limited amount of rights they did possess when they got married for example; “that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended
Questia states, “Despite their vital role in Ancient Greek and Roman society, women were not considered full citizens and in most instances required a guardian – their fathers, and later husbands – to represent them” (“Women in Ancient Greece and Rome”). As his poem progresses, Homer presents female characters in different aspects, demonstrating that women should not be confined to the standard they were held in that society. At the beginning of the book, women are first introduced as being loyal, faithful, and under complete servitude to men. This presentation of women demonstrates the view of women at that time. This is evident in the treatment and actions of Penelope and Calypso.
Atwood discusses the several genres of fiction that are available in this time and explains how this is not only a time of gender crossover but of genre crossover. By using the comparison she shows how literature has evolved as well as gender relations. In conclusion Margaret Atwood’s speech “spotty handed villainess” is a speech that explores the flaws in extreme feminism, challenges the patriarchal order and examines the intentions of literature and fiction. The speech still has relevance today as it examines gender roles and expectations in modern day
However, the rights which were won seemed to exclude women. Many women did not like this and they wanted to be equal to men and they fought their own war of independence to receive that right. It started off small, but eventually grew into a big movement. Many average women would be remembered as someone great and their names would shine throughout history. One of these women was one known as Susan Brownell Anthony.
He does not see her as just a wife, who is supposed to cook, clean, and perform other housework, as considered to be “appropriate” by the society. Tea Cake allows Janie’s inner state to flourish. He never restricts her from doing something that would not be accepted by the public, allowing Janie to engulf her individuality and the strong values. The fact that Tea Cake teaches his wife how to use a gun, a weapon that is the symbol of man’s power and domination, clearly represents that he is not limited by the society’s standards and doesn’t feel superior to his much-loved Janie. Unlike Janie’s previous husbands, Tea Cake respects his beloved and treats her well.
As an example two influential short stories will be discussed in depth in order to shed light into the lives of the two authors and their stories. The short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) and Angela Carter (1940–1992) both sideway the same idea; the confinement of women in particular roles and positions in both personal and professional lives, posed on them by patriarchal figures. Toril Moi quotes in her examination of feministic criticism, Sexual/Textual Politics (2002), Elaine Showalter’s idea that “women writers should not be studied as a distinct group on the assumption that they write alike, or even display stylistic resemblances distinctively feminine” (Moi, 2002: 49), which comes across when reading the two stories which are stylistically already very different. It might be so that a feminist reader of both times (there’s some 80 years difference between the two stories) did not only want to see her own experiences mirrored in fiction, but strived to identify with strong, impressive female characters (Moi, 2002: 46), and looked for role-models that would instil positive sense of feminine identity by portraying women as self-actualising strong identities who were not dependent on men (Moi, 2002, 46). The two stories bring out two female characters, very different by position and character; the other a new mother, scared and confused of her own role, and the other a young newly-wed girl, still a child, being fouled by a much older man, mainly as a mark of his authority over women in general.
Through a feminist critique of Othello, it is possible to examine the influences of sexism in the society by inspecting the construction of the patriarchy, the idea that gender is not the same as sex, and lastly, the construction of femininity within the play. Feminism, is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary to be “the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes”, and as A. Balu Vijayaraghavan said, by applying feminist criticism, one could “investigate how Shakespeare’s plays relate to the codes and conventions of the gender system specific to the early modern period”, as well as having an understanding of “how thoroughly Shakespeare shared the gender assumptions of his own time and the ways in which his plays must have disrupted these assumptions”. The
Seminar paper On Feminism in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar Course code: ENGL705 Course Title: Literary Theory Submitted by: SAYANTANI SARKAR ENROLL NO: A0710313014 Submitted to: Dr. Shweta Saxena Assistant Professor AMITY INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH STUDIES AND RESEARCH AMITY UNIVERSITY UTTAR PRADESH INTRODUCTION Simone de Beauvoir's gender theory is considered to be one of the pioneers of feminist thought. Her book The Second Sex is seen as a milestone in explaining how and why women were and are subjected to men's rule. While some of Simone de Beauvoir's insights might be seen today as self-evident (such as “one is not born a woman but becomes one"), other remain revolutionary till this day. Simone de Beauvoir argues that whenever there are two different human categories at the same time and place, there will always be one striving to subject the other to its rule. The burden of childbirth in ancient societies made women dependant on men's labor, and thus enabled the initial inequality.
Contrary to its putatively gender-normalizing conclusion, Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina generates a narrative of sexual subversion and female authority. The repetitive occurrence of female protagonists inverting gender hegemonies from the prostitute to Fantomina’s mother to the convent, produces a ‘gynocratic’, or woman-centered novel. When juxtaposed alongside the nameless, beguiled admirers and the named, yet four-flushed BeauPlaisir, the narrative constructs a hierarchy of female over male, contradicting the possibility of its reinstating archetypal gender roles through its questionable inclusion of assault. While acknowledging seemingly anti-feminist sections, this essay will articulate how Haywood’s text empowers its atypical heroine through Haywood’s syntax and plot, her covert theme of naming and the conclusion itself. Despite her antithetical ideologies, Haywood remains centuries ahead while incorporating the very themes of contemporary pop culture: Woman Power.