Not Another Feminism Essay: How does societies stereotyping of gender affect men, women, and their relationships? Through out history it has been an accepted idea that women stay home and men go out and work. Stereotypes play a major role in society’s views of people and the way that people treat each other. Today, gender remains one of the most common causes of stereotypical perceptions. Women have always been seen as the weaker gender giving all power and control to men in most situations.The theme is shown in many novels in which the idea affects the way men treat women and vice-versa.
“Love and Death in Ancient Greece” In the case study, “Love and Death in Ancient Greece” by Kenneth Cavander, a man and woman are caught in a deathly love triangle. The article examines and explores women’s roles in ancient Greece and their social status. Cavander begins with women’s inequality and their inability to contribute and belong to Athenian society. Women were unable to vote, be involved in any type of business or money transactions.1 They were simply a carrier for children and property to their husbands. Cavander goes on to say “almost the only thing she could call her own was her reputation.”2 Women in ancient Greece were expected to behave properly, be unassertive and not interrupt any business conducted between men.
A door that once kept her shut-off from the outside world, not shuts out society’s view of women and their place in the world. “Iv got out at last...in spite of you!” (70). The narrator of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' has been driven into psychological madness through the imprisonment of male dominance. Gilman's use of symbolism to portray patriarchal dominance, through locked doors and bared windows, has been an effective way to communicate the suffering and trapped feeling of women during the 19th century. While many women would be to afraid to question their role in society and in marriage, Gilman has created a strong female protagonist who overcomes her husbands authoritative
She is the strong feminist in the play, and believes in women’s rights and the fact that women are physically no different to men. While reading the play, it becomes clear that Shakespeare included two female characters, each embracing an extremely different bias about women from the other. However, society in general during the Elizabethan times seemed to put women “in their place” (smartenglish.com). The men in that society treated women as though they were possessions that they could treat however they please. They also believed that they were superior to women and that women should remain obedient and oppressed, and not question their husbands or fathers.
Once married, all of her inheritance (if any existed), would belong to her husband as well as anything else she owned including her own body. Not only was this upheld by the laws during those times, but the marriage vows were inclusive of the command of the wife to obey her husband. Divorce was very rarely allowed and if a woman attempted to escape an unhappy marriage, she could be captured by the law and punished. (WordPress, ) Both Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, are written during this era and criticize the male dominated society by demonstrating the negative impact that it had on women during that timeframe. Both women in these stories are symbolically the same character because of the inordinate oppression that they were both experiencing and their passionate, unrelenting desire for freedom.
Like most other societies, it is deeply thought that the birth of a female child rather than male, was a disappointment. With the Hindu's we see a new aspect that developed rituals to avoid having a daughter. They also dedicated gods to pray to, so that their daughter may find a husband and be taken from them. The practice of marrying girls off young also was passed from the Greeks, but as Clay describes they take the age difference to a further level when she writes, "By the Gupta period, prepubescent marriages had become more common, girls as young as eight years old were married off to men and even sometimes three times their age. In the Gupta society, the women also were forced to be much more trapped than in any other societies.
Sexism in the Odyssey The equality of the sexes has been a touchy subject for more than a century at this point. Before that, women were, without a doubt, inferior to their brilliant male overlords who could clearly do no wrong. Media, such as stories and the like, seemed to wish to express that as much as was physically possible. Whether it was stories about women being raped by the protagonist, or even the story of how the Trojan War began; wherein three women are being materialistic and shallow, thus starting a bloody war, there is little subtlety to the expression of the fairer sex in ancient literature. Even in a story which purports to be filled with moral values, such as Homer’s Odyssey.
The only instance where a female takes on more of the characteristics of the male gods, is Hera, Zues’s wife and Queen of the gods. She is very powerful, but the greeks did not see her as a favorable god, because she caused so many problems simply with her jealousy, and in the end even she yielded to her husband, the male in their relationship. A fantastic example of this is in another passage from the Iliad where Hephasteus tries to calm his mother so that she will not be struck down by his
“Men made the laws that gave them control over women’s wages and property, that gave husbands authority over their wives, and that deprived women of the children in divorce.”( Nash 11) It was blatant that women were deprived from a majority of their rights during this time period. Women were also not allowed to pursue the professional career they desired. “Education for women in the 1800s was minimal during that period. Schooling was for the male gender,
A Comparison of the Life of Women in Sparta and Athens The life of women in ancient history was challenging, to say the least. I feel that you cannot compare any two nationalities like you can compare the women from Athens and the women from Sparta. A frequently asked question concerning this topic would be how the challenges differ between the women of Sparta and the women of Athens. These challenges may be compared in the following ways; The role of women in Athens was simple yet defined; they were to be controlled by the men in their lives at all times. Before marriage, they were controlled by their father.