Evidently Lady Bracknell values society and its values, saying, “Never speak disrespectfully of Society,” but she goes totally against these values by playing the role of her husband in her daughter’s life (hypocritical). In addition, the conversation between Lady Bracknell and Jack is controlled completely by Lady Bracknell. She is asking all the questions – in charge of the flow of the conversation – she is pushing/forcing everything she wants to know out of him. Evidence for this is ‘Mr Worthing! Rise, sir…’ this supports my statement above and conveys to the audience the power (authority) Lady Bracknell possesses over Jack.
Attitudes such as these would discredit the writer and misrepresent the facts. There is no reason for the author to write persuasively because the information is persuasion enough. The intended audience of the introduction is concurrent with the book. While the primary focus is women, the intended audience can be interpreted as society as a whole. This becomes clear when the author states the fundamental purpose of the book is “to provoke social change on a larger scale by inspiring everyone--in the workforce and at home--to think differently about how women can and should behave” (Babcock and Laschever
In addition, her novel Herland depicts women at their true, full potential in roles equal to men. There are many hidden meanings in Gilman’s Herland that can be found in the characters and setting. I will explore the two themes, independence and evolution, which are central to Gilman’s works, Women and Economics and Herland. In Women and Economics, Gilman stresses the theory that women need to become independent and stop depending on men in order to achieve their true human potential. She points out that women depend on men for survival and that is only seen in the human species.
Even more restricting than economic rights were the social and political rights of women. They were expected to be silent observers, submissive to their husbands. Women who attempted to claim their views were seen as a threat to social order. This is significant in that the conservation of social order was a very important aspect of the Elizabethan society. Gender roles during the Elizabethan era were clearly defined, with men reigning superior over women.
Although this seems to be a ridiculous reason to hate the male population, it is Schlafly’s way of making their movement seem ridiculous. She also explains that woman have a natural instinct of maternity, that no one can teach them how to be a mom, which defends her opinion that men and woman are also different emotionally and psychologically. Sally Staples wrote and article titled “Who Will Rock the Cradle” in 1997. She proclaims a lot of the same worries as Schlafly in her book titled the same. In both articles the authors describe the worry of leaving a newborn child with a new nanny instead of their
“Let not us women glory in men’s fall/Who had power given to overrule us all” (15-16). Lanyer alerts the reader to the definitive, yet undesired subservience which Pilate’s wife (and thus all women) must observe. Pilate’s wife has just made a plea to her husband to refrain from condemning his Savior to death, and while it is clear to the reader that here she is the more sensible of the two, her position as a woman renders her powerless to save her husband (and unbeknownst to him, all mankind)
A Vindication of the Rights of Women’ is an early example of a feminist outlook; Wollstonecraft aims to define, establish and defend equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. In this extract, Wollstonecraft “speaks of passion”; she believes that women were not given the right choices; they were not educated to the full. This affects their choices and they don’t have the full knowledge that they should have been provided with. Jill tweedy was also a feminist writer, who had a balanced view of the relationships between men and women. She believed that women should be equal to men in relationships.
Jennifer Hare Professor Penelope Deutscher Philosophy 230 / Gender Studies 233 17 April 2012 Assignment #1, Question 6: The Paradox of Rousseau’s Roles for Women In Rousseau’s Emile, he describes the prescribed roles for women to serve their husbands by remaining appealing and creating a proper familial environment as being based on natural feminine characteristics. However, his argument is inherently paradoxical, because women must artificially feign and amplify these characteristics in order to successfully fulfill their prescribed roles. Rousseau bluntly states his role for women on page 322 by proposing that, “woman is specially made for man’s delight”. His view is that women’s role should be, “to be pleasing in his [man’s] sight…to train him in childhood, to tend him in manhood, to consel and console, to make his life pleasant and happy, these are the duties of woman for all time” (328). Rousseau justifies this role by testifying that, “this is not the law of love, but it is the law of nature, which is older than love itself” (322).
Violence, aggression and worldly practicality come to be considered male characteristics; domesticity, modesty, and elegance come to be sees as female characteristic (Lindley, 2012, SU2-19), which effectively separated women from the world of work. And as middle-class women withdraw from the public life, the business of marriage took over as a preoccupation for the want of anything better to do. But, the questions is, what do Evelina, Elizabeth, and Charlotte look forward to in their marriage – is it the occupation of marriage itself, the love of the man they marry or is it something else altogether? What do they need for their personal growth and for them to flourish not just as sentient beings but as intelligent ones as well? Do they need work, love, or both.
In my final paper, I plan to prove that the root of Hamlet’s problems is the patriarchal society he lives in. I believe that Hamlet’s hesitation is a result of his reluctance to participate in the patriarchal order. He is torn by his need to honor his father and take his rightful place in that society and his disdain for that very system. I will use the Characters of Ophelia and Gertrude, not as evidence of Shakespeare’s misogyny, but as deliberate devices that illustrate the consequences of patriarchy. Should he comply with the patriarchal order, he must either oppose his mother and take the throne, or dishonor his father by accepting his uncle as his mother’s husband.