A Feminist Perspective of Atwood's Surfacing Essay

Alexie’s imagery unravels the darkest secret from native people. “All white women love Indian men. That is always the case. White women feign disgust/at the savage in blue jeans and T-shirt, but secretly lust after him.” The continuous concept of patriarchy that has been carried throughout years make it difficult for even white women to escape their own gender because being a woman means you will be controlled by men and escaping the chains of patriarchy seems unrealistic thus, the cycle of this continues as the identity of the women fades because women are not seen as humans. She will be swept away with their “storms” of patriarchy and will eventually demolish the white woman 's life while the men commit murders and become alcoholics.“When the Indian man unbuttons his pants, the white women should think of the topsoil.” As the white women is ready to sexually engage in the Indian men she “forgets” she belongs to the whites who give greater pleasure simultaneously, becoming difficult for women to escape the ideology of men policing around women and using them like objects to fulfill their desires. The obscure meaning of topsoil points out the irony as the white people are on the topsoil as well as, superior. In the contrary, native women are at the surface where life is destroyed. However, the dirt reaching the top soil effortlessly illustrates the wrongs white men have done in the past and the

We, human beings feel distinctly unique, individual and most importantly, unmistakably superior due to our exclusive intelligence. This is why we, as a society, tend to look down on other types of life-forms, insect or animal, as they do not possess that desired intellect. Yet, Lewis Thomas, in his opinion essay “On Societies as Organisms”, argues that human society has much to learn from the communal accomplishment of other life-forms. The author effectively conveys this main idea through his use of analogy, enumeration of examples and through his level of language.

In contrast to the upheaval of animals in a development area, humans also make efforts to preserve biodiversity and forests by creating wild life

Peter Singer has written many works in support of animal rights. In one of his greatest works Animal Liberation, Singer goes into great depths on how similar in biology animals are to human beings. Another strong point was not only the biological resemblance, but also the behavioral tendencies and traits humans and nonhuman species share. There are two major areas of focus that Singer puts emphasis on that need to be recognized for the purposes of my argument. One focus is this utilitarian approach that only the human species carry: the belief of ethical and morally good behavior should be extended to the consideration of nonhuman species. The second focus that is the basis for my argument is Singer’s argument against a huge human social construct labeled speciesism.

In our society today, there are many ways identity plays a role in how people live their lives, as well as how people are viewed or treated by others. A big part of a person’s identity comes from their gender. Men and women are raised differently, whether it be their beliefs and ways of thinking, how they view their future, or the actions they choose to take throughout their lifetime. In both Katha Pollitt and Silko’s essays, they discuss the differences in the lives of men and women and how these differences result from society’s expectations by using metaphors and life examples to explain their message to the reader, as well as allow the reader to connect to this message.

The author, Margaret Atwood demonstrates the theme that in a violent isolated world, feminism is despised by the offended society, the inhuman treatment that women received may lead to physical and psychological perils; conversely, one’s firm belief could embody hope and reveal a precise future. Atwood uses irony to impart the theme. Significantly, the protagonist Offred feels she increasingly losing control of her body as “ an instrument, of pleasure” (Atwood 84). But the infinite emptiness inside her can never swap out the

The idea that all humans are born equal has been something that has been almost installed in our minds. However, in the eyes of Peter Singer, we as humans are constantly violating our own moral code in the way we treat animals. Singer refers to this as speciesism and compares our treatment of animals to the same way sexists and racists treat those who they deem inferior. He also argues that the grounds on which they base their prejudice on are equally fragile. He illustrates this by comparing speciesists to racists. He recalls, “The racists violates the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of his own race…similarly the speciesist allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of another species” (53.) He initiates this argument by explaining how our willingness to declare all humans as equal when the opposite is fundamentally true. Singer writes, “Like it or not, we must face the fact that humans come in different shapes and sizes; they come with differing moral capacities, differing intellect…if the demand for equality was based on the actual equality of all human beings, we would have to stop demanding equality” (51). Singer seeks to establish that our push for equality ends once the being in question is no longer human. Once he establishes this, he can quickly draw parallels between our unequal treatment of animals and humans. He evolves what initially begins as a far-fetched claim to a nuanced and

In an article based on an interview published in Time Magazine, “A Change of Heart About Animals”. Jeremy Rifkin expresses his views about the similarity behavior and emotional state between us humans and animals, with the purpose to change the way of how we see and feel about them. “We’re so skewed toward efficiency that we’ve lost our sense of humanity. What we need to do is to bring back a sense of the sacred”, Rifkin, argues. He supports his arguments with the findings of many researchers around the globe. Researchers that come from very prestigious institutions using different species of animals, we’re talking about crows, elephants, geese, etc. Not your ordinary lab rats and monkeys (which they don’t have anything

As humans, we have certain distinct traits that allow us to distinguish ourselves from another; however, we all share common traits that specify us to the same populace. This idea elucidates the theory of ‘diversity in unity’. To recognize what it means to be ‘human’, a person must fathom the definition: “a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.” To disperse the creature from the human race would be erroneous, because the Being has been classified as having high-class mental progress, articulates speech, and walks in an upright manner. However, another reason the creature may be considered as a human is because it grasps the concept of reason, which is absent amongst other animals.

There are many companies in the world today that put an idea of this perfect female body into the heads of women. These images lead to a faulty standard men hold of women and their bodies and that women strive to become. Margaret Atwood addresses the issue of the way men view the female body by writing her essay in the viewpoints of a male so the reader can better understand how the expectation men have of the female body is unrealistic. First, she uses an allusive comparison to show the male expectation of the female body and how it is objectified as if it were a doll that comes with accessories. Next, she uses an anecdote with defamiliarization to show how the way the father views a Barbie doll and the way it portrays the female body to young girls is hypocritical. Lastly, Margaret Atwood uses insidious diction to talk about how men not only view the female body as a product but how they also use the female body as a product which can be sold amongst businessmen. In The Female Body, Margaret Atwood uses many rhetorical devices to convey how the female body is viewed through the eyes of men.

In more recent times the rising prevalence around animal ethics, in the world itself as well as in the realm of philosophy, a multitude of people are finding connection between the somewhat hidden prejudice of speciesism and the indisputable prejudices of sexism and racism. To fully grasp this association, one must first understand the seriously

‘’Species have value in themselves, a value neither conferred nor revocable, but springing from a species’ long evolutionary heritage and potential’’ (Soule 1985).

In Stanley Benn’s “Egalitarianism and Equal Consideration of Interests”, it is explained that animals and human imbeciles are distinguished not because of fundamental inequality, but solely on the basis that the two subjects are of different species. In regard to animals’ moral rights and the infringement of those rights due to the practice of speciesism, Singer employs a utilitarian style of argument to defend animals’ moral rights; in short, the interests of each being which is involved should be taken into consideration and said interests should be given the same weight as that of another being. Speciesism is morally wrong because it attempts to assign undeserved weight to the interests of beings of separate species, solely based off the difference of species. Naturally, or rather unnaturally, human beings have always awarded themselves the utmost importance due to the idea of human dignity, as in humans occupy the central spot within any earthly ranking. Logically, Singer argues that the practice of speciesism is wrong because the conditions in which it exists are synonymous to the conditions which facilitate racism and sexism, before they had been recognized as

Ecological feminists (Gaard, Heller) argue that culture defines the connection of women and nature. Men are as much part of nature as women are. However, the patriarchal culture identifies women with body, sex, irrationality, passivity, and earth. It is decided that women are closer to nature. Men identify with spirit, mind, action, and power; they are rational, stable, reliable, and intelligent.

In his article “All Animals Are Equal,” Peter Singer discusses the widely-held belief that, generally speaking, there is no more inequality in the world, because all groups of formerly oppressed humans are now liberated. However, it often goes without notice that there are groups of nonhuman animals that continue to face unequal treatment, such as those that are consumed or used as scientific test subjects. Singer’s article criticizes the belief that because humans are generally more intelligent than nonhuman animals, then all humans are superior to all nonhuman animals. Singer argues that intelligence is an arbitrary trait to base the separation of humans and nonhumans, and declares that the only trait that one can logically base moral value is the capacity to have interests, which is determined by a creature’s ability to suffer. Singer explains that in order to stay consistent with the basic principle of equality, anything that has the capacity to suffer ought to have its needs and interests recognized, just as humans’ needs and interests are currently recognized through what he calls “equal consideration.” In this paper, I will explain Singer’s notion of equal consideration as the only relevant sense of equality and why it applies to the rights of both human and nonhuman species that are