The Cinnamon Peeler
Feminism has been around for centuries. Victim feminism leads to negative perceptions and the alienation of women. Women seem powerless and almost to the point of rejecting any power they do have. It portrays women as “just that”, a woman. There to do the woman's job, and only that. By examining the poem “Cinnamon Peeler” by Michael Ondaatje, the reader gets a feel of victimized women and the inequality of women in a male dominated society. The Cinnamon Peeler himself is portrayed as a wealthy and prosperous man. Cinnamon is an exotic eastern spice, so this symbolizes social and economic status. He is portraying himself on a higher status than women.
The sentence “If I were a cinnamon peeler I would
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This ankle. You will be known among strangers as the cinnamon peeler's wife.” He is speaking in detail about the female's pubic hair and private body parts. This exposes her and makes her feel bad or embarrassed about herself. By making her feel degraded and exposed this way, he gets upper hand on her, which makes it much easier to be a controlling man
There are signs of a clearly male dominated society. With women being defined in terms of the males in their lives. For example, “The Cinnamon Peelers wife”, “the Lime Burner's daughter” and “The Grass Cutters wife”. Michael Ondaatje tries to convince the reader that women are just women. Not individual unique girls. He explains how they are labelled by their male husbands, brothers or fathers. He portrays women as non-competitive, cooperative, and peace-loving. He does not define them as fearless, powerful and independent. Another example is when Michael says “You touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon Peeler's wife. Smell me.” This is another example of labelling a woman. By touching her, he makes her, his. She is no longer an individual, she is only considered “the Cinnamon Peeler’s wife”. This is a sign of sexual domination. He makes it sound like he owns her.
When Michael Ondaatje states “I could hardly glance at you before marriage never touch you --your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers. I buried my hands in saffron, disguised
Women and men are born equal. However, females are receiving unequal judgement and unfair treatment in the society, and thus Marilyn Frye brings up the notion of “oppression”, claiming that women are oppressed. Throughout the essay, I will first give the definition of Frye’s oppression and then list 5 critical qualifications to be considered oppressed. After that, I will explain my appreciation on Frye’s perspective on elaborating oppression using the “bird cage” analogy. I will support Frye’s “double-bind” argument for sexism followed by flaws in the argument. Furthermore, I will point out some social group are mistakenly placed inside or outside the parameters of oppression, once the theory of oppression extends over other marginal groups.
Anne Roiphe’s “Confessions of a Female Chauvinist Sow” first appeared in the magazine New York in 1972. In this essay Roiphe aims to convince her readers that women must put faith in the idea that they are equal to men, not superior. “Women who want equality must be prepared to give it and believe in it . . . .” Personal anecdotes, contrast, and comparison are techniques Roiphe skillfully uses to create a strong, convincing essay.
There are unusual words that have offended feminists for a long period of time. Some of the words include fireman, authoress, handyman, and hostess. These titles through feminists' eyes can be perceived as offensive and degrading. Many people believe that feminists are man haters but almost all feminists would claim that false. The stereotype of feminism is often depicted in a negative way while the truth is that it's just the act of fighting for a good cause. While many think of the word feminist negatively, the author believes that feminist should have more positive connotations. Christina Libby defines feminism as "A movement to end sexism, sex exploitation, and oppression". I
Ever since the days of World War I, women have been seen as second rate to men. They had to live up to many social standards that men didn’t have to and had strict guidelines on how to live their lives. This all changed when modernism deliberately tried to break away from Victorian Era standards in which women were subjugated to a lot more scrutiny. Ezra Pound, who was a large figure in the modernist movement, captured the spirit of the era in his famous line “Make it new!” Consequently, many writers started to experiment with many different and wild writing styles, which led to the short stories and poems we have today. The stories The Wife of His Youth and Mrs. Spring Fragrance were all written in this era of modernism. While they are written in a more traditional style of writing, both these stories have strong implications on feminism from the viewpoints of both male and female writers.
The intentions of ‘Feminism’ are still often misinterpreted even today in the twenty-first century despite this being a modern era. Marilyn Frye’s discussion on the role of women in society in the text “The Politics of Reality” focuses on her definition of ‘oppression’, its criteria and how it applies to feminist theory. Frye immediately opens her discussion with this statement; “it is a fundamental claim of feminism that women are oppressed”, (1983, p:1). It is important to note that she has used the word “claim” as it implies that the oppression of women is still a matter of debate. As a disclaimer, she makes it clear that the purpose of this text is not to prove that women are in fact oppressed, but to gain clarity on the meaning of the term
This annotated bibliography is designed to give the readers comprehensive understand of how the theme of feminism is manifested in William Faulkner short story A Rose for Emily. The information gathered about the story was mainly taken from scholarly journals and credible internet sources. The information gathered on the primary text gives and in-depth and critical look on the topic feminism. Through ongoing secondary research literary critics have a wide interpretations of the primary sources. In relation to the topic feminism, literary critics say that feminism can be seen in the story. Issues that literary critics emphases on are the reason behind the feminism theme. Some say it is because of the author personality, while others say it is just the writer expressing what he sees around him during the time that the story was written. These interpretation by literary critics have influenced me not only to look at the words in story but also to look at the author. Further research on the author would be useful, which will give me a full understand of who he is and what was going on when the story was written.
In the novel, The House On Mango Street, women face numerous challenges in their lives. Women face abuse, objectification, and oppression. They are also subjects to the societal roles that hinders them from being free and successful. Cisneros utilizes metaphors to reveal the theme of society’s gender roles restricting the lives and sexuality of women.
In comparing the oppression of women to a metaphorical birdcage, Marilyn Frye’s essay “Oppression” expands the definition of what constitutes as an oppressive act. In doing so, some would argue that her definition allows for nearly every interaction between men and women to have some underlying sexist tone. Others, including myself, would deny such a claim and argue that as opposed to stretching the realms of sexism, Frye’s interpretation contributes to a deeper understanding of sexism in modern society. While it is true that Frye’s metaphor could be over applied and abused, in the long term, it is more beneficial than detrimental. Because the situation of women in the western world has improved vastly in comparison to other societies,
The literary piece is set in a place where men and women are separated and do not experience interaction except at the Palace of Mating, where men or women have sex, without any emotional connection or relationship. The separation of men and women insinuates there would be less control over the
Sally’s struggles illustrate gender inequality and how men tend to control women. The author, talking about Sally, says, “ She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without permission” (Cisneros 102). Sally’s husband tries to dictate her every move, and
One of the main claims in “The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” is that we need to change our methods and approaches to feminism and feminist theory if we want to truly create lasting change in our goals of reaching equality. Lorde argues that “it is a particular academic arrogance to assume any discussion of feminist theory without examining our many differences, and without a significant input from poor women, black and third world women, and lesbians.” This wonderfully compliments the ideas illustrated in the piece from the Combahee River Collective, particularly the desire to include all women in order to get a better understanding of how oppression operates in our society and what we can do to help change it.
Women face two key forms of oppression in this world, powerlessness and exploitation. These two forms fall into Iris M. Young’s ideas of oppression in her article “Five Faces of Oppression”. The definition of cultural imperialism and exploitation used in this essay are taken from Young’s essay. Cultural imperialism is where the dominant customs and morals of a society are rendered as the norm and those who are not in the norm are considered others. Exploitation is a form of oppression where a class structure is present and this class structure includes a dominant group of people who are in power of a subordinate group. Two authors, John Stuart Mill and Simone de Beauvoir, talk about how the oppression of women is not due to nature. It is rather, in Mill’s view, due to a premodern law of force which divides men and women between the strong and the weak. Beauvoir sees this oppression of women as a result from socialization, which conformed women to become immanent. Both these authors have reasonable arguments and have a similar understanding that the inferiority of women is not from the simple nature of being women. Other factors come into play when understanding why women are oppressed, and both authors recognize the fact that society and old habits must change for the equality of women and men to become a reality.
Writer Ngozi Adichie says a feminist is a “person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes,” meaning both sexes are treated equally. “Cinderella” does not portray women as equal to men, rather it suggests that a woman’s value highly depends on a man and teaches girls to become patient victims. For instance, it places attention on a woman’s chastity, beauty, passiveness, as the story accepts abuse, discourages powerful women, and insists on a double standard.
Patriarchy in simple terms can be defined as a system or government in which men hold the power and status, in comparison to women who are largely excluded. Throughout this assignment, particular attention will be placed upon issues surrounding patriarchal culture and the effects of the British colonial rule. Furthermore, the manners in which patriarchy manifests itself in regards to human relationships and behaviour will also be discussed, as well as the effect of power relations on the ability of people to self-actualise. Examples of two of the characters from within the book ‘Palace Walk’ will be used, in order to assist our understanding further on situations which relate to patriarchy. Other points which will be taken into
Patriarchal and the male dominant society doesn’t not allow woman to have the same privileges as a man in which man’s principals guide woman to be the perfect Victorian Woman that society expected her to be, however if a woman does not accept and does not agree to a Victorian man’s principals, she will remain spouseless. Because every man almost in our society wants women like Victorians, and that is why the marriage of Paul and Minta doesn’t survived. They parted so soon. The understanding is necessary. The relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay proves that marriage is not a guarantee of mature and healthy relationship between husband and wife. On the other hand, Lily has the first inspiration about her painting the moment she acknowledges that her work is masculine and also embodies pursuance of truth. But as we all see at the end she has a moment of personal wholeness when she accepts the feminity that she has always denied. And it ends with Lily’s vision that feminist and