The quote acts to show why Marie found it justifiable to be abused and raped by men in society. She gave herself to her boyfriend Paul, who rejected her sexual advances yet, although she was “Paul’s girl” she felt somewhat unwanted or unneeded. She failed to meet or satisfy Paul’s needs (Beauvoir). Marie however, was willing to participate in self-harmful experiences because she is a woman, dependent on men in society. Marie sees herself as all “men’s girl” and thus justifies to herself that she can continue to engage in harmful and degrading sexual experiences to satisfy their needs. This is a societal expectation in many ways. Society expects that Marie or women in general exist to serve men as many of the writers that we have explored thus …show more content…
In Abuse of Weakness, the main character, Maud, suffers from the aftermath of a cerebral hemorrhage, which caused a debilitating stroke. Once she has recovered, she quickly gets back into making films and decides to cast a not so moral man named Vilko. Vilko constantly asks Maud for loans, of which she continually provides him with and likely is never paid back for (Abuse of Weakness). As Beauvoir describes, “one of the curses weighing on the passionate woman: her generosity is immediately converted into demands” (Beauvoir 695). Thus, once Maud agrees to loan Vilko money it becomes an expectation that she will continually do so. This film, is very interesting as many of the feminist writers that we have encountered thus far like Beauvoir have suggested, women are viewed as weak, lesser citizens in society. In society, weakness often coincides with abuse. Morally-lacking individuals often prey on the weak because they find it easy to extort them for what they want. Thus, women are inherently extorted because they are forever weak in society. They are used as slaves of domesticity, tasked with completing all of the duties in the household for no pay. In the bedroom, women are abused and lack control of their sexual endeavors in many ways. Women are …show more content…
As MacKinnon states, “so long as sexual inequality remains unequal and sexual, attempts to value sexuality as women’s, possessive as if women possess it, will remain part of limiting women to it, to what women are now defined as being” (MacKinnon). Men must relinquish some of their control. Women must expand their roles in society outside of motherhood and being sexual objects. Unfortunately, even when a woman is successful, unfortunate aspects like a stroke can cause a woman to be reliant on men and lead him to take advantage of them (women) such as what happened with Maud. Furthermore, sadly even when a woman is actively and willingly being promiscuous, she is still subject to male’s dominance and superiority over her as what happened to Marie. Society is in a continuous state of oppression over women because not only men, but also women make justifications that which enables the injustices to persist. Overcoming women’s submissions, subjectivity, and lack of control is easier said than done. Although society has made major gains over the past few decades on women’s rights, unfortunately we are still likely decades, perhaps centuries away from being equal regarding gender and biological
Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.
For the most part, society’s conception of women in the 19th century dictated the way women were treated and influenced the portrayal of female characters in writing generated during that time. The Cult of Domesticity claimed that true womanhood was marked by a natural inclination to domesticity and submissiveness. Though all women clearly have the capacity to think for themselves, earn money, and overcome the emotional obstacles they may meet, the plausibility of complete independence was a challenging appeal for Harper to make. Men dominated family
Meursault does, however, still crave women as a whole in the same way which he craves, yet disregards, Marie. “I never thought specifically of Marie. But I thought so much about a woman, about women, about all the ones I had known, about all the circumstances in which I had enjoyed them...”(Camus 77). Meursault’s thoughts wander while he is in his jail cell, but never specifically dwell upon his relationships. In utilizing the word “I” Meursault links each of his these thoughts to him, solely pointing out each of these “circumstances” as they affected him, rather than any
In the modern world women work, vote, run for office and the list goes on. In most aspects, women are equal to men. However, this was not always the case. In centuries past, women were not viewed as being equal to men socially, intellectually, or politically and were thought incapable of accomplishing anything of value. Consequently, many cultures held the view that women were possessions whose only purpose was to be subservient to men. The view of women as mere objects is evident in various works of literature throughout the ages. Two classic works of literature that exemplify this are The Thousand and One Nights and Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of
In the story “Jury of her Peers,” the women are thought of as inferior. The men treat the women like they are not able to do the same things as the men. “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (Glaspell 266) The women have “feminine intuition.” They know the pain from isolation that Minnie was going through and know what clues to look for. “Again, for one brief moment, the two women’s eyes found one another.” (Glaspell 280) The men underestimate that the women can think on this level.
At the time this novel was published, women did as they were expected to by society.
Looking at the life of Edna, she is a good example of those women. Edna was treated like a slave, with restrictions to everything. She was not allowed to go out as women would go out today, she also couldn’t bathe the way women could today. Her husband Leonce just gave Edna a home to live in and that was it. Edna soon decided to leave her husband, and started having an affair with Alcee. In the book “The Awakening,” by Kate Chopin, it says “It was the first kiss of her life to which her nature had really responded” (Chopin 112).This quote means that Leonce never really showed love to Edna. Leonce never showed the physicality which Alcee showed when Alcee kissed Edna. Edna never experienced the ignition with Leonce that she had with Alcee. In another quote from “The Awakening,” Kate Chopin says about Edna “Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual” (Chopin 127). This quote is talking about Edna and how she felt relieved. Edna felt that she was free from anyone telling her what to do. This added to her strength by allowing her to really understand herself, and what she was put on the earth
MacKinnon’s categorization of gender fails to take into account the difference in sexual desires. Within the socio-legal context, the regulation of sexual activities generalizes patterns of norms and marginalizes those who do not fit within this binary. This results in the suppression of natural masochistic desire and identity. As suggested by Rubin, feminist critiques of gender hierarchy “must be incorporated into a radical theory of sex, and the critique of sexual oppression should enrich feminism’ (Rubin 180). Rubin argues that the feminist critique of protecting women due to their status as subordinates effectively displace their sexual liberation (Rubin
Meursault does, however, still crave women as a whole in the same way which he craves, yet disregards, Marie. “I never thought specifically of Marie. But I thought so much about a woman, about women, about all the ones I had known, about all the circumstances in which I had enjoyed them...”(Camus 77). Meursault’s thoughts wander while he is in his jail cell, but never specifically dwell upon his relationships. In utilizing the word “I” Meursault links each of his these thoughts to him, solely pointing out each of these “circumstances” as they affected him, rather than any
None of this deters Marie, for she is strong and satisfied with where she is in her relatiioinship even though she gets nothing emotionally from Meursault. Marie learns just how to be with Meursault, she builds herself up and one day decides that she will not allow Meursault’s little emotional displays stop her from spending the rest of her life with him. Another thing that makes Marie stick out, is that she was the one who ‘proposed’ to him. Sure, there was never any formal proposal, no dropping to one knee or hiding the ring in some angle foodcake, but she was the first to even remotely mention marriage in the relationship. Set in the early 1940’s, the time proves that the woman was still the less superior in any relationship. Never was it socially acceptable to be this forward in a relationship, never could the woman bring up
Injustice, particularly sexism, is a major issue today, but surprising or not, it has been worse in the past. In the 1600s, when the novel A Mercy takes place, sexism (with unrealized consequences) is present everywhere, yet it can go unseen and be hidden by the organized way of life if the reader does not pay attention, especially because it is so normalized. Although society in A Mercy appears to be orderly, the mistreatment and devaluation of women is a major issue that causes the female characters to constantly rely on the men in their lives, which negatively affects all of society as it pushes women further from the opportunity for a better life.
Even biology in many ways favors this view as the biological basis for male organisms is to spread their seed because there is a relatively low energy contribution to create sperm and women more selective because their eggs cost a lot more time and energy to create. Men also have a theoretically infinite supply of sperm where as women no longer create more eggs once they are born. However, Marie is willing to have sex with anyone and everyone it would seem attempting to quench her appetite for her sexual desires. One interpretation women’s selectivity in society acts to hurt them is that in many ways when a woman refuses or opposes a male’s sexual advantages in is viewed as a challenge to gender norms and men are not willing to accept a woman’s challenges in many ways. When women revolt against the patriarchal determine norms, men are fast to suppress such opposition. Thus, as Mackinnon states, “Rape is occasioned by women’s resistance not by men’s force; or, male force, hence rape, is created by women’s resistance to sex. Men would rape less if they got more voluntarily compliant sex from women” (322). However, Marie is more than willing to sleep around with men, yet she is still raped. Furthermore, Marie begins the fill faithful and highly
Reflecting upon their role in society, women in literature are often portrayed in a position
In the chapter of her book The Second Sex entitled “the Woman in Love,” Simone de Beauvoir characterizes the romantic ideal of the relationship with a man as a woman’s purpose as a form of self-deception (translated here as “bad faith”). The self-deception de Beauvoir describes is based in the thesis of The Second Sex. This is the idea that women have been deceived into believing that they are second-class humans. Western culture, according to de Beauvoir, teaches us that women are missing some elusive element of the self that endows men with freedom- a concept essential to the existentialist definition of the conscious being. Therefore, a woman can never find fulfillment as a thinking person as
Over the hundreds of years that have passed between then and now, women have been able to gain a vast number of accomplishments for themselves. With the women’s rights movements, among other successful endeavors, one would assume that men would begin to gain insight and more respect for the female population. Men still hold the mentality that women are in the world for their own sexual gratification, consensual or not. Women, on the other hand, are more sexually expressive and active than ever. Women are able choose whether they want to engage in a monogamous relationship or take the