Delinquent Daughters Summary

Over the past 200 years sexual liberation and freedom have become topics of discussions prevalent within western culture and society. With the recent exploration of sexuality a new concept of sexual and gender identity has emerged and is being analyzed in various fields of study. The ideology behind what defines gender and how society explains sex beyond biology has changed at a rapid pace. In response various attempts to create specific and catch all definitions of growing gender and sexual minorities has been on going. This has resulted in the concept of gender becoming a multi- layered shifting hypothesis to which society is adapting. Since the 19th-century, philosophers and theorists have continued to scrutinize gender beyond biological and social interpretation. Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid 's Tale captures the limitations and social implications forced upon a set gender based on societal expectations. Gender is a social construct that limits the individual to the restrictions and traditions of a society, or if it’s an individually formed self-identification of sex and sexuality that is formed autonomously. Evidence of gender establishment can be seen within literary works and supported by various schools of gender and sexuality theory.

The only exception to this was the Indians, the term Indians being used to refer to California natives, that did not look down upon their women for not being virgins and allowed them to divorce under certain circumstances. The women were expected to do hard work just as the men were, although they had gender roles and focused on harvesting food and raising children. Arranged marriages were used to strengthen inter tribal relations, but women were not sold for a bride price. Rather, their families were essentially compensated for the loss of their daughter’s labor and the other benefits of having her in the family, and honored by the gift showing how highly the suitor valued their daughter. This varied largely from how the Spanish and Mexicans viewed women. They were political pieces primarily used for gaining power through marriages and bearing children. They were only granted divorces under extreme cases and were expected to be virgins for their husbands, maintain the home, and be genteel ladies. African women were used for labor, and the vast majority of Chinese women that arrived in the Americas were used for prostitution during the Gold Rush. Sexual abuse and rape were all too common due to the extraordinarily unequal ratio of men to women (or women that were deemed worth marrying) that persisted from the time of colonization. Regardless of the illegality of the act, there

According to this perception of “Latino culture,” it can be assumed that teen pregnancy was acceptable and was something that all Latina girls aimed for. Minerva, one of the girls interviewed, described this when she stated, “... they talk down to us, like, ‘Okay, we know that in the Hispanic culture it's okay for girls to get pregnant young and become mothers, but not in American culture, okay?’” (Garcia, 2012: 63). This connection to “Latino culture” also emphasized the gender inequality between men and women. Embedded into the courses was a justification of machismo, a “..strong and exaggerated sense of masculinity specific to Latinos”(Garcia, 2012: 63). Rather than explain the prevention of pregnancy as a group effort, Miriam reported that her sex education teacher, “...started talking about Latino culture and saying that because of machismo, guys were always gonna try to control us and tell us how many babies to have, and that they were too macho to wear condoms” (Garcia, 2012: 63). The idea portrayed when blaming “Latino culture” is that the sexuality of young Latina women is a problem that needs to be fixed but the sexuality of Latino men is acceptable. The efforts of the teachers, as reported by the girls, focused on changing how women pursued their sexuality. However, this perception of sexuality in Latina girls is false, and was grounded on the negative stereotypes

In Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom by Leslie Bell we follow the stories of three women contradicting the environments they were raised in, as an act of rebellion and individuality. These three women are distraught and confused about their identities and individuality due to conflicting obligations between traditional family values and their own desires. The environment each woman was brought up in was a catalyst in producing a “reactive decision.” As a result, their reactive choices lead to a greater sense of self and individuality. These three women display how their inner convictions are revealed and explored, as a result of the faith and beliefs that surrounded them. The oppressive expectations of their environments

Firstly, Frye discusses the etymology of the word ‘oppression’ stating that it has its elements from the word “press”, 1983, p: 2. She then gives imagery in order to demonstrate that the word is very restrictive in nature as if something were; “caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict or prevent the thing’s motion or mobility”, (Frye, 1983, p:2). Frye makes the point that he first criterion in defining oppression is that the oppressed is restricted or limited in some manner, giving the sense that they have been moulded, immobilised or reduced. She exemplifies this notion with the following comparison using her theory of the “double-bind” theory. According to Frye, in the United States, young women, are locked in a bind where if they exhibit that they are heterosexually active, then she is explicitly regarded as “loose, unprincipled or a whore”, 1983, p:2. The woman may then feel that she must hide her behaviour from her parents who are likely to look down on her for her promiscuity. She will also face criticism by her peers as being an “easy lay” and put down in comparison to her friends who practise more restraint, (Frye, 1983, p:3).

Though it would have been impossible for these Americans to return to America unscathed by the experience of war, it was expected by the Homefront Americans that they should return to “the humdrum routine of American life as if nothing had happened” which was considered unacceptable. Before the war, sexual freedom, as stated earlier, was forbidden topic for the youth. Yet somehow, “boys and girls were becoming sophisticated about sex at an earlier age” following the war. Allen describes how parents and teachers cried out in alarm and seemed bent on preventing the “morality” of America become undermined. However, influential leaders like Sigmund Freud proposed ideas that fueled the youth’s enthusiasm for change, including the proposition that the “first requirement of mental health was to have an uninhibited sex life.” As movies displayed “the same lucrative theme” as sex magazines, moral defenders especially those in clergy would attempt to halt the spread of such radical ideas through censorship. Despite this,

n the text reading Delinquent Daughters: “Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States” Author Mary Odom states raising the age of sexual consent in the U.S. increased the number of people prosecuted for statutory rape among consenting teenagers. Laws Predicated on the backs of the immigrants, native Blacks, and Mexican workers who had consensual sex with the daughters of the white middle class or Working-class minorities under a Patriarchal rule. Odom states due to differences in the middle and working class sexual expression, too (avoid generalizing), Odom says the differences in the sexual expression of the middle class which operated within a patriarchal moral code, and the immigrant and working-class communities, who were more concerned with female chastity. (“Patriarchal structures of the preindustrial societies, diverse religious tradition, and codes of honor that associated family reputation with the morality of wives and daughters.” Odom states that in the United States fathers/men controlled both the workforce, labor and the “sexual lives of their wives’ children and servants in ways that supported the family economy” (p.43). One threat to Patriarchal control “was the out of wedlock birth” (p.44) Thus premarital chastity was influenced by religion and men and therefore, was highly regarded. Premarital sex was considered sinful, and the double standard of sexual roles was at work as “sexual promiscuity would destroy a woman’s honor, while

This story speaks of a young teenage woman who, amid the civil rights’ movement and sexual revolution of the 1960s, is rebelling against the conservative morals and values of the 1950s and exploring her individuality and sexuality with a sense of egotism and inexperience that eventually gets her into harm’s way. Looking back, the Civil Rights movement may have been the most emotionally charged movement of the 1960s (Anderson). No other movement in United States history defines a change in culture better than the movement of the 1960s. Issues such as women’s rights, war, civil rights and the sexual revolution greatly influenced the American youth. Conservative family morals and values that predominated the 1950s were beginning to be questioned. Oates

Gender, race, age, and ability have been used to shape the history and our understanding of human sexuality, as well as how certain groups, specifically marginalized groups, were seen as degenerate or delinquent people. When examining why and how specific groups of people were though of as being sexual delinquents, it is important to use an intersectional lens, and consider how these different categories and identities of gender, race, age, and ability work together to form experiences and opinions. By marginalizing, controlling, and regulating the sexualities and bodies of those who were women, people of colour, adolescents, or differentially abled, the social norm of a white, heterosexual, patriarchy has been enforced through history.

Premarital pregnancy rates were particularly high in rural and frontier areas, continuing throughout the nineteenth century. Courtship became much more popular in the nineteenth century as men and women began to leave their domestic spheres and interact with other members of their community. Southern people courted after church and western people courted after community events, such as holiday or harvest celebrations, and urban working class youth courted on the job as well. The act of courtship facilitated romantic love becoming a norm, as flirting became a norm wherever there was sexual integration. The idea of marrying for romance impacted sexuality, and having recreational sex. Many couples from the nineteenth century wrote in their diaries the intense urge they felt to have sex with their significant other, although not all of them acted on the urge. The idea that sex and reproduction didn’t have to go hand-in-hand was what caused people to actively control their sexuality with various methods of birth control. As these ideas spread throughout the country, different regions, races, and classes had different ways of controlling their sexuality. Fertility rates dropped throughout the country in rural and urban areas, but remained high in frontier communities. However, many southern states didn’t care for controlling sexuality, since there were many farmers making their living off the land. The larger the family was, the more land they could work on at a time,

As guardians of the house, planter-class white ladies were accountable for upholding traditional Christian values and keeping peace among the domestic sphere. As such, they were valued for their homemaking skills, maternal instinct, and, maybe in particular else, their virtue. ladies were seen as physically and intellectually inferior to men, however far more pious, pure, and moral. White women’s physiological property was heavily regulated by law moreover as by culture. criminal conversation was thought-about a larger offense for ladies than for men, and was disciplined a lot of raspingly. Similarly, “giving birth out of marriage was... thought-about far more of a social downside for white ladies than for anyone else” In town Douglass’s story,

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

This construction reinforces control over young women’s sexual expression. Faus highlights how it forces women to partake in this patriarchal culture where women’s bodies are under control

When one thinks of the juvenile corrections system, they tend to gender this institution, focusing mainly on young boys. Due to this, one often neglects the thought there are also young girls that are in the system. This may be due to the fact that when compared to young boys within the juvenile corrections system, in previous years the girls consisted of a small portion within in this space. However, according to recent studies, girls in the juvenile system has been rapidly increasing over the last 20 years (Levintova, 2015). This is an issue which needs to be acknowledge due to the fact that young women are caught in this system for starkly contrasting reasons when compared to young males. These reasonings are described in the book Girls in Trouble with the Law by Laurie Schaffner which we will further explore.

The future conditions of the woman’s potential marital worth were much poorer than any punishment the violator could have received. Once a woman was raped, her virginity was no longer available for her husband to have. “‘Virginity is the ornament of morals, the sanctity of the sexes, the peace of families and the source of the greatest friendships.’ Its existence was a precondition for marriage. To publicly breach it was to compromise honor, rank, even life; a ‘deflowered’ girl inevitably became a ‘lost’ girl. . . ‘The ravishing of virginity was the worst rape of all.’” (Cite Book 1) An innocent woman had now completely lost her worth to society and her own dignity due to a man’s egocentric and merciless actions.