Dominant Paradigrams

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

The novel Women on the Edge of Time and Stranger in a Strange Land have some similarities. They both depict how the gender socialization process is bias and a catalyst to gender disparity in the society. Both stories bring to light how men are given privileged as compared to women in the society. Analyzing the two stories and using outside sources I will draw a conclusion on how gender and power ideologies have equality impacted our society.

“Women’s Right” claims that society’s view of women is an indicator of intellectual, economic, and cultural progress; however, women have been denied many fundamental rights (n.pag.). Write declares that the lack of confidence and forcefulness in women are some factors that are holding the progress of equality back (n.pag.). In today’s society, women are taught to think that a man’s job is more important than a women’s (Write n.pag.). Women were raised to believe that the men’s paycheck is the primary support for a family. Society teaches women to be passive and nurturing while it teaches men to be aggressive and dominant (Nadler and Stockdale 281+). Boys are trained to focus solely on themselves while women are supposed to place the needs of others first (Johnson n.pag.). Society is the reason that women lack the aggression and motivation needed to advance in their career

Women have been oppressed since the beginning of time, they were only expected to have children and become a caretaker. “Domestic work is almost always the sole responsibility of wives(Citation).” Judith Lorber would deconstruct this idea of “women's work” by arguing that the entire point of a gender system is to sustain gender inequality. Lorber anticipates a society structured for equality, where no gender, social class group, or racial-ethnic are entitled to monopolize positions of power. Men are

‘What writers tend to demonstrate in texts which explore relationships between men and women, is that women have always been relatively powerless and the victims of society’s double standards’ Compare and contrast the extent to which this interpretation applies to your chosen three texts.

Those norms have an impact on the decisions and behaviours of all in that society whether it be of the past, in the present or the future. Women have been dominated for centuries by men not only in their families, but also in marriage, education work and politics. Social expectations of patriarchal dominance have stifled their need for self-expression. These texts are examples of the struggle of women in their right to freedom and their right to individuality.

This assertion persuades women “allowing them to see themselves as stronger and to consider directly their own needs. This situation of aggression comes because of androcentric ideologies which formulate an unfair system that is oppressive to women as it includes all those institutions that not only generate discrimination between men and women but also exert masculinity over femininity.

discipline reveal indisputable “essential” difference between men and women, but provides no justification for woman’s inferiority. They all take women’s inferior “destiny” for

“The boys and girls live in separate worlds”(Cisneros, 8). This is a very powerful line in showing the differences between gender construction and gender roles. Gender creates a certain status, and the stratification system ranks these statuses differently, so that men are ranked above women (Lorber, 66).

The world can be a rather difficult place. From the physical and mental illnesses, poverty, and the abundance of different cultures, ethnicities, languages,and races, how can it not be a difficult place? With the great level of complication in the human life, it is normal to want to feel secure and follow a type of lifestyle. With a difficult world, it is also easy to have the need to feel powerful, and to do that, one will need to make others feel inferior. The terms ‘superiority’ and ‘inferiority’ are seen ubiquitously in terms of gender. A man is often paired off with words such as ‘strength’ and ‘authority’, all things great and superior. Whereas a woman would usually be compared to words such as ‘dependent’ and ‘small’, all things

Since the beginning of time, men have been the powerful, brave, authority figures. Kings of countries, soldiers in wars, overall leaders. Men made the big decisions and made the money, while the women stayed home to cook and look after the children. Only recently have woman started to be able to control their own lives, and challenge the authority of men. For some, this change is a welcome improvement, but for others, this threatens male authority and can disrupt our way of life. Men, of course are more unhappy with this change than woman. It threatens their power. In order to protect their image, some men have come to fear powerful, independent women.

When the society perceive and acknowledge male dominance as a social norm, it will cause men to believe that they rule above other gender. According to Taylor (2012), men have the urge to be in all control and powerful. Men tend to view women as inferior beings, so they self-appointed themselves to manage women’s lives in order to boost up their dominance. On the other hand, women are expected to surrender to men’s dominancy without questioning their validity because revolt will only lead to violence. In New Delhi, an innocent girl was shot dead just because she refused to be sexually harassed. It is clear that in such cases, men use violence as a way to “tame” women and force women to succumb to their dominance. Consequently, women have

According to the traditional values of a patriarchal society, women should conform to the desires of men. Being submissive and keeping quiet are what men who idealize patriarchism appreciate the most. Such characteristics lead men to have an advantage over the rights of women, making them feel more dominant and superior to women. This male privilege controls women, preventing them from attaining their freedom. There are many ways that men control women, such as intimidation and violence, which guides men to suppress female power. Moreover, reducing female independence causes women to feel fear and hide from possible resilience towards men, as they are left weak in the hands of men. Through the different ways that men control women, there is one major method known as infantilization that portrays how men obtain a pleasure of superiority while diminishing women. Infantilization is to treat someone as a child, which in this case is treating women as children. Being treated as a child, limits the amount of power women have of making their own decisions, which causes them to ignore objecting to men. Women do not realize how they are treated until they have no choice but to comply with men. Infantilizing women creates fear which makes them become inferior in a male dominated society.

For centuries man has been considered to be the dominate species. Writings throughout history adumbrate that women are habitually invariably subordinate. Throughout the nineteenth century, women were severely oppressed, repressed, and suppressed by society. Men influenced repression of women’s ideas because it was believed it did not count and held no value; an abundant amount of women unfortunately agreed. An extensive amount of women were uneducated, and subsequently this greatly impacted on their way of thinking. Although the women’s suffrage movement was prominent, an abundant amount of women, in my opinion, were negatively influenced by society as a whole. Within literature, writings oppressed women, and belittled

“A measure of a man is what he does with power.” These wise words were once said by the classical greek philosopher Plato, and can be applied to our society and fictional societies to this day. In literature, it can be applied to the societies of “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, “Ponies” by Kij Johnson, and “Honor to Us All” from Disney’s Mulan. Marxism (the theory that is used to look at conflicts and imbalances of power in literature/societies) and Feminism (the study/advocacy of equality for men and women rights) can be used to implement this quote into fiction. An examination of these three stories reveals that sexism causes power struggles in societies.