Donald Laqueur's Perception Of Gender

When a man came into power, it was because of his merits and hard work. When a women came into power, it was pure luck or because of a man. Patriarchy was a societal issue in the early nineteenth century and is still prevalent today in the twenty-first century with men holding the authority over women on average in life. Patriarchy is defined as a society arranged to make sure that final social and political power disproportionately rests with males. Given the traditional gender roles set in America’s early nineteenth century patriarchy, both men and women's attitudes towards sexuality were thoroughly twisted and used to oppress women while valuing men, and slavery magnified the patriarchy’s worst aspects like sexual violence.

Women are not seen as equals to men, and power and control are to blame for this. For many and many of years, women have been belittled and left out of the historical canon. As a result, women have been deprived of experience in jobs which has caused an inequality in the overall experience. The stratification of gender has caused this ignorance of the knowledge of men about how women should follow the rules of men. Lawmakers for many years have created policies that limit women’s ability to make decisions about their own bodies. Issues as serious as abortion have diminished the power of women of color in ways that restrict them from escaping this matrix of domination. Women as a whole do not experience the same forms of discrimination. In the U.S. race plays a huge role in how white women and women of color experience oppression differently forever. The lobbyist has this double consciousness about women that their sole purpose is to reproduce and refrain from abortion because it is frowned upon and immoral to take the life of an unborn fetus. While in reality the standpoint of women of color, and abortion cannot be subjected to male-dominated opinions of what they believe is right based off a one-sided viewpoint. The laws surrounding abortion, which are created by men should be reconstructed in a way that takes into account the oppression and experience of abortion on women of color.

s history runs its’ course, there are certain topics that are always addressed such as religion, politics, and societal structure. Also brought up is the role of women. During all periods of the world, women are given their own category due to being treated differently than the men. Comparing the women of ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt reveals the vast differences of people’s views of women and the disappointing similarities of being unjustly judged based on their gender. Each of these cultures puts their women into positions that are degrade the skills of females, some more than others, and create the societal barriers for women that last for many years after ancient times.

In the sixteenth century the role of women in society was very limited. Women were generally stereotyped as housewives and mothers. They were to be married, living their life providing for her husband and children. The patriarchal values of the Elizabethan times regarded women as the weaker sex.’ Men were considered the dominant gender and were treated with the utmost respect by females. Women were mainly restricted within the confines of their homes and were not allowed to go school or to university, but they could be educated at home by private tutors. Men were said to be the ones to provide for their families financially. Women were often seen as not intelligent. Property could not be titled in the name of a female within the family. Legally everything the female had belonged to her husband. Poor and middle class wives were kept very busy but rich women were not idle either. In a big house they had to organize and supervise the servants.

The next requirement for being a “true woman” was submissiveness. According to society men were superior to women by “God’s appointment.” If they acted otherwise they “tampered with the order of the Universe” (Welter 105). A “true woman” would not question this idea because she already understands her place. Grace Greenwood explained to the women of the Nineteenth Century, “True feminine genius is ever timid, doubtful, and clingingly dependant; a perpetual childhood.” Even in the case of an abusive husband, women were sometimes told to stay quiet

It must be said that men of power create the structure of life--which is not necessarily profitable or fitting to women, nor to the human race in its entirety. Women do not live in this structure:“They lead beautiful lives--women. Lives not only divorced from, but irrevocably excommunicated from, all reality” (156).

In present times, the idea of gender, and gender roles is a prevalent part of our society. These gender roles are guidelines for men and women on how they should behave, wear, and what jobs they are allowed to do. This concept of these roles are not just in today’s times. In fact, since the time of Medieval Europe and Confucian China, the idea of gender and the rules and regulations of it have been an important aspect of life. In the societies of Medieval Europe and China, the challenged gender roles were too powerful to be broken.

American society is heavily influenced by the power of privilege; who has it and who doesn’t, and how those groups interact together. This influence isn’t only based on who holds most of the societal privilege in the present but it can even be viewed in terms of which groups historically had the power of privilege, and how they interacted with the groups who historically did not have it. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary privilege is defined as “.a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor especially such a right or immunity attached specifically to a position or an office” (Merriam-Webster). In America we see a clear definition between those who have it and those who do not. In our society it is safe to say men hold the most privilege while women are left to deal with what powers the men throw our way. By thrown our way I literally mean the powers men allow other social groups, not just women, to have through a variety of forces. Men use their privilege to dominate over women in almost any way they can, or at the very least they sit back and benefit from their privilege.

Women continue to be oppressed for simply being women, while men are not oppressed for being men in contemporary culture. Regardless of anything covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women are oppressed in most areas of life, especially in the workplace. In society, the term “oppressed” is persistently misused…misused to the point that women are subject to oppression without anyone being even slightly mindful of it. Furthermore, a perfect example in the Cages article is “We are accused of insensitivity; even of bigotry. For women, such accusation is particularly intimidating, since sensitivity is one of the few virtues that has been assigned to us.” Whether a woman is white or black is irrelevant, all women are oppressed

Imagine this, you are a female and you and your fellow male employee are working the same job and at the end of the week you get your paycheck. You work the exact same job for the same amount of hours, but you notice he has an extra thousand dollars on his check because the fact that he is a male. How are you going to react as a female to this situation? This scenario is just one situation where women are not equal to men. Although men think women have the same opportunities and are treated fairly, this is not the case in the world today. Women's rights are not equal in the ways of politics, pay, and the fact that women are at greater risk of rape/domestic violence.

To begin with, in Genesis, God “created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” This initial favouritism for the male race is important in answering the question as to whether gender does intact define character, as the omnipotent benevolent figure God has chosen to make a man in his own image, therefore granting man a higher status of importance amongst others. This has pioneered the way in which we view men and women in society from the 1600s through to 2015, and has allowed for men to be at the top side of a power imbalance. In terms of defining character, this creates men to be dominant, leaders and decision-makers whereas women are nurtured into being submissive and obedient. Furthermore, the linguistic construction of the word “female” is also a demonstration of just how much women are second-rate to men. The word presents itself with ‘fe’ as an extension of ‘male’ which can be interpreted to imply the idea

During the Middle Ages, there were strict gender roles for men and women; men were seen as active figures of authority in both the household and society, whereas women were largely confined to the domestic realm and expected to submit passively to men. These gender roles resulted in a strict gender binary which held the belief that each sex was born with a set of traits that made them distinctly masculine or feminine. Accordingly, the society in the thirteenth-century old French fabliau “La Dame Escoillée” upholds these medieval attitudes towards men and women. Throughout the fabliau, the speaker portrays a patriarchal society which privileges men over women and is governed by prescribed gender roles that men and women are expected to adhere to. In the beginning of the story, the knight is feminized through his obedience to his wife, while his wife assumes a traditional male gender role of dominance and authority. The wife’s rejection of a traditional female role is later passed on to their daughter, who attempts to gain authority over her husband in her own marriage. As a whole, the fabliau is driven by challenges of masculine social authority, with a central focus on violence against women as means of asserting masculine dominance. Moreover, the story’s theatrical excess of male and female gender roles calls attention to the performativity of gender, in which gendered behaviour is learned and enforced to shape individuals into idealized masculine and feminine subjects. In

Since the beginning of humankind, men have placed women below them on the hierarchical pyramid of power. This overbearing patriarchy is evident in almost every major civilization throughout history, in the long-lasting Roman empire, the Chinese dynasties, the feudal kingdoms of Medieval Europe, and even in America. With centuries upon centuries of oppression, replicated on every end of the Earth, it is no surprise that even women have seen themselves as inferior, submitting to their male “dominants”. Some authors, such as Edith Wharton, used their novels to depict and cry out against this lack of sisterhood. In The Age of Innocence, Wharton shows that the women of late 19th century New York high society are restrained by the chains of the long ruling patriarchy, but rather than use their power and wealth to rebel against it, they force conformity upon all in their sphere of life.

Women in today’s society have become equal to men in nearly every aspect of life. They hold independent jobs, can provide for themselves, and have almost every right that man has. Up until very recently, this was not the case for women or their value in the community. In the 16th century, women were treated completely different. They were primarily domestic-minded, and were chosen by husbands based off of the value that they could bring into a household. Beauty and love did come into play, but the woman was definitely subordinate to the potential husband in almost every aspect. In Cervantes’ Don Quixote, virtue in a spouse is defined by cultural thought and through an indirect source that creates a “perfect” wife mentally.

Women have frequently been viewed as inferior to men throughout human history. This theme can be explored through works of literature and examples can be found in cultures of the past and present. In fact, there are many seemingly different cultures that share that one major similarity: the oppression and subjugation of women. Upon reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, it becomes clear that the primary reason for the abuse of women is the common cultural belief that women are secondary to men. This conclusion is further justified after reading A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. Throughout history, many cultures have been heavily masculine based. There are countless examples of men wielding power over women.When women are no more than