preview

Feminism: The Advocacy of Women´s Right Essay example

Better Essays

Feminism, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Persepolis

Feminism: the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. Feminism is both a human rights movement and an ideal that has been gaining steady momentum for centuries, and a major theme throughout Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, in which her coming-of-age occurs during one of the most oppressive historical moments in modern history for women: the Iranian Revolution. The protagonist, Marjane, experiences this oppression first-hand, through forced religion and heavy restrictions on things as simple as clothing choice. Marjane, as a self-proclaimed defender of human rights, protests this oppressive and unjust way of life, placing emphasis on …show more content…

Marjane is initially exposed to the violent side of this female oppression when her mother comes home one day, visibly upset after being assaulted by men who said “that women like [her] should be pushed up against a wall and fucked. And then thrown in the garbage. ...And that if [she] didn't want that to happen, [she] should wear the veil…” (Satrapi, 73).

This is a wake-up call for Marjane, and opens her eyes to the abuse women endure from men, simply for dressing less conservatively than they would like. This is a clear violation of human rights, in which a woman’s life is violently threatened because she is not covered and women are blamed for violence committed by men.

During her 2013 TedxTalk, nearly 30 years later, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie brought up a similar issue, just as relevant today. She mentions a gang rape in which the victim was blamed, as they often are, attributing it to Nigerians having “been raised to think of women as inherently guilty. And they’ve been raised to expect so little of men that the idea of men as savage beings without any control is somehow acceptable. We teach girls shame. ‘Close your legs. Cover yourself.’ We make them feel as though being born female they’re already guilty of something.” (Adichie, TedxTalk 4/12/13).

Her talk discusses a

Get Access