Gender, Religion, And Class, By Lynn Notagge

The biological sex of a person, in most cases, today can still be considered one of the main identifying characteristics of an individual. In the past the sex of a person was more than an identifying characteristic, it was who they were. They were either men or women, there was no in between or changing it. Society today has come a long way in terms of gender identity and gender roles, but the concept of patriarchy still has the upper hand when it all boils down. Allan G. Johnson’s, The Gender Knot, provides for a more diverse outlook on the women’s expected roles in life, how they are expected to handle difficult situations in marriage, and how they demonstrate courage, in Mona Lisa Smile.

She flirts with many men and young adults throughout the play, which makes the reader feel a lack of sympathy for her as the men she desired ended up becoming major contributors to her eventual downfall, in particular Stanley.

In her book “Gender Outlaw: On Men, Woman, and the Rest of us,” Kate Bornstein goes over a lot of the major issues regarding gender awareness and identity politics. She talks about the ideas of labeling ones self, understanding gender differences, how people view laws, behaviors, and the medical and scientific privilege that make transitioning challenging for a lot of people. Bornstein touches on many of the issues today that affect trans people. She includes poetry, pictures, quotes, essays, and a play to raise questions and discuss the idea of gender. This is a great book to introduce and discuss the issues that affect the lives of trans people as they navigate and explore the lines that define gender.

Linda and Willy’s relationship in the play is characterized by deep love and affection, but Willy does not frequently show the physical manifestations of such feelings. After thirty-five years of marriage, both characters have come to know each other’s subtle quirks and dreams, but Linda’s thorough understanding of Willy cannot be reciprocated. At first glance, she resembles a stereotypical housewife who passively stays home while her husband maintains his role as the breadwinner of the family,

the play are ―rich symbol[s]‖ that convey the barriers of a ―racist society‖ (Kenny par. 18). The

Overall, I believe that social class is the main theme in the play, and that Willy Russell has presented the theme very effectively. The two different families living in such a close distance from each other allows the audience to see

The play takes place after World War II, during the postwar booms. The era of the Baby boom, the growth of the suburbs, the tension of the cold war, and the civil rights movements. During this time, African Americans had an ongoing war with the dilemma of racial discrimination. In 1954, during the historical case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme court decided that black children were free to attend any institution they desired, and as Afro-Americas families enrolled their children in all “white schools”, many used hostility and extortion to prevent any Afro- American from entering schools. In 1955, “Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her seat on a city bus to a white person. Her arrest sparked a 13-month boycott of the city’s buses by its black citizens, which only ended when the bus companies stopped discriminating against African American passengers” (A+E Networks, 2010). Acts of hate against black citizens became a daily dilemma, from lynching them, to name calling, to hate crimes.

She makes it clear that although we say that our society has come far from the old forms of discrimination we have not truly ended racial caste in America and that we have merely redesigned it. Looking at racial inequality from a Marxist lens, race is used to oppress individuals in order to capitalize on wealth. Furthermore, Marxism looks at race as a byproduct of the human desire for lucrativeness. In other words, certain groups want to accumulate as much wealth and material, and in order for them to do that they need to mitigate competition. Competition is reduced through oppressive tactics, certain groups of individuals establish themselves as the essential subject whilst making everyone else around them as the inessential object. By identifying a separation factor, like skin color, one group can thus establish itself as the subject while establishing the other as the object. Tying this back to the play, we can see the correlation between white people and supremacy, and black people and inferiority. Color Blindness comes from a lack of awareness of racial privilege conferred by Whiteness. Due to the fact that White individuals have never encountered difficulty pertaining to issues of race, they are unable to sympathize and acknowledge that the condition exists. Rebecca, as

Three specific themes Beynon has used to create this eye opening play are: racism, family and alienation. These particular themes have aided in Beynon’s play being able to keep up and relate to the 21st century.

Though there was a heightened sense of tension over civil rights in the late 1950s when A Raisin in the Sun was written, racial inequality is still a problem today. It affects minorities of every age and dynamic, in more ways than one. Though nowadays it may go unnoticed, race in every aspect alters the way African-Americans think, behave, and react as human beings. This is shown in many ways in the play as we watch the characters interact. We see big ideas, failures, and family values through the eyes of a disadvantaged group during an unfortunate time in history. As Martin Luther King said, Blacks are “...harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what

. This play takes place in 1963, the year in which the Civil Rights movement was being fought for. The main topic of this play is to understand how race and stereotype can affect justice being served, and the only way around this would be to view facts and override race and stereotype with evidence.

There has been always a belief that human races have distinctive characteristics that determine their respective cultures. In most cases, the idea that one 's race is superior and is assumed to provide the right to rule or dominate others. There is also the distinct personality in which people are concerned with the persisting entity to particular individuals. The theme of racism and personal identity are evidenced in the plays; Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles in various instances. In the two plays, offensive and aggressive behaviors are demonstrated to members of another race stemming from racism and the inferior belief of skin color. The issues of racial discrimination happen in the two plays, and some people are treated less fairly than others similar situation just because of their race, color, and ethnic origin.

The focus of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel is a Black woman named Esther. A seamstress, she spends much time with Mrs. Van Buren, a white married socialite, Mayme, a prostitute, and Mrs. Dickson, a widow and Esther’s landlady. While interacting with these women, Esther realizes that each of these women is putting on a performance; they are masking their true selves and presenting false identities to their communities. Each woman is performing in order to meet expectations, to forge relationships, or conceal their emotions. However, through the course of the play, each woman reveals her true identity, thoughts, and emotions to Esther.

Gender subjectivity is another important aspect of the debate around gender because it focuses on a move away from the idea of innate sexual identity characteristics that divide human beings into male and female (Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology, 2014). This type of view challenges the essentialism of sexual difference into something more then a binary between male vs. female, heterosexual vs. homosexual, etc., as it recognizes that these dichotomies are problematic because the term of gender encompasses a whole range of identities across a spectrum. In particular ideas like what does it mean to be equal? (Butler) and seeing division of gender into binary conceptions of identity can be seen as a process of ‘othering’ (de Beauvoir) are some of the areas that this topic examines.

Intimate Apparel recounts the story of Esther, a 35-year old African American lady who moved from North Carolina to look for her wealth as a sewer in New York. There is much to respect in Esther's character. The play starts in a rooming house, where Esther has been living for a long time. When she came to that house, she learned how to sew intimate apparel from an old resident, and that’s where the title of the play comes from. Esther's mom passed away when she was 17 years of age. After her incredible loss, she worked her path north to get away from the Abuses the south brought to African Americans. Furthermore, the play shows several themes. One of which demonstrates how life is not generally reasonable and fair. That theme appears when Ether