Marge Piercy's The Pampered Life Of Artifice

The writing life is the short story book which has seven chapters. It talks about how to become a good writer and how to create a good writing by passing through the perspective and personal experience of Annie Dillard. In the part of how to become a good writer, she tells her personal experience about what is the things that help she to become a good writer. Also, what is the things a writer should have and what is a person a writer should be. In the part of how to create the good writing, she compares the writing with other handicrafts such as painting, photographing, singing, and wood working (Dillard 3-6). In addition, she gives us about the idea of “Line of Words” that is the major part of creating a good writing.

The methods in which men and women communicate are eminently different. This being so, their external state is an indicator of their inner state, but men and women have different external states to express themselves. This is especially evident among children and individuals in relationships, and altered between a couple who tries to adjust their behavior. Deborah Tannen, the author of “Sex, Lies, and Conversation,” argues that boys are girls are taught to have a differ inner state, that males and females usually have the same inner state but express them differently when communicating, and that individuals in romantic relationships can alter the way they present their outer state to represent their inner state in a way their partner can relate to.

In Chapter 3 of Opening Skinner’s Box, “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Lauren Slater discusses the contentious issue psychiatrists faced in 1972 after psychologist David Rosenhan conducted his most famous experiment, proving how psychiatrists already label patients when they walk through the door to be evaluated. The author, Slater is a psychologist herself in which her writing in this chapter is supportive to Rosenhan’s findings. This may limit supporting arguments on crediting psychiatric conceptualization. The meaning of behavior can easily be misunderstood, a patient can be diagnosed according to the doctor’s capacity of knowledge to specific behaviors.

This article from “The Real Truth about the Female” by Barbara Ehrenreich targets many beliefs that women were underestimated. The main theory suggested in this document is that, women had to follow the traditional duties. Early theories are being questioned as a result to women proving many things over the years that were often overlooked. Ehrenreich states in his article, “it does strongly suggest that in the Stone Age family, Dad-the-hunter was not the only provider.” There is a great amount of evidence that suggest the theory that women worked as hard as men. Adrienne Zihlman and Nancy Tanner stated “among surviving “hunting” peoples, most of the community’s calories—up to 70%—come from plant food patiently gathered by women.” This fact

Strong-willed, intelligent, and motivated are only some of the words we can use to describe Betty Friedan. Credited as being the mother of the second wave of feminism, Friedan was an influential women’s right activist during the twentieth century but her legacy has continued to strive well into the twenty-first century. Friedan is the author of a variety of books including The Feminine Mystique, which became a phenomenon because of its powerful message to women for self-exploration outside their traditional roles. This book helped to define Friedan’s role in the fight for women empowerment and equality. It evoked emotions in many women who agreed that they did not want to fulfil traditional roles, creating an atmosphere of change. She was also the cofounder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), serving as its first president and also helped to create the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws and the National Women’s Political Caucus. With these organizations, Friedan became the face of the women’s movement and encouraged women to take a stand against the pathological idealization of women by creating a sense of community

Queer Compulsions by Amy Sueyoshi serves as a wonderful insight of various struggles of Japanese immigrants with Americans in its depiction of specific individual of Yone Noguchi through his intimate relationship with other Americans of both sexes. Through the life of Noguchi, the author aims to touch on both racial and sexual (both sexual identity and gender) standards which were expected at the time, and how those affected not only the life of Noguchi, but also the lives of many Japanese immigrants. Most part of the book, from Chapter 1 to 4, the author talks extensively about relationships (not only intimate/family relationships, but also other relationships with general American population, especially Bohemian) that Noguchi had from the beginning of his life.

The portrait I choose is the Faces by Nancy Burson, 1992 (figure, 22.7). The portrait is the picture of two boys, and they are twins. In the description, Nancy used a cheap plastic camera for their look. The plastic camera creates a blurry effect on the subject, which is the two boys. The twins have the same shirt with the same pattern on them, and their hairstyle is similar as well. Their face features are almost identical consider they are twins. Looks closely, their face structure seems unusual for them compared to other children of their age. For example, the size of their nose is bigger and wider than the usual size. And their eyebrow bone is more arch. According to the textbook, the unusual facial structure might cause by genetic conditions, accident or disease. The twin may or may not born like this, and there are some other unknown factors decide how they look. However, this picture shows the characteristics of the children, such as pure, kind, optimistic, curious.

Mothers are pictured as the care giver of the families and the ones who love their children unconditionally no matter the situation. They’ll do anything to support their family and raise their children right. In “The Queen of Mold” by Ruth Reichl, the mother in the story is pictured as the one who makes a meal almost out of nothing, just to provide and have something on the table for her family. Even though the food she cooks is moldy, this is how she demonstrates her motherly love.. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, the mother is portrayed at first as an over excited mother waiting for her over achieving daughter Dee. As the story progresses the excitement for the daughter starts to go away and her motherly love towards Dee becomes complicated because Dee thinks she is greater and much smarter than the rest. Both of the stories depict complex motherhood, in Reichl story her mother’s love becomes complicated when she cooks food for the guest and her daughter tries to save the guest from being killed, while by the end of Walker story she only has love for the one daughter that has always been by her side and that’s Maggie.

The article, The Cult of Womanhood: 1820 - 1860 written by Barbara Welter discusses the philosophy towards women in America during the mid 19th century. A set of demands and expectations based upon four principles: piety, purity, submission and domesticity were placed on women as well as certain behavioral expectations left 19th century women feeling guilty. It also left women feeling this way during the industrialization period as well as having a huge presence of incompatibility with society. Welter shares her viewpoint that the Cult of Womanhood was an attempt to preserve pre modern values in the industrial age. Men held a dominant place in society and continued to prevent new opportunities for women to explore. Narrow minded

Elizabeth Drinker’s diary clearly reflects the pronounced differences between the life of a female and the life of a male in the eighteenth century. The life of Drinker is closely aligned with the life of a typical woman during that period. Due to Drinker being a member of the upper class, she had even more responsibility to conform to the stereotypical gender roles of her time. Drinker was well aware of her standing within society and she knew how to live in the fashion her upbringing and class demanded. As a female, Drinker’s life revolved around her family, and she was content to live within the socially constructed restrictions made for women.

One of the 20th century’s most important and influential modernist poets was Hilda Doolittle, more commonly known as H.D. While other artists struggled to find a new mode of expression, H.D. found imagism and created intense poems delving into very specific depictions. In “Sheltered Garden,” H.D. employs intense imagery using nature in order to put forth an opinion or viewpoint, which is also highlighted by another poem titled, “Sea Rose.” By analyzing these two poems, one can more fully comprehend the modernist movement/mentality and how H.D. shaped her own form of poetry. In “Sheltered Garden,” the poet uses the image of a garden to not only push against society’s constraint of women, but also its imposed ideas of beauty, creating tension between the natural and the unnatural.

In the book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan brings attention to what she calls the feminine mystique, or “the problem that has no name”. Through the use of anecdotal narratives, her own personal experiences as a journalist, editor, mother, and the interviews of many women from different backgrounds in order to unveil the truth about the women of the 1950’s. The problem which sparked the second wave of feminism in the United States is one that focuses on the inequality between men and women and the undervaluing of women in both the social and private spheres. The women of the time gave up pursuing their passions, such as getting an education or careers in science or business in order to fit the image of the stereotypical stay-at-home mom whose main goal in life is to raise her children while providing a safe and comforting home for her husband. The Feminine Mystique, as she called it, was the idea of widespread unhappiness of women, despite the preconceived notion that women were happiest when they have a family. Throughout her work, she dives into many of the problems associated with the feminine mystique and builds a powerful concept of what would eventually be labeled feminism.

The history of publishing has been plagued with literary hoaxes — from the somewhat harmless Ern Malley hoax to the most recent Belle Gibson scandal. Unfortunately literary hoaxes will continue to happen, unless publishers begin to fact check manuscripts before publication. Publishers claim they are unable to do this due to the financial cost of the procedure and this is a believable claim. If you spoke to an average person they would say that the print industry is dying, thanks to the rise of digital technology, and there has been a downturn in profits.

In 1997, Dorothy Ko published an article in the Journal of Women’s History called “The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeen-Century China”. The article is organized with a brief introduction as to what footbinding is, the negative outlook on this practice due to problematic archives, and then she discusses the examples she gives to support her thesis. Ko’s thesis was “Chinese elite males in the seventeenth century regarded footbinding in three ways: as an expression of Chinese wen civility, as a marker of ethnic boundaries separating Han from Manchu, and as an ornament or embellishment of the body.” Since Ko is a celebrated and established author on women in early East Asia, the article “The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeen Century China” is an accurate and useful source if one is trying to study that area.

Throughout “A Work of Artifice” , an extended metaphor of a Bonsai Tree is used. The Bonsai tree represents a women. A gardener is also used to represent a man and/or society. The speaker expresses that the Bonsai Tree could have grown eighty feet tall but was pruned by a gardener to be