On Self Respect By Joan Didion

In a world where showing a bit too much shoulder was forbidden, came Susan Glaspell. Glaspell was an American playwright, born in the cruel times of oppression. This influenced women’s opinions on certain subjects which caused them to be silenced by fear of rejection from society. “A Jury of Her Peers” was based on an era where women felt as though it was unreasonable to speak up if they felt it was not absolutely dire. Harboring these pent up feelings could cause a person to act antagonistic. Minnie Wright was an example of this. She killed her husband and was subjected to the judgement of her peers. As the group investigated Mr. Wright’s death, there were two stories unraveling. The in depth explanation that the women figured out and the simplistic version the men had seemed to pick up (Glaspell). People would benefit from reading this story to begin to understand the struggle of what this and other women had gone through. Penn Manor American Literature students would benefit from having Susan Glaspell’s story “A Jury of Her Peers” in their curriculum because of how she expressed feminism through her writing at a time when it was new and discouraged; her ability to emphasize the themes with her settings and characters; and her literature that follows a protagonist that navigates through a sexist world.

The question that we aimed to answer as a class was: what do women want? The class focused on themes such as desire, family, community safety, and even more, but I feel that the theme that really appeared in all of the books and films that we studies was the idea of meaningful work. This is one of the most important things that women want, or that anyone wants, because it is doing something on a daily basis that means something to you and means something to somebody else.

Women play an integral role in society and we consider them as equal. We are taught to treat them with respect but that wasn’t always the case. Society hasn’t always considered women to be equal or even respected. They were mistreated, disrespected, and thought of as inferior. In the past, women contributed equally or more but were put in a position where they had few or even no rights or privileges. Voltaire’s Candide and Jonathan Swift's “A Modest Proposal” have a similar idea of how women were viewed, and as the Enlightenment Era was coming to an end, people’s outlooks shifted. The commonality of their perspectives on women is a key factor in the Enlightenment Era that viewed how women were portrayed.

Journalist Joan Didion, in the essay “On Self Respect” provides insight into self respect. Didion's purpose is to convince people to be honest and to show them how self respect helps gain confidence. She writes with a knowledgeable perspective, and by adopting a sophisticated tone makes people admire her credibility.

Although it is overlooked the majority of the time, a woman’s underlying sacrificial struggle, lived and experienced by approximately half of the human population, has been covertly eminent. Women must confront within themselves the expectations and viewpoints of society. Both Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun provide coinciding portrayals of women by explaining their societal roles, handling of circumstances, character, and external depictions.

Society today has unreal expectations for women such as to always look good, have manners, for them to not sleep around and much more. With all this expectations from women you cannot have all of them follow the social norms. Women having all this pressure from society, I do not believe one could blame them for breaking free from society’s shackles and becoming their own person. In Kim Addonizio’s poem, What Do Women Want? She lets her readers know exactly what women want, by describing a red dress.

Some people who do not support feminism, lean toward the men’s side because they suggest that men are the more important gender, since they are more masculine. Consequently, I believe there is an enlargement to the expansion of women since Shakespeare’s time because they have made decisions that changed lives others. Female workers increased in numbers, and they have inspired others to create. However, sometimes in schools and among people, stereotypes and gossips affect women by emotionally hurting them.In order to solve this situation, I suggest that we, the community, tolerate less of these issues. The benefits of my solution will stop reducing females’ confidence. The effect of the solution include an increase in women popularity because of their self-esteem. The support for women's rights have grown throughout the years. For these reasons I conclude that in many ways, the evolution of women has advanced over the years, since Shakespeare’s

William James author of “Psychology: A Briefer Course” discusses aspects of the self and how it is formed through the world that one lives in. This paper will attempt to use what James claims about the self to support Virginia Wolf claim that if woman had a room of one’s own there could have been a sister of Shakespeare who could have been as great, if not greater, but because of the age in time that was impossible and continued to be impossible for centuries to come (Wolf p.46) Wolf goes on to discuss all of these aspects of oppression done to woman through fictitious writing which only goes to strengthen her claim because she is only capable of doing this in the time and age she lives in and therefore has the freedom to educates herself, and read and write about what she wants, whether it be fiction or not. However, before one can dive into this conversation we must understand and comprehend what James says about the self and how it is severely influenced by the world one lives and grows

During this time, women were often looked at as less than men in reference to intelligence, capability, and overall strength. Reading this work from the perspective of a woman during that time presents an interesting thought, which is the importance of self-expression. Later on as the wife continues to get worse, she expresses again of her desire to write to ease her mind and pain, “I think sometimes that I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve me the press of ideas and rest me” (420). Had the perspective been altered in any way, the readers would not have discovered the same message because the other character is a man, and men were free to express themselves however they wished. Women were limited, which is why the point of view used developed this central

Women can now perform tasks much better than men can do and no one can be able to prevent them from achieving things that they desire in life because what drives them is stronger than the forces against them. However there are still a number of women today that have low self-esteem and confidence issues. The restoration on confidence and self-esteem depends on the people that surround them in order for them to believe in themselves. In this story there is this women that is pictured as a strong women but at the end of the day she struggles with her inner feelings. In the story “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck, Elisa is a women stuck in a life she cannot escape from in which she conforms herself to stay.

Nowadays society has a plethora of mediums to convey what the ideal woman is. Even in the modern world, images proliferate the daily lives of females of who and what they should be. Magazines, television, and even internet blogs find their way to the female psyche and American culture. In the past, however, women had to rely on other rudimentary sources regarding their lives. These rudimentary sources, although archaic in their mindset, is what historian Barbara Welter inquired about in depth. Welter pulled together what was an immense array of written words that transmitted through their context, advised women that they have a certain place in society. Welter found a prevailing theme within the context of ladies magazines, periodicals, and spiritual literature of the time. Through her research in the context of this literature, Welter found how submission to religion, feminine manipulation, and dependence on men were the real message these writings were transmitting at this time. From Young Ladies Literary and Missionary Report, “you may labor without the apprehension of detracting from the charms of feminine delicacy” (qtd. Welter

As time passed, people began to diverge away from the outrageous beliefs from the Puritan era but sexism was still present. The popular belief during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries was that the role of a true woman was to properly serve her husband and children. Take, for example, Edna Pontellier from Kate Chopin’s well-known novel The Awakening. Edna Pontellier was heavily scrutinized by those around her for not serving her husband and children as if they were gods. Don’t be mistaken, Mrs. Pontellier cared for them, but she also aspired to fulfill her own desires. Mrs. Pontellier specifically said, “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn't give myself” (Chopin 64).

My understanding of cultural and contextual considerations in To Each His Own was greatly developed through my participation in the Interactive Oral. Throughout the Interactive Oral, my peers and I discussed how individuals must respect other’s social and cultural aspects. We expanded on ideas about social and cultural considerations though the characters and the time period of the book. During the 1960’s in Italy, fascism ideology was ongoing which created social issues such as objectification of women and patriarchal society. Women had specific roles in Fascist Italy, they were expected to get married and have numerous children since it brought better tax privileges. They were viewed as women who were useful for their physical nature and

Woman are held to lower standards than their male counterparts and never expected to excel outside the home. Piercy continues to show the shallowness of womanhood and how society never submerges deeper than the outer shell. Margie writes the standards that a woman must hold herself to in

For a woman to defy the expectations of such a society’s specific image, they in return become isolated in their thinking and beliefs. Their inability to be held by the restrictions of society may cause them to realize the lack of encouragement and acknowledgement of differences by