Overcoming Obstacles of Social Conventions in the Medieval Story, Eliduc

In “Why Boys Don’t Play With Dolls,” Pollitt writes about the differences between growing up as a boy growing up as a girl. She brings up the stereotypes that society naturally creates between genders in early ages, which leads to the lifestyle and path that boys and girls are raised in. Parents and feminist alike play a big part in establishing these sex roles. They raise their kids wanting them to be successful at what they are expected to be good at based on their gender and the trend that has been set before them.

Vic Lang, one of the central characters, is arguably most affected by the constraints society places on gender — succumbing to romanticised ideologies.

The mind is shaped by those with which one surrounds him or herself. This is a result of the human desire to see oneself in others as a tactic to relate and discover commonalities. The inclination to build relationships and connect to other humans is so strong that people become dependent on external gratification, even in environments where acquaintances do not necessarily reflect a person on the most basic level: sex. Due to overpowering masculinity, women oftentimes submit to the ideals of their male counterparts and the societal expectations pushed onto them as women in a patriarchal society. Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones displays that the feminine inferiority complex is not innate, but rather is informed by external forces.

Marie de France’s Lanval is a tale about a knight in King Arthur’s court who meets a lady who happens to be a fairy. Lanval gains her love and she provides him with every generosity that he could possible imagine upon the condition that Lanval not tell anyone of her love for him. When Lanval returns, he is approached by Arthur’s queen for an affair which he declines, and as a result the queen is irritated. Lanval becomes defensive and insults the queen by telling her that his beloved and her servants are “worth” more than her. In his insult to the queen, the existence of his lover is obviously revealed. For the offense of insulting the queen, Lanval is brought before King Arthur. The confrontation between Lanval and King Arthur brings attention to the value of status as a measurement of personal worth in the court of King Arthur.

The portrayal of gender in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros promotes negative stereotype or gender inequality through the various reality of how every gender is delineated in the author’s particular society. In the chapter “Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays,” Cisneros states, “Rafaela, who is still young/gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at” (79). Rafaela wants to escape from being imprisoned, but she can’t because she doesn’t have the power to deny her husband. Many other women like her don’t have the freedom to acquire what they dream of because in this society they have to abide by the male who has the most power. In chapter “What Sally

Another experience of such prejudice can be perceived in the actions of the mother of Vorn, a boy within the clan. She encourages her son to give orders to Alya she believes that he is learning to behave “just like a man”. The composer’s use of verbatim in this line encapsulates the strong sexual bias held against women within the tribe as well as supports the stereotypical roles of males and females. Furthermore the composer demonstrates another representation of gender stereotypes in the actions of Iza, the woman who adopted Alya. In a conversation between Iza and Creb, Iza expresses her concern for Alya’s future. She states that “she’s not attractive” and asks “What chance will she ever have to mate? What will happen to her when she becomes a woman? If she doesn’t mate, she will have no status.” The composer has clearly again expressed the tribe’s attitudes through the repetition of rhetorical questions. This underscores the towns gender stereotyping as Iza demonstrates a clear concern that Alya will not fulfil her role in society. Together, these three experiences of gender prejudice and a clear male bias reveal to us a holistic understanding of the attitudes encountered when entering into a society of sexual injustice, such as Ayla’s world.

Society is known to treat men and women differently despite the equality that is supposed to exist between the sexes. While sexism and gender sensitivity was at its worst during the early eras, it still exists nowadays because of what is known as the double standard mentality. In the poem ‘Double Standard’ Harper presents various examples of this double standard mentality that exists in the late 1800’s. The poem focuses on sexual double standard which is more appropriately considered the battle between the sexes nowadays and it presents this sexual double standard in three main lights, these being sexual double standard in social, cultural, personal, and public perception which represent the gravity of the

For example, in the society which Atwood creates, affairs lead to much more severe punishments for females than they do for males (Lü). After being impregnated by her employer’s son, Mary Whitney’s fate is sealed. She decides to have an unsafe abortion which kills her while her employer’s son remains unscathed (Lü). Also, in regard to Thomas Kinnear and Nancy, the male upholds his reputation as a gentleman whereas the female is scorned as “dirty” (Lü). Lü highlights that even after their deaths, Thomas’s tomb was better decorated. In my paper, I will expand upon many of the tenants of Lü’s arguments. Lü mainly writes about these situations from a feminist perspective, explaining how the men walked away scot-free while the females suffered, but I wish to analyze the socioeconomic implications. Poverty is a major factor in Mary’s pregnancy and Nancy’s affair, which to this point, has gone

The young girl tends to ignore the old perceptions of loyalty and consent to the traditions. She demonstrates an invisible shifting boundary between women and men, between women and women, between a tradition bound woman and a modern woman (I know who I am, nobody can dictate me). She is not a consenting subject, a primary requirement of hegemony which masks any inequality as natural. Growing up and sharing the same cultural ethos, she develops a subjectivity that differs the subjectivity of the previous narrator. Is her narrative a resistance to the dominant cultural ethos or hegemony, or the other informants who created their spaces by arguing with their husbands, such as those two females who work in garment factories, are consenting subjects to the hegemonic culture in which they live? Is a compliance meant to be always a consent? Do the consciousness of the selfhood, personhood, and individuality

Specifically, it suggests that while women may be ‘uncivilized’ and wild when young, through the influences of male intervention in the areas of marriage or

According to Christian doctrine: In the Beginning, God created man and woman. In older times, before Christ, women and men were designated roles in the Holy Bible. Men were expected to be the head of the household, while women were expected to be the body. This means that men were to produce for their families while women are to run the family. Now years later, although society has much changed, there is still an unspoken expectation that should be reached by both sexes. Although women and men have fought for things, such as women rights and equality- there is a double standard that exists between the two genders. Some have argued whether the lifestyle of a man versus a woman is harder (Chrisler). In those arguments, both parties have valid points. Many of the points refer to the gender double standard and expectation that both genders are expected to maintain. Many of these “expectations” occur in adolescent years of the individual (Axinn). In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” I do believe that society also played a role in the expectations of this mother’s idea of femininity. This story was written in the early 1980’s. Around this time frame, women were coming up in society. They were moving into professional and managerial jobs during this time frame. There was a 27% increase in working women during the 1980s (Bock). Due to gender double standards and the expectations of femininity, it is harder to be a woman than to be a man. I also think that

Gender roles have influenced the thought process of societies for decades. They have been used as a template that dictates what women and men should or should not do, promoting illiberal practices that keep civilizations away from reaching gender equity. We see a micro-example of this when Ramo, a Kurdish man, desperately waits for news while his wife, Havar, gives birth to their baby. Ramo combs his hair a certain way and begs god for the baby to be a boy. A few moments after, with the help of the women of the community, a baby girl was successfully born, which destroyed Ramo expectations making him upset at the fact that his baby was a girl. This reaction clearly implies the immense importance of gender within Ramo’s family. The film I

Women's activist theory, however, doesn’t regard females or guys as homogenous gathering but instead perceive that sexual orientation perquisite fluctuates crosswise over various homogenous gatherings. In the first place radical women's liberation keeps up that sex the social built assumption about the mental states of mind and direct of female and guys who are ordinarily alluded to as starvation and manly, separately is a focal sorting out segment of social life, including criminal culpability, abuse, and criminal division of equity preparing. Along these lines, a third first consonant control of ladies' liberationist theory is to inspect male factor culpable, exploitation, and criminal equity preparing in the setting of numerous crossing social elements, including; notwithstanding sex, race, and ethnicity, social class, age, and sexual introduction course.

In my opinion, we are all born with natural sex. But gender is a socio-cultural and man-made classification. Symons that is coined with the gender “male” is “strength”, “power” and “domination”. Words that are representative of the gender “female” are “pretty”, “delicate” and “submissive”. Gender divides human beings based on sex. Gender creates restrictions on women in a socio-cultural manner, for example, in marriage. These gender restrictions make women subordinate and voiceless. “The Quilt” explores a discourse of self-awareness in women’s identity. Through her story, I believe that Chughtai frankly exposes secular discrimination in a way that exposes gender and sexual conflicts. These conflicts arise due to patriarchy that nurtures off the gender roles that create a hierarchy for men and for suppressing women.

“As a child a girl identifies herself with her father, then she becomes possessed with a feeling of inferiority with reference to the male and is faced with a dilemma; either to assert her independence and become virilized-which, with the underlying complex of inferiority induces a state of tension that threatens neurosis-or to find happy fulfilment in amorous submission”(beauvoir 1952:75).