Sinclair Lewis Struggle For Equal Rights For Women

Women have long been fighting for their right to be seen as equal to men. Even to this day, women continue to fight for their rights, things such as the right to non-gender discriminatory wages. While there may be some arguments over the state of gender equality in the modern world, it is undeniable that there have been great strides made toward recognizing the female 's worth in the workforce and as a human being. Despite these strides, however, things are still not yet ideal for women and many of the issues females face today are the very same issues that have been plaguing them for decades. While it is unfortunate the oppression of women has been so long-lived, the length of that exposure has thankfully enabled many talented writers to both lament over the fact and emphasize the need for gender equality.

Towards the end of the 1800s and into the beginning of the 1900s, the roles of women in society and in the family began to change drastically compared to what it had been in the past. Women were now allowed to own land, vote, and do more than cook and clean. Willa Cather and William Faulkner portray the roles of women in the early 1900s in their short stories, “Neighbor Rosicky” and “A Rose for Emily.” These short stories were both published around the year 1930. Because of what was happening in the US at the time, these stories are very good examples of the ways women were treated at this time.

Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.

Today the equality between men and woman is closer then it ever has before in history, with women CEO’s and stay at home dads. This happened because of the strong woman in history fighting for the same rights as man, private property, creative freedom, and the power to use their intellect. Virginia Woolf is one of those ladies arguing that, “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." She believes that women are locked in some sort of intellectual prison and not being able to have money or privacy keeps them locked, unable to blossom intellectually.

Early twentieth century America is shaped by World War I , the effects of industrial growth, and a beginning of a new age in literature. Despite movements for progressive reforms like the prohibition of alcohol and the movement for women’s suffrage women’s rights were still limited by traditional gender roles. Women are a “detached portion” of their husbands and expected to submit to his every demand. As result of women being viewed as flighty and emotionally unstable, men must take the dominant role and every decision made in the family is approved by them. Moreover, the purpose of a woman’s life is to maintain a household and birth and care for her

Due to the time period, one is raised in there are certain things that are considered to be the norm. In the late 1900’s women had no voice to speak out or give any of their opinions regarding any matters. In those types of society’s, the women are oppressed because the males were dominant. Edna Pontellier from The Awakening by Kate Chopin and Janie Crawford from Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston are two women who are oppressed in the society they are brought up in.

In the early 20th century, feminism was not very common thus women had less value than men in society. Two great examples in english literature that indirectly talk about this implicitly are The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men.

In today’s era, women are viewed as independent significant members of society. They are allowed to hold a career, vote, pursue an education wherever they want, have access to birth control, buy homes and so much more. Women have so much more freedom today than they used to. For many years’ women had to fight for the same rights as men. This essay will discuss the oppression society placed on women and how they advanced in social positioning throughout the years. Women’s advancements in society can be seen within the writings of some great American scholars who have lived throughout these eras.

In the modern world women work, vote, run for office and the list goes on. In most aspects, women are equal to men. However, this was not always the case. In centuries past, women were not viewed as being equal to men socially, intellectually, or politically and were thought incapable of accomplishing anything of value. Consequently, many cultures held the view that women were possessions whose only purpose was to be subservient to men. The view of women as mere objects is evident in various works of literature throughout the ages. Two classic works of literature that exemplify this are The Thousand and One Nights and Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of

The nineteenth century is considered to be full of achievements, development, and liberty. In the eyes of the American people, they focused on their Independence and liberty, and equality between all the people in the society. Every year on July 4, people celebrate the Declaration of Independence, and that day became a symbol for liberty, justice and equality. Despite all of that, there were still some people who had not felt the freedom and couldn’t understand the meaning of the independence because no change happened to their life after that day, they were slaves and they will remain slaves after July 4th.

The American author this paper and project was based upon was Kate Chopin and her book The Awakening. The Awakening was based back on the late 1800s about a women who was struggling to find herself in the crazy world that was beginning to rapidly change. Women empowerment was major in the late 1800s due to the women fighting for their rights. Through the novel Edna, the main character, finds herself, tastes independence, and then throws it all away with suicide to go out in peace. The Author Kate Chopin is a very skilled and professional author.

For centuries man has created this patriarchal society in which women have been treated as the lesser entity, having no sense of self-being or worth. These feelings led women to feel repressed in their everyday life. It was in the late nineteenth century when literary writers started to expose this female repression. Guy de Maupassant and Kate Chopin clearly express definitive examples of female repression in their stories, The Necklace and The Story of an Hour.

Created Equal, Yet Treated Inferior In Virginia Woolf’s essay, “A Room of One’s Own”, Woolf expresses her grief over the lack of recorded works from women and the near-nonexistent historical evidence of ingenious work from any female before the 19th century (Woolf). Beginning in the second paragraph, Woolf ponders the conditions in which women had to live in; the reason why a woman’s published thoughts can hardly be found on the history shelves. After some research, Woolf begins to put the pieces together on the typical lives of women throughout time. In the 15th century, beating a daughter or a wife was a man’s right.

Women’s physical and mental torture is also well expressed. Some women characters in this novel are treated as minor characters. In some occasions women characters are given a prominent place in the novels of Kurt Vonnegut. The psychological distance women may feel from their bodies might cause them to dehumanize themselves. Sociologists and historians often view dehumanization with aversion and it is always associated with war. Dehumanization attitude leads to World Wars. In the two world wars many innocent people were killed brutally. For example, in Nagasaki and Hiroshima thousands of people were killed mercilessly. They were the innocent victims died for the greediness of a few leaders. A leader must take care of the welfare of the people. But they in turn sacrifice their lives for their whims and fancies. The people are genetically affected and the solution to their disease is yet to be discovered or

During the 19th century, women were controlled by a male dominated society. The women were in pure agony knowing that there was no faith for them to have a crucial change in civilization. This could often lead to “clinical depression” in which a human could feel lonely, empty, confounded and miserable. In this time period, women’s role in society was to be simply mothers and wives. A world where women had rights, control, and power was a fantasy. According to Hall, he states, “Key to all feminist methodologies is the belief that patriarchal oppression of women through history has been profound and multifaceted” (Hall 202). In other words, it is known that the male takes complete cruel supremacy over the years in our history. In The