Summary Of Marcus Beat Helen By Jackson Katz

In the article Why My Mother Can’t Speak English by Garry Engkent, the men appear to hold more power than the women. The son shows that men have the power by taking control away from his mother and making decisions for her. The father shows this by preventing the mother from learning English and forcing his opinions onto her. Feminist theory examines how women in a piece of writing may be marginalized (Kennedy). It is important to examine this piece of writing with feminist theory because of the way that the dynamics in the relationships reflect patriarchy.

There are unusual words that have offended feminists for a long period of time. Some of the words include fireman, authoress, handyman, and hostess. These titles through feminists' eyes can be perceived as offensive and degrading. Many people believe that feminists are man haters but almost all feminists would claim that false. The stereotype of feminism is often depicted in a negative way while the truth is that it's just the act of fighting for a good cause. While many think of the word feminist negatively, the author believes that feminist should have more positive connotations. Christina Libby defines feminism as "A movement to end sexism, sex exploitation, and oppression". I

Feminists today are viewed as raging, man-hating bitches, but feminism in its true sense simply advocates women’s rights. While there are extremes on either side of the scale, most feminists fight

“The presumed universality and unity of the subject of feminism is effectively undermined by the constraints of the representational discourse in which it functions (Butler 4).” [GENERAL NOTECARD]

Was there one time in your life where you felt strong and then lost hope and became weak? Well in the story The Fight By Adam Bagdasarian there is a boy who was very cocky and got into a fight. He acts like a strong boy but that all changes right after he challenges a kid to a fight. This boy sees the world in a negative way because he became scared, weak, and hopeless.

These women give birth to a recognizable set of feminist conventions based on the existing conventional lexicon. It is wrong to insist that a truly "female" voice can only be heard and respected in its independence and separation from the once "male" canon. It seems that the only chance for independence would come from the creation of a new language, concretely female and "Amazonian". It must be understood that it is no flaw of "feminist convention" to be seen in relation to male convention; in fact it is necessary, for what is the male without the female, or the female without the male? There was no "male" voice until a female movement emerged to pose opposition to it. The "male" voice which we now identify, before the feminist movement, had simply been the "canon", the sanctioned and the status quo. The relationship of the female to male voices gives strength to both, makes each more distinct and profound. The language they use is the same. This language's maleness derives from the ways in which "men" have insisted it be used. For example, "penis" as a signifier of power was surely an idea purported by a man. It would be silly to say that at the genesis of our English language,

Patriarchal domination causes the oppression of women worldwide. As time has gone on, there continuously seems to be arguments as to how men and women are different and therefore unfit to attain the same rights. The differences between the genders can be either biological or socially constructed. However, these views are important to feminists because they make all the difference in the way they articulate their arguments and fight for equality. In bell hook’s essay, “feminism: a transformational politic” she argues “the insistence on difference as the factor which becomes the occasion for separation and domination and suggest the differentiation of status between males and females globally is an indication that patriarchal domination of

Women are humans, humans with emotions and the need for self expression. The men, throughout history, have degraded the female sex, they have always seen women as objects and a machine that helps reproduce and carry on their blood. Society formed the ‘perfect’ role for women and it was expected that they follow it. They were expected to be the loving, responsible, obedient, stay at home wives. Due to such an inequitable lifestyle given to women, they decided to fight for equality and defend their gender. They will later be known as feminists. According to Literary and Cultural Theory by Donald Hall, feminists focal point is to investigate the various ways women have been limited to social power and the liberty to self

We live in a binary gender system. Nearly every action, reaction, judgement, and decision can be traced back to this simple fact. Aside from just oppressing those that don’t identify as a part of this binary system or fit perfectly into it, we also oppress those who aren’t in the half of the population that come out on top in this system. To be a “man” in the definition we have constructed it to be is to be superior and it shows in the way we raise children, and how the idea of a human being was thought of for much of history. In our readings these ideas are touched on and we are forced to confront these truths in our own lives.

Gender Matters is a collection of various essays on feminist linguistic texts analysis, by Sara Mills. Mills develops methods of analyzing literary and non-literary texts, in addition to conversational analysis based on a feminist approach. The author draws on data from her collection of essays gathered over the last two decades on feminism during the 1990s. The essays focus on gender issues, the representation of gender in reading, writing, and in public speaking. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of feminists’ analysis of sexism in literature and the relation between gender and politeness. The article is informative for my research paper, as my

It is difficult to imagine living in a world without the patriarchal roles that are present in society and have been throughout history. In the article “Feminist Criticism,” by Lois Tyson, the idea of feminism and how society has affected feminism is the focus. These ideas are seen because men have more of a voice in nearly everything and the oppression of women is very common; a society set up like this can be described with the term patriarchy which is “any culture that privileges men by promoting traditional gender roles,” where men are cast as “rational, strong, protective, and decisive,” and women are cast “as emotional, weak, nurturing, and submissive” (Tyson, 1). This thought that men are strong and women weak is not uncommon in

The idea of patriarchy is a key concept in the discussion on feminism. Patriarchy, in its most basic sense is the domination of men over women in every aspect of society, both civil and legal. Furthermore, an article by Lynne Henderson adequately describes what patriarchy is and its connection to the legal realm, “Thus, feminists concerned about law often frame the issues in terms of law’s relation to “patriarchy.” Although “patriarchy” technically refers to families ruled by a senior male “patriarch,” it more generally refers to systematic domination and subordination of females by males.” Moreover, patriarchy can be seen as a driving force that rallies feminists around women’s rights. Patriarchy is crucial to understanding feminism with its desire for legal reform, and the elimination of patriarchy. Owen M. Fiss describes the reality of the oppression that radical feminists believe still exist, “They [feminists] do not condemn discrimination solely because it entails unfair treatment to some identifiable individuals, but rather because of its role in subordinating women as a group and thus creating and perpetuating a gender

Feminists seek to reconstruct decrepit ideas of femininity, and extinguish female oppression over the years. Feminist literary criticism, in the first and seconds waves, critique patriarchal language, by

In 1990 Judith Butler first published her book Gender Troubles, where she questions gender roles. Butler theorizes that gender, as in male and female, is a type of societal/gender colonialism created to keep people who do not fall within the gender roles from being part of the mainstream society. In her 1999 preface, in which she addresses the impact her book had in the decade since its original publication, Butler expresses the concern she had with the “heterosexual assumption in feminist literary theory (61).” Butler utilizes the works of other feminist philosophers to further demonstrate the inconsistency, and disconnect between fighting for women rights and fighting for human rights. Judith Butler makes an interesting argument on the failure to recognize the spectrum of gender, however, she makes a compelling argument on the use of language perpetuating a patriarchal society.

In effect, it was this very labeling of the female as 'other' that "was the starting point for contemporary feminist theory" (Mascia-Lees & Sharpe, 2000:22). By labeling the female as 'other', the dominant patriarchal discourse of modernism retains its position as subject (2000:22). Feminism aims to reverse the power relations of such modernist binary arguments, allowing those labeled as 'other' the chance to claim the title of 'subject' (2000:23). Nevertheless, the fact remains that modernism is ultimately a patriarchal discourse, a discourse effective only in its entirety and is thus unable to be 'cropped' to the liking of feminists (Hekman, 1990:6). As a result, by remaining