The Yellow Wallpaper: Male Oppression of Women in Society

Feminists have been active in their role for decades. The first women who were proponents of women's rights, advocates for self-promotion of women's freedoms and leaders of women into the 20th century, I believe would be appalled at where the current "feminists" have taken their cause. In the late 1960's a movement ensued, a movement of great proportions. This ideological stance of women needing to empower themselves against men and their "inherent violence" began a degradation of men's roles in family and society. Men have been silenced as fathers and husbands. In the early 20th century, boys were taught to protect women, open doors for them, help them carry their groceries and never to hit a woman. The feminists would have us

places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so-- I can see a strange, provoking,

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.

Sexism has always been a major issue for women. It seems that today, everyone has to be careful of what they say and do so as to avoid offending someone. While everyone is busy worrying about extinguishing sexism towards women - which still is an issue that needs to be taken care of, who is concerned with sexism towards men? Sexism is just as much of an issue to men as it is to women.

For example, “ women could not vote or sign contracts. And under the law the husband usually controlled their wives’ property,if they owned any, and wages , if they they earned any.” the quote tells us that husband controlled women lives giving them less option to do much of anything without the husband's consent or approval before he allows his wives to own any property in his household not to mention that she can’t even vote to choose the next president or sign a contract with the any company which

Throughout the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, we see a woman handicapped by depression and mental illness. We see how the narrator and John interact as husband and wife and as doctor and patient. From the surface, it seems as if John is a kind-hearted man wanting what is best for his wife, and willing to do whatever it takes to make her better again. But as the reader looks closer and the story progresses, John becomes more of a handicap to his wife than the illness itself. Gilman uses John's detriment to Charlotte as a way to describe the gender roles, professional and medial, in the nineteenth century. She uses this parallelism as a way to break the patriarchal society's oppression on women and the idea of

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s work, “The Yellow Wallpaper” has several major themes that were expressed. In the nineteenth century, women were responsible for doing house chores, taking care of the kids, and obeying their husbands. A general concern regarding women’s inequality during the 19th century was painted by Gilman. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman emphasizes the concerns in which society discouraged the women’s ability to self express themselves. Does the narrator listen to the man because he’s a physician or because he is her husband?

‘What writers tend to demonstrate in texts which explore relationships between men and women, is that women have always been relatively powerless and the victims of society’s double standards’ Compare and contrast the extent to which this interpretation applies to your chosen three texts.

In today’s society, oppression, in its many structures, exists and has a tendency to be described by areas that both characterize and legitimize social observation and how it identifies with the setting of the establishments that characterize them. The Larger part of these foundations, while essentially having a centre capacity, are by and large, firmly connected with and can be characterized as they relate to different areas. In the section titled Defining challenged ideas, the areas, foundations, and levels of mistreatment are tended to in more detail.

Essentially, a woman’s place in society’s stratification is defined by the outward manifestation of her person, which is identified first and foremost by her gender. Simone de Beauvoir asserts that women are characterized as “others” or as “not male” . This distinction would not be possible if women were not recognizable by sight as not male. Due to this, it is relevant to look at film and its associations with visual representations of the woman and the male gaze. As John Berger recognises “men act, women appear…men look at women…women themselves being looked at” . This succinctly defines that the position of women in patriarchal culture depends on look and elucidates that women exist only in relation to men. Thus, this essay will explore to what extent women are controlled and guided by the patriarchal male gaze as is reflected in visual popular culture, in particular, narrative cinema, with specific reference to Laura Mulvey’s essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.

At first glance the treatment of women in an Igbo marriage is appalling, the woman may be beat if she is out of line, she raises the children, does the housework and even some farm work without hesitation. For the Igbo clan, a marriage is the union between a man and as many women as he desires and can afford to buy. A marriage is done for the purpose of having numerous children and love between man and wife is not even a requirement. The wife is given the option to leave if she is unhappy and despite the fact that the choice to leave or to stay seems obvious, the pros seem to outweigh the cons for an Igbo woman.

The definition of gender roles is a set of societal norms dictating what types of behavior is generally considered acceptable based on the gender of a person. Additionally, if you don’t seem to accept this standard, there can be huge consequences. For example, in India, women are viewed as a burden and a “extra mouth to feed.” Her status promotes the idea that men can treat them in a subdued manner. If they don’t comply to these requirements, then a woman is murdered by her husband or his family by being set alight by a flammable liquid, which is usually known as bride burning. Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also uncovers the harsh inequality of women. Gender roles shouldn’t be real and they were forced on us by society.

Feminist perspective developed with the ideology that women face large amounts of inequalities in a patriarchal society. They aimed to address and rid the social world of this oppression of women by men. According to Bishop, (2015) “oppression occurs when one group of people use different forms of power to keep another group down in order to exploit them. The oppressor uses the power; the oppressed are exploited” (p. 133-134). Oppression must be by individual experience and not grouped into being the same for all. This includes understanding the original ideology of feminist theory being critiqued as only considering the experiences of middle class, white women. That black women, of lower class experienced oppression much different from the other women. Women are oppressed, thus has to be understood in a different construct that women are similar in some sources, experience of oppression but also experience oppression very differently from one individual to another. Feminist theories have further been expanded do its continuation throughout society and decades to encompass many more issues and arenas than just men and women relationships. Now it seeks to understand and address oppression based on culture, race, class, etc and not only for women but for all. Therefore, Bishop (2014) outlines five components that seem common to all forms of oppression and serve to maintain its presence in society.

Gender inequality has been an issue since long before the 1840s, when feminists finally brought the problem to light. Most ancient cultures were societies based on gender inequality, skewed towards male-dominance. Most societies are still mostly patriarchal, in fact. Patriarchy is the root of discrimination between sexes and genders and has been for a very long time.

Throughout the course of human history, societies worldwide tend to follow a specific pattern of male domination in politics, economics, and culture. From the earliest city-states of Mesopotamia to the massive empires of China and Rome, women were forced to take a limited role in society. This systematic oppression of women is indicative of a patriarchal society, in which “women have been subordinate to men in the family and in society generally” (Ways of the World 59). Though these civilizations share the characteristic of male supremacy, each had different practices governing interactions between the genders. Each society had a unique idea of exactly what rights women were afforded and how the patriarchy was enforced. The Mesopotamian, Chinese, and Greek civilizations were undeniably patriarchal, but how the dominance of men was expressed varied between each society.