Violence Against Women In Early 1900's

Today women in developed countries enjoy many freedoms from social stigmas and oppressions in the work force, although, they are still not completely equal to their male counterpart. There are still women being paid less than men doing the same job and there is the idea that prices for female products are raised slightly higher than it is for men for the same products; however, this does not compare to the kind of oppression women went through in the 1890s. Charlotte Perkins Gilman embodied the oppression of females in the 1890s in her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which depicts a mother and wife going through postpartum depression while struggling with her male physicians and husband over her treatment plan. Critic Frances Baskerville sums Gilman’s intention for her story stating, “Her [Gilman’s] fiction was intended as a vehicle for her feminist and socialist themes, a means of persuading a general audience” (Baskerville line 2). Although one of the issues of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is dealing with postpartum depression, one of the main themes of the short story is female oppression and what everyday life was like for women in her time.

“Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner.” (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence). Abuse can range from verbal to physical to mental, etc. Today, an average of one in three women will experience domestic abuse from a partner they are intimate with. On average, one out of every five women were domestically abused by their husband during the nineteenth century according to a study done by the Scottish government, in which they surveyed five thousand homes. However, domestic abuse was not discussed then as it is now. During that time period, it was barely considered a crime, so it is likely that the percentages were even higher then than now. Emily Brontë addresses the prevalent issue of domestic abuse during the nineteenth century through the marriage of Heathcliff and Isabella in her acclaimed novel Wuthering Heights.

Traditionally, men are viewed as strong, dominant and logical, while women are regarded as the weak sex, thus being dependent on the males to make decisions and to protect them as well as their children. These roles go far back in time when males in fact had to protect their families from other tribes, wild animals etc. Even today the same values are applied both in real life and in media. In general a woman is depicted as wife, mother or a sex object. (Sex, Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation”, Year unknown).

During the 1800’s the United States was consumed by racial tension and discrimination. The African American people wanted to be equal to the white people, and the white people felt the African Americans shouldn 't be. This caused many uprisings and the formation of groups based on belief. One very infamous group was the Klu Klux Klan. They were a group based on hate and violence towards African American people. The KKK eventually extended into every state, victimizing any African American they could.

Many different groups of people have struggled, fought, and endured countless amounts of inequality and scrutiny based on a characteristic that they were born with. Characteristic that are irreversible such as skin color, sexuality, and gender are some of the most common reasons as to why individuals have been ostracized. More specifically women in the late 18th century were constantly striving for equality not only for themselves but for future generations as well. According to Eric Foner, author of “Give me Liberty” an American history textbook, in the late 1700’s “Most men considered women to be naturally submissive and irrational…” (Foner, 247).

What is it that makes a woman a woman, or what makes a man a man? Deborah Tannen, author and Ph.D. of linguistics, investigates this question within the essay, “There Is No Unmarked Woman.” An excerpt from a larger publication, “Talking from 9 to 5,” written in 1994, “There Is No Unmarked Woman” is an effective examination of the social injustice as to why the state of womanhood is “marked” while the state of manhood is “unmarked”, and what this means for each sex. The book itself is a result of real-life research about the conversational

Violence against women has existed for centuries and women experience violence in many setting; however, domestic violence is the most prevalent. Abela and Walker (2014) explain that the women’s right movement took place because women were maltreated and oppressed (78). They state that the victimization of women was the reason why the second wave of the feminist movement arose. They also explain that during this time, laws in the Untied States allow men to hit their wives (Abela & Walker 79). Women from different cultures and different economic status have been victims of domestic violence. In this paper, I will focus on domestic violence against women from different cultures. I will present information about the history of domestic violence

“Sex Differences” is an essay written by a professor of linguistics named Ronald Macaulay. In the essay, he pointed out that there were no gender differences regarding to language development. He talked about various stereotypes about how men and women speak. He also explains in depth about how social environment made an impact on the talking between men and women. He also concluded that those linguists who still believe in that theory only continue to do so even if what they found in their research is not statistically significant. In many ways, Macaulay’s essay is persuasive. Through this essay, one would agree with him that there is no different form of language in which women and men speak.

For a long time, America has been at a standstill, a period where the citizens, government, and states failed to recognize the desires of the oppressed. America was prosperous and patriotic, yet failed to acknowledge minorities groups suffering to be included. The oppressed groups, such as women, African Americans, and immigrants were often left with the crumbs that tyrants left in society. The oppressed had a dream, envisioned a life where their children could one day make it in this world. America was supposed to be that dreamland, the melting pot where people, of different ethnicities, had the chance to thrive. A place where women did not have to worry about being limited to certain roles and individuals with dissimilar racial status would

Alleen Pace Nilsen began a study of Sexism in American English after returning from a two-year stay in Kabul, Afghanistan. Trying to avoid social issues in her research, Nilsen used the dictionary, as her main source and guide, making note-cards on every entry that seemed to tell something about male and female. She soon discovered that language and society go hand and hand. Furthermore, that the language a culture uses is evident in its values and beliefs. Amore careful look at the English language revealed three main points that Alleen Nilsen elaborates more on.

Men have been stereotyped as dominant, strong, brave and aggressive. Also there is an image of men being portrayed as harder workers than women and supposedly the more intelligent gender.

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

Robin Lakoff found that women’s language lacks authority when compared to that used by men and she believes that women use many techniques in their speech that are deficient to men 's speech. In the Deficit Model Robin Lakoff describes male language as stronger, more prestigious and more desirable. She argues that women are socialised into behaving like 'ladies '. She gives examples of language techniques women use that make their language seem deficient these include, fillers, hedges e.g. “sort of”, “you know”, intensifiers e.g. “so”, weak expletive terms e.g. “oh dear”, empty adjectives e.g. charming, sweet, hypercorrect grammar and tag questions which shows uncertainty e.g. “isn’t it?” Moreover she interprets that women use more precise colour terms e.g. mauve, magneta.

Language refers to the method that humans use to communicate either through speech or written. It consists of the use of the word in a structured and conventional way. Language has been referred to as ‘our means of classifying and ordering the world; our means of manipulating reality. In structure and in its use we bring out the world into realisation and if it is inherently inaccurate, then we are misled. (Dale Spender, 1980).Language has power that allows us to make sense out of the reality we live in. Sexism is discrimination of a person based on their gender, especially on women. Sexism in language is the use of language which devalues members on one sex, almost always women, showing gender inequality. In the 1960/70’s there was a

This study sought to determine the perception of the residents on the social acceptability of the various forms and prevalence of violence against women. The study supposed that when people perceived the various forms of violence against women as socially acceptable, their prevalence tends to be high.