Winnie's Women Struggle

Gender roles have been a hotly debated topic in the most recent years, especially the role of women in society. Women have had set expectations that they are believed to conform to, which is shown in many pieces of film and literature. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the life of a man in the upper class in the 1920’s, as well as women in the 1920’s. The movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, visually explains the treatment and expectations of women, and especially focuses on the “damsel in distress” stereotype.. Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist” explains the stereotypes against women and ways women can come together and fight these constraints. Based on these sources, societal expectations take away from each individual’s identity, forcing women to conform to society's standards. In order to fight against these expectations, women have banded together and formed movements against these standards.

Women in society have always been looked down upon, and not taken seriously for centuries. The coming-of-age novella House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, proves that statement correct. The novella is about a young girl named Esperanza who moves into a house for the first time, on a street named Mango street. The house is not what she envisioned, so she makes plans in her mind to move out and get her own place, far away, but she is still very innocent. While she’s on Mango Street, Esperanza experiences series of events, that force her to mature. In House on Mango Street, the theme that females are looked down upon, taken advantage of, and the ones to blame in society are shown through literary elements such as, conflict and characterization. The gender literary theory applies to this theme. This theme is also shown throughout multiple vignettes such as “Rafaela who drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays”, “The Monkey Garden” and, “Red Clowns”.

Language: In On the Equality of the Sexes, there are a few phrases that seem to show some importance. “There is something new under the sun” is italicized in the text. She is saying that there is going to be some change coming soon with women’s education. She also uses the word superior, or superiority, quite a bit in the text. She questions whether or not mental superiority between sexes actually exists. She also talks about imagination a lot. She makes the point that society constricts how women use their imaginations. The way she uses domestication in the text is in a negative way. She uses the phrase “fertile brain of a female” and by doing this she is trying to show that females’ brains are productive and capable of becoming so much

The author shows a great example of the power these men had against these women in the village. In the time period this story took place, it was amazing to the author to witness that gender inequality was still a very big issue in some places. The author described how shocked she was when she found out that these women were not allowed to

“I’m a woman…Phenomenal woman, that’s me.” This quote from Maya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman” characterizes the common theme between the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, the speech, “Ain’t I a Woman”, by Sojourner Truth, and “Phenomenal Woman”. The common theme between these three different pieces is the idea of a strong, independent woman, which ties into feminism and the concept of being equal to men. Even though these three pieces are each diverse genres, they are all conveying the same general theme in their own way. Throughout any of these texts, it is evident that the authors are pushing the idea that a female is not inferior to any man just because they have a different body structure or a different gender.

We live in the year 2017, yet we still see a major gap in the treatment and outlooks towards men and women. This however is not a newly implemented construct but has been prevalent since the beginning of time, as demonstrated in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. In this novel we see many examples in which the protagonist of the novel, Janie, is shamed and outcasted due to her identity and actions. Janie in many ways experiences racism, sexism, and stereotyping in which corresponds and propezies the treatment of women in the 21st century.

There are signs of a clearly male dominated society. With women being defined in terms of the males in their lives. For example, “The Cinnamon Peelers wife”, “the Lime Burner's daughter” and “The Grass Cutters wife”. Michael Ondaatje tries to convince the reader that women are just women. Not individual unique girls. He explains how they are labelled by their male husbands, brothers or fathers. He portrays women as non-competitive, cooperative, and peace-loving. He does not define them as fearless, powerful and independent. Another example is when Michael says “You touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon Peeler's wife. Smell me.” This is another example of labelling a woman. By touching her, he makes her, his. She is no longer an individual, she is only considered “the Cinnamon Peeler’s wife”. This is a sign of sexual domination. He makes it sound like he owns her.

In Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, women are portrayed as China’s cultural feminine ideal of being demure and compliant. The novella takes place during China’s Cultural Revolution where two urban youths, Luo and the narrator find themselves sent to the countryside to be “re-educated”. The two protagonists encounter the Little Seamstress—the epitome of beauty—and fall in love. They civilize the Little Seamstress through Western literature allowing her to realize a woman’s true beauty. Although the Little Chinese Seamstress gets “re-educated”, her re-education only teaches her the true meaning of beauty, convincing her to abandon her repressive village, and declare her feminine identity by leaving the city.

The role that women play in society has changed and evolved numerous times throughout our nation’s history. Women have been viewed as both pious and ungodly, chaste and immoral, and both precious and worthless. However, what has continued to remain constant in the lives of women is the unchanging feeling of inequality and insufficiency compared to their male counterparts. Those feelings endured by women are decidedly timeless, no matter what other circumstances exist within their lives. There are indeed similarities between the lives of the women in Lepore’s biography Book of Ages and Wilson’s autobiographical novel Our Nig. Both Frado and Jane Franklin Mecom were born at a disadvantage because of the sole fact that they were female. They each

In the novel, The House On Mango Street, the women of Mango Street face numerous challenges in their lives. Women face abuse, objectification, and oppression. They are also subject to the societal roles that hinders them from being free and successful. Cisneros utilizes metaphors to reveal the theme that society’s gender roles and double standards restrict women’s sexuality and success.

The girls’ perspective changes throughout their time in Africa, and their outlook on the world changes dramatically. The 4 daughters witness “women sauntering slowly down the road with bundles upon bundles balanced on [their] head” (Kingsolver 31) and other major tasks that women have to accomplish. They begin to understand that the women have such important roles in the Congolese society. One eye opener is when one of the Congolese children dies. They realize how important that child was to their mother, and how one of the main goals of a women is to keep her children alive. Another eye opener for the girls is when they have to take on those roles themselves. They have to spend all day cooking meals for their family. That helps them realize how important women’s roles are. It helps the girls grasp a new appreciation for the Congolese women, and their roles in society. By putting this in the daughter’s perspective, it allows the reader to understand how their characters are being change throughout the

This shows that people are expecting her to behave a particular way based off of her gender. It is also implied that women are expected to be perfect at all times and make the world a better place: “To-day the young girl is not only taught to dance gracefully, to enter a room correctly, and to conduct herself with ease and charm at the dinner table, but she is taught to develop her natural talents and abilities os that the world will be left a little better for her

“Alexis you are not allowed to this or that just because you are a girl” many family members told me as I was growing up! I never questioned why I was seen as incapable of doing half the things boys did, when in reality I believed I could perform the same actions. The preconceived idea that women should not perform the same activities as men came about long before I was born. In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato is able to use an analogy to teach readers that we are trained to think a certain way because of beliefs and perceptions. Likewise, Sojourner Truth’s speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” challenges society’s perception of what it means to be a woman.

While he waits “at a traffic light,” he “catches his eye [on] a tall girl in a black leather skirt” (Coetzee 194). She is mere stranger on the road, yet he is confident in being able to immediately hook up with her. The way he looks at women, reflects how they are displayed as animals and sexual bodies waiting for someone to catch them and because this occurs frequently, the idea of female bodies being dominated and constructed through male ideology becomes naturalized and accepted as a norm in society. It is evident that though all women do not become prostitutes because they enjoy the idea of it, there is this acceptance of the gender binary, where women choose to transform themselves into this sexualized character that seeks attention and is submissive to the man. Monique Wittig highlights the idea of categories in her text, “One is Not Born a Woman.” She agrees with Coetzee’s representation of the male and female roles and says that “for “woman” does not exist for [them]: it is only an imaginary formation” created by men (Wittig 15). Wittig explains that the category of “women” goes beyond the biological genes and outer appearance. It is something that is created not to make women feel good about themselves or to give them certain types of privileges, but it is a socially constructed idea that subject’s women into a certain type of character that benefits men. She goes on to say that “Once the class “men” disappears, “woman” as a class will disappear as well, for there are no slaves without masters” (Wittig 15). Consequently, the class of “women” is created in response to “men,” where if the category of “men” did not exist, then women would not be so restricted in the things that they are allowed to do and they would not have to live a life trying to satisfy men in order to

Next, I’d like to discuss the ways in which the conditions of “Living, Loving, and Lying Awake at Night,” and the roles that were plagued amongst the women in South Africa and how forced migrations affected their situations. Due to the Apartheid era, and men's non existence in their families life because of forced migration, women began to feel as though they could only do for themselves causing for their acceptance without man's presence. In an early reference to the chapter, leaving, the author shows the ways that apartheid affected the women. For instance, “As year went from the woman had come to