Feminism In Our Culture

In our culture today, feminism is wrongfully portrayed upon women. The main essays used within this paper all exemplify feminism, and describe their own point of view upon this issue. The first author is Roxanne Gay, who has earned her ph. D in rhetoric and technical communication from Michigan Technological University and is currently and associate professor of English at Purdue University, and Roxanne Gay published the essay “Bad Feminist” where she speaks about many different variations of feminism while also stating her own definition of the word “feminism”. The second author is named Ariel Levy, who is a staff writer at the New Yorker, and has been called “feminism’s newest and most proactive voice” By Malcom Gladwell. Levy is most known

In our culture today, women are simply boxed in by stereotypes ever since birth into this world. In fact, in the first essay, Gay states, “Fear of categorization, this fear of being forced into a box that cannot accommodate a woman properly” (171). Meaning that women in today’s society are forced into these “gender” stereotypes where women are taught to be at home, to clean, to cook, and to be a home oriented person. This idea of gender stereotypes has turned into a tradition throughout our culture that throughout the years our culture named this idea as being normal. This so-called “Fear of Categorization” as a whole is current in today’s culture, for example, that as babies’ people are given either blue or pink to determine whether the child is male or female. In our society this idea is applied for example, the stores in our society abide by this stereotype by offering ovens and cleaning toys for the females, which displays their “gender role” of being a homebody who cooks, cleans, and stays home to raise the kids, but males are given trucks and toy guns to imply masculinity. For the males who decide not to play with toys guns and trucks, but would rather, play with a baking oven the society views them as less of a man. This idea of “Fear of Categorization” concept is applied to women who want to be perceived as just as powerful as a man not only in the work place, but also in the relationship. In Levy’s, essay she points out, this

There are many different variations of feminism. Within Roxanne Gay’s essay, she states multiple different types of feminism from good and bad to White and African American. In Gay’s essay she states, “Essential feminism, the notion that there are right and wrong ways to be a feminist, and there are consequences for doing feminism wrong” (169). This type of feminism is just one of many different types of feminisms described throughout Gay’s essay. Essential feminism is described as being anger and having a lack of humor. This quote from Gay’s essay corresponds with Levy’s essay in a certain way when Levy states, “She is post-feminist. She is funny. She gets it.” (245). Similarly as Gay’s essay, Levy goes on by describing a different type of feminism, which is post-feminism. This quote from