Gender Roles In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

It was on 12 January 1992, five days before the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi to South Korea, when the world finally found out about the comfort women. The issue overshadowed all other agenda of the talk between the two governments. (Hicks, 1995, p. 157) Once lawsuits in South Korea began, it was only a matter of time until the former comfort women in Taiwan and Southeast Asia brought their stories to light.

Everyone around the world has a mindset that certain genders have certain rules in relationships and everyday life. The author, Susan Glaspell, showed many ways in the story “Trifles” how males can look at things in a different perspective than women sometimes do. For generations, women have fought for power and rights, one of the biggest events in history is The Women’s Rights’ Movement starting in 1848 and going on for years until 1920 when the 19th amendment that granted American women the right to vote. Throughout history the fight between women and men has been a long process from rights, to gender specific roles in career, pay, and equality.

Throughout history, the equality of women to men has been regarded as a social taboo. It was a universal understanding that women were always subordinate to their dominant males. Pre Modern Greece expressed these views through their social expectations, hierarchical structures and general lack of acceptance. This ubiquitous truth for this society was challenged in Homer’s The Odyssey, with his strongly developed and diverse female cast. Each female character possesses a unique personality and faced internal as well as external struggles that rivals the complexity of the male characters. Despite the inequity that these females face, they overcome it by showing themselves to be strong in the face of adversity and work to be unmoved by even the

Were women important to United States history? Let’s be honest, majority of the time women get maybe a few pages in textbooks and are rarely covered in most history classes. The Progressive Era is where this changes; where women are finally brought into the limelight. The role of women within the Progressive Era and the establishment of the welfare system were both audacious and necessary because the welfare system could not have happened without women’s willingness to fight for the society as a whole, not just themselves.

The 19th amendment was one of the most important turning points in history for the millions of women who fought for their rights to vote. Back then, they had no self representation other than from their husbands and fathers. Until 1920 when the 19th amendment was passed, that moment was a huge change for women then, and still today. Women wanted to get the same respect as any other male. Many of the women were well educated and were still denied the right to vote. It took the Women’s suffrage Movement many years to make its way through, but in 1920 women won voting rights. They were still treated terrible and disrespected on their ability to work. I believe that women's rights are important, because women have the same ability as men. Women

In the early 1800’s, Women were denied some of the essential rights that men had. For instance, women could not own land or have the right to vote. In fact, women could even be fired from the job they currently had if they were pregnant. But just imagine this, if a woman wanted to establish a credit card, she needs her husband to authenticate that for her. And to top it off, women were even denied to go to college because of their gender, even if they have spectacular grades (Katie). Sadly, this is what made up women’s lives for a long period of time. Over the next seventy years, women had signed petitions, made speeches, and even marched in parades to earn the rights they have today. (http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/women-who-fought-for-the-vote)

The novel Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta and the magazine article, The Good Wife’s Guide, originally published in ‘Housekeeping Monthly’ in 1955, explore the gender roles of the stereotypical 1950’s housewife and how they should behave. These texts also investigate the idea that women are treated differently from men and some impacts that growing up in a sexist and single minded society can have on the youth of the community. Gender stereotyping someone is to discriminate them because of their gender, making the assumption that they obtain a certain characteristic or trait because of their gender.

There is no question that women have struggled over many years to be seen as equals by their male counterparts. Years of struggle and oppression continued throughout time, but the oppression took different forms over the course of history. Susan Glaspell wrote, “Trifles” which explores a woman’s status in society during the 1920s and the political leanings that perverted society at the time. The play demonstrates how women were subjected to mental abuse and viewed as intellectually inferior as dictated by American society and politics. “Trifles” exposes how political leanings in the government favored and enabled a patriarchal society as well as displaying how the Women’s Rights movement was beginning to combat these prejudices.

Tensions between all people, based on race, religion, and ethnicity, have shaped history and affected all lives. It is very easy to see that gender has affected many people’s lives and caused struggle. Women in history were viewed as an accessory to their spouses instead of being seen as independent individuals. From education to work, women were expected to follow the same path and live in the shadow of their husbands and male relatives. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a significant snapshot of the way women were treated in 1920’s. He attempted to forward his thinking about the role of women in society. In the 1920’s, women’s lifestyles started to improve by gaining more power in the home and workplace. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s characters,

Can women who lead very different lives be similar? Susan Glaspell explores the differences and similarities of two characters in her story “Trifles.” Written in 1916, Glaspell’s fictional story uses an unforeseen event to bring Mrs. Hale, a farmer’s wife, and Mrs. Peters, a sheriff’s wife, together. Although Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters have their differences such as Mrs. Hale being outspoken, observant, and a leader, while Mrs. Peters is nervous and does not want to challenge authority, the women share some similarities such as being aware of male condescension and willing to keep information from male authorities if it means helping another woman.

Renaissance society made drastic changes to the paradigms of society shifting from the Middle age views to a more humanistic evolution. During the Renaissance society shaped the roles and responsibilities for men and woman. The responsibilities of men and woman in everyday life fell into the responsibilities of the wife towards her husband. The role of wife and husband followed strict duties and requirements of the wife for her family and husband. The subordinate role and main responsibilities of woman in the Renaissance was to obey the social barriers bestowed by the government and church to have absolute obedience, love and moderation, towards her authority privileged husband.

In the 1960’s, the Women’s Liberation Movement became popular. Many women felt isolated from the world as they were stuck in their homes doing jobs that do not reach their potential; such as cooking, cleaning and looking after children. As a result, many women fought for feminism (a belief that women should have equality with men) meaning improved rights, better job opportunities and more involvement in politics. This was a significant event as women no longer wanted to stay in the suburbs but wanted to adventure out into the business world. Seeking better high waging jobs such as engineers, doctors, politicians, teacher, etc. Women were trying to accomplish a message to the civilization, saying girls can do anything a guy could do. This impacted

The 20th century saw a major increase in women’s rights, getting a step nearer to gender equality. It is defined as the act of treating men and women equally, having the same access to right and opportunities no matter the gender. Although it is not a reality in our world, we do have advanced in comparison to the last century. At the begging of the 20th century women still were considered the weak gender. Their education consisted on learning practical skills such as sewing, cooking, and using the new domestic inventions of the era; unfortunately, this “formal training offered women little advantage in the struggle for stable work at a liveable wage” (1). Their role in society was believed to be that of wife and mother but our mind was changing. Women started to fight for some rights such as the access to the labour force during World War I, the improvement in education allowing women to attend university, and the equality within the marriage, in order to avoid subordination of women. Probably their greatest achievement was the access to the electoral process in the United States of America. Earning the right to vote meant a recognition of women power and intelligence, as well as their ability to participate in politics. This essay will analyze how women fought for their right through some feminist movements.

The first wave of feminism has been a revolutionary social movement in terms of that it could lead to an overcoming of the previous social order (Newman, 2012 p. 487) through its social agents and create, through this, a new social ordering of time and space. Moreover, through reaching their previously described aims, the first wave of feminism has been able to literally “overthrow the entire system itself, (…) in order to replace it with another one.” (Skocpol, 1979, as cited in Newman 2012, p. 487). Thereby, one can even state that a new ordering of time and space by which routines and routinised behaviour has been challenged as well as changed took place. The interactions influenced the way how societies work today. (Allan, 2013, p. 323).

Women have made significant achievements in fighting for and attaining their rights throughout the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements. Women were very successful at achieving several Acts and Amendments for women’s rights. These enactments were led by strong, educated women. Feminist campaigns are generally considered to be one of the main forces behind major historical, societal changes for women 's rights, particularly in the West. These societal changes are credited with having achieved women 's suffrage, gender neutrality, reproductive rights for women, and the right to enter into contracts and own property.