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Gender Roles In Jamaica Kincaid's Girl

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From the beginning of time we have heard that women belong in the kitchen and hold a lower status when compared to men. Their only goal in life should be to take care of a family and look pretty for their husband. Society always contradistinguishes between women and men, instead of holding them to an equal stature. Women and men both have societal rules that they have to live up to, however, women at the end of the day have more stereotypical gender roles holding them back. Women have also always been held up by body standards and the idea of beauty; this arose more in the last 100 years through popular representation of women through marketing, advertising, films, music and television. There has been a fragmentation of the body of women that is depicted in popular culture. The poem “Barbie Doll” and the short story “Girl”, both represent the ideas of how the world prematurely assumes how girls/women are suppose to behave or look. Women have dealt with being objectified for as long as the world has had written and visual representation. This …show more content…

Girl is a long run-on sentence, considered a poem or monologue where either the girl is having an internal conversation or her own mother is giving her advice. The need for this so-called advice or one could say rules has arised because the girl is obviously going through sexual maturity. It gives more of an idea of society’s expectations of a woman as she is reaching adulthood and if she does not meet such expectations she will not be respected as a woman. The advice the young adult is receiving includes implied and direct instructions, teaching her how to be a woman who is respected by society. Letting her know how she should behave and act in the real world, prioritizing her sexual drive, explaining how she should refrain from being considered a

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