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Gender Themes In Literature

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Themes in Literature - Gender roles Gender roles are norms created by society. Our gender is given to us when born, either you are a girl or a boy, decided by how our body looks like. A girl is given norms to follow by society at a young age. A girl should usually be passive, nurturing and subordination, while those born male are supposed to be strong, aggressive and dominant. This paper will discuss how the genders are viewed and perceived in different literary periods. It will show three periods, Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages and our modern time. The essay will also discuss what the differences between the periods are and how it has evolved throughout time. How has society reflected on the literature written at the time? How has the gender roles evolved throughout time? Method I wanted to write about this topic because it is something that is discussed and talked about very much right now. I wanted to compare different periods in time to see how far we have come in the gender discussion. I chose to study and compare three different books from three different periods. I chose The Iliad from Ancient Greece because it is one of the …show more content…

What we today see as genders is the norms that follow when born as a girl or as a boy. What is being connected to male norms of masculinity is strength, aggression and dominance, while woman more often than not follow norms such as passivity, nurturing and subordination. We have come to realise in recent years that your gender and your sex is not the same thing. The fact that there is not only two genders but a lot more is also something that has been discovered. Transgender is those who is born as one gender, but identifies as another. For example a born woman who identifies as a man. There is also those who do not identify as neither male nor female. “Gender-expansive” is an umbrella term for those who expresses their gender outside of the common male or

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