ipl-logo

Orange Is The New Black Gender Essay

589 Words3 Pages

Race and Gender in Orange Is the New Black Jenji Kohan’s Orange Is the New Black codifies traditional gender stereotypes. The show presents women of various backgrounds; black, white, Latina, lesbian, bisexual, and transexual women. However, the show only presents one type of man; violent. In addition to being physically dangerous, the show presents men to be perverted. Based on the show, women use their innocence to achieve what they want. Although Litchfield Correctional Facility houses about 200 female criminals, Orange Is the New Black makes it seem like men are the real bad guys. Whether they are locked up or not, men are presented to be violent miscreants. For examples of men not locked up, there is Cesar (Aleida Diaz’s boyfriend) and Officer Healy. An example of Cesar being violent is when Bennett visits his home to pick up a crib. In addition to yelling at his partner and kids, he forces his son to eat microwaved French fries at gunpoint. Another example is Officer Healy. Although Officer Healy has not physically hurt someone, he still does not have a good image. It is not uncommon for him to flip out when speaking to or about his wife. Given how violent the ordinary men are presented, the men locked up are presented to be even harsher. When Piper is transported to Chicago on a plane full of male prisoners, the show …show more content…

Interestingly, the show presents women, both in jail and not, to often be innocent victims doomed by circumstances. Inmates Alex and Piper blame men for “forcing” them into the drug and money trafficking business and eventually in jail. Piper’s friend, Polly, uses her innocence from having a bad husband to justify her affair with Piper’s boyfriend Larry. However, men still receive all of the blame and are presented to be the real “bad guys” of the show. Worth noting is that this show passes the Bechdel Test without hitting you over the head with

Show More
Related

  • Insanity In The Alienist By Caleb Carr

    1681 Words  | 7 Pages

    After Kreizler took the two in they became average people whom are calm, intelligent, and loyal. Even though Kreizler was before his time with this idea, it still hasn’t been reached. People who commit crimes are still thrown into psychiatric hospitals and pumped full of pills, when they could be rehabilitated from their bad choices. This is one of the major themes that Carr tries to push into the readers mind during the the novel, but it isn’t the only theme. Women in the workplace is also hinted to throughout the

    Read More

  • Psychological Concepts In The Movie Brronson

    1606 Words  | 7 Pages

    (pg.214). Bronson is a very violent inmate, he has spent most of the time in prison in solitary confinement, because he is causing fights with the inmate and also with the guards. This is an example of solitary confinement, because Charles Bronson is a very violent criminal that was causing fights, and he scared the guards. During the movie, he was trying to kill people, fight with the guards, and to hurt anybody that was around him. This is a very good example of solitary confinement, because he was segregate for the most part and hand cuff.

    Read More

  • The House On Mango Street Gender Essay

    1134 Words  | 5 Pages

    Believe it or not, people are not entirely unique. It is certain that no one is truly the same as another person, but it would not be ridiculous to think that everyone does in fact share many similarities. After all, the majority of the population grows and develops opinions or values based on what they see or hear. For Esperanza, the protagonist of Sandra Cisneros’s, The House on Mango Street, the perspective she has is built upon her childhood on Mango Street. This coming-of-age novel illustrates how Esperanza’s experiences on Mango Street play an important role during her period of growth.

    Read More

  • Being Black Women In America Essay

    483 Words  | 2 Pages

    An obstacle that my mother has faced is being Black Muslim women in America. It 's more of a problem than what reaches the surface and mainstream media. It 's rarely talked about in America. In america there are people who want to smear our entire faith and say that Islam is an inherently violent religion. These are exciting times to be an American Muslim.

    Read More

  • Black Women In Prison Essay

    1435 Words  | 6 Pages

    Women of color are the most targeted, prosecuted, and imprisoned women in the country and rapidly increasing their population within the prison systems. According to Nicholas Freudenberg, 11 out of every 1000 women will end up incarcerated in their lifetime, the average age being 35, while only five of them are white, 15 are Latinas, and 36 are black. These two groups alone make up 70 percent of women in prison, an astonishing rate compared to the low percentage comprise of within the entire female population in the country (1895). Most of their offenses are non-violent, but drug related, and often these women come from oppressive and violent backgrounds, where many of their struggles occurred directly within the home and from their own family.

    Read More

  • The Crucible Gender Analysis

    1121 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gender roles are present everywhere and are more and more prevalent the further back you go. They define relationships and heavily influence people's actions. Gender roles can hurt those that are trapped in them because they are not allowed the freedom of living like they want. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, one key relationship in the story is wrecked by gender roles.

    Read More

  • Bad Girls Club Analysis

    1862 Words  | 8 Pages

    The T.V show “Bad Girls Club” is essentially a disguised psychological experiment because the show specifically casts women who undoubtedly have psychological issues with the intention to watch how they violently interact with each other and because the show modifies reality for a specified outcome or reaction. Episode 7 of season 14 “A Royal Tumbles” specifically captures how the reality T.V show, “Bad Girls Club” is in fact a hidden psychological experiment. The reality show “Bad Girls Club” intentionally selects women who are psychologically unstable to live in a house with other women who are psychologically unstable. This is a key factor in the psychological experiment because the purpose of the experiment is to examine how psychologically unstable women will interact with one and other.

    Read More

  • A Raisin In The Sun Gender Roles Essay

    848 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gender roles play an important role in A Raisin in the Sun. During the time A Raisin in the Sun was written the idea of set in stone positions in a household and society were common. Women were supposed to do house jobs, keep their mouths shut, and support their husbands’ decisions and men were seen as the headman or boss. A Raisin in the Sun shows readers a window into the world where those gender roles have a twist on them. Women in the time of A Raisin in the Sun were supposed to be subservient to men.

    Read More

  • Susan S. Lanser's The Yellow Wallpaper

    464 Words  | 2 Pages

    Susan S. Lanser’s “Feminist Criticism, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and the politics of color in America” examines the impacts “The Yellow Wallpaper” had on feminist writing styles and critiques. Lanser writes that the story helps to analyze the reading trough “the lens of a female consciousness” and apply the knowledge gained from a female perspective onto other literature (418). The transition that the narrator displays from being dependent on John to becoming independent reflects the feminist movement and challenges the “male dominance” that currently takes precedence in society (418). The “patriarchal prisonhouse” that is society controls the narrator and oppresses women not only in “The Yellow Wallpaper” but in real life as well (419). The

    Read More

  • Summary Of Life Behind Bars In America By Michael G. Santos

    1081 Words  | 5 Pages

    Michael G. Santos did not write this book to just past time in prison, but also wrote this book to teach people what life is like in prison. Living in prison, Santos describes as invasive and dehumanizing. Santos also describes living in prison like being a machine, where the prisoner is the robotic machine, and the correctional offciers, who Santos says doesn’t do very much correcting, is the person in charge of keeping the robot in routine and constantly on schedule. Not only does Santos describe what life is like in prison, but Santos also describes what goes on in prison. Santos states that some female correctional officer serve as prostitutes to inmates, such as Lion, the leader of prison gang who used female correctional officers as toys for his pleasure.

    Read More

  • Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete Analysis

    1191 Words  | 5 Pages

    Angela Davis in her book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, argues for the overall abolishment of prisons. Amongst the significant claims that support Davis’ argument for abolition, the inadequacy of prison reforms stands out as the most compelling. Reform movements truthfully only seek to slightly improve prison conditions, however, reform protocols are eventually placed unevenly between women and men. Additionally, while some feminist women considered the crusade to implement separate prisons for women and men as progressive, this reform movement proved faulty as female convicts increasingly became sexually assaulted. Following the theme of ineffectiveness, the reform movement that advocated for a female approach to punishment only succeeded in strengthening

    Read More

  • A Raisin In The Sun Feminist Analysis

    1499 Words  | 6 Pages

    Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun presents the rise of feminism in America in the 1960s. Beneatha Younger, Lena Younger (Mama) and Ruth Younger are the three primary characters displaying evidences of feminism in the play. Moreover, Hansberry creates male characters who demonstrate oppressive attitudes towards women yet enhance the feministic ideology in the play. A Raisin in the Sun is feminist because, with the feminist notions displayed in the play, women can fulfil their individual dreams that are not in sync with traditional conventions of that time.

    Read More

  • Catcher In The Rye Feminist Analysis

    1587 Words  | 7 Pages

    The feminist theory is based on finding and exposing negative attitudes toward women in literature. Their goal is to reveal the reality of how women get portrayed in literature due to the fact that most literature presents an inaccurate view of women and are most of the time minimized. In the Catcher in the Rye there is a few female characters such as Sunny, the girls at the club, and Sally who are put in situations that show nothing but stereotypes and puts them in a bad spot throughout the novel. J.D Salinger decides to put some of the female characters in situations that can cause those who read this novel to think bad or leave readers with a bad image of women. This bad image on women is due to the fact that he decided to portray some of

    Read More

  • The Stanford Prison Experiment: Can Normal People Behaving Evil?

    858 Words  | 4 Pages

    This connects to the idea of guards having the capability of turning evil through an atmosphere of the prison environment where they can turn evil and have no remorse feelings towards the prisoners. From the article, "Stanford Prison Experiment," by Saul McLeod, he explained that the evil tactics that were made by the guards were from the atmosphere of the prison environment because the norm for a prison guard is to act tough and have no remorse feelings towards the prisoners when assigning punishments. He also added that guards acted this way because they lost their sense of personal identity when they dressed up as a guard, which can show they may have believed that they were actual guards and the experiment was real, which might’ve triggered their dark side with harsh punishments. Therefore, losing their personal identity in a prison environment may have been the factor where they triggered their evil side during the prison

    Read More

  • What Is Feminism In The Yellow Wallpaper

    1155 Words  | 5 Pages

    Despite their endeavors to escape their bondage, the women behind the bars could not escape because the men found alternative tactics to keep them in confinement. The bars strangle and cut off the heads of the women that climb out of the pattern, “it turns them upside down and makes their eyes white!” resonating to an envision of a crazy woman. The narrator herself is a great example of how effective men were at establishing alternative tactics like this. The narrator was classified as having hysterical tendencies, like most women of the nineteenth century, were when they complained of pain, anxiety, fatigue, or depression, as a source of suppressing their agency through prescribed isolation and prohibited writing.

    Read More

More about Orange Is The New Black Gender Essay

Open Document