The Man, the Bitch, and the Closeted Sexism The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a wonderfully imagined novel that the author, C.S. Lewis, wrote for his goddaughter Lucy. He aspired to incorporate many elements that little girls like Lucy, in particular, would find intriguing, such as the compelling beauty of the wood inside the wardrobe, the magnificence of the characters in it, and the great significance of relationships between family and friends. He even named the young protagonist Lucy. However, by focusing on his intention to enchant her, Lewis also negligently integrates sexist attitudes and stereotypical gender roles into the tale. This invites little girls and little boys to personify the roles that society enforces upon them. …show more content…
The men in the novel always feel superior to the women and so, they obtain the more powerful roles while the women are assumed to abide by and admire them. They are perceived as strong and brave. The women are weak and inept. For example, Peter was always taken as the leader, the one who is trusted to lead the others. Edmund embodied the ultimate male trait – aggressiveness – which he uses to menace his siblings. Susan, on the other hand, who was sensible and intelligent, was seen as a nag by her brothers. And finally, Lucy was always treated as delicate and overly-emotional by the characters in the novel. This stereotyping leads children to think that as boys, they must be almighty and dominant over girls, who must be kind, gentle, and subordinate to them. Gender roles are also introduced by Father Christmas. He further exemplified the sexual discrimination found in the novel by presenting the four Pensive children with gender-biased gifts. Peter was given a sword and shield because he is a man, while Susan was given a bow and arrow that “does not easily miss” (152) and a horn to call for help. This implies that a woman cannot possibly be able to fight or defend herself without the help from an enchantment or from others (probably males). Lucy, too, is given a small dagger and cordial of healing juice because Lewis implies that she, as a girl, should be a caretaker, not a fighter. And although Lucy insists she could be brave enough to fight in the war, Father Christmas, in all his male supremacy, dismisses her, saying, “… battles are ugly when women fight” (153). As children, it is important to understand that they are not defined by what society interprets as masculine or feminine. Children develop their personalities based on their environment. When their environment, like this book, tells them to be aggressive and confident or submissive and docile,
The depiction individuals have of women has changed drastically over time. From being seen as a lower class gender, to having women politicians today, they have come a long way. Back in the 10th century when An Ancient Tale: When the Sun Was God took place, the role of women differed immensely compared to the way women are portrayed today. Throughout the film, women are depicted as a weaker gender within society, although they can be rulers within their own families.
It treats women poorly to cause them to comply with gender expectations. Not only do women have to face pressures of conformity in real life, but they also face intimidation in fairytales. Grimm’s Snow White and Cinderella perpetuate society’s notion that a woman is the inferior being whose value lies not only in her beauty but also in her abilities to perform domestic work and satisfy men. Grimm uses the characters of Cinderella and Snow White to perpetuate the idea that women should lead quietly domestic lives. In Cinderella, Cinderella spent most of her time in a kitchen.
The movie “The Princess and the Frog” is not your typical “boy saves girl” movie. Instead, this Disney movie presents us with a strong female lead who doesn’t need a man to achieve her goals. In many previous Disney movies, it is demonstrated that a girl needs a man in order to get her happily ever after. Without a prince, she is nothing. In “The Princess and the Frog” the gender roles are presented to us as equal, even reverse at times.
The characters in the play reveal some of the gender stereotypes through the way they are presented in the beginning of the play, “The sheriff and Hale are men in the middle life… They are followed
It’s no surprise, that Shakespeare’s Macbeth was clearly constructed as a rebellion against femininity roles of the time. During the Elizabethan era, women were raised to believe they were inferior to men since men obtained desired masculine qualities such as strength, and loyalty, whereas women were viewed as figures of hospitality (1; 6; 28-31). Obviously, not being tempted by the luxury of subservient women, William Shakespeare rebuked this twisted belief, applying that women deserve more respect than their kitchen tables.
Gender and power are quite distinctive from one another in both these texts. From one point of view it could be argued the men are the autocrats and considered as oppressors of females in the male dominated society. In the male dominated society men are the decision makers and have the instrumental role. Despite benefitting from the patriarchy they are still victims (Synnot n. p.).This is because to secure his place in the family, a man has to dominate over his children and wife, therefore faced with a choice between the two sexual dispositions, and a boy has to choose between his mother and father.
The traditional gender roles are noticeable in the novel because the women were either in the homes or in the Red Center. The men could have different kinds of jobs and even rise to a higher social status. Women were to remain the same all through their
Women are depicted as “trophy” to men and nothing more. Throughout the epic a sense of bravado and machoism is played out, giving off a man’s world feeling which women and little or no real reason to be wanted. To understand the epic and the roles in which women played, one may not have to look further than how the book has been put together. First and foremost, the book is being told through the eyes of a man (good luck ladies).
Throughout history, men have always dominated. They never let a woman rise to power or have the same rights. This sexism has been ingrained in society for thousands of years, so much so that it has defined some of the most famous works of literature, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This play was written during the Elizabethan Era, an era in which a woman had all the power imaginable (Queen Elizabeth), and yet, women were still severely discriminated against. Women had no say whatsoever in their society; they were not allowed to vote and they had very few legal rights (Papp, Joseph, Kirkland).
Misogyny is the dislike of, contempt for, or prejudice of women; Washington Irving has been accused of misogyny because of the treatment of women in his stories and their content. Washington Irving was a writer during the 1800’s, and some of his most popular works include “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Within these tales and other works of Irving’s, aspects of misogyny is discernible, though there is debate about whether the author himself was a misogynist. I believe that the misogyny that is shown throughout a select few of Irving’s works is due in part to the time period, not entirely Irving, himself.
Misogyny, by definition, is the dislike towards women for a particular motive. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Shakespeare elucidates his misogynistic tendencies through the characters in the play—particularly Hamlet. The role of women in Hamlet is little short of misogynistic as Hamlet consistently displays throughout the play evidence of misogynistic behavior through his views of women being cruel, adulterous, and frail. Fundamentally, there are merely two female characters in Hamlet; Ophelia and Gertrude. Though Ophelia does not intend on wounding Hamlet emotionally, she does so for being submissive to her father which conforms to the misogynistic attitude of women being powerless and pathetic as Ophelia is under control by
In the Victorian era, gender inequality was daily life. Men were most often the dominant power in a relationship whereas women were expected to be pure and innocent. In an era of arranged marriages, women belonged to their husbands and were attached to their households. However, Wilde has questioned these gender roles and created rather independent and powerful female characters in the play. Though Lady Bracknell and Jack have to give their consent as an approval of marriage to their wards, Gwendolen and Cecily, women show dominance over men in each relationship.
Furthermore, women are also objectified throughout the story. This shows how women are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Altogether, these factors influence the role of women in the
“Beauty and the Beast” is an original fairy tale and over time have incorporated social, religious and cultural themes. An analysis of the Disney version of “Beauty and the Beast” exemplifies the stereotypes of the more subtle forms of social manipulation that fairytales undergo to employ. The question of whether these stories are made for entertainment or send a much larger picture, depicting to children their gender roles within a society. In this paper gender roles will be represented showing the typical female and male character within a society. Historian Sylvia D. Hoffert defines a gender ideal as “the cluster of characteristics, behavior patterns, and values that members of a group think a man or a woman should have, a set of cultural expectations.”
Feminist literary criticism’s primary argument is that female characters have always been presented from a male’s viewpoint. According to Connell, in most literary works, female characters often play minor roles which emphasize their domestic roles, subservience and physical beauty while males are always the protagonists who are strong, heroic and dominant (qtd. in Woloshyn et al.150). This means that the women are perceived as weak and are supposed to be under the control of men. Gill and Sellers say that feminist literary criticism’s approach involves identifying with female characters in order to challenge any male centred outlook.