However, women were seen as perpetuators of men supremacy and are used in passing down the culture (borderland, 39). One common method used to enforce this was to ensure that women never spoke. Anzadula says that girls were not supposed to talk back to their parent. They were also expected not to be talkative. Similarly, in the woman warrior, “no name woman” bore the wrath of the villagers in silence without uttering the name of the man who sired her child.
The idea of the desire of freedom but inability to control it, and eventually yield in front of the societal expectations. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the main character Edna chose to confront herself and developing her own desire that resembles through her convenient clothing, but her child, the product of the natural motherhood made her struggle with her decision. At the beginning of The Awakening, the elegant clothes that Edna wears illustrates Edna’s distinct from the rest of the mother women through the pressure of societal expectations that placed on her but not yet have the control over her own action completely. As Mrs. Pontellier is crying for her husband’s accusation for not meeting the societal expectation of being a classic mother women, she used her sleeves of the “peignoir” (6) to wipe out the tears. Peignoir often implies to the clothing of wealthy women, but are also simple clothes, which demonstrates Edna’s
This code denied women any legal rights and access to divorce, which meant that their husbands had control over them, confining them to a subordinate, domestic role. Before the French revolution, women played a domestic role and they were subject to limitations. The law was against them. They couldn’t vote, act in plays or get a job to generate their own income. Yet, the paintings that were produced during the time, depicted them as desirable, beautiful and
Bryant Lockridge, Helen M. Sterk.2012, 78). Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who is one of the early pioneer of the feminist movement in the first decade of century and who is interested in the social and economic roots of women's oppression, in her books The Home: Its Work and Influence (1903) and Human Work (1941), she attacks motherhood and the domesticity of women in the early 20th century. She suggests that the liberation of women and of children and of men, for that matter requires getting women out of the house, both practically and ideologically and that that the relegation of women to roles associated with their sexual or reproductive activity is disadvantageous to their progress as individuals and as a race. Gilman was against culture which
In the awakening, there is a constant conflict between inner and outer Edna. Societal expectations of women during this time period were for women to follow orders from their husband no matter the conditions. A man would not necessarily get married for love, but rather for the ownership of the women. Edna’s attempt to become an independent women is made difficult due to the the expectation from others, including her husband. When discussing with Doctor Mandelet about going away with her husband, Edna responds, “Perhaps-no, I am not going.
Leah and Natalie deviate from social scripts for women such as pregnancy and fidelity. For Leah, there’s great internalized societal pressure for her to bear a child; she’s thirty-five years old and newly married. Yet, as Wells claims, she rejects the idea by surreptitiously using birth-control pills, because it opposes her paradise, which includes only her and her husband Michel. To this end, Smith explores chauvinist gender roles affects on women. Conversely, Smith also explores the sexual identity of her female characters.
She was tapped in a loveless marriage because society told her she had to be a wife and take care of her family's needs before her own, and she was also trapped in society because society told her she wasn’t allowed to be herself without being frowned upon. The parrot also represented Edna in a sense that they both spoke languages that are misunderstood by others. When Edna Pontellier decided to go independent and focus on her love for art no one in society really understood her just like he bird she was speaking a foreign
Civil or political rights for the female was strictly limited, as they were considered susceptible and fragile which were not capable of making their own decisions. The conduct book Woman in her Social and Domestic Character (1831) representing the traditional ideas about Victorian women, the author believes the domestic home life is the primary sources of a woman’s influence, while they should take the subordinate position to men . Therefore, we can see women at that time were expected to marry and live up to an image of “ideal wife”– submissive, demure and perform domestic duties–rather than receive the formal
Because of sexist opinions of the time, many people believed that a woman had no power to create change, especially in government since she could not vote. Women themselves believed this societal expectation, and although Grimke does not reject society’s idea of femininity and womanhood entirely, she specifically rejects their supposed political incompetence in a rebuttal. Using evidence from general and specific political movements in England, all of which were greatly aided by the support of women petitioning the government, Grimke assured her audience that “When the women of these States send up to Congress such a petition our legislators will arise, as did those of England, and say: ‘When all the maids and matrons of the land are knocking at our doors we must legislate.’” (Grimke, 192) This summary of her somewhat vague past points is similarly nonspecific; however, this is still effective since simply alluding to historical events rather than explaining them was sufficient for an audience that knew more about England and its history than contemporary Americans do today. After giving various premises of past and present movements English women were and are participating in, she directly compares English and American governments in this passage when she comes to the
They also had to be painted to convey emotion and characterisation. Also I learned that there were no women in theatre due to role of women in Athenian society. After the discussion of the second group, I understood that Athenian society had a big influence on the play in terms of gender roles, religious beliefs, importance of debate and the reasons why certain characters chose to behave in these manners. For example, Antigone choses to bury Polynices because of her loyalty towards her family and her equal love towards both her brothers, but also due to her Hamartia (her excessive pride). Ismene on the other hand chooses not to bury Polynices and choses civil law instead of divine law.