Women's Rights Analysis

She states that sexism comes from how women have been perceived sexually throughout history and that this heavily influences pornography. McClintock sets up this argument by saying “Women’s desire, by contrast, has been crimped and confined to history’s sad museum of corsets, chastity belts, the virginity cult and genital mutilation” (113). She is saying that women were never given the chance to define their sexual wants and sexual desires because they have always been decided for them. Her main argument is based on her belief that men and women have formed the way that women’s sexuality is portrayed, even before the porn industry existed. McClintock disputes that society wrongly accused women of not wanting to participate as sexual beings and therefore that assumption is why pornography is focused on satisfying the needs of men over the needs of

Another example of Huxley’s criticism of state control is through Feminism. This examination will show how the government takes complete control of the women in Brave New World and perceives them as objects. Sexuality in Brave New World is not complicated as it is in our society because in our society we have the need to label everything that seems different, labeling eases people. Citizens in Brave New World are forbidden to love anyone, they cannot become involved in a romantic or permanent relationship, and they must practice promiscuity and not monogamy. Promiscuity is still not accepted in our society but many people do practice it.

In divorce and custody battles, mostly favored the husband. In any case of divorce, women had no legal rights to their children (Bonnie and Ruthsdotter). The institution of marriage stripped women of their rights. State property laws prohibiting women from owning property. Consequently, anything they owed were their husbands now, all earnings went to straight into their husbands pockets (Bonnie and Ruthsdotter).

If they were to have a child out of wedlock, they were demoted to the “outcast table”; if they had homes, they were ransacked. However, advertising in America has been trying to teach us, sex sells and the American woman is encouraged to show more and more of her body. They are learning the power of their sexuality and the power of it over men. American women enjoy the human rights that the Islamic and Chinese women we read about do not. Islamic women are treated like a slave in their own home, once they marry; their primary duty was to be obedient to their husband, until the day they die.

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.

These husbands seem to have no regard for the opinion of their wives; as if being male brings superiority. In Romeo and Juliet, “Cultural production of the female body”, and Abigail Adams’ letter, women are degraded and objectified as well as are prohibited from exercising their freewill, especially in marital relationships. Women are often put in situations where their free will is compromised due to male superiority and social obligation. In Romeo and Juliet, conflict between social obligation and free will repeatedly occurs when it comes to marriage. In Act 2.4, Capulet states “But fettle your fine joints’ gainst Thursday next, To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church, Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

Antigone broke every rule in the book when it came to the way that women were supposed to behave in society back then. Women back then were either seen as slaves, mothers, or concubines, even Kreon told his son Haimon that, “when you lay yourself under a pleasure female the pleasure goes cold soon…and never never never let ourselves be bested by a woman” (lines 740-745 & 772-77), claiming that women are only good for one thing and even that is not enough to trust a woman. But Antigone was not seen as any of these things she believed in something and even though her sister told her not to do it, Antigone knew what was right and defended her beliefs. When Ismene said, “moreover we’re girls girls cannot force their way against men” (lines 70-72) it was obvious that this was one of the reasons that she did not want to help Antigone, she was raised to believe that women did not have the same strength that men have. Antigone defied all “rules” women were taught back then and made sure that not only would she be looked like as a martyr, but as a woman who was not afraid of any

The Scarlett Letter is based on false pretense and a woman giving her sex to someone that she is not married to. A practice common amongst men however when woman have sex for pleasure and pleasure only they are labeled as whores amongst other names to elaborate Hawthorne goes on to say, “Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument.”(Hawthorne 118). This is a form of demeaning women and setting them beneath men by simply saying that they cannot do what men commonly do thus further enforcing

Chicana’s experienced machismo within the Chicano Movement because they were seen useful only to perform sexual activities or support the men. The third issue women dealt with was wanting to have access to free and safe abortions, free child care, and birth control. Chicana feminist’s challenged sexism and cultural nationalism by writing

“So Bisclavret was betrayed, / ruined by his own wife” (line 125-126, emphasis added). The addition of “own” emphasizes the [wrongness] of what his wife did not just because she did it but because she did it as his wife. Wives should be faithful to their husbands, and while Bisclavret’s wife did not have to stay with him (because he is, after all, a monster), she has promised herself to another man and stripped Bisclavret of his title, his lands, his humanity, his