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a 10 paged essay on equality law
gender In literature
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The Great War, a conflict which was planted by our ancestors when they jubilantly relinquished their roots from their ancestral primates; becoming Homosapiens (the scientifically correct term for a modern human) they engaged in a battle between the sexes, lasting a little over two millennium, never inkling the tangent of resolution, nor wandering into the vicinity of conclusion, and most probably, never will. Humanity, obsessed with the divide of genders, has even coined its own axiom: “Women are from Venus” and “Men are from Mars”, alluding to whirlwind of rampant violence, yet less woeful Romeo and Juliet-like myths of the Roman-stolen from the Greeks-deities, Aphrodite (Venus), goddess of love and beauty, and her relationship with her half-brother/lover Ares (Mars), the god of war. Jiles’s minimalist, though intricate “Paper Matches” and Tweedie’s whimsical “The Tribe that Lost its Way” complement each other through their similar themes and representation of the sexes, exploring the great gender divide.
The Gender Gap, the discrepancy in opportunities, attitudes and appearance et...
Over the course of time, the roles of men and women have changed dramatically. As women have increasingly gained more social recognition, they have also earned more significant roles in society. This change is clearly reflected in many works of literature, one of the most representative of which is Plautus's 191 B.C. drama Pseudolus, in which we meet the prostitute Phoenicium. Although the motivation behind nearly every action in the play, she is glimpsed only briefly, never speaks directly, and earns little respect from the male characters surrounding her, a situation that roughly parallels a woman's role in Roman society of that period. Women of the time, in other words, were to be seen and not heard. Their sole purpose was to please or to benefit men. As time passed, though, women earned more responsibility, allowing them to become stronger and hold more influence. The women who inspired Lope de Vega's early seventeenth-century drama Fuente Ovejuna, for instance, rose up against not only the male officials of their tiny village, but the cruel (male) dictator busy oppressing so much of Spain as a whole. The roles women play in literature have evolved correspondingly, and, by comparing The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife of Bath's Prologue, we can see that fictional women have just as increasingly as their real-word counterparts used gender differences as weapons against men.
The physical effects of war overwhelm the naïve causing pain and suffering. Initially, war entangles the lives of youth, destroying the innocence that they experience as an aspect of their life. The girl “glid[ing] gracefully down the path” (1) and the boy “rid[ing] eagerly down the road” (9) have their enjoyable realities striped by the harshness of war. Likewise, war enters women’s lives creating turmoil. The woman who works “deftly in the fields” ( ) no longer is able to experience the offerings of life. The “wire cuts,” ( ) pushing her away from the normal flow of life. In addition, man undergoes tragic obstacles as a result of war. “A man walks nobly and alone” ( ) before the horrible effects of war set in on his life causing disruptions. War enters the life of man destroying the bond man shares with his beloved environment ( ).
For the Greeks, Homer's Odyssey was much more than just an entertaining tale of gods, monsters, and men, it served as cultural paradigm from which every important role and relationship could be defined. This book, much more so than its counter part The Iliad, gives an eclectic view of the Achean's peacetime civilization. Through Odyssey, we gain an understanding of what is proper or improper in relationships between father and son, god and mortal, servant and master, guest and host, and--importantly--man and woman. Women play a vital role in the movement of this narrative. Unlike in The Iliad, where they are chiefly prizes to be won, bereft of identity, the women of Odyssey are unique in their personality, intentions, and relationship towards men. Yet, despite the fact that no two women in this epic are alike, each--through her vices or virtues-- helps to delineate the role of the ideal woman. Below, we will show the importance of Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Clytaemestra, and Penelope in terms of the movement of the narrative and in defining social roles for the Ancient Greeks.
Clashing swords, miraculous survivals, pain of loss, and heroic sacrifice are all terrifying yet thrilling moments in a battle. The strong possibility of death and the frailty of human life add into the suspense of battle. Yet the reasons behind the wars, death, and suspense can be overlooked. The stories behind the warriors who have died will not be told again, but the stories of warriors still alive are what give the men strength to continue fighting against impossible odds. Ultimately, the reason of why a man would risk his life in battle is for someone, or something, he loves. Like in Gilgamesh and the Iliad, women help encourage and influence the protagonists to be the heroes and protectors they are meant to be.
These stereotypes are derived from the binary opposition in the dominant gender ideology, which identified men as public, active, powerful, and dominant over women, who were considered intrinsically subordinate, domestic, passive, and powerless. This hierarchical gender ideology has been projected into the past to interpret all men’s activities and roles as powerful and high status, while devaluing women’s roles and activities as unimportant and low status. For instance, Kent points out that when hunter-gatherer women hunt, even with the same tools as men, it has been devalued as a type of female gathering, while men’s hunting role retains its pre-eminence. In this framework men’s views and behaviors are represented as the ungendered cultural norm or ideal, while women’s different views and behaviors are marginalized as gendered deviations from the norm. The case studies from the play show how deeply assumed gender stereotypes have pervasively shaped anthropological interpretations of other cultures and historic documents. However, the illustration below proves that the approach is true that Medea’s has the
Athena is a very intricate and complex character who has a vital role in the epic poem. She is the Goddess of war and battle, a very interesting role for a female to possess. Because she is the Goddess of war, she has...
Medea and Lysistrata are two Greek literatures that depict the power which women are driven to achieve in an aim to defy gender inequality. In The Medea, Medea is battling against her husband Jason whom she hates. On the other hand, in Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the protagonist Lysistrata plotted to convince and organize the female gender to protest against the stubbornness of men. In terms of defining the purpose of these two literatures, it is apparent that Euripedes and Aristophanes created characters that demonstrate resistance against the domination of men in the society.
Just as this genre exemplifies the masculine ideal, it also promotes the feminine ideal, largely by casting female characters who do not meet this ideal in an antagonistic light, and thus maintains the male-dominant system of the societies which produced these works. This paper therefore argues that female characters in epic poetry, namely The Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer’s Odyssey, and Vergil’s Aeneid, play the role of an antagonistic “Other” group by employing their agency to act beyond the established gender roles of their societies, thereby disrupting the social order and creating obstacles for the male protagonists.
In learning about the feminist movement, we studied the three articles and discussed and reviewed the different authors perspectives on the topic and learned how important the role of woman in Greek Mythology. In presenting the feminist theory to the class we analyzed the three articles, Women in Ancient Greece; Women in Antiquity: New Assessments; and Women in Greek Myth, and discussed how although the three articles provided different views on Feminism in mythology, they all essentially are aiming to teach the same basic concept.
...e, women are the weaker of the two sexes. Women are slaves and spoils of war, if they are valued for sex they are used for sex. The universal portrayal of women causes a reevaluation of modern day gender balances by the reader.
Life cannot be without a measure of darkness, trials and tribulations, for success would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. A women’s place in society has been a constant bumpy road when it has come to adding equality into women’s roles in society. Sophocles exposes the unequal power relevance between men and women in 441 B.C. as Thebes has a conflict between Antigone and Creon unfolds in his play Antigone.
Antigone asks Ismene, her sister, if she recognizes how Zeus fulfills them as they live the curse of Oedipus. Although this idea of fulfillment manifests itself specifically in the tragedy of Ismene's and Antigone's radical behavior, the myth also serves as an archetypical model of a woman's position in society, and its patriarchal elements. The influence of Oedipus' curse over his daughters, whether mythological or directly familial, lingers in the ethos of psycho-sexualized European mores. Culturally, this notion characterizes masculinity as being `large and in charge,' the provider and protector; thus, femininity necessarily involves a certain subservience. Such ethos associates femininity with certain gender roles. The story of Oedipus and his daughters, therefore, highlights the overshadowing efficacy of the male presence and it's effects on the female psyche. For instance, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, each paint a picture of the feminine gender role, which predominantly consists of becoming a proper wife, so as to secure a husband, or mother, so as to produce his heir. Essentially, the occidental woman of this period is confined to a life of marriage. In such a patriarchy, what happens to an Antigone, a vicious rejection of all social conventions? And to an Ismene, a passive surrender to patriarchy's nomos? A woman's relationship to society's oppr...
This war involves a human side, including the admission of fear and scenes of domestic life, not in a sentimentalized version. This more complete and responsible depiction shows that there's not one single center to the war, just as there's not one single god for the Greeks.
In Aristophanes play Lysistrata, the women of Greece take on the men to stop the raging war between the Athenians and the Spartans. To stop the war, the women withhold sex from their male counterparts, and take over the Acropolis for themselves. The women are indeed triumphant in their goals to stop the war, and the Athenians and Spartans come to an understanding. What is blatantly ignored, however, is that Aristophanes creates a gender war that, although seemingly rejoices the actions of the women, instead mocks the women’s power-struggle in a male dominated society, focuses on the male-privilege seen throughout the entirety of the play, and should be disregarded in the fact that this play is not even from a women’s perspective.
The poem “Iliad,” by Homer, is known for its violence between men during a war, but under that violence, is the different type of women who play a significant role in the poem (Homer 189). This poem’s narrative seems to show a male dominated world between the Greek commanders. This male dominated world cannot happen on its own, thus the different background roles of women are needed in order to make sense of all this rage. As the University of Michigan article How Do Women Make Their Way Into This Cycle states, “They are seen as the objects of both lust and domesticity, yet they are also used to excuse war, cause conflict, and display the power of men” (www.umich.edu). The focus in this poem steers towards the rage between the men, but this rage most of the time is inspired and initiated by a woman. The women of Iliad play a significant role in the poem such as war prizes, male hero partners, and women gods.