Gender Roles In If I Were A Man

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Gender presents itself in various ways. It is a social construct that has a strong influence on almost everybody. Both gender roles and gender expression are actively engaged forces in our lives to the point where they are inescapable. Charlotte Perkins Gilman specifically explores gender roles and their effects in her story “If I Were a Man.” In a sense, Gilman’s “If I Were a Man” inexplicitly delves into the impact and limitations of society’s assigned gender roles. Through her character Mollie Mathewson, Gilman is able to display how complicated this broad spectrum that gender falls under really is. Gilman does this through her analysis of masculinity and femininity, using Mollie to bring awareness to the differences of the male and female purpose, and addressing the consequence of social rejection as a result of gender non-conformity. Charlotte Perkins Gilman introduces Mollie as the average, stereotypical “woman” in society. Gilman describes Mollie as:
“a beautiful instance of what is reverentially called ‘a true woman.’ Whimsical, capricious, charming, changeable, devoted to pretty clothes and always ‘wearing them well,’ as the esoteric phrase has it. She was also a loving wife and a devoted mother possessed of ‘the social gift’ and the love of ‘society’ that goes with it, and, with all these was fond and proud of her home and managed it was capably as – well, as most women do (57).”
Gilman’s portrayal of Mollie depicts the stress on women and the roles they are confined to. As Mollie embodies the image of a “true woman,” it …show more content…

Gender appears as a social construct that comes with fixed roles, as seen more prominently through Gilman’s character Mollie’s thoughts and experiences as a woman. Mainly through Mollie, Gilman ultimately identifies the challenges of not accepting assigned gender roles, as well as the gendered power structure that society is built

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