Meaghan Labas
Professor Clermont
ENG 202-2, Introduction English Studies
14 November 2017
Rate Your Relationship: Instrumentality, Denial of Subjectivity, and Ownership in Pastan’s Marks Did you know that according to a recent study, approximately one in ten girls have been victims of rape or forced sexual acts? In other words, women and girls are seen and reduced to their bodies, rather than human beings. Even girls are forced to be treated as objects, and are oppressed at a young age. This is an ongoing issue, as women across the globe are being objectified. This is also true in family life. Men treat women as if they were something that they have a right to own and use, which is toxic for both sides of the relationship. Linda Pastan, in her poem Marks, finds that instrumentality, denial of subjectivity, and ownership cause the narrator to rethink and reject her
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Instrumentality is when a person is treated as a tool for another’s gain, and this is exactly how the narrator of the poem is being treated by her family. She is graded by both her son and her husband for only aspects that benefit them. This shows that they solely see her as an object that can be used for their personal gain, rather than as their mother or wife. Not only does she cook and clean for them, she does everything without gratitude from her family. The husband, in line 3, states that she was given an incomplete for ironing. She is treated as a servant in her own home, and receives no respect for the work that she does. If she had not been the one ironing, it would not have gotten done, because of the patriarchal ideas. Since she is a woman, she is an instrument for her husband to use, and the man should never think to do what the woman is expected to do. This way of thinking not only is a form of oppression, it also is degrading to the wife because she is told to do everything while her husband sits back and judges everything she
Teenage rebellion is typically portrayed in stories, films, and other genres as a testosterone-based phenomenon. There is an overplayed need for one to acknowledge a boy’s rebellion against his father, his life direction, the “system,” in an effort to become a man, or rather an adult. However, rarely is the female addressed in such a scenario. What happens when little girls grow up? Do they rebel? Do they, in a sudden overpowering rush of estrogen, deny what has been taught to them from birth and shed their former youthful façades? Do they turn on their mothers? In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple haircut becomes a symbol for the growing breach between mother and daughter through the use of striking images and specific word choice.
As a woman in the world, I am a prisoner, trapped in an idea of how women should be and how I should force myself to be. In the allegory one prisoner had escaped, until we can put aside the standards and expectations that were forced upon us, we cannot escape the endless cycle. The shackles bind the prisoners, to only view what the captors allow; the feeling of being held back and being weighed down by invisible forces. Women are bounded by expectations, standards and limited to their success, we are always one step behind. If we speak what we think, we are threatening others and if we act the way we want, we are condemned. Even now, as a teenager when I walk the halls of Weston; I hear derogatory words being thrown mercilessly at a woman for dressing the way she wants, what is seemingly provocative in their minds. Her clothes automatically determine what type of personality or character she is, without knowing who the person really is. One can think that a high school filled with millennials, they would be more evolved in their way of thinking but still that is not the case. Why are women degraded to some type of object? Many of us feel as though, we can’t dress the way we want or a label will be put on us, we think about how we should dress in the morning and how people
From gender delegations, gender discrimination, and gender shaming the world is messed up place. From Scout, to the Flappers, to Leelah Alcorn nobody seemed to show any remorse towards the discrimination of any of them. Whether its society, the friends, or even the parents everyone seems to follows society’s gender guidelines and they beat up on who doesn’t no matter who they are, even if it drives them to the point of suicide. When society admits a gender rule everyone is pushed to follow this guideline and if they don’t well, from what it seems like they should just kill themselves unless they change. Similar to Scout, she was perfectly fine dressing like a boy, acting like a boy, and playing with boys until her Aunt installed these insecurities in her head to make her change her views and essentially herself. Society seems to always get it’s
Gender identities and gender relations are determined by the culture of a society. Culture makes gender roles meet certain inescapable beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and obligations. Gender politics camouflaged by cultural norms and governed by patriarchal interests and manifested in cultural practices like female genital mutilation, make the life of women difficult and burdensome. Alice Walker’s fifth novel Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) discusses a tabooed cultural practice called female genital mutilation, camouflaged by gender politics, that is used to subjugate women, to protect the interests of men. Female Genital Mutilation is a painful procedure considered to be a mark of true womanhood in certain cultures. The procedure
The value of a woman as a mother, wife, sister, daughter or aunt has been replaced for sexual please. Greed and perversion disguised as men chose to debase America’s women and children for their own selfish gain. Child sexual exploitation is the most hidden form of child abuse in the U.S. and North America today. It is the nation’s least recognized epidemic. The overwhelming majority of children forced to sell their bodies on the street are girls. Young boys face hardship and abuse as well, but they often fend for themselves to survive. The girls, on the other hand, inevitably fall victim to pimps and organized trafficking networks. (Sher, pg. V)
In the featured article, “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy,” the author, Judith Butler, writes about her views on what it means to be considered human in society. Butler describes to us the importance of connecting with others helps us obtain the faculties to feel, and become intimate through our will to become vulnerable. Butler contends that with the power of vulnerability, the rolls pertaining to humanity, grief, and violence, are what allows us to be acknowledged as worthy.
Suppression, inadequacy and plain mistreatment describe what it is like to be a woman living in a strict patriarchal society. No matter how strict this
She tells the girl to “walk like a lady” (320), “hem a dress when you see the hem coming down”, and “behave in front of boys you don’t know very well” (321), so as not to “become the slut you are so bent on becoming” (320). The repetition of the word “slut” and the multitude of rules that must be obeyed so as not to be perceived as such, indicates that the suppression of sexual desire is a particularly important aspect of being a proper woman in a patriarchal society. The young girl in this poem must deny her sexual desires, a quality intrinsic to human nature, or she will be reprimanded for being a loose woman. These restrictions do not allow her to experience the freedom that her male counterparts
As the realization of women as an exploited group increases, the similarity of their position to that of racial and ethnic groups becomes more apparent. Women are born into their sexual identity and are easily distinguished by physical and cultural characteristics. In addition, women now identify that they are all sufferers of an ideology (sexism) that tries to justify their inferior treatment.
Though it is well-known that rape is an awful experience for someone, people’s thoughts regarding the actual effects and negative results it produces do not go beyond this broad assumption of rape being a horrible action. Margaret Atwood recognizes this and takes a different approach on informing society about specific effects rape can have on an individual. Through her short story “Stone Mattress,” Atwood covers these topics in a subtle manner where the information better relates to the reader whereas bombarding them with it. Her topics confronting rape and its repercussion that seem to only affect the victim are the focal points of the story, but Atwood includes other elements of fiction to draw the reader in and captivate their attention.
Women’s oppression is not just unique to our history alone. Different civilizations around the world have portrayed women despicably. In Japan during world war two, teenage girls were rounded up into sex camps. “An estimated one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand girls were forced to do sexual favors for Japanese soldiers, some of the girls were as young as 11 years old. They serviced up to 50 Japanese soldiers a day, while enduring beatings, starvation, sterilization and abortions. Even today, over half the 27 million people enslaved are woman in underground sex brothels.” [Robinson]
Traditional sex scripts of men and women create for a rape-supportive culture (Check & Malamuth, 1983). Rape is a logical extension of our sex role socialization process that legitimized coercive sexuality. Through these scripts men are taught to take initiative and persist attempts of sexual intimacy. Traits of dominance, aggression and violence are idolized (Martin, Taft & Resick, 2007). Women, on the other hand, are taught to not indicate their sexual interest or engage freely in sexuality. They should possess qualities of being passive, submissive and sexual gatekeepers (Martin, Taft & Resick, 2007).
Initially, my theme was inspired by the shooting at UCSB. I was horrified by the news and wanted to do something, anything to speak out against such a travesty. As I watched the video the shooter had made detailing his plans to murder women because women would not have sex with him, I was reminded of the other instances in which men are socially taught to control and feel entitled to women’s bodies. Scarcely a week earlier, I had been ‘catcalled’ at in the street, and the man shouting at me had then gotten out of his car and chased me down until I would speak with him. I knew that, for my own personal catharsis, I needed to reflect upon how corrupt our world has become. I needed to do it now because the shooting showed that male entitlement has become fatal. Nevertheless, it was difficult for me to develop a “question” related to my theme. I knew exactly what my subject should be, but not how to focus it. As Meaghen suggested I direct my presentation toward a particular group of people, however, a question began to form in my mind. By making the choice to make women my audience—which then gave me the inspiration to instill hope in my fellow women—I found my question: What can we do to change how many men feel entitled to women?
Among the many subjects covered in this book are the three classes of oppression: gender, race and class in addition to the ways in which they intersect. As well as the importance of the movement being all-inclusive, advocating the idea that feminism is in fact for everybody. The author also touches upon education, parenting and violence. She begins her book with her key argument, stating that feminist theory and the movement are mainly led by high class white women who disregarded the circumstances of underprivileged non-white women.
One of the reasons rape occurs is due to the presence of inequality between genders. All the years of men being treated as the dominant gender have led to the belief that they are more powerful than women. This is why, when there are changes to women’s status in society as men’s equals, there is a power struggle in reasserting the prevailing sex.