Acting Like A Lady

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Women getting compliments of “acting like a lady,” proves to have negative effects to women that must fit within those constraints of a “lady.” The term lady represents the oppressed societal connotation to fulfill the term that women must be portrayed as submissive and quiet. The word “lady” is used by older tradition to keep women in their social hierarchy of the patriarchy. The poem of Kleinman (2004), Why I’m not a lady (and no woman is), represents the characteristics of an ideal lady including physical beauty, keep the social balance, not to be power hungry, and to repress ourselves sexually.
These characteristics creates the structure of the birdcage that women are constraint under. Societal pressures of oppression created through the male hierarchy let women know that they are second in command. Kleiman expresses this through, “Ladies become First Lady, not President.” (Kleiman). Through the expression lets women know that they must be lower than men and cannot strive to acquire power. These characteristics fit women to be submissive and women need to follow those qualities. The door-opening ritual is another power constraint that women must battle because the man is removing the barrier …show more content…

This relates to the discussion of women making decision for their own bodies and their sexuality. The stigma that is put upon women if they have multiple partners is that they are considered “whores” or “sluts.” But men performing the same actions will not be stigmatize with those labels because of the double-standard of oppression placed on women to “act like a lady.” Kleiman describes that the word “woman” is considered a dirty word that needs to be cleaned to become a lady (Kleiman). The meaning of a woman is now represented as a gilded wire that is perceived to become a quiet, submissive

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