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American and Chinese cultural differences
Impact of gender stereotypes on individual
Impact of gender stereotypes on individual
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Gender roles continue to be an ongoing issue in modern society. The Good Earth displays how gender roles in Chinese culture affected men and women drastically. The radical difference between Lotus and O-Lan make a great example for the contrast. O-Lan and Lotus had extremely different relationships with Wang Lung on both sides of the spectrum ranging from a work force and luxury.
The characters O-Lan and Lotus revealed a lot about the gender roles presented in The Good Earth. O-Lan is the “workhorse” of the household. She constantly slaves over the necessities and does everything in her power to make sure the family was well. She did everything that was needed but not exactly wanted. Lotus is an object to Wang Lung. She is used as an
The character of O-lan was twisted by the circumstances of her life. Surviving adversity made her bitter, stoic, and wise. O-lan’s wisdom was from the things she saw and heard during the tough times. Without her stoicism, she would have fallen to pieces amongst the people who used Wang Lung. She tried not to let her bitterness get in the way of serving her family because they meant everything to her. In the end, it was her pride that held her together. Her pride would not allow her to give up or show weakness. Her pride kept her mind sharp until the end. And at the end, she had a husband who mourned for her, but only after her death did others really appreciate her.
Most critiques of The Good Earth are preoccupied with the authentic quality of the novel, and while the Western critiques praise it as a novel based on facts, the Chinese hold a different view. Kang Younghill, a Chinese man, in reference to the image Pearl Buck created of China, stated that "it is discouraging to find that the novel works toward confusion, not clarification" (Kang 368). This statement illuminates Kang's feelings that the details, which Buck had presented as factual in the novel, were contrary to the actual life of the Chinese. Yet researches have shown that Buck was rightly informed and presented her information correctly. One detail that she paid special attention to was the family structure within the rural Chinese family, which she presented in the form of the Wang Lung household. The family structure demonstrated by Buck is not restricted to the Wang Lung family, but was a part of every rural Chinese home in the early 1900s. Every member's experiences within the family structure are determined by the role and expectations placed on them by the society, and Buck was careful to include these experiences in Wang Lung's family.
The relationship between Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan, in the novel the Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, evolves as Wang Lung changes. This development of Wang Lung's character is a result of his rise in wealth and social status, which is something very important to him. Unlike him, o-Lan does not change as they become wealthy. She remains quiet and respectful for the most part, and cares for Wang Lung and the family like a traditional Chinese woman would. The relationship between O-lan and himself is not necessarily romantic, it is a relationship in which O-Lan is viewed by Wang Lung as something close to property.
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
Despite the Odes beneficial contribution to ancient Chinese society, they served as a detrimental force that stripped women of their rights and freedoms in ancient China, providing a repressive and deprecating stereotype of women. Several poems from the Book of Odes vividly depict females as an inferior sub-human race by disclosing the turmoil that ensued, when women acquired sufficient knowledge or influence in ancient Chinese society. A few of the Odes go beyond story telling and provide vindictive guidelines for the treatment and handling of women. Despite many of the Odes’ dehumanizing projection of women, a few in particular illustrate ancient Chinese women as highly emotional beings who possessed feelings and emot...
John Bodnar says it well when he suggests that "the center of everyday life was to be found in the family-household. It was here that past values and present realities were reconciled, examined on an intelligible scale, evaluated and mediated." This assertion implies that the immigrant family-household is the vehicle of assimilation. I will take this assertion a step further and examine more specifically the powerful role of the patriarchal father within Anzia Yezierska's book Bread Givers and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. Yezierska's theme vividly depicts the constraint of a patriarchal world, while Levinson illustrates the process of assimilation and the immigrant, now American, family and its decline. In this paper, I will exemplify how the patriarchal father, Sam Kochinsky (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and Reb Smolinsky are the key determinant of the dynamics by which the family assimilates.
The early part of the novel shows women’s place in Chinese culture. Women had no say or position in society. They were viewed as objects, and were used as concubines and treated with disparagement in society. The status of women’s social rank in the 20th century in China is a definite positive change. As the development of Communism continued, women were allowed to be involved in not only protests, but attended universities and more opportunities outside “house” work. Communism established gender equality and legimated free marriage, instead of concunbinage. Mao’s slogan, “Women hold half of the sky”, became extremely popular. Women did almost any job a man performed. Women were victims by being compared to objects and treated as sex slaves. This was compared to the human acts right, because it was an issue of inhumane treatment.
Wang Lung allows her to keep two small pearls, but he takes the rest and hurries to buy three hundred acres of Old Master Hwang’s land. O-lan gives birth to twins shortly thereafter. The strongest and most memorable character in The Good Earth is O-lan she exemplifies the situation of women in traditional China and the sacrifices they had to make in order to adhere to cultural notions of feminine respectability. Wang Lang’s position, and she receives neither loyalty nor passion from him in return. He is annoyed when she becomes pregnant with her second child, fearing that her condition will keep her from working in the fields, and later he has no qualms about cruelly insulting her unbound feet and taking her treasured pearls to give to his concubine. O-lan spends most of the novel as victim. It is O-lan who makes many of the hardest decisions in the novel as killing her infant daughter to spare food for the family, for instance and she has these hard decisions with admirable fortitude. O-lan never complains about Wang Lung’s cruelty in insulting her feet—but she does immediately begin binding her daughter’s feet, warning her daughter not to complain of the pain for fear of angering Wang Lung.O-lan represents the dignity and courage of the marginalized
Examples of cultural constructions can be seen throughout history in several forms such as gender, relationships, and marriage. “Cultural construction of gender emphasizes that different cultures have distinctive ideas about males and females and use these ideas to define manhood/masculinity and womanhood/femininity.” (Humanity, 239) In many cultures gender roles are a great way to gain an understanding of just how different the construction of gender can be amongst individual cultures. The video The Women’s Kingdom provides an example of an uncommon gender role, which is seen in the Wujiao Village where the Mosuo women are the last matriarchy in the country and have been around for over one thousand years. Unlike other rural Chinese villages where many girls are degraded and abandoned at birth, Mosuo woman are proud and run the households where the men simply assist in what they need. The view of gender as a cultural construct ...
Often in history there are women who are stereotyped as a housewife, who work only in the household and taking care of the children, but for O-Lan this is not the case. Growing up as a slave along with many other slaves, O-Lan was not the typical wife; she helped in the fields, tended to the house, and took care of the children. In the book she is seen as a static and flat character who obeys her husband by working hard on the land. O-Lan is known as one of the protagonists with a static character, who undergoes many obstacles and also compares to the virtuous women in the Bible Proverbs.
The movie, Mulan, shows some significant changes in the traditional gender roles. Also throughout this analysis, I will be keeping in mind the culture of china during this time frame.
...story. The conflict of old convention and the suffered women are only just part of the problems in China. However, from the popularity of The Yellow Earth and The Red Sorghum in China, we can knew that the problems that similar to the films are still existed quite often in the recent China. This suggested that although the position of women image in the recent film had being risen, but still there are many women and social problem remains in China today.
Expectations are placed on characters across cultures, time, and through, all genders. Characters in patriarchal societies experience pressures such as: ------------ This essay will argue that patriarchal societies, societies where males promote and maintain power, place social expectations on female characters. First begining with tradionalism family values and the private sphere in China with Elieen Chang to internationality with Duras *****
“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair.”