Gender, Sex, and Womanhood in Peggy Seeger’s “I’m Gonna Be an Engineer”
Peggy Seeger, a musician practically since she was born in 1935, is one of the most successful and celebrated female folk singers in twentieth century America (Good 5). In addition to performing classic American and British folk songs, she composed many of her own tunes as well. Written for a festival in early 1972, “I’m Gonna Be an Engineer” is Peggy Seeger’s first and most famous feminist song (Good 43–44). The piece exposes and explores societal expectations of femininity: contrasting what it means to be a lady and what it means to be woman. Despite presenting a powerful message against the “cultural scripts” that govern and reinforce feminine behavior, Seeger
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Throughout the piece, one can see the social pressures to conform to what Butler would call the conventional “scripts” on which the performance of the feminine gender is based. These scripts, when modeled by others “render social laws explicit,” teaching others how to perform and reevaluate how they perform their own genders (“Performative” 526). The script modeled for the character revolves around traditional notions of how to be a “lady”—the ostensible epitome of femininity in the early 1970s, when Seeger wrote and first performed the piece. The script for how to become a lady is not compatible with the objective of becoming an engineer, providing the basis on which Seeger can illustrate the unfair and oppressive treatment of …show more content…
For the character in Seeger’s piece, these punishments include the chastisements of her mother, teacher, and husband for acting unladylike, chastisements which often include the very same notions of duty and obligation to others that the scripts do themselves, explain to her what she “owes” to various parties: First, the character learns that her duty to her mother is to make her “the mother of a pearl” (“Engineer”). From her teacher, she learns that her desire is to be an engineer is unacceptable because “the duty isn’t [hers], for to try to run the world” (“Engineer”). From her boss, she learns that “[She] owes it to the job to be a lady / The duty of the staff is to give the boss a whirl,” a performance incompatible, apparently, with the profession of engineering (“Engineer”). Later, her husband tells her that “the duty of [his] darling is to love [him] all her life” and to “look after” and “obey” him. After her children are born, her husband explains that she owes it to them, too, to “stay at home,” “mind the baby” and be a “dainty” and “faithful” lady
The playwright explores the ideas of feminism and the role of men through the explorati...
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
In ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Tennessee Williams depicts many of the convictions concerning to American society 's mind-set towards men and women 's gender roles in the mid-twentieth century. He deals with both male and female typecasts as well as society 's reaction to those who question these assumptions. In order to shape understanding of gender labels Williams uses a variety of techniques, such as dictions, stage directions, character foils, symbolism, sarcasm, and character. By signifying these truths Williams poses a question to society, as to whether or not these depictions are
In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men treat women like dirt. Trifles is based on real life events of a murder that Susan Glaspell covered during her work as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines and the play is based off of Susan Glaspell’s earlier writing, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The play is about a wife of a farmer that appears to be cold and filled with silence. After many years of the husband treating the wife terrible, the farmer’s wife snaps and murders her husband. In addition, the play portrays how men and women may stick together in same sex roles in certain situations. The men in the play are busy looking for evidence of proof to show Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. As for the women in the play, they stick together by hiding evidence to prove Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. Although men felt they were smarter than women in the earlier days, the play describes how women are expected of too much in their roles, which could cause a woman to emotionally snap, but leads to women banding together to prove that women can be...
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
This paper will look at the different conceptions highlighted by Bulman in his article through the use of different methods used by the actors in the play. Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare captures the different conceptions of gender identity and different sexualities within the Elizabethan period.
In society, there has always been a gap between men and women. Women are generally expected to be homebodies, and seen as inferior to their husbands. The man is always correct, as he is more educated, and a woman must respect the man as they provide for the woman’s life. During the Victorian Era, women were very accommodating to fit the “house wife” stereotype. Women were to be a representation of love, purity and family; abandoning this stereotype would be seen as churlish living and a depredation of family status. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House depict women in the Victorian Era who were very much menial to their husbands. Nora Helmer, the protagonist in A Doll’s House and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” both prove that living in complete inferiority to others is unhealthy as one must live for them self. However, attempts to obtain such desired freedom during the Victorian Era only end in complications.
Though its primary function is usually plot driven--as a source of humor and a means to effect changes in characters through disguise and deception—cross dressing is also a sociological motif involving gendered play. My earlier essay on the use of the motif in Shakespeare's plays pointed out that cross dressing has been discussed as a symptom of "a radical discontinuity in the meaning of the family" (Belsey 178), as cul-tural anxiety over the destabilization of the social hierarchy (Baker, Howard, Garber), as the means for a woman to be assertive without arousing hostility (Claiborne Park), and as homoerotic arousal (Jardine). This variety of interpretations suggests the multivoiced character of the motif, but before approaching the subject of this essay, three clarifica- tions are necessary at the outset.
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
Even in today’s society, sexism is still prevalent and inhibits the people who are affected by it. For the purpose of this essay, sexism will be defined as any action that consciously contributes to a gender stereotyping society. In her essay, Marilyn Frye notes this definition of sexism stating that “making decisions on the basis of sex reinforces the patterns that make it relevant” (846). Therefore, any decision that contributes to the gender binary and its framework is considered sexist. The musical Gypsy has instances in which the main character, Rose, can be considered both going against and contributing to the “patterns that make sex relevant.” In one scene, Rose can be seen subjecting her children to gender roles which feeds in to sexism,
The categorization of gender creates a space of normalacy that needs replication for sustainment. The gender binary i a cultural tool that implements that reproductive power. The communication of gender is what creates the normalcy and applies the use of performance assigned and learned gender roles. The assignment of the gender binary is examined in Judith Butler's Bodies that Matter, where performativity is connected to Derrida's theory of citationality and authenticity/inauthenticity. These concepts and the regard to materiality is what made the obscene nature of the book so subjective to the individual reading: “The classical configuration of matter as a site of generation or orginination becomes especially significant when the account of what an object is and means requires recourse to its originating principle” (Butler 31). The nature of matter is Western thought is to presc...
This scene marks the way in which the society has set different gender roles for people in the society. It gives one the notion that science and intellect is not something that a woman should delve into as it may eventually turn out to be a little too much for them to handle. This setting mirrors the reality of what happens in society, and even in today’s modern
Lorber, J. (1994). Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender. Paradoxes of Gender (pp. 54-67). New Haven: Yale University Press.
The role of women has changed significantly throughout history, driven by women who took risks in setting examples for others to follow. Henrik Isben, author of A Doll's House, said “ A woman cannot be herself in society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view” (Innes 147). This proves that Isben was aware of male dominance in society during that time period. In his drama, “A Doll's House,” it deals with gender favoritism and male dominance.
During the late 1800s, gender inequality was one of the common issues that existed in the society. Men and women were often distinguished among themselves. Men were regularly portrayed as the one who had power and strength, whereas women were supposed to do all the household work and they were seen as weak and trivial. Henrick Ibsen shows a prefect illustration of this example in the play A Doll’s House. Ibsen develops a notion of how the existence of gender roles in society affected one’s lives. The protagonist Nora, whose identity is shaped after seeing her husband’s actions, which depicts his beliefs of gender inequality, demonstrates this idea.