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Why women deserve equal rights
Feminist theory gender inequality
Women's rights and gender equality
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Lucia and Belén are two victims of macho societies. In fact, Lucía and Belén’s deaths as sacrifices embody the extreme social violence against women. In that vein, these sacrifices turn symbollicaly into a sort of social Atononement, that at the end restore civilization and social order. A social order that would not be the same, though. Feminist media studies in a sexist, machista, landscape, like in South America, should not only expose discrimination and extreme violence, but also unveil the mechanisms that are operating. It is not possible to understand the rage that pro-choice advocacy and activism trigger without paying attention to the broad and prevalent phenomenon of daily-life violence against woman in South America. Although different
Under any circumstance a woman is seen as being at fault. In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, many male societies systematically victimize women. Forcing women to be dependent on men causes them to be victims in households and society. For example Nana says to Mariam, “Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always” (Hosseini 7). The systematic victimization of women by patriarchal societies is a main theme in the novel, which is shown in the relationships between the men and women in the novel.
Upon returning to the Dominican Republic after many years, Yolanda decides to take a trip across the island––something her family views as ridiculous. “‘This is not the states’ . . . ‘A woman just doesn’t travel alone in this country.” (9) This quote highlights the sexism inherent in Dominican society. Yolanda’s family is asserting that women are not individuals capable of taking care of themselves. On another hand, Yolanda’s close friendship with Mundín causes tensions as their mothers confront them about crossing gender lines. “My mother disapproved. The outfit would only encourage my playing with Mundín and the boy cousins. It was high time I got over my tomboy phase and started acting like a young lady señorita. ‘But it is for girls,’ . . . ‘boys don’t wear skirts.’” (228) This is an example of how Dominican societal norms and gender roles have impacted the sisters. Yolanda and Mundín were the only boy-girl playmates out of all the García children, yet this was frowned upon by both of their parents as to not impede the seemingly inevitable growth of Yolanda’s femininity, and conversely, Mundín’s masculinity. Moreover, this shows how societally-prescribed gender roles were instilled in Yolanda at a young age. However, this is not the only way in which women’s freedoms are
Desert Blood is based on a stereotypical context of the female commodization whereby Rubi, Ximena and Ivon try to fight against the patriarchy so that they can find their individual empowerment at deeper levels. In addition, Ximena and Ivon represent a network empowerment while Rubi represents organizational empowerment. Alba’s novel has given empowerment to the female characters where they manage to break the silence that surrounded the reality of Juarez femicide; this offers a long-awaited voice on the crime as well as the women that needed to speak-up. Alba shows that the women were considered almost worthless and were not considered as the tenable social construct which was maintained and established by the patriarchal
Azuela shows these impacts by the progression of Camila, from a sweet innocent woman, to joining the rebel forces, and lastly to being killed. Symbolically, Azuela kills off Camila almost immediately upon her rise to power and drops her from the novel’s plot. This shows the how insignificant of an impact that women had on the battles, and how easily they were forgotten after death. Women still struggle today with gaining equal rights and treatment within the Mexican culture. It has taken nearly 70 years for women to gain equality with men in the workforce, gaining rights such as voting, and having a shared family responsibility with the male figure (Global). Unfortunately, many women within the working-class household still suffer from the traditional norms and values regarding the roles of men and women. In addition, these women were often subjected to control, domination, and violence by men” (Global). This validates Azuela’s stance on how women should stay within their traditional roles because fighting for equality has been ineffective even still
Junot Diaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is focused on the hyper-masculine culture of the Dominican, and many argue that his portrayal of the slew of women in the novel is misogynistic because they are often silenced by the plot and kept out of the narration (Matsui). However, Diaz crafts strong women, and it is society that views them as objects. The novel recognizes the masculine lens of the culture while still examining the lives of resilient women. In this way, the novel showcases a feminist stance and critiques the misogynist culture it is set in by showcasing the strength and depth of these women that help to shape the narrative while acknowledging that it is the limits society places on them because of their sexuality
We have all heard the saying, “it’s a man’s world”. It appears that our world is governed according to a man’s perspective and thoughts as to how the world should be run, and women gracefully bow down to this perspective and internalize those male supremacist notions of patriarchal dominance. Even with this seemingly innate belief that men have, it is still apparent at times that there is another view that is often glossed over and ignored in the pursuit of extreme power and superiority. In Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of Butterflies, we are able to dissect society through the eyes of women who have had to endure life in these societies. These women offer a fresh perspective, and they both challenge and assert the patriarchal view that is most often presented in discussion about civil unrest.
The Women of Colonial Latin America serves as a highly digestible and useful synthesis of the diverse life experiences of women in colonial Latin America while situating those experiences in a global context. Throughout, Socolow mediates the issue between the incoherence of independent facts and the ambiguity of over-generalization by illustrating both the restrictions to female behavior and the wide array of behavior within those restrictions. Readers of varied backgrounds will come away with a much deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities that defined the lives of the diverse women of the New World ruled by Portugal and
Although it is ultimately revealed that Oscar and Yunior are close with each other, Yunior’s pure embodiment of the Dominican masculine is the complete antithesis of Oscar’s character, who is the opposite of anything that could describe Yunior. One good analogy to the hyper masculine identity of Yunior is to that of the personality of Trujillo, the repressive dictator of the Dominican Republic who oversaw the Haitian parsley massacre. Trujillo had a strong lust for women and a rather apparent tendency for violence, and as some sources (i.e. Masculinity after Trujillo, by Maja Horn) argue, the modern conception of masculinity in the country came to full bloom after his rein. Interestingly this was the period of time that Beli grew up in, and a substantial part of her childhood experience was suffering at the behest of Trujillo’s suppressive regime, and consequentially this contributed to her hefty and dominant
The novel Gabi, a Girl in Pieces, written by Isabel Quintero, portrays the extreme pressure women from traditional/cultural households encounter in order to be seen as “picture perfect.” Women have to be and act accordingly to the expectations of their family and community in order to be respected and valued as a “lady.” One mistake is all it takes to become known as “a mala mujer” which is why women are anticipated to protect their body as they would their life.
“Poverty and exploitation of women in Latin America can never be alleviated because they are rooted in machismo,” meaning that because of the way society was run in Latin American, women can’t advance from the ancient state of mind that they belong in the private sphere and should stay there, because only men are good enough to be out in the public sphere. The reason why society was run in this manner, was because of the machismo feeling engraved in the minds of men and, in some cases, women in society. Alicia, Carolina, and Nancy don’t really have any other choice, than try to survive on their own by doing acts that are not “approved” by the society they live in. Even now, because of their actions, we could even disagree with the way they decided to approach their situation, because even now a day, we could think that selling one’s body or being involved in “off the book”
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Latin America was still a highly patriarchal society wherein men and women each upheld specific gender roles. “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” exhibits the harsh expectations of women in Latin America. These unfortunate women were expected to remain pure before marriage, while men were able to sleep with whomever they chose without punishment; women were expected to be submissive while men remained in control; and women were expected to strive only to be the best homemakers.
Isabel Allende’s novel, Eva Luna, amalgamates many of the techniques and conventions associated with the picaresque tradition, magical realism and bildungsroman in order to present a critique of dominant Eurocentric ideologies of the patriarchy and oligarchy in 20th century Latin America and to valorize the voices and experiences of the marginalized and oppressed. A prominent aspect of Eva Luna which acts as a vehicle for the novels critique of the patriarchal oligarchy are the numerous motifs and symbols utilized throughout the novel. The manner in which Allende introduces and develops symbols and motifs throughout the novel functions to set up a number of oppositions which portray a sense of loss of freedom and expression under the oppression of the colonizing oligarchy, illustrate the superficiality of oligarchic power and align the reader with expression over silence and transgression above oppression.
The brutality and ruthless insidiousness of the male dominated scientific regime can be seen in stark silhouette when one comes to understand how even theories constructed for no purpose other than to entrench male privilege and power fall victim to the ram-rod assault of Linear Progress. For example, the belief that the entire human organism in miniature form -- the homunculus -- was contained in the spermatozoa, was predicated on the assumption that the male is normative and active -- ejaculating its will and its likeness out into a passive female world. The female, in this view, served only as a nutritive field -- a convenient cuntainer in which the male-generated miniature man could grow. In some versions of the story, the father's right testicle was thought to produce male offspring, while the left [1] testicle was thought to suffer from insufficient blood flow, resulting in defective spermatozoa, producing a substandard, or female homunculus.
Examining the most common characteristics of a violent offender, simply being a man can be considered a risk factor. The male gender is characterized by traits like strength, and a natural willingness to defend what is theirs. Such behaviors are driven by male hormones, which are utilized in the regulation of human aggression. Though girls comprise a smaller overall portion of adolescent arrests, the murder of Reena Virk in 1997, in which seven girls and one boy brutally assaulted and drowned a fellow classmate , shifts focus back onto juvenile female violence. While male offenders, often choose to act as individuals; the “girl-gang” phenomenon has recently caught the attention of researchers. Institutes from Canada, as well as the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany have published studies, emphasizing increasing female violence and the issue of “girl-gangs”. After exceptionally violent murders, the public tends to be very sensitive and biased regarding these issues, influenced heavily by the media. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between ordinary myths and statistics. Theories such as the Liberal Feminist View, as well as the Power-Control Theory approach female violence as it being the result of a constantly changing society. To fully comprehend the nature of female violence, however, a combination of social, economic, biological and psychological factors have to be taken into consideration. Commonly boys use violence to solve a conflict and to protect their honor girls instead, see it as a way of emancipation, to prove that they are not the weaker sex.
In Latin America, women are treated differently from men and children. They do lots of work for unexplainable reasons. Others for religious reasons and family orders and others because of the men involved. Women are like objects to men and have to obey their orders to either be rich or to live. Some have sex to get the men’s approval, others marry a rich man that they don’t even know very well, and become slaves. An important book called Chronicles of a Death Foretold is an example of how these women are treated. Purisima del Carmen, Angela Vicario's mother, has raised Angela and her sisters to be good wives. The girls do not marry until late in life, rarely socializing beyond the outsides of their own home. They spend their time sewing, weaving, washing and ironing. Other occupations include arranging flowers, cleaning up the house, and writing engagement letters to other men. They also keep the old traditions alive, such as helping the sick, comforting the dying, and covering the dead. While their mother believes they are perfect, men view them as too tied to their women's traditions. The men are afraid that the women would pay more attention to their job more than the men. Throughout the book, the women receive the respect they deserve from the men and others around them.