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Essay #1: Sexual Politics
It has been said that “Society has always defined for us what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, what a man should be like and what a woman should be like, and these traditional definitions of gender roles have limited and even harmed individuals”. The theme of sexual politics comes to mind for this quote. One can define sexual politics as the relationship of the sexes, male and female regarding power. Society’s definition of this can limit an individual in their gender role and restrain a person to not be themselves.
Works like “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, “I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady and “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth all have the elements of
In doing this she is listing off things that the Daughter should be acting out upon. “Don 't squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know” (Kincaid 68). The mother is demonstrating how the daughter should act in the presences of boys and explain she is not one. As a girl she must act proper and not play the ways boys do. Boys are aggressive and dirty as seen by society; a girl like she is supposed to be kind and proper. Then the mother explains in one section on how to do housework and chores; a woman’s job. “This is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so they don’t have a crease” (Kincaid 67). Kincaid writes that the mother is instructing the daughter on how to do her father’s clothing. This shows that the father; a man does not iron his own clothes but that it is a woman’s job. This can connect to Judy Brady’s work “I Want a Wife” which is about a woman who is listing all the things women do for their husband. Like Kincaid she brings up the same chores of housework and tending to clothing. “A wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended,
Zeilinger believes that not only women suffer from oppressive gender roles. Men often suffer just as much if not more. She seeks to expose the issues men face in todays society. Guys do have emotions, and when they come, they must face a big dilemma. They can either disconnect from their human emotions or live in a “state of contradiction” against their “manliness.” The traits that traditionally come with being a man are harmful to society. They are expected to be “cunning and take power and control instead of sharing it.” Men must be willing to point out weaker men in order to be above them. Zeilinger points out the adverse effect this mainstream mentality has. Guys are afraid to stray from the strict rules of manliness. If men go against the common standards they risk losing their identity as men. Those who choose to not follow these social norms are seen as a threat by those who are clinging to them. Gay men, for example often choose to stray from these norms. Zeilinger brings up a story of a friend who is gay and must overcome “male and female stigmas”. He often feels displaced as he does not fit in the realm of male or female roles. Zeilinger ends her article calling for change among both men and women in order to create a healthier
...am Victorian society, sexual liberalism transformed the ways in which people arranged their private lives. Shifting from a Victorian environment of production, separate sexual spheres, and the relegation of any illicit extramarital sex to an underworld of vice, the modern era found itself in a new landscape of consumerism, modernism and inverted sexual stereotypes. Sexuality was now being discussed, systemized, controlled, and made an object of scientific study and popular discourse. Late nineteenth-century views on "natural" gender and sexuality, with their attendant stereotypes about proper gender roles and proper desires, lingered long into the twentieth century and continue, somewhat fitfully, to inform the world in which we live. It is against this cultural and political horizon that an understanding of sexuality in the modern era needs to be contextualized.
While the first sentence is mostly objective description, the second sentence is full of the affectation of a subjective point of view. Aunt Amy is described as wearing a “white collar [that] rose from the neck of her tightly buttoned black basque, and round white cuffs set off lazy hands with dimples in them, lying at ease in the folds of her flounced skirt.” Words like “tightly,” “lazy,” and “ease” seem to describe what would be considered the traditional concept of the Southern woman. The wealthy Southern female is conservative, pure, fragile, peaceful, and delicate. These descriptive words could be viewed as an alignment with the traditional Southern view of women; therefore Amy is “beautiful and charming” in the eyes of the Grandmother and “every older person” and “everyone who had known her.” However, within those same words there appears the rather opposite yet still highly subjective view of the young girls who are attempting to reconcile the new values and ideas of the present with the old traditions of the past. The words “tightly,” “lazy,” and “ease” could be seen from the young girls perspective as negative descriptions suggesting boundaries, confinement, limitations, and exclusion.
...of sexuality in the public arena. As they left the hallowed domestic sphere, women increasingly perceived sexuality as a political, and not simply a private, issue. (4)
There is so much controversy in the society that we live in, it has resulted in an absolute mess. Certain topics as in gender or men and women’s bodies, is so controversial to the point that it has caused a misrepresentation of both men and women. Both Jean Kilbourne and Allan G. Johnson form their own opinions in their articles “Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt” and “Why Do We Make So Much of Gender” that comment on society as a whole, while expanding on the concept of why gender is so important for a fully functioning society. Although, both Kilbourne and Johnson have differentiating opinions to gender, they both come to the conclusion that gender is a key factor to explain our society and the social change in it. We live in a society where
...e need for women’s dependence on men. Unfortunately, compulsory heterosexuality is reinforced daily through multiple social institutions including, religion, literature, and politics. Compulsory heterosexuality has contributed to the confinement of women in lower paying jobs than men due to the sexual marketability required of women to be heterosexual feminine woman. The pressure to be heterosexual in the workforce then and in present day America stretches out to society turning women into sexual pray feeding the dominance of men especially in the workforce. This reality has caused a disturbance within the feminist movement for it continues to disempower not allowing for the growth of sexualities like lesbianism. By disregarding other sexual orientations, society is inhibiting the prosperity of people especially women who are still fighting the battles for equality.
To support the argument of female sexuality being repressed and monitored, Rich (Rich, 1984) argues and expands on the work of Gough (Gough, 1975). If looking at heterosexuality as a system of oppression rather than a sexual identity, there are 8 characteristics to male power. The first characteristic is female sexuality under the patriarchy and thus denying women the right to their own sexuality. A mixed list of different social norms ensure that female sexuality is only expressed to benefit men in the sense of male pleasure and also for the purposes of reproduction. The second point is sexuality being forced upon women in the forms of rape, guilt etc. (Weedon, 1999). When thinking about gender roles in relation to sex it’s important to see the correlation between masculinity representing dominance while femininity equates to submission, therefore women can often get a warped view of sex and feel as though they have to comply with the sexual demands of men (Segal, 1999). This relates to Gail’s attitude within the film when seeing sex as something of a burden and feeling as though she has to comply with the sexual demands of her
Even with the advancement of women in society, their roles and societal expectations have not changed. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” are two stories with varied elements set in different periods in history, that show the role society has deemed as belonging to women. "The Story of an Hour" was written in the year 1894, almost a century before Kincaid wrote "Girl". However, despite the large gap in the times of the authors, a common theme emerges and that is the theme of the oppression of women and the role they are expected to assume in society.
This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...
but washing must be done and procrastination won’t do it for me (Schlissel 83).” Although this woman obviously did not like doing the washing, she saw it as her job to do. In addition, the book describes this scene, “The banks of a river would be lined with women who carried their kettles, their washtubs, and piles of unwashed linen (Schlissel 82).” Again, it is the women who are doing the cleaning. The McGuffey Readers, being the handbook that young girls would read in school, taught them that it was their place to do the cleaning.
Nowadays, more people tend to care about and work on social justice. Women’s rights, as one of the topics, draws people’s attention. The society and female-selves have rethought the meaning of being women in the 21st century. Therefore, nowadays twenty-something girls start to behave differently from early generation. One of the behaviors becomes ambiguous, which is female sexuality. In “Selections from Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom”, Leslie Bell argues that neither contradictory directing nor expectation from others is the main reason that causes female sexuality. She sets up this claim, because the identity a woman established by herself impacts more on a woman’s sexuality. Establishing an identity is more important because it’s more independently authentic, also it represents what the woman wants, who she truly wants to be. Another reason is that, sexuality is one of the changed-behaviors that women use to prove their established identity. Therefore, female sexuality is driven by identity rather than social expectation or confused directing from others because, first, the identity is established by a women herself independently; second, the identity is the way how a women defines who she is, which matters more than any other outside effects; third, women decide to have a certain kind of sexuality in order to prove their defined identities.
When Kincaid wrote, “this is how you hem a buttonhole…” the process to hem a buttonhole began to symbolize a sense of domesticity to save her “sexual reputation”. The mother is so strongly bent on straying the daughter away from anything that could affect their reputation. Consequently, she is forcing her daughter into social norms and stereotypical ways a woman is expected to behave. In a way, it can be said that the mother is domesticating her daughter into a life to keep her from promiscuity. Before the mother says, “… the slut you are so bent on becoming” (Kincaid 92) each time, she states a certain way the daughter should behave. From this we can see that the mother believes that women can only be seen two ways: of respect or of promiscuity. Due to this belief, it can be concluded that the mother will say and do anything to her daughter to shape her into a respectable member in their society and creating her into the stereotypical woman. Kincaid faced this exact situation in her childhood when her mother tried to domesticate her, when she did not seek to be a social norm. Kincaid was disapproved of by her family when she became a writer, much like the daughter in Girl would be. Kincaid uses the mother’s instructions on sweeping, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and gardening to express the domesticity that is expected from the daughter to turn her into the
The relationship between sex and gender can be argued in many different lights. All of which complicated lights. Each individual beholds a sexual identity and a gender identity, with the argument of perceiving these identities however way they wish to perceive them. However, the impact of gender on our identities and on our bodies and how they play out is often taken for granted in various ways. Gender issues continue to be a hugely important topic within contemporary modern society. I intend to help the reader understand that femininities and masculinities is a social constructed concept and whether the binary categories of “male” and “female” are adequate concepts for understanding and organising contemporary social life with discussing the experiences of individuals and groups who have resisted these labels and forged new identities.
Gender and sexuality can be comprehended through social science. Social science is “the study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society” (free dictionary, 2009). The study of social science deals with different aspects of society such as politics, economics, and the social aspects of society. Gender identity is closely interlinked with social science as it is based on an identity of an individual in the society. Sexuality is “the condition of being characterized and distinguished by sex” (free dictionary, 2009). There are different gender identities such as male, female, gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual that exists all around the world. There is inequality in gender identities and dominance of a male regardless of which sexuality they fall under. The males are superior over the females and gays superior over the lesbians, however it different depending on the place and circumstances. This paper will look at the gender roles and stereotypes, social policy, and homosexuality from a modern and a traditional society perspective. The three different areas will be compared by the two different societies to understand how much changes has occurred and whether or not anything has really changed. In general a traditional society is more conservative where as a modern society is fundamentally liberal. This is to say that a traditional society lists certain roles depending on the gender and there are stereotypes that are connected with the genders. One must obey the one that is dominant and make decisions. On the other hand, a modern society is lenient, It accepts the individual’s identity and sexuality. There is no inequality and everyone in the society is to be seen as individuals not a part of a family unit...
Society has set limits on gender roles with ideals such as male privilege and patriarchy. Patriarchy is the political structure to control womenbs thoughts on their sexuality, laboring, and place in society so...