The Role Of Women In Girl, By Jamaica Kincaid

1314 Words3 Pages

Even though women are still the main homemakers, being the nurturer and the one in charge of keeping their family life running smoothly, men have started to take on some of the roles that were once only expected of women, making for a whole new dynamic in the average home. If you had told someone 100 years ago women would have the right to vote, or could be world scholars, serve in the military, or even run for president, they probably would have laughed in your face and told you women are good for one thing, and one thing only, and that is to be a wife and a mother. Women were meant to be seen and not heard. They were to cook, clean, do laundry, be the perfect wife, and tend to all their husband 's needs. In the story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, a mother is talking to her daughter about all of the things that a respectful lady does. She 's telling her young daughter that if she acts like a slut then no one will respect her in society. The mother in this story seems to us to be extremely brutal but back Being that I was a teenage girl not that long ago, I know that I personally would have taken this approach very negatively. The way her mother refers to her as a slut multiple times throughout the text seems very accusatory and demeaning. When you’re a teenager, everything your parents say seems stupid or pointless. Her mother is shooting off insults and pounding mounds of information into her head. No one learns through condescending tone and insult, especially not a girl coming of age. Not to say that her daughter won’t learn these life lessons over time. It takes more than a day to learn everything that her mother was teaching her throughout this short story. She also seems to be relatively young and immature. Although I 'm sure her mother is just trying to prepare her to be a responsible adult in the real world, the way she goes about doing so doesn 't seem

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