Discuss the representations of female characters in No Sugar. How do female characters in the play challenge and/or reinforce traditional gender discourse?…
When we have been exposed to a specific role of gender all our lives, it is difficult to accept different scenarios. A different scenario would be when society would not be able to accept a powerful and non-emotional woman, or a very sensitive man. An example of this is children are educated of what roles a man and female play. In Disney movies, such as Aladdin, children are shown roles of women and men. A young girl is given to a man just to own more land. It shows society what role a man has over a woman. Anna Quindlen author of a short essay “Gay” and Gillianne N. Duncan author of “Why Do We Hate Our Bodies?” are examples of how the norms of society shape and make people judge others only because they are different. In “Gay,” Quindlen tells a story about her friend’s friend, about how a family would rather lie about the sexual orientation of their dead son, than tell the truth and be judged…
Society has created a set of norms and standards which imply that you are supposed to behave, dress, and do things based on your gender. However, Queer theorist, Judith Butler, does not agree with society. Instead, Butler believes that gender roles are not biologically constructed. Butler’s 1990 novel Gender Trouble, examines the extent to which gender and sexuality are performative. Butler’s concept of performative gender is depicted in Michael Chabon’s novel Summerland. The fantasy novel revolves around the protagonist, Ethan, and his friends, who all play baseball and must stop the Coyote from ending the world. In order to stop the trickster god Coyote, Ethan travels through Summerland with a small troupe of friends, playing baseball in…
Our society’s gender roles are constantly evolving and changing, all in the name of “progressive thinking”, though not all for the good. With a new “social norm” appearing every few years or so, it comes as a surprise that it has been a relatively short time since women have broken through their defined roles to be seen on the same level as men on a social basis. Many of history’s pages are written from a patriarchal perspective, opening the way for the female protagonists and complimentary characters in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” to make us rethink those gender roles through the events that occur during the plays and through their own complexity, providing interesting points of comparison and contrast between the plays and challenging audiences to think about gender roles in a new way.…
Butler questions whether these gendered behaviors are natural as they are learned from one’s performance of a “gendered” individual to keep heterosexuality among their culture. If she had it her way, she would simply like to let one subject “be” and see how he/she becomes on his/her own. This would determine the true natural gender of subjects, instead of having them act in specific roles they might not agree with. However, this would never happen as many feminists defend the idea of a concrete identity because they believe it’s crucial for the advancement of interests of women. Butler argues, “My point is simply that one way in which this system of compulsory heterosexuality is reproduced and concealed is through the cultivation of bodies into discrete sexes with ‘natural’ appearances and ‘natural’ heterosexual dispositions” (905). Ultimately, Butler is stating it is a mistake to characterize women as possessing the same assets. Because by doing this, gender regulations are reinforced by staying divided into two categories, men and women. But more importantly, where does this leave individuals who are “confused” or “not able to identify” with a…
In order for a text to remain, relevant and intriguing to responders throughout many contexts, it must challenge conventional roles and values in a revealing and provocative manner. A role that is vital to human understanding is the concept of gender and the effect it has on identity. Through the challenging of these binary gender roles, Shekhar Kapur’s , ‘Elizabeth,’ Anne Taubeneck’s, ‘Gender Roles,’ and Virginia Woolf’s, ‘Orlando’ remain provocative and intriguing texts throughout the ages.…
Gender roles in America have not changed that much since the 1920s. Women’s role in the 1920s was to have an arranged marriage, to take care of the home, and to have children. Later in the 1920s, women are still expected to have these same views which defines what a woman is to act like. Even in today’s time, young girls are raised to be taught these values in the toy and costume market. Expected gender definitions blocks the true meaning to be a boy or a girl. Therefore, from the 1920s to 2015, gender roles have not shifted that much due to the strict stereotype of boys are boys and girls are girls.…
Shakespeare here is portraying what Alsop, Fitzsimmons and Lennon, centuries later, have written about gender in the gender theory, that it is a social construction. (2002). If it is that easy for Viola to change into Cesario, just by changing her clothes and her manners, then gender or even social class are not concrete ideologies that individuals are inherently born with.…
In “Boys and Girls” we are introduced to a young, tomboyish girl who has problems coming to terms with the life she is expected to lead. The story takes place in a world where women were subservient and the men were in charge. “Mothers had traditional roles, which usually left them in the house, while men also had their roles, outside of the house.” (Alice Munro Boys and Girls Essays) She identifies more with her father who is a fox farmer who sells fox skin to fur traders. However, she sees her mother as an “enemy” who continually tries to “convert” her to become a domestic wife. (Boys and Girls) “She was plotting now to get me to stay in the house more, although she knew I hated it (because she knew I hated) and keep me from working for my father.” (p. 513) She continually expresses her annoyance with her mother and how everyone tries to make her act “more like a lady”. “ ' Girls don 't slam doors like that '. 'Girls keep their knees together when the sit down. ' And worse still, when I asked some questions, 'That 's none of girls ' business. '” (p. 514)…
The male characters in the play act more dominant compared to the females. The men treat the woman as possessions rather than as females. They also act as if the woman don't have and hardships, trials or hard work that they deal with on a daily basis. The men believe that they grant female identity by…
American politician and feminist Shirley Chisholm once said “The emotional, sexual and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, “it's a girl”. In saying this, Chisholm draws attention to the idea that from birth females are stereotyped and victimised, purely as a result of society’s ingrained attitudes towards women. This unfortunate, patriarchal portrayal of females as the less dominant gender is a theme that is not only reflected through the Shakespearean play ‘Hamlet’, but in many areas of contemporary society. Although times have changed since the Elizabethan era, women are still oppressed and restricted by male-constructed orders and societal attitudes, along with unequal power structures between the sexes to a lesser extent.…
An analysis of Doug Liman’s Mr & Mrs Smith (2005) focusing on Butler’s notion of fluid gender identity.…
“One of the interpretations that has been made of Gender Trouble is that there is no sex, there is only gender, and gender is performative.” (Judith Butler interview 1993)…
Judith Butler questions the notion that certain gendered behaviors are a result of learning the performance of gender behavior, that which is associated with masculinity and femininity. She argues that it is a social construction that is only true to the extent of it being performed. Gender as defined in Undoing Gender is a “practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint,” which is within a social context.…
One of the most important quotes Judith Butler uses in her writing is seen in, Imitation and Gender Subordination. Judith Butler explores the ideas that gender is about a performance one must do and how gender has become an imitation of what others deem as acceptable behavior. She also explores that idea of why gender is important for a society and states, “Drag constitutes the mundane way in which genders are appropriated, theatricalized, worn, and done; it implies that all gendering is a kind of impersonation and approximation. If this is true, it seems, there is no original or primary gender that drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion…