During the "80s", people were the ones that helped shape and transform society and helping people live together in relative peace and harmony. A man's job is to earn money; a women's job is to look after the home and family. As society started to transform, both men and women contribute to the household income. Women played a huge role in helping their husband through all the different changing roles in their current society. There was starting to be pictures of women working with men because it was more approved of women working and making money if her husband could support her. A lot more jobs for women came out throughout the "80s." These weren't low end jobs either, wasn't a cashier or anything like that. They were actual professional jobs. Women could even take the role above a man. There was still many women with low paying jobs but it was a start to their new society.…
The Joy Luck Club is a fictional novel by Amy Tan that unfolds the lives of four Chinese families and their American-born daughters. The story is portrayed in a diary-like fashion and it follows the lives and personal accounts of the Woo, Hsu, Jong, and St. Clair families. Culture is significant and it influences the story in many ways.…
Many Chinese mothers and Americanized daughters have trouble understanding each other and this problem can only be solved through accepting each other's values and their differences. In the chapter,Two Kinds, from the book "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan exposes the values of a Chinese mother, Suyuan and her Americanized daughter, Jing-mei about living in America. After seeing many articles and stories about prodigies, Suyuan innocently believes her daughter can be one too. At first, Jing-mei was ecstatic about the idea but through constant disappointment from her mother, Jing-mei became idiotically determined to disappoint her mother even more. Pursuing this further, Suyuan thought Jing-mei can be a virtuoso pianist…
The common fairytale portrays the stereotypical “damsel in distress,” who is helpless until her male savior typically rescues her. Many fairytales address the theme of gender roles as well as many others. The female character takes on the feeble, desolate role, while the male character takes on the strong, hero role similar to the stories of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. However, Elizabeth, the protagonist of The Paper Bag Princess defies typical gender roles as a female character and becomes the hero of the story. Cinderella and The Paper Bag Princess share many qualities, but have major differences as well. Cinderella is an example of a woman who occupies traditional, domestic roles, but she does not portray the modern, liberated woman Elizabeth exhibits.…
Amy Tan portrays Lindo Jong, mother of Waverly Jong, as a brave, intelligent woman who uses her wit in order to get out of a restrained marriage. She shows an unwavering loyalty to her family as she sacrifices her, “life to keep [her] parents promise,” (42). Lindo deals with the harassment from her in-laws, as well as the childlike nature of her husband. She eventually receives abuse from her own daughter when she doesn’t fit the expectations of both Waverly and the society. Even through all these obstructions in her life, by being loyal, courageous, intelligent, and strong, she shows all the characteristics of the Chinese zodiac animal, the horse. In the Chinese culture, the horse symbolizes power and grace, as well as strength and freedom,…
Fairy tales help to establish gender roles at a young age to characterize and represent the ideals, values, and roles that each gender should succumb to. Females are taught to be kind, sweet, week, honest, self-sacrificing, and beautiful. On the other hand, males are taught to be courageous, brave, saviors, and wise. Many of these characteristics are shown in Snow White. However, in lemony Snicket’s, A Bad Beginning, the novel challenges many of these ideas by providing the reader with alternate views to gender roles. This is shown through the main protagonist, Violet.…
The media plays a major role in portraying what society deems appropriate when it comes to body image and gender roles. Children, specifically, are more vulnerable to these messages due to their high consumption of media and their cognitive development (Agarwal). This has led to a large debate amongst a lot of parents as to whether or not their children should be allowed to watch certain shows and movies. The problem is that while certain media genres are obvious choices to keep away from young children, others are not as black and white.…
American football is among one of the most popular sports in the western culture. It is considered “‘normal’, healthy, and expected,” like with other sports (Cherney & Lindermann, 2014, p. 2). The television show Friday Night Lights uses the platform of football to show the “mythology of a rural U.S. heartland,” in a place known, “…for aggressive sport culture…” (Johnson, 2010, p. 61). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the episode, “Last Days of Summer,” from Friday Night Lights using the text from Kellner and Fiske. I assert from a critical cultural studies perspective that “Last Days of Summer,” normalizes gender roles through separation of parenthood into: motherhood and fatherhood, and how their interaction with their daughter furthers the ideological family dynamic.…
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…
Society is controversial when it comes to gender. Children learn gender roles through TV shows because most of them have gender roles that are expected by society. For example, in Good Luck Charlie they recently had a controversial episode in which they had same-sex mothers of a young girl. Many elementary children probably saw this episode and parents may have not liked the scene because children this young do not know that there are people or couples of the same-gender and they might not want to explain to their children the same-sex relationships from today’s society. On the other hand, this show was made because “the characters were meant to reflect today’s world, as many viewers are young children with same-sex parents” (McAfee). Now, children learned through a TV show about same-gender like they learned the gender role of a male or female or just how they learn gender representation through clothing or the color of their clothing. Children learn gender…
In many movies Asian women are sexually stereotyped as "exotic, subservient, compliant, industrious, and eager to please." If not that, Japanese women are shown to be "inherently scheming, untrustworthy, and back-stabbing." Whichever representation is used in a movie neither is correct. In contrast, the "Joy Luck Club" presents the lives of four Asian-American women in a fashion that does not promote these stereotypes. In the movie three Asian-American women tell their story bout their lives in China and American life. Nowhere in the movie are Asian-American women presented as sexually subservient, but it presents realistically the lives of these Asian women.…
In the 1950’s, gender roles, and the behavior of men and women were about as clearly defined as you can get. A new invention called the television popped up, and all the popular shows of the day mirrored real life to a tee. Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver were just two of the regular shows that the whole family would sit down and watch together. And why not? The shows of the day reflected the 1950’s family, and their values. Families would have breakfast together. The man of the house would leave for his 9-5 job. Mom would ready the kids for school, while they were away, she would clean the house and prepare for dinner. When everyone was back together again at the table. Dinner would be served promptly at 5:30. More often than not, this was the…
Every person comes to a point in their life when they begin to search for themselves and their identity. Usually it is a long process and takes a long time with many wrong turns along the way. Family, teachers, and friends all help to develop a person into an individual and adult. Parents play the largest role in evolving a person. Amy Tan, author of the Joy Luck Club, uses this theme in her book. Four mothers have migrated to America from China because of their own struggles. They all want their daughters to grow up successful and without any of the hardships they went through. One mother, Suyuan, imparts her knowledge on her daughter through stories. The American culture influences her daughter, Jing Mei, to such…
Today, in a global world, there is no difference between gender roles. Women became a more independent on their life. Writer Henrik Ibsen’s “Dollhouse” gave an overview about a beginning of feminisms in the 19th century. “Nora” who was the main role of the play transcend her character from doll house for free women constantly up to the end of the play. It shows the trend of independence in women’s life. Her action of borrowed the money from Krogstad to save her husband's’s life was clearly explained about the protest of feminism. She wanted to become a more responsible towards her family, which normally plays by the husband in the family. Nora changed her role through borrowed money, and arranged to pay deb which express her leading responsibility…
Gayle Rubin created the sex/gender system concept in the year 1975. She created this term to offer a new way of thinking about the difference between sex and gender. She defined the sex/gender system as “the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied” (WRWC, 2015). The sex/gender system has many explanations that attempt to address how our sex plays a role in how we learn gender. A few of these theories include: cognitive-developmental theory, social learning theory, gender schema theory, social interactions and gender roles, and lastly, performativity theory. In this essay I will explain how the sex/gender system is created and reinforced from the perspectives of feminist theorists.…