Societal Expectations

Being in a particular society, men and women feel as if they must behave in a manner that is acceptable to the public. Expectations can be seen as something that is suppose to happen. As well as societal expectations, which are unclear, and unwritten standards, followed by people in a specific environment. They differ for every individual depending on their environment, and culture. One would assume the individual would conform to their societal expectations, but that's not the case. Instead the individual performance reflects the way they are treated by those around them, their identity becomes one in how they are treated by others, essentially they don't have an authentic identity. Looking at Leslie Bell’s article “Selections from Hard to
Bell states “women are weighed down by vying cultural notions about the kind of sex and relationships they should be having,” but these aren't written rules, just norms that women conform to in their society, in fear of not being accepted (26). In Jayanthi’s case she struggles with the expectation to not be overly sexual and the expectation of her traditional Hindu family. Her traditional Hindu family restricts her from having many sexual partners. She rebels against her traditional Hindu family and has many sexual encounters in an attempt to find her own identity. Having multiple sexual encounters made her feel as if she had “control [of] her identity” but in actuality her performance became one of the men she encountered, not conforming to societal expectations or the expectations of her Hindu family. Jayanthi states “I realized that I was being played by a lot of different guys” and as a result, she began using guys for sex to have an identity (34). Jayanthi's performance didnt reflect her own identity. Instead, her performance became one of manipulation, and deceitfulness. Just like how the men manipulated her, she developed that persona and claimed it to be a bad-girl persona. Likewise, in the“Naked Citadel” by Susan Faludi the men
That could be seen in the Citadel with the arrival of Shannon Faulkner. Shannon didnt have conflicting expectations because based on her description it's evident that someone like her would challenge the norms of the Citadel. She was described as a girl who “never let anyone push [her] around” (90). So based on that, it's expected that Shannon would try to join the Citadel and she performed to those expectations. Without conflicting expectations she didnt perform on how she was treated, she conformed to the expectations of how she was described. Although the lack of conflicting expectations led Shannon to join the Citadel, her identity was still altered. She was no longer the tough girl because she let the men in the Citadel push her around and she didnt last long in the Citadel. Even though there are some anomalous, its more common that a person's identity is based on how they are treated by others, especially when they have conflicting expectations. That is exemplified with Jayanthi. Jayanthi is expected to explore her sexuality to an extent while also having restraints based on her Hindu traditions. As a result, she dwells in promiscuous relationships and adopts the performance of the men she encounters, not conforming to any expectation. Likewise, the men in the