'The Oppression Of Women In Virginia Woolf's Uniquely'

Male dominance has been part of the culture in most communities. This perceived authority is evident in ancient times when the Church had ingrained women as an inferior creature to their male counterpart. The insistence of the Roman Catholic Church that priests have to be male reflected the power of men. In addition, philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle have declared women to be weaker than men in nature, therefore creating the inequity in gender we know of today. Inequality between these genders is the fruit of history’s assertion of man's power to objectify woman, degrading their value down to a slave. The oppression of women in such communities and the difficulty they have in finding their identity will be examined in Virginia Woolf’s,
Brady opens effectively in the first paragraph by establishing her ethos as a wife. “I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother” (para. 1). The seriousness in her tone misleads the reader as they further read the essay because it is filled with satire. Humor, sarcasm, irony and hyperbole are the elements of satire that Brady uses. Throughout the essay, she talks about wanting a wife but there is no seriousness in her tone, it is all sarcasm because she is tired of the work she has been doing for her husband so a wife would be a nice help. In addition, Brady is a wife herself, as described in the opening paragraph, and despises the jobs women like her have to do, such as “…keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended… pick up after me… take care of the details of my social life…” (Para 3, 4), for the sake of their husbands’ happiness yet she asks for a wife that will do such things for her. Finally, she points out all the jobs wives are expected to do in a patriarchal society but makes them seem easy by just providing a whole list of them with the use of the rhetorical device anaphora, “I want a wife,” a repeating phrase found in her essay. Through the use of Pathos, Brady’s essay is a call for action, eliciting anger from her
Women are seen as these Angels who are captivated in the homes, doing chores, while men are out with their freedom to explore a whole spectrum of opportunities to the fullest extent. Gender inequality is present in every community whether it is dominated by men or women. For instance, the Navajo community Alvord was reared in was based on matriarchal values where women ruled over men. There can be no community without inequality because one side has to possess the power to dominate the other or there would be