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the ramayana essay
Equality is a state men and women will never agree on. Standards for both genders vary when compared. The differences between the genders are clearly shown in The Ramayana. Women are judged by their beauty. A perfect woman must be beautiful and loyal to her husband. Men are not only judged by their beauty, but also by their strength. Because women are often considered the weaker sex, men are expected to protect the women.
Everything about a woman revolves around her appearance. Women are judged by their appearances. Beauty is the first aspect a man notices when meeting a woman. Sita is “a woman of unearthly beauty” (Narayan 76). Rama falls in love at first sight with Sita and Ravana falls in love with the mere description of Sita. This shows how significant a woman’s appearance is in The Ramayana. Before anything else is taken into consideration, beauty will always stand first.
One’s personality is determined by how beautiful one is. It is believed that with beauty, comes good things such as loyalty and kindness. The rest of a woman’s personality follows through after beauty. Because Sita is beautiful, she is also assumed to be loyal, trustworthy, and polite. After all, everything about a woman comes in a package.
Ugly women have different stereotypical traits. Women who are considered ugly are the exact opposite of Sita. Kooni is not a positive influence on any of the characters in The Ramayana. “Kooni [has a] deformity (Narayan 116).” Her hunched back is considered an imperfection, which goes against the stereotypical portrayal of women at the time. As said before, beauty is the root of a woman’s personality. Kooni goes against the standard for women at the time, which makes her evil and manipulative. Kooni’s outer appearance determines how everyone else sees her as in their own eyes. The significance in explaining beauty is that everything was based on a woman’s beauty. From how they acted to how they treated, everything revolved around how beautiful a

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