Preview

Invisible Gender Rules Essay Example

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1495 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Invisible Gender Rules Essay Example
Invisible Gender Rules

Changing oneself is very difficult to achieve, but a complete change of a group of people is next to impossible. For women, the past many years have changed lives, careers and family life. Yet the women's revolution did not remove discrimination from society, it only changed certain discriminatory actions into others. Fatima Mernissi wrote the short story "The Harem Within" about a young girl living in a Harem where her primary role is to become a slave to her husband, being both uneducated and unlike herself. Proceeding a few years ahead, Clarice Lispectors short story "Preciousness", introduces another young women with similar problems in the completely opposite place, for this young girls Harem is the society and expectations of her peers. Gender roles are very specific to different cultures and religions, yet what continues to be a problem is that discriminatory rules and regulations that are present. No matter how advanced a place can become, there will always be the discriminatory idea that one gender should be a certain way despite who they really are and who they would like to become Both women and men are subjected to this harsh reality.
Women and men have evolved for many years now, whether it is style, personality or religious beliefs there is always room for change. Although the women's' movement was arguably very successful, there are very many young women who still have personal and emotional problems brought up because of society. Lispector depicts these problems through her character in her short story "Preciousness" by describing the adolescent emotional growing pains that young many women go through. The events that partake in this short story are all very emotional, the young woman does not see herself as important, but instead she sees herself as ugly and lives her life trying to avoid the rest of the world. After the incident when the two youths attack her, "she felt danger [in] becoming "herself"" [page

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    "Changing attitudes in Britain Society towards women was the major reason why some women received the vote in 1918". How accurate is this view?…

    • 1715 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cloudstreet Gender Essay

    • 1413 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Over the years, representation of gender has played a vital role in stabilizing the stereotypical family structure. By society assigning different “roles” to males and females, we categorize them into what they should and should not do based purely on their sex. Cloudstreet by acclaimed Perth-born author Tim Winton addresses these issues directly. Winton challenged the stereotypical gender roles of males and female in the 1940’s – 1960’s society of Western Australia by reflecting his characters upon his own family and the people in his life, and to relay to the reader his idea of what it means to be feminine and masculine as well as to make his characters more relatable with modern readers of today’s society.…

    • 1413 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Carol Berkin clearly states her thesis in the introduction of Revolutionary Mothers. “Despite the absence of radical changes in gender ideology and gender roles for most women, the Revolution did lend legitimacy to new ideas about women’s capacities and their proper roles”. (Berkin 2005) In two thousand and fourteen it is questionable about how clearly women’s roles have changed especially in the areas of economics and politics at least it is obvious that the revolution did not bring equality. Legal status has changed. Of course, educational opportunities have expanded greatly; however, it often appears the more things change the more they stay the same. Even our popular vernacular demonstrates an entrenched gender inequality. “You throw like a girl” reveals poor physical performance. To concretely state subordination a person need only to make another their “bitch”. Female autonomy is usually used to denote weakness. While women now have the right to vote it is interesting that in the US Senate only 20 of the 100 senators are female. Look to Fortune 500 CEO’s and you will find only 24 female CEO’s. (Fairchild 2014) It is standard knowledge that while women are legally entitled to their wages they make 82 cents to the dollar of a male’s wages and even lower percentages for women of color. (US Department of Labor 2014)…

    • 1716 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Toward this oppression and discrimination, women were and are rebelling and raising awareness through many categories such as art, books, music, proposing laws and regulations and such. Trying their best from the place they’re in to abolish this oppression toward women shows the persistence and resistance of women. The time women had come out from the cage or the house had dated back to a long ago yet they are fighting till now to get the equal treatment with men in this 21st century. Examples of how women in history fought to obtain equal treatment from society will be presented below.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1950s vs Today

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Throughout history the roles of women have changed dramatically. Since the 1950’s, women have slowly but surely evolved into the individuals one sees today in public offices, law firms or even the five o’ clock news. However, this evolution did not occur over night. Although women in the 1950’s and today have dealt with similar stereotypes, today life has greatly improved because women aren’t as pressured to get married, are taken more seriously in the business world, and are even making as much or more money as men.…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Whether a male or a female, no one should ignores gender patterns. “Generalizing about groups of people makes many of us nervous. We like to think of ourselves as unique individuals, not representatives of stereotypes. But it is more dangerous to ignore patterns than to articulate them,” (Tannen 213). Men and women have the difference in the way they talk, even they live or work together. People like to think of ourselves as unique individuals, not representatives of stereotypes. In order to articulate these patterns, we have to focus on three aspects that cause people problem to ignore patterns of gender. They are differences in conversation goals, asking for direction and trouble talk.…

    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Canterbury Tales Response

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages

    There are over a billion people in this world, an over 50% of them are women. In the current world, they're growing to create an impact in the world. It makes one wonder how they struggled to become what they are today. Many works of literature portray women in two types, those fit and unfit for society. While the two categories may have very different definitions to different perspectives, there isn't a doubt that this has helped society in many ways. One work on literature, which contains both categories, is the The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The novel describes women who may be shunned by society because of their boldness, while others show women who can get away with anything just because of their status. While the female gender is a difficult subject to tackle, women decide for themselves if they want to please society or not.…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    men are stuck

    • 1239 Words
    • 4 Pages

    gender revolution has been lopsided. Even as American society has seen sweeping transformations — expanding roles for…

    • 1239 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The concept of gender is used by sociologists to describe all the socially given attributes, roles, activities and responsibilities connected to being male or female in a given society. Our gender identity determines how we are perceived and how we are expected to think and act as women and men, because of the way society is organised” (March et al, 1999)…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My social issue that I am researching is gender roles. I am looking at how each gender is treated differently based on their biological design. Women are seen as caring, child bearers, emotional, and weak. Whereas on the other hand, according to society men are strong, aggressive, breadwinners, manly, and man of the house. Based upon these different stereotypes given to men and women there is a huge gender difference in abilities and work ethic. Men tend to make more money on average and work than women. Women also are less likely to be in leadership or promoted to boss like jobs. In Afghanistan woman are very much oppressed, very few have an education or work most…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gender roles have been around since the time life started. However, everything always seem to change over time, whether it be from work, or by itself. Gender roles, the ones from 1000 years ago and the ones today, are no exception. Gender roles have changed throughout the trip of time, but they have also kept some foundation from the ancient time roles. Men and women views have changed over time, but they still have similar basis from long, long ago.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To me, gender has always been the basic distinction between men and women. It signifies the difference between the way men and women lead their lives, how and with which gender they identify themselves. What this means to me, is that people divide themselves into two groups and identify themselves with the social attributes and gender roles associated with those genders. Gender is not simply the natural physiological distinction, it is also the construct into which people try to fit and identify with.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lispector’s focus of her work is actually not only about the body of woman but also mentality of woman as well. Lispector’s book focused a lot on G.H’s mind and her thoughts about the world. Even the Lispector started off her book with G.H’s thinking in her head. According to Lispector, “I’m searching, I’m searching. I’m trying to understand. Trying to give what I live to somebody else.” (Lispector) This showed women trying to find out about themselves. Also, Lispector says, “If I confirm myself and consider myself truthful, I’ll be lost because I won’t know where to inlay my new way of being.” (Lispector) This part can be related to what Cixous’s demand, which is about women writing to set themselves free. According to Cixous, “I shall speak about…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this Close Reading I will be analyzing a passage from “Preciousness,” by Clarice Lispector, in an attempt to argue that the protagonists idle classroom drawings are a metaphor for an internal struggle to reconcile “self” with normative contextual constraints that compel conformity. “Preciousness” centers on the internal life of an unnamed 15-year old girl, as she attempts to navigate questions of agency, meaning, identity and sexuality within larger cultural and social contexts. Bounded and constrained by conventions and customs inherent to dominant theoretical and ideological paradigms, which through their normative constructions exert a great deal of influence. Painfully self-aware, the protagonist finds her personal conceptions of, and…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Gender Identity

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Gender identity is an individual's personal, the sense of being male or female. Gender identity starts to begin in most children by the age of 3. Although most societies define gender as male and female, many cultures may define gender as neither male or female. Sex refers to biological differences between male and female. The same sex hormone occur in both male and female, but differ in amounts and in the effects that they have upon different parts of the body for example, chromosomes (female XX, male XY), hormones (oestrogen, testosterone). According to the social cognitive theory of gender, children's gender development occurs through being rewarded and punished for gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate behaviors. From birth male and…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays