Gender and Class in Barbara Kingsolver ‘s The Bean Trees and Toni Morrison’s Home
Introduction
It is no news that gender and class affect the treatment of people in mainstream America, and that explains why it is dismissed as the norm. There seem to be a desensitization against gender oppression when it comes to women, in the wake of protests from the LGBTI to be integrated into the society. There is a cultural pressure on women – sexuality, motherhood, body, identity and other intersections of who a woman is. Coupled with these pressures and unreal societal expectations is domesticity closely knit with poverty. Women especially shrink back from doing things because they are concerned with what people are going to say. These two works deal
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The society dismisses some underlying issues that women contend with
Contrary to what women have internalized about other women, and their friendships – “…women are so suspicious of any interest that has not some obvious motive behind it, so terribly accustomed to concealment and suppression…” (NATC 900) – Barbara Kingsolver paints a different picture in The Bean Trees.
Gender and Class
These two novels present society’s stereotypical view of women. While it is not clear if the intentions of the authors were to expose this stereotype of poor working women, or to validate it, both novels are replete with domesticity. Taylor comes from a single parent household, and her mother is described to have a domestic job. Virginia Woolf points out that “… it is become evident that women, like men, have other interest besides the perennial interests of domesticity” (NATC 899). Mattie singlehandedly and successfully runs a tire store, which looks unconventional to a patriarchal society. Throughout history, women are expected to be domestically minded, and that influences the kind of profession they take up later in life. According to Taylor, “In Pittman if a woman had tried to have her own tire store she would have been run out of business. That, or the talk would have made your ears curl up like those dried apricot things” (The Bean Trees 49). The society is really stuck on dictating gender roles and
Women of the nineteenth century had very set expectations. There were only two types of women: upper class bourgeoisie and lower class farmer’s wives or daughters. Women were considered physically weaker to men, which meant that they were best suited to the domestic sphere while the men workers and made the money. The mill girls defied all of this, and created their own class of women: wage earning middle class women. These women were not like farmers’ wives that were typically uneducated, nor like the bourgeoisie women that were educated, by mostly in domestic and “womanly” skills. The mill girls went to college if they so desired, most of the time doing that in the stead of getting married and becoming a housewife. The mill girls were a
When families immigrated to the United States, men were primarily the ones who were expected to learn and bring in wages to support the family. While women did bring in wages as well, they were expected to care for the home and take care of the children. Because of this, women lacked the chance to go to school and become educated because it was boys who were mainly sent to school. Women were only expected to work and earn money to help support the family. In the novel Bread Givers, a book about an immigrant family in New York, one of the daughters named Sara explains her sister’s role by saying, “Bessie would rush home the quicker to help Mother with the washing or ironing, or bring home another bundle of night work, and stay up till all hours to earn another dollar for the house.” In this novel, Bessie’s duties are to help around the house and work all she can to earn money to support her family. She does not have the privilege to go to school and attempt to prepare for a bet...
illustrates the discrimination against women and the issues that arise from a gender double standard society.
Women, Race and Class is the prolific analysis of the women 's rights movement in the
The main characters are men and they are the main focus throughout both. In Notes from the Underground, the story is based on the life of UM, the underground man, and Willy, the husband and father, in Death of a Salesman. They are the main characters to show that men are the leader and should be paid more attention to because of what they do for their families and themselves. This plays a huge role in Death of a Salesman. Going off of the traditional “norm”, Willy is the bread winner since he is a businessman and Linda, the woman, or course is a house wife and mother. As for in the story Notes form the Underground, UM worked in an office which gave a good indication that he was also the money maker. He never had a female figure in his life because that was one of his issues until he met Liza. She was a female prostitute. This is a very stereotypical point of view because of what society has always believed about gender roles. People do not realize though that these beliefs limit women to do what they want to do. This also brings in the idea of the feminist approach. Feminist criticism, according to “Literary Criticism Post-Modernism: Feminist, African American, Womanist, Psychoanalytical, Post- Colonial, and Gender notes, Feminist is the idea that society is male dominated and all texts are products of
Also gender is an important factor in America social class. Men will be affected differently and women will be affected differently by the class system. In the class system there is inequality between genders and that greatly affects the social mobility of the genders. Men usually hold more important jobs in businesses while women will work under them. For instance in a article by Richard Hogan, it conveys, “How gender relations within the family are reproduced (emulated), at work, in class relations between secretaries and their bosses.” (Hogan 2001: 68). In families the female is usually taking care of the house, children, etc., while the male has a job and earning money. In this example it explains that the boss has a job and is earning money, while the secretary is taking care of the bosses work. This limits the social mobility of females since they always have to work under someone in most cases and they will earn less money than males. Women also take their husband’s social class position when they are married to them. Hogan explains, “Firstly women have been subsumed into class analysis through being identified with the household unit defined by the male partner 's social class position.” (Hogan 2001: 147). This displays that a female has no identity of her own since they take their husband’s social class position it is linked to them. Yet, females still have some kind social class and some social mobility in the class
...women’s roles in society and in the household are. It is quite interesting on how many biased readers and writers we have in this world. There are so many people so quick to label women and men based on very simplistic roles in society. Men believe women have something to prove or justify, but only in the household. Overall, I really enjoyed interpreting this short story and literary reviews by Ann Oakley and Karen Ford.
Until the last hundred years or so in the United States, married women had to rely on their husbands for money, shelter, and food because they were not allowed to work. Though there were probably many men who believed their wives could “stand up to the challenge”, some men would not let their wives be independent, believing them to be of the “inferior” sex, which made them too incompetent to work “un-feminine” jobs. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, feminist writers began to vent their frustration at men’s condescension and sexist beliefs. Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” and Zora Neale Hurson’s “Sweat” both use dialogue to express how women are capable of and used to working hard, thinking originally, being independent
In Christine Stansell’s City of Women, the main issue discussed is “the misfortunes laboring women suffered and the problems they caused” (xi). Throughout the book, Stansell delves into the different aspects that affected these female New Yorkers’ lives, such as inadequate wages, societal stigmas about women laborers, and the hierarchal class system, within antebellum America. She argues that since the nation’s founding, in 1789, the bedrock of these tribulations working women would be mercilessly exposed to was gender inequality. Women’s opportunities and livelihoods were strongly dependent on the dominant male figure in their life, due to the fact that in that period there was very few available and accepted forms of employment for women. Stansell claims, “Paid work was sparse and unstable. Laboring women were confined within a patriarchal economy predicated on direct dependence on men” (18). As the work continues, she illustrates these women’s desires to break away from their reliance on men, as well as the avenues they took to achieve this desired independence. To help solidify her
“There is a double standard here that shapes our perceptions of men and women in ways that support patriarchy as a system. What is culturally valued is associated with masculinity and maleness and what is devalued is associated with femininity and femaleness, regardless of the reality of men’s and women’s lives”,( Johnson 64). In the movie Mona Lisa Smile, Betty’s mother was pressurizing Betty to make her husband read a poem at the wedding not just to act like he enjoyed the marriage but mainly because it was a tradition for men. When Betty said she didn’t care about it, her mother refused and still insisted that she should do it. Women are looked down upon when it comes to the assignment of gender roles and this is because of labels that the society has placed on the female gender. In a home, the father is always the head of the home, providing food and clothing for every family member but there are some women who like to be independent and would also love to work and make money and cater for the family. In the 19th century, women were told they were home makers and were not allowed to endeavor further in higher educational studies. Wellesley College was a college built to raise future wives and not future leaders meaning that society had already placed women below the ladder without any intention or thoughts of them climbing back
When comparing the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Betty Friedan, and Bell Hooks, I assert that both Gilman and Friedan stress that college educated, white upper- and middle-class women should have the incentive to fight against and alter the rigid boundaries of marriage; however, Hooks in her piece From Margin to Center argues that Friedan and other feminist writers during the second wave had written or spoke shortsightedly, failing to regard women of other races and classes who face the most sexist oppression.
Women and men are nestled into predetermined cultural molds when it comes to gender in American society. Women play the roles of mothers, housekeepers, and servants to their husbands and children, and men act as providers, protectors, and heads of the household. These gender roles stem from the many culture myths that exist pertaining to America, including those of the model family, education, liberty, and of gender. The majority of these myths are misconceptions, but linger because we, as Americans, do not analyze or question them. The misconception of gender suggests that biological truths no longer dictate our gender roles as men and women; they derive from cultural myths. We, as a nation, need to do severe critical thinking about this delusion of gender, how has limited us in the home, media, and education, how it currently limits us, and what the results of the current and future changes in gender roles will be.
Men have dominated the workforce for most of civilization up until their patriotic duties called away to war. All of a sudden, the women were responsible for providing for their family while the men were away. Women went to work all over America to earn an income to insure their family’s survival. Women took all sorts of jobs including assembly line positions, office jobs, and even playing professional baseball. When the men returned home from war, the women were expected to resume their place as housewives. The women who had gotten a taste of the professional life decided that they wanted to continue working. Thus, the introduction to women in a man’s working environment began. Women were not taken seriously at first, because they were stepping into a “man’s world”.
In a family, women hold most of the commitment in keeping it together and the men are known to be the budgetary suppliers of the family. Women fill the role of the mother, lover, nurturer, the cook, and the cleaner. This is a staggering measure of work that she should go up against, yet over the long haul the male assumes the acknowledgment in his tendency of supporting the whole family. Since we have these desires of women and men, we disparage the capacity to attempt new things. For instance, if a woman goes out to land a position in a work field, she will be isolated against due to her sex. Furthermore, it is likewise accepted that men won't deal with the family unit duties as a women. With this a gender inequality in the family life, women and men are dealt with contrastingly past their home. Women are out of the house doing her piece of the shopping and men are out working completing things and getting paid for it. It is this part of getting paid for work that is over looked in the female point of view. Women do not get paid to hold the obligation of the family household foundation; they get the affirmation that she is doing what is instructed of her. This is gender inequality disparity that influences for the most part the women. This underestimation of woman in the workforce, suggests to society that she is strange and is dealt with so
The role women play in today’s society is a drastic change from the previous role. Women used to be confined to the superiority of the man. Physically, mentally, and emotionally abused, belittled, embarrassed, and silenced. These are just a few examples of the emotion from the isolated treatment of the past. A woman’s role in today’s society is more valued than ever before.