Selection From Hard To Get By Leslie Bell Summary

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In the past centuries, women have been increasingly gaining independence, rights, power, and freedom and our culture highly promotes the equality between men and women. Unlike the mainstream view of pure benefits women have obtained from their emancipation, Leslie Bell proposes in her essay, Selections from Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom, the question a modern woman may face from the newly gained independence and rights in contrary to her traditional gender role: not uncommonly women nowadays are confused and overwhelmed by the drastic change placed on them. Splitting, the tendency to have two polar identities, is a psychological problem women are experiencing according to Bell as a result. From a psychotherapist’s …show more content…

During school time, Jayanthi lives like an American, modernized woman that has no cultural boundaries. However, as soon as she comes home she lives the traditional Indian life. Even before Jayanthi is able to split we see her living two different lives. Jayanthi blames her culture for her confusion rather than analyzing the fact that living like an American and Indian at the same time can make a women build a strong identity because it means she is rather more experienced than a women without traditional background. Bell claim that “[Jayanthi felt more confused than ever about whether she was good or bad, Indian or American” (Bell, “Hard to Get,” 32). In reality I argue Jayanthi is both American and Indian, good and bad at the same time. Jayanthi tries to hide who she is and where she comes from to please others around her because she is psychologically …show more content…

Bells analysis of splitting make it seem like as if it can never be associated with men. Men in certain groups split their desire for women and it can cause women around them to feel offended by it. Jayanthi, when around Indian men, is “expected… to be a nice, virginal girl whom they could bring home to their families” (Bell, “Hard to Get”, 35). Jayanthi does not want to be marriage material only. She wants to leave her environment nest and meet different new people as she can find her inner identity as she gains the experience. For the men around her on the other hand, they do not have to please their parents by trying to get a woman that they are not emotionally connected to. At the end they will realize this is not the women they want to spend the rest of their life

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