Representation of Women in "Men Should Weep" by Ena Lamont Stewart and "Perfect Days" by Liz Lochead
Both plays portray women as very independent people. In “Men Should
Weep”, Maggie is the main female character. She is a housewife living
in a male dominated society. The main theme of the play is her journey
form oppressed housewife to self-empowered women.
Whereas in “Perfect Days” Barbs the main female character is an
extremely independent woman from the start and has worked hard to earn
herself her own hairdressers.
Maggie’s husband John is a very self-centred character; he doesn’t
have a job or any notion to ever help around the house. Yet he thinks
that is perfectly acceptable. Due to the way society was in that day
and age then it said that once a woman wedded they automatically
became their husband’s property. This meant that they had no choice
but to obey their husbands every demand. What they said went.
“I’d an idea a wis heid o this hoose”
This demonstrates that even though John doesn’t contribute to the
family he still feels he is superior to them all. Maggie takes this
though she doesn’t argue with him as she believes that he is head of
the household and she constantly stands up for him.
Lily, Maggie’s independent single sister is very much against men she
thinks ‘there aw dirty beasts’. As she argues with Maggie about John
but Maggie straight away stands up for her husband.
“You leave John alane! He does his best for us”
Even though Maggie knows John doesn’t do anything for her and her
children she still stands strongly by her husband as that was the
right thing to do.
Not only does Maggie have her husband to run around after her and look
after her, but she also has five children.
“If you’ve got wee ans, you’ve got tae put up wi the fella that gie’d
ya them”
The women in the play are constantly making excuses for the men and
their behaviour. Maggie is particularly bad at doing this. This is a
prime example of this behaviour as Mrs Bone her neighbour gets
domestically abused and this is Maggie’s attempt to offer her support.
As the play progresses Maggie gradually starts to see sense and comes
to realise how weak men really are.
“They canna staun up tae things like a wummen”
This shows female strength and is the start of a major turning point
for Maggie as she becomes more and more disenchanted with her life.
Jenny, Maggie’s eldest daughter runs of at the beginning of the play
but returns at the end with money and the opportunity for Maggie and
Masculinity in "Men Should Weep" by Ena Lamont Stewart and "Perfect Days" by Liz Lochead
The predominant feminist theme that stood out for me in the story 'Yellow woman' by Leslie Marmon Silko and 'The story of an hour' by Kate Chopin relates to the protagonists' expectations of fulfilling thier roles as wives. The two women struggle with what they should think, what is appropriate for them to feel in their circumstances and the obvious restrictions on their freedom.
Women in America have been described as “domestic household slaves” referring to their status in society. Do the documents support this assertion? If so what is the evidence?
Men and Women in The Withered Arm and Other Stories by Thomas Hardy and Men and Women in Turned by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The contentious little book titled Women, Power, Politics maintains politics to be devalued, acknowledging the fact that only few people do vote, and women are unable to achieve within the realm of Canadian politics. Sylvia Bashevkin, the author of the book argues that Canadians have a profound unease with women in positions of political authority, what she calls the "women plus power equals discomfort" equation. She evaluates a range of barriers faced by women who enter politics, including the media's biased role of representing the private lives of women in politics, and she wonders why citizens find politics is underrepresented in Canada compared to Belgium. In clear, accessible terms, Bashevkin explains her ideas on how to eliminate “low voters turn-out,” “devaluation of politics,” "gender schemas," and "media framing.” She outlines some compelling solutions to address the stalemate facing women in Canadian politics which are; contesting media portrayals, changing the rule of the game, improving legislative quotas, electoral reform, movement renewals, and so on. This response paper would addresses the reality of a political mainstream, actions which should be taken against the oppressive elements of reality, and the awareness it brings through economic, social, and political environment.
In the stories “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, you see two different ways that women are seen and the different times that they are living in. For example in one story we have a college student who comes back home for the first time and has a different outlook on life now. In the other story we have an older lady who is willing to endure whatever to make sure that her loved one is taken care of. Even though these two stories are very different in the way the roles of women are seen, they show how women roles in society are seen from the past and present and how something have changed but are still the same.
... Jerilyn, and Ellen Silber. Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of a Gender.
Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.
Today, women are not typically seen in higher levels of position in the work force than men. In Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, she uses her own experience to convey why it is not possible for a woman to work in a higher position, due to women being more emotional than men. People still believe it’s a women’s place to stay at home to cook, clean and take care of the children, while the men go to work to pay the bills. And it’s considered odd if the man is a stay at home father and the woman is working 24/7 and is never home. Even though it is rewarding to be able to always be there to see your child’s milestones in their life. It is always nice to get away from that life for even a moment. I don’t mean going out with the girls or guys, while you hire a babysitter, but helping your husband or wife pay the bills, so you have two rather than one income coming in at the end of the month. In Richard Dorment’s article, “Why Men Still Can’t Have It All” he states that both men and women can’t have it all. I agree with both Slaughter and Dorment, but not entirely. I believe if you want to be a good
The feminist perspective of looking at a work of literature includes examining how both sexes are portrayed
Due to traditional stereotypes of women, literature around the world is heavily male-dominant, with few female characters outside of cliché tropes. Whenever a female character is introduced, however, the assumption is that she will be a strong lead that challenges the patriarchal values. The authors of The Thousand and One Nights and Medea use their female centered stories to prove their contrasting beliefs on the role of women not only in literature, but also in society. A story with a female main character can be seen as empowering, but this is not always the case, as seen when comparing and contrasting Medea and The Thousand and One Nights.
Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print.
Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.
Mrs. Marian Forrester strikes readers as an appealing character with the way she shifts as a person from the start of the novel, A Lost Lady, to the end of it. She signifies just more than a women that is married to an old man who has worked in the train business. She innovated a new type of women that has transitioned from the old world to new world. She is sought out to be a caring, vibrant, graceful, and kind young lady but then shifts into a gold-digging, adulterous, deceitful lady from the way she is interpreted throughout the book through the eyes of Niel Herbert. The way that the reader is able to construe the Willa Cather on how Mr. and Mrs. Forrester fell in love is a concept that leads the reader to believe that it is merely psychological based. As Mrs. Forrester goes through her experiences such as the death of her husband, the affairs that she took part in with Frank Ellinger, and so on, the reader witnesses a shift in her mentally and internally. Mrs. Forrester becomes a much more complicated women to the extent in which she struggles to find who really is and that is a women that wants to find love and be fructuous in wealth. A women of a multitude of blemishes, as a leading character it can be argued that Mrs. Forrester signifies a lady that is ultimately lost in her path of personal transitioning. She becomes lost because she cannot withstand herself unless she is treated well by a wealthy male in which causes her to act unalike the person she truly is.
Feminism has made a major change in not just women’s lives but in the world. Throughout the world, women have always been considered “second class citizens” yet as the years have passed, proven facts show that women are capable of working just as good as men and even do more duties at the same time. In the early centuries most women weren’t able to get any type of credit without a male cosigner and in certain countries their husbands had complete control not only for their property but for their earnings as well. Men created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated, but deemed of little account in man. Women