Sexism In The Great Gatsby

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Throughout time women have been written as the lesser sex weaker, secondary characters. They are portrayed as dumb, stupid, and nothing more that their fading beauty. They are written as if they need to be saved or helped because they cannot help themselves. Women, such as Daisy Buchanan who believes all a women can be is a “beautiful little fool”, Mrs Mallard who quite died when she lost her freedom from her husband, Eliza Perkins who rights the main character a woman who is a mental health patient who happens to be a woman being locked up by her husband, and then Carlos Andres Gomez who recognizes the sexism problem and wants to change it. Women in The Great Gatsby, “The Story of an Hour,” “The Yellow Wall Paper” and the poem “When” are He convinces the women that their place in society is to be helpless and at his mercy. This is especially apparent through Tom Buchanan 's wife Daisy. Daisy believes, “that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” (Gatsby 21) She believes that all she is a beautiful little fool, but no one can blame her. Whenever Daisy is spoken about it 's not in relation to her intelligence, but rather that, “‘Her voice is full of money,’ [Gatsby] said suddenly. That was it. [Tom had] never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl. . . .” (Gatsby 119) The men in The Great Gatsby blame her for being dumb or stupid, but she was never encouraged to be anymore than that. This idea of frailty in women is not only seen in Daisy but also Myrtle The America that we live in wants to believe in the fact all men and women are created equal, it has yet to do anything. Women are still seen as objects to an extent. We are still seen as Daisy or as Charlotte Perkins main character, or the women Carlos Gomez Andres writes about. The fact that we might die from the loss of freedom, because one cannot escape from an unhappy marriage is considered ridiculous. It 's considered ridiculous because all a women should want is a rich husband and children. The American society does not allow for women to dream to cure cancer because that is a man 's obligation. The writing of the past and present is a perfect example of the lack of change. You can see it with every sexist word written and with every girl who is written dumb and helpless. If all men and supposedly women were created equal then why aren 't more men written as helpless. If man and woman is created equal then men should be written written as hopeless beautiful little fools, whose voices are full of money, who are held captive by their husbands, and who die from their lost freedom in an unhappy

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