Questioning Conventional Gender Roles in William Wycherley’s The Plain Dealer

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-38
Author(s):  
Golman Gurung
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Traditional Conception ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles

This article argues that the notion of gender is not a fixed category and doesn’t have any given essence to it. The male and female characters in William Wycherley’s play The Plain Dealer perform roles that tend to challenge our traditional conception of gender roles. Gender identities are complex things and it is not possible to reduce them to simple and unproblematic essences. The Character Manly falls into the trap of a woman’s machinations and succumbs to her power. His lack of manliness and the Widow’s knowledge and alacrity prove that traditional gender roles are open to challenge and can be reversed by different characters in different situations. This article analyses the role of the characters in the light of Foucauldian discourse and Judith Butler’s theory of gender as performance.

Legal Change and Stigma in Surrogacy and Abortion

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-195
Author(s):  
John A. Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Procreative Liberty ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
Cultural Paradigm ◽  
Good Mother

The role of stigma in limiting reproductive rights has long hovered in the air. Paula Abrams has sorted through the concept and shown how it operates in two major areas of procreative liberty — having a child through surrogacy and avoiding childbirth by abortion. Her paper is especially useful for showing how legal change initially dilutes stigma but may reinstall it with post-legalization regulation.Abrams argues that both abortion and surrogacy are stigmatized because they deviate from traditional gender roles and social expectations about pregnancy and maternity. Past restrictions have rested on a common legal and cultural paradigm of the good mother: a woman who conceives, carries her child to term, and then rears the child. Indeed, as she later argues, evidence of stigma surrounding a practice is “relevant to determining whether laws regulating abortion or surrogacy are based on impermissible stereotyping.”

The Role of Writing and Sociability for the Establishment of a Persona

2021 ◽  
pp. 195-210
Author(s):  
Anne Pollok
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Mutual Exchange ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Public ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
Public Persona ◽  
One Step ◽  
Self Formation

This chapter examines the various strategies of intellectual self-formation by female intellectuals. While Henriette Herz created the public persona of the nurturing muse in her salon and established the idea of mutual exchange between the sexes, Rahel Varnhagen took the idea of self-reflection in the eyes of others one step further and, together with her husband, created a monument of remembrance with her collection of letters, fashioning the modern persona as fundamentally constituted through her exchange with others. Bettina von Arnim, finally, had no qualms using the most prominent poet, Goethe, as a prop in her writings, exercising the subversive power of remembrance to establish herself. Even though all these strategies build on the (male) other, they showcase the potential to subvert traditional gender roles.

scholarly journals Cultivating Women’s Empowerment through Agritourism: Evidence from Andean Communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 3058 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Gil Arroyo ◽  
Carla Barbieri ◽  
Sandra Sotomayor ◽  
Whitney Knollenberg
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
South America ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Tourism Development ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Gender Dynamics ◽  
Cultural Considerations ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles

Tourism has the potential to empower women, particularly in rural areas. However, little is known about whether it can have the same effect in Andean communities, mainly because the traditional social and cultural structures of those communities have limited women’s ability to empower themselves through traditional economic activities. Through interviews with residents participating in agritourism development in seven communities across the Cusco and Puno regions (Peru, South America), this study examined the role of agritourism development in the empowerment of women in those communities as well as the ways in which it has changed traditional gender roles. Study findings revealed that agritourism contributes to four areas of empowerment for women: psychological, social, political, and economic. However, the culture of the Andean communities still has considerable influence on gender dynamics and may prevent women from garnering all the benefits of tourism development. Agritourism development in those communities should incorporate gender-related cultural considerations to navigate and overcome barriers, thereby allowing the maximization of empowerment benefits for women.

Male and Female in the Homeric Poems

Ramus ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Rowan Beye
Keyword(s):  
Western World ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Female Relationships ◽  
General Conception ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Female Behaviour

The following is an investigation of the nature of women in the Homeric poems. It is generally accepted that epic figures are typical rather than individual, idiosyncratic personalities. So it is reasonable to assume that the women of the two poems represent the general conception of female behaviour held by Homer's audience. Even if the poems represent a tradition which was a long time in the making, it remains true that what appears within the poems must have made sense somehow to Homer's contemporary audience. And that is the sense we must seek.There has been very little said about the role of women in the Homeric epics. Discussion is bound to be uneven; women are glimpsed infrequently in the Iliad, whereas they are everywhere in the Odyssey. But this in itself perhaps offers insights into the nature of the difference between the two poems. In addition an analysis of the part women play in these poems helps to explain the continual appeal of the Iliad and the Odyssey. For the poems, like all truly great pieces of literature, say things that we humans need and want to hear. As is true of other facets of the poems the female characters are extraordinarily authentic. They manifest moods and psychological states which are true to women, at least in the Western world. Moreover the poems, especially the Odyssey, show with great profundity some important truths of male-female relationships. Whether these are inherent and never-changing or it is because women's situation has not much changed through the millenia is hard to say.

scholarly journals Role of Optimism over Pessimism in the Novels of Thomas Hardy: Mechanism of Chance and Fate

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-64
Author(s):  
Manoj Kumar Yadav ◽  
Meenakshi Sharma Yadav
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Thomas Hardy ◽  
Marital Relationship ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Made In

Thomas Hardy is mostly acclaimed as a pessimist novelist whose plots are full of tearful tragic tales. In all his novels, the adverse situations come from the uncertain conditions of the role of the chance that emerges based on the characters’ psycho-analytic states and eccentric impulses, financial variations and barriers, irregularities of social status and standards, communal, cultural and ethnic misunderstanding, lack of trust in the marital relationship, thrust and lust of sexual pleasure, historical attitudes and backgrounds, highness of royal families, and religion egoism on the unmatched unities of action, place, and time in the Victorian modernity that forces all the characters to survive a life full of sufferings and misfortunes throughout the plots. But this paper has a fresh approach to explore the philosophy of optimism in Hardy’s novels that how the male and female characters, despite facing the irony of fate and chance, have a shining line of hope, faith and love in their lives. He accepted the fact that humanity goes forward from darkness to light, from despair to hope and from pessimism to optimism. He was endowed with optimism as he always hoped for advancement and betterment in every sphere of life. He valued certain outstanding basic values like hope, love, affection, sympathy, kindness, gentility, and selflessness. A humble effort has been made in the present paper to trace out these ‘good things in the bad things’ in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Hence, it can be seen that Hardy has been proved as the surveyor of human spectrum in all its aspects, at times striking a note of discord, but on the whole presenting a case of doing the mechanism of accidentalism for the robust optimism over pessimism in his novels.

scholarly journals Hunting in Seneca’s Phaedra

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alin Mocanu
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Love Elegy ◽  
Spatial Point ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Erotic

Seneca, in his tragedy Phaedra, created an elegiac character using, among other elegiac conventions, the amorous hunting. His Phaedra turns into an aggressive erotic predator who wants to “hunt” Hippolytus whom she is in love with. The prologue of Phaedra connects the play with elegiac poetry through the extensive use of venery description, because it highlights Hippolytus’ attitude to love: the young man sees the forest as a place of reclusive solitude where he can hide from frenetic passion. The prologue to Phaedra is also important from a spatial point of view, for Seneca associates his two main characters with a fundamental difference in locale that recalls the roman elegiac paraclausithyron, where the lover tries, without success, to penetrate into his beloved’s intimate space, the house. Furthermore, Seneca reverses the relationship between the lovers: Hippolytus becomes the beloved, Phaedra, the lover, thus inverting the gender roles of normal erotic elegy. At the same time, he amplifies this convention, making it the main theme of his tragedy, for Phaedra has a fundamental impact on the play’s action through her desperate attempts to conquer her stepson. Roman love elegy often associates the lover, the feeble man, with the hunter, while representing the beloved, the dominant woman, as his prey. Seneca goes further, because Hippolytus, the true hunter, becomes the erotic prey, while the female character takes on the role of the erotic predator. In this way, Seneca justifies the reversal of the male and the female characters’ roles in his use of the elegiac theme of hunting.

scholarly journals Nudity of Male and Female Characters in Television Advertising Across 13 Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (4) ◽  
pp. 1101-1122
Author(s):  
Jörg Matthes ◽  
Michael Prieler
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Research ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Television Advertising ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Multilevel Analyses ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Product Categories ◽  
Gender And Age

There is a lack of comparative research on nudity in television advertising. Building on cross-cultural theory, we examined countries’ gender indices and preclearance policies as predictors of nudity. We also tested the influence of a main actors’ gender and age, as well as the role of product categories. We sampled N = 1,755 TV ads from 13 countries and found that the main characters’ nudity was higher for women compared with men, less likely with increasing age, and occurred more often for congruent than incongruent products. Multilevel analyses showed that nudity was independent of a country’s gender indices and preclearance policy.

Woman's Body as the Site of Violence in Parijat's Blue Mimosa

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
Indira Acharya Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Corporal Punishment ◽  
Feminist Perspective ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
Special Power ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Control

 The article aims to analyze Parijat's Blue Mimosa, which was originally published as Śirīṣako Phūla (1965) from the feminist perspective. Feminists argue that patriarchy is unfriendly to women. They explain that because of biased patriarchal gender roles women suffer from gender-based violence. They claim that in patriarchy men have special power and privileges which allow them to dominate and control women to their benefit. They use corporal punishment and sexual violence in case women deny to submit to them. Thus, feminists protest the imposition of traditional gender roles in the process of socialization. They demand for a more egalitarian perspective towards gender which allows human individuals to live according to their interests and capacities. In Blue Mimosa, the female characters become the victim of gender-based violence. They are physically assaulted, raped, and murdered. Their bodies become the site where men enact violence. Thus, feminism is relevant to analyze the text. The article argues that these female characters become the victim of violence just because they are women. The article helps to understand how women suffer from gender-based violence in patriarchy.

scholarly journals GENDER ROLES OF MAIN CHARACTERS IN DANIELLE STEEL’S “FRIENDS FOREVER”

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (15) ◽  
pp. 30-36
Author(s):  
Galyna Tsapro ◽  
Olha Chorna
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Communication Styles ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Social Image ◽  
Gender Expectations ◽  
Best Friends ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
Staying At Home

The research is devoted to the study of protagonists’ gender roles created by Danielle Steel in her book about five best friends. The corpus and discourse analyses have been applied to examine verbal characterization of main characters. Appearance, traits of character, relationships with others, moral values as well as communication styles have been studied. Gender roles have been perceived mostly as prescribed stereotypical norms of social behavior. Gender roles presented in literary works reflect social male and female portrayals but concurrently main characters’ gender portraits shape readers’ images and concepts about gender. Danielle Steel assigns traditional gender roles to her characters sketching their vivid images from childhood till later years. The female characters Izzie and Gabby correspond to traditional gender expectations about girls but still Gabby turns out to have bossy nature that is reflected in her behavior and speech. Three male protagonists, Andy, Billy and Sean, in general possessing quite traditional gender roles, are depicted as completely different personalities with some deviation from gender expectations about men. The main characters’ fathers in general represent an established social image of successful professionals, family providers, most of them being loving and supporting fathers, while the protagonists’ mothers form two contrastive groups of staying at home and working women. The portraits of two working mothers differ greatly, depicting the woman devoting all her time to work and ignoring her daughter’s needs and the other despite being busy at work still being able to take care of her son. Other three women are ideal pictures of affectionate mothers and wives.

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