¶ … fictionalized, Marilyn French's book The Women's Room offers a telling account of gender norms, roles, and status in American society. Published in 1977, the novel depicts the emergence of feminist consciousness among middle class white women. The protagonist of the novel is Mira, who comes of age in the 1950s and evolves values distinct from those not only of her mother's generation but also of her own. Mira starts out a young woman interested in finding a partner who will not restrict her to a life of domestic servitude, which she fears throughout the novel. She eventually finds a man symbolically named Norm, who although initially seems to offer Mira an egalitarian relationship, ends up falling into his role as the "provider" of the family who takes Mira for granted and who eventually has an affair with another woman. In the meanwhile, Mira develops a series of friendships with women, revealing the unique sociological dynamics of same-sex friendships versus other types of relationships, including heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Mira ends up divorced and in a relationship with an African man, introducing race as a sociological concept too. Ultimately, Mira realizes her potential independently of men and provides an instructive guide for like-minded women. The Women's Room is a work of fictional sociology, focused mainly on gender, social status, and the social construction of identity. Status in the society is linked directly with gender. With women persistently self-categorizing and being categorized by...
Women are defined by their relationships with men, and they define themselves in the same way. The opening line of the novel is "Mira was hiding in the ladies' room," a line that contains some of the core themes of the book. For one, women "hide" from each other, from themselves, and from society by either living in the shadows of men or working in low-status positions that constrain their creativity and inhibit their personal power. Whereas men are taught to be assertive, women are socialized to be submissive, quiet, and demure. Women who step outside of their boundaries and roles in the society are dismissed as being uppity, upstart, or stripped from their status as "feminine" members of the society. Powerful women in a patriarchal society are deviant. Although Mira only befriends one lesbian in The Women's Room, the author does point out the intersections between gender, status, and sexuality by discussing some of more "radical" feminists in her circle at Harvard. The fact that feminism is at all viewed as being "radical" is itself a sociological statement showing that patriarchy is taken for granted as a desirable and default social institution.
Brewster Place in these stories thus stands at a point when change is taking place but has not yet been as thorough as it would be later. The African-Americans now living in Brewster Place have largely migrated from the South. Indeed, Mattie Michael and several other characters arrive in Brewster Place from her parents' home in the South. When Mattie leaves her parents' home, she is pregnant by a disreputable
gender roles in the workplace pre-exist much of what we think defines what work really is; not only do they pre-exist the modern working world of offices and factories, but they also seems older than more basic things, like writing and currency. From the world of the Tasaday tribe in the Philippines to that of such fields as genetic engineering and astrophysics, men and women are compelled to function
As activists in women's liberation, discussing and analyzing the oppression and inequalities they experienced as women, they felt it imperative to find out about the lives of their foremothers -- and found very little scholarship in print" (Women's history, 2012, para. 3). This dearth of scholarly is due in large part to the events and themes that are the focus of the historical record. In this regard, "History was
SCIENCE FICTION & FEMINISM Sci-Fi & Feminism Origins & Evolution of Science Fiction As with most things including literature, science fiction has progressed and changed a lot over the years. Many works of science fiction were simply rough copies and following the altready-established patterns of prior authors. However, there has always been authors and creators that push the envelope and forge new questions and storylines that have not been realized or conceptualized before.
Sociology and Feminist Theories on Gender Studies Postmodern Feminism in "Cherrie Moraga and Chicana Lesbianism" In the article entitled, "Cherrie Moraga and Chicana Lesbianism," author Tomas Almaguer analyzes and studies the dynamics behind Moraga's feminist reading of the Chicano culture and society that she originated from. In the article, Almaguer focuses on three elements that influenced Moraga's social reality as she was growing up: the powerful effect of the Chicano culture, patriarchal
Rent, gas, utilities, food, and clothing become a burden because the market is not set up for those who make the least but those who make more than that and it really does not matter how much more because at a certain level, it is all too much and the low earners are simply left out of the system altogether. Nickel and Dimed also taught me that social responsibility
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