Free Women And Gender Studies Essay Sample

The issues of gender discrimination are witnessed across different cultures, and especially those that are still coming to age. The gender issues represent some of the feminist issues that emanate from the discrimination of women. Such issues include the hindrance of women from exploring the world, discrimination on expression of their sexualities and barring women from social interactions. Many authors talk about these feminist issues with the use of literary devices that tend to showcase their magnitude. The confab below purposes at emphasizing how different authors have used the literary device of metaphors in elucidating the issues of gender discrimination in different cultural contexts. It will further expound how the device helps the readers to understand or relate to the feminist features of gender discrimination brought up in the literatures.
The first piece of literature in discussion is “The house on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros. The book is a narration from Esperanza, a Mexican girl whose family buys a house on Mango Street. Esperanza was born into a cultural domain that demeaned women. In the book, the narrator describes her loneliness, which is brought about by the fact that she cannot mingle with boys in the neighborhood, who are of her age. She does not have any friends because there are no girls who are of her age and she is forced to play with her younger sister Nenny. For a description of her loneliness, the character says,” I am like a red balloon tied to an anchor.” The red balloon is a metaphor for women who long to explode from the shackles of male dominance explore the world but are tied by their cultures which give men an upper advantage. Through the metaphor, the narrator is able to communicate about the degree of loneliness that women are subjected to every day because they cannot freely mingle. Esperanza further explains the discrimination of women through her brothers who cannot talk to her when they are outside their house.
The narrator explains that her name came from her great grandmother, who was forced into marrying her grandfather. She says, “Grandmother was born in the Chinese year of the horse.” The horse in this case is a metaphor that denotes strength and stability. However, according to the Chinese and Mexican customs, the year of the horse was believed to be a dark bad omen when a woman was born in it. The narrator showcased the stereotypes that are accrued to women in the two cultures. Even though the horse is a symbol of strength, the cultures could not accept it as having the same meaning when it came to women. To this extent, the narrator showcased the aspect of discrimination in how women are perceived. The culture portrayed women as not worthy of possessing the quality of the strength of a horse because they are weak. Esperanza observes that the Chinese and Mexican traditions came up with such feminist superstitions to discourage women from portraying attributes of strength. Investigating issues of gender oppression in relation to other forms of oppression is important. Race, class, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, native language and many more forms of oppression all make up a complex mosaic. The gender problems faced by the specific gender that suffers do not only occur alone but are always related with other problems. It is impossible to face gender inequality without facing other inequalities.
In describing how she came about her grandmothers name, the narrator explains the kind of empty life that her grandmother had been subjected to. She says, “I have inherited her name but I do not want to inherit her place by the window.” She says this in context of how her grandmother always spent her days staring out of the window after being forced to marry her grandfather. The window, in this case, is a metaphor for the world beyond the one which most women had been trapped in the society. The widow is a representation of a world women could not explore because they were barred from it. The men they were forced to marry had trapped them in a world in which their opinions did not matter and the society did not put them into consideration. Espiranza says, “The men did not want the women to be strong as the horse.” Such strength would be seen as a sign for them to think on their account. The men would then feel threatened. Because women were viewed as lesser creatures, they could not make decisions on who to marry. They had been reduced to starring at their freedom from a window. The window is a representation of how women are hindered from achieving their dreams because of the way the society perceived them. The narrator used the window to help the reader understand the desire of women to exist in a world outside that which they had been subjected to.
Esperanza tells the story of Alicia, a college girl who has to clean and cook for her father. At night, she sees mice in the house because she is up studying. The mice are a metaphor of the obstacles that women experience while pursuing their dreams. For instance, men and societal perceptions can be obstacles to the women who want to succeed. In this case, Alicia’s father is an obstacle, and represents the opinions of other men about women. He tells her, “A woman’s job is not in studying. A woman should wake up early and maker tortillas for her brothers and sisters.” Such stereotypes were the mice that hinder women from achieving educational excellence. Also, the father tells Alicia, “A woman does not need education.” Investigating issues of gender oppression with other forms of oppression brings about more knowledge of the existing forms of oppression. The case is the same as in yellow wallpaper by Gilliam; the writer establishes the bounds of marriage that women can go through because of their position in the society. The main character in the book assumes a passive role and is force to live a life of depression after being trapped in a marriage. The case is the same with Espiranza’s grandmother in the sense that she assumes a passive role like is the case in the Yellow wallpaper. It is almost as if Kaysen is beckoning Espiranza’s grandmother to that marriages can be a trap for women to stare at the world beyond through the window.
At times, oppression of any form may exist but be unknown to the public or in the society. Investigating gender oppression only will allow a person, the society or a researcher to know more about issues in gender oppression but will not have any chance to know the other forms of oppression
The house in Mango Street took the approach that was used in "White Privilege" by Peggy McIntosh; the author addresses the privileges of having a white skin as a woman. The author explains that the advantages of being a white woman as opposed to when a woman was black. The metaphor in this article is in the statement, “unpacking the invisible knapsack.” The writer uses the statement to denote the many privileges that white women have but to do not seem to recognize. The privileges appeared invisible in their daily lives because of their refusal to see into aspects of racial discrimination among black women. For instance, a black woman has to watch her steps when going outdoors. The nature of the interactions with black women and white women is the society is depicted as being different by the writer. White women could go for shopping and freely interact with the people in the society. They were treated with respect and had a lot of social engagements, unlike their black counterparts. Despite the sharing of gender, the women that formed the white community pretended to be unaware of how well they were treated. The metaphor represents such a pretense that would not be expected from people who share the same gender. The writer used the metaphor to highlight how the issue of racial discrimination against women could be ignored by fellow women. In such a society, whoever held an upper advantage was the one who had the fairer color. When gender oppression is studied together with the other forms of oppression, such variables involved in the oppressive behaviors can be found. The two use a metaphorical approach to explain aspects of gender oppression and explain the position of women in a society that looks down on them.
In closing, the significance of the literary works of such issues of oppression is based on several theories and critics. The feminist perspectives on power give an importance of the literary works that the feminist theory is devoted to the tasks of analyzing the intersections between sexism and other forms of subordination. These forms of subordination are named as racism, heterosexism and class oppression. Gender oppression is the systematic manner whereby certain groups are either disadvantaged or privileged because of the gender they fall into. There are harmful and inaccurate gender stereotypes yet gender is an integral part of the society. The assumptions that are socially constructed about gender have never described the essential characteristics of people (men and women) outside the binary of gender. Failure to describe the essential characteristics maintains the power difference that is gender based. Such differences give opportunities for other groups to benefit both economically and socially at the expense of others.