Women

she places her finger inside her mouth again. The words “fat” and “ugly” fill her head as forced tears squeeze out her eyes. She just wants to be beautiful – beautiful like the girl in the magazine. Depicting women with tight, thin waists and thin arms and legs were not popular now, but popular throughout history. This “standard of female beauty” can start during the 19th century, a century where women had tiny waists and large “bustles” (Derenne). Later, the invention of the corset began to become the trend of the 20th century. However, instead of dresses, they…

Although the expectations of these women may differ severely, both facilitate oppression and neither can be achieved without women sacrificing their own wellbeing. The contradictory beauty ideals thrust upon women in the 21st enforce patriarchy by destructing mental and physical health in various manners. The destruction of health, which are heavily influenced by the ideas of patriarchy, are of American women can be directly attributed to the stereotypes of black and white women formed during…

Sexual Objectification of Women If a woman today is asked if she has ever felt uncomfortable due to an unwanted compliment from a man, she will probably say yes. If a woman is asked if she would rather have the body of Kate Upton than her own, she will probably say yes. If a woman is asked if she has ever tried to lose weight or considered reconstructive surgery to get closer to an ideal body, she will probably say yes. These are all examples of sexual objectification and potential…

statement that the female characters in To Kill a Mockingbird emulate through their actions (Ephron). This statement, written by a woman, urges other women to not stand by when difficult situations arise, but to have the strength to overcome those situations. This strength is hard to find, especially in a male-dominated world such as the setting in To Kill a Mockingbird. The setting takes place in the early 1930s. Common knowledge reveals that the further back one goes in history, the less and…

Female coming of age stories are especially intriguing, considering that society often has a set of ideals about what is of value to women and what young women should experience. The Lives of Girls and Women, by Alice Munro, introduces the story of a girl named Del growing into a woman. Del is a young girl who is primarily raised by her mother. Del explores her sexuality, her religious beliefs, her sense of self-empowerment, and the function of gender in society. Housekeeping, written by…

Women in The Big Sleep As I have mentioned before, this was true in the case of the rise of feminism. Before the turn of the century, “Women arrived, en masse, [to the Western frontier], and the ‘male-dominated homosocial world of gold rush California’ gave way to a ‘settled domestic Victorian discipline’” (Hoefer 49). That ‘Victorian discipline’ gave way in the 1920s to a deviant social norm, exemplified by Carmen and to a lesser extent Vivian. Right before Marlowe expresses how much he…

Women have often been included in paintings and art even back to the Native Americans. Women within pieces of art typically portrayed the role of women during that time or culture. As the time in which a piece was created changed, the depicted role of women also adjusted. Additionally, the role of women varied between different cultures. However, the general ideas represented by the female form in artwork were motherhood, beauty, and the obligation to care for the home. One of the ways in…

The daughter in "New York Day Women" by Edwidge Danticat is a curious person as she sees what her mother is up to. Her struggle is not fitting in with everyone else and the American norms because at times she feels embarrassed by her mother's ways. As Suzette thinks her mother has not adapted to the American culture and lifestyle as she has. And that makes them different from each other. Throughout the passage, Suzette's seems to be annoyed by her mother's lack of American sense and lack of…

Young women are prime victims to media due to their lack of experience and because their minds are still growing, young women are persuaded much easier. However what is the influence the media is having on these young girls? media displays the perfect women in their heads, influencing their preference on body type as well as providing them with poor choices for role models. Through time the media has changed the standard for what the “perfect” woman looks like. Todays choice for beauty is to be…

In the film Real Women Have Curves, which is a coming of age story, the main conflict was between a daughter, Ana, and her mother, Carmen. The mother and daughter cannot get along because of their age and traditional differences. Ana’s mother was old fashioned and wanted her daughter to graduate highschool, lose weight, join the family in their dressmaking business, and find a husband. Ana did not want her life to be this way and wanted to go to college and be and educated women who finds true…