The Cult Of True Womanhood: An Analysis

Great Essays
Gender role expectations have been enforced for centuries, for both men and women. Women are traditionally taught to be rooted in “piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity,” per Barbara Welter, author of The Cult of True Womanhood (Welter 152). In opposition, men are associated with, “non-relational attitudes, restrictive emotionality, homophobia, avoiding femininity, aggression, status seeking, and self-reliance” (Mosher 158). Despite these past ideals, gender dynamics are changing, evident in the past 100 years with the emergence of feminism. But, not only are feminine norms changing, masculine norms are also starting to evolve. Proof of this change is with recent CoverBoy, James Charles. James Charles is a seventeen-year-old who got …show more content…
If someone is being bullied and feels pressured to act a certain way, their mental health may be compromised, often resulting in depression, and in some cases, suicide. “A majority of LGBT students (55.2%) were verbally harassed at school based on their gender expression; a fifth (20.0%) reported being harassed for this reason often or frequently,” (“2013 National School Climate Survey Full Report” 22). For these youths to feel more safe at school, we need to become more accepting towards those that are different from us. The campaign that also appointed James Charles to be CoverGirl’s CoverBoy was created with diversity in mind. Called the “So Lashy” campaign, CoverGirl intends to include people of all backgrounds by selling a mascara that caters to all kinds of lashes, regardless of race, gender, and age. it’s also being endorsed for being inclusive and part of a bigger picture, reaching towards celebrated amity. Now, if we continue spreading a message of acceptance and tolerance, like what’s happening with the CoverGirl campaign, we can only improve the lives of those who feel afraid to express themselves. We live in a progressive time that is full of opportunity for a diverse population, and we should not bully those who offer a unique perspective from our own. James Charles, who has over one million followers on Instagram and 380,000 on YouTube, is obviously skilled enough to have acquired the attention of a multi-million-dollar company and people from all over the world. His skill is apparent, regardless of his gender. If he is so talented, and receives recognition for that talent, why does he receive hate from some

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Stereotypes In Liz Prince

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Liz Prince is not the average girl who follows the societal expectations. She, like any other person, is not an exception to the societal expectations for gender roles. Through her graphic memoir, she tells her experiences as a tomboy. Because of Liz’s boyish tendencies, she is not easily accepted in the society. She even has a hard time finding who she is and where she belongs.…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cult Of Womanhood

    • 2462 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Many women fought tirelessly to gain equal rights with men and continued to do so today. In 1893, New Zealand was the world’s first country to grant women the right to vote. Only after World War I did other countries grant women’s suffrage. In 1918 in Britain, women over the age of thirty won the right to vote.…

    • 2462 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In today’s world, it seems that one can see many examples of misogyny, violence, and sexism anywhere she goes. Masculinity was once something that people did not pay much mind to, but it has now become something extremely fragile. To question a man’s masculinity is probably his worst nightmare. Nowadays, that sense of manliness unfortunately causes men to put women or other men down. Works such as Jean Kilbourne’s “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’:…

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In an advanced society such as today ones gender should not been seen as superior over the other, women and men should not be confined to these little stereotypical “boxes”. For centuries men were seen as the hunters, they were strong, they were dominant and women were seen as primary care givers, they were delicate, they did all the house work and relied on the man for food and protection. Nowadays, at the turn of the 21st century we see women and men defying these preconceived notions of what a man should look and act like as…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    When we think of the word 'cult,' we might think of mysterious religious rituals and secretive societies. But the 'cult' we discuss in this lesson refers more to cultural beliefs about the way society should be structured. The Cult of Domesticity, also called the Cult of True Womanhood, is actually a set of beliefs about gender roles in 19th-century America. The middle and upper class men and women who ascribed to this set of values believed that since men were busy working, women should focus on cultivating a home that is supportive, warm, and virtuous. We will examine three main aspects of the Cult of Domesticity:…

    • 125 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Masculinity in The Kite Runner Gender roles have been the perforated lines within our society for centuries, holding us together while simultaneously possessing the ability to tear us apart. We’ve had these ideas of what it means to be masculine and feminine so engrained into our society for such a long period of time that even as we enter a much more progressive era they still seep into the way we raise our children. Traditionally, masculinity can be seen as a combination of three common attributes: strength, honor, and action. Strength is generally referring to emotional toughness and independence, honor to loyalty and generosity, and action to competitiveness and risk-taking.…

    • 1326 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender roles play a huge part in society’s life because they help regulate behaviors and attitude that are socially acceptable. Aaron Devor, a dean at the University of Victoria and author of the article “Gender Roles Behaviors and Attitudes,” argues that men and women have clear rules and guideline in society on the way they should act. Traditionally, masculinity defined as being aggressive and domineering, while feminity defined as nurturing and passive. Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was set in the late 19th century, when Victorian gender roles were very restricted. However, society behavior and attitudes about woman began to change.…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Masculinity’s Crossroads The article “Guys vs. Men,” Dave Barry uses satire to explain the problems with masculinity and a new approach to how males should be classified and judged. The article “The Crisis of American Masculinity” by Eric Garland discusses his view of how the traditional image of manhood is dying in today’s society. Each of them give their opinions on what manhood is; the manner that society should treat males with, the importance of masculinity in males, and their opinion of the necessity of these masculine characteristics.…

    • 2174 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Women in Movies Support Normalizing Male Dominance Boundaries of gender as social structures are constructed by taboos, which reinforce social powers. The interpretation of gender is often the product of popular culture and an important part of this process is the arrangement of a patriarchal structure. This development of a patriarchal structure is often reinforced and maintained through modern media. Products of modern and popular culture are furthermore erect from inscribed ideological backgrounds of the gender hierarchy. Patriarchal representations of submissive and hyper sexualized female identities can be observed through extreme representations of teenage girls in films.…

    • 1292 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cult of True Womanhood The Cult of True Womanhood defined the four qualities every woman should have: “piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness” (Taylor). During the late 1800s and early 1900s, white men took it upon themselves to “protect” women. These men created the ideals of the Cult of True Womanhood, and worked to preserve these virtues at all costs.…

    • 1659 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The moral philosophy of feminism is a big part of today's world socially. Women feel that they are not treated the same as men on a social level considering that men do not receive the same consequences that women do when they do not accept their traditional gender role. In “Feminist Criticism” an article by Lois Tyson from 2006, Tyson talks about what traditional gender roles are in today's society. She compares the ways in which men and women are seen in society and how women can be seen as “bad girls” meaning they don't accept their gender role. The traditional roles are seen as girls are emotional and weak while men are strong and rational.…

    • 1889 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Masculine Identity Essay

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Katherine Allison WS 300 Nov. 26, 2014 The theory of exclusively masculine identity forms a collectively accepted belief or idea of how males are supposed to go about their daily lives. Masculinity is an institutionally and socially prescribed role; however, males play an active part in defining and altering masculinity. For this reason, what is considered masculine varies geographically, culturally, as well as over time. Time and again, the majority of males tend to use language, work, sports, crime, sex, etc. to construct and reconstruct gender and masculinity.…

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The definition of Connells’s theory of the gender order is “the way in which institutional structures (known as gender regimes) and individual identities intersect to produce the social arrangements that mean one gender can dominate another politically, socially and economically. ”(Zajdow, 2011, p. 258). These structures consist of different factors that are not physical in nature. This essay will evaluate this theory and break it down into its components, these components are, but not limited to: patriarchy, different forms of masculinities (hegemonic and homosexual), femininity and gender inequality. Then finally it will be discussed with regards to the workplace and the validity of this theory.…

    • 1385 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender role influence us greatly whether we notice it or not they affect how we see the world. Gender roles in society have emerged over time and indicate how men and women should behave. Men have traditionally been associated with masculine roles such as strength, aggression, and dominance, while on the other hand women have traditionally been associated with feminine roles such as passivity, nurturing, and subordination (Weisband & Thomas, 2015). These gender roles create expectation of what each gender can and cannot do. For example, women are expected to look after their kids and husband by doing the shopping, cleaning and cooking, while men are expected to be the head of the house and provide for the family by working hard and earning money (Muñoz Boudet, Turk, & Petesch, , 2013).…

    • 1596 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introductory Paragraph A. The actuality is that our society wants to gender inequality. Our history has shown that men want to be in control of everything. We place gender specific roles on male and female because our long history of men dominating can’t be easily replaced. In many countries around the world, including the United States of America, we question and raised concerns about a women’s place in male dominated world whether it’s a work place, at home or in public.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics