Woman

father was of being a good provider. Women have their set of gender roles, of being dainty, pure, timid, homemakers, submissive, subservient. The Secret Woman by Sidione-Gabrielle Colette is a short story of how gender roles affect Irene, the subject of the story who finds freedom and liberation in her anonymity at a costume ball. In The Secret Woman, Irene and her husband are supposed to attend a costume ball together. Irene’s husband is a doctor and expresses to Irene that he can’t make it to…

Deborah Gray White, author of Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South, courageously plunges into the research and understanding of the slave experience through race and gender. The overall slave experience of the antebellum South is often represented by the male experience. For the first time, White brings forth an understanding of slave life through the female lens. White reasons that the female slave experience differed from the male slave experience due to the assigned gender…

beauty. Maya Angelou, who is the author of the poem “Phenomenal Woman,” explains that inner beauty is her strength. This work not only celebrates women of any shape and size, but also the power and strength women have within themselves. Angelou wrote this in the 1970’s towards the end of the Black Arts Movement. Women of color began taking the place of what society had traditionally set in the public eye, which was the white woman with a fashion model physique (Poetry Foundation). Despite…

“I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?” (Truth 1851). Hooks’ title pays respect to Sojourner Truths’ speech, which served as a call for action for all women to see themselves as equal to men in the struggle for women’s rights during the feminist movement. Hooks creates a historical timeline of the black woman’s experience and her subservient position within society which…

difference between men and women, placing women’s rights under men’s jurisdiction, which dictated what women were and were not allowed to do. This issue was analyzed by the French and feminist supporter and writer Simone de Beauvoir in her text, “Woman as Other.” In her essay de Beauvoir explains the entire concept of women being considered the “other” gender apart from the men. Touching upon the same issue Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote…

One Modern Woman For the past 80 years or so, planet Earth has been advancing in technology, science, agriculture, but most importantly, society. So quickly, in fact, that humans have had troubles keeping up and adjusting. So what does it mean to be modern? What does it mean to be a woman or a man in 2016? When looking up the definition of modern, the first thing says this definition: “A person who advocates or practices a departure from traditional styles or values”. To be “modern” simply…

anecdotal evidence. Her main purpose is to expel her negative experiences that includes stereotyping, so others can understand the impact of it. Cofer uses her culture to illuminate her rawest emotions regarding the stereotypes she’s faced.. As a Latin woman writing about the stereotypes of other Latin women, Cofer uses this to create a credible foundation…

Roosevelt once stated so cleverly, “A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” Women are nurturers of the world, yet they are underestimated in their preeminence. Their strength has been depreciated for centuries. Surprisingly, it has been during times where it seems their virtue would count the most-- times when slavery and racism existed in it’s entirety. Angela Y. Davis articulates in her essay, “The Black Woman in the Community of Slaves,”…

The Piano (1993) by Jane Campion How vulnerable can a woman be when indulging in her passions? In life, as in nature, it is not possible to see beyond the horizon. When, followed by her young daughter Flora, Ada McGrath, a strong-willed and self-sufficient Scottish widow, mute for having willed herself not to speak, arrives in New Zealand as an imported bride for an arranged marriage to a land-grabber named Alisdair Stewart; she certainly could never have imagined what the final outcome would be…

considerate, kind and missing that spark in life most of us crave. I need a woman who can keep up with my imagination, creativity, sarcasm, logical thinking and self-confidence. A woman who is strong but willing to let go when the time is right and also be willing to completely trust me if I've earned it. A woman that can be independent and then soft and sweet when the lights go dim. What I seek is not for the faint of heart but for a woman who can keep up, the rewards…