Gender Stereotypes In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

With a world with more than three billion men out of the seven billion humans living on Earth, it is obvious that today’s world is still male-dominated (Population, male). In fact, our society has created and put into place social norms and gender stereotypes where men are considered the superior, tough, independent, and intelligent leaders of the world, and women to be the inferior, fragile, uneducated, and dependent followers. On the other hand, over the past years, the idea of a person needing to behave a certain way because of their gender, known as gender roles, has been fading and transforming drastically. Today, men and woman are more susceptible and open to breaking the stereotypical gender roles that have been ingrained into one’s …show more content…
To elucidate, the main protagonist, Edna Pontellier, a respectful and wealthy wife and mother, declares to her friend, Madame Ratignolle, her desire to work and do something in her life apart from taking care of her two children affirming, ‘“Perhaps I shall be able to paint your picture someday,” said Edna with a smile when they were seated. She produced the roll of sketches and started to unfold them. “I believe I ought to work again. I feel as if I wanted to be doing something. I might study for a while with Laidpore” (Chopin 62). Another example of Edna’s yearns to work and become an artist is on page 70 as she declares to her friend Mademoiselle Reisz, ‘“Painting!” laughed Edna. “I am becoming an artist. Think of it!”’ Hence, these two quotes from the novel empathizes the fact that women, just like Edna Pontellier, want to work and break free from the typical female gender roles where they only want to take care of their children, instead of obtaining a job. In essence, women’s participation in the workforce has increased dramatically over the years, showing how gender roles are disappearing and revolving day to …show more content…
Gender roles, such as men being the ones expected to work, go to school, and play sports, and women to be the ones expected to clean the house and take care of the children is an ideology many individuals believe to be true when in reality it is something that is completely made up by humans and does not really exist. Perhaps, in a couple of years, gender roles will be completely extinct and something from the past, and people will start to live in a society where men and woman are allowed to be the person they truly are and can dress, act, work, or play the way they want without needing to conform and fit into the cruel expectations that society has placed on