This essay will attempt to catalogue fear as it relates to social identity and power in male-female gender roles. Although Abagail Williams and the other young girls in The Crucible had un-expectantly soared to the heights of social dominance within a matter of hours, they had to constantly incite fear into subordinate members of Salem society in order to maintain control. These girls could secure an individual’s fate with one single word: witch. By employing this type of name-calling, these girls could have the entire town anxiously awaiting to hear which ill-fated individuals’s names would be called next. But just like any form of power on this Earth, their’s was not without its limits. Many men, whether deliberately or inadvertently,
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Rather than calling them “witches” like the girls did in Salem, the patriarchy seeks to degrade women’s rights activists by giving them demeaning labels. Resulting from this derogative name-calling is a negative stigma associated with feminism. Men represent the feminist as a caricature figure for all to see: a fat, bitter lesbian who refuses to shave her armpits. It is no surprise, then, that out of a sense of self-preservation, many women publicly reject feminist ideology. Name-calling is a surprisingly effective technique for males to exercise control over females. Males are motivated to suppress feminists in order to retain their sense of manhood, and females are motivated to stay in their subordinate role so that they will not be associated with the negative connotations of the term …show more content…
Proctor takes away Abagail’s power to dominate him by maintaining his integrity at the cost of his life. Miller provides his audience with Proctor as a guide to light the way for finding one’s gender identity. It is only when men stop their name-calling and women stop their public confessions that the witch hunt for gender-identity will finally end. Men lose their power to subject women to an inferior status when women choose to maintain their integrity at the cost of their immediate social
Rather than calling them “witches” like the girls did in Salem, the patriarchy seeks to degrade women’s rights activists by giving them demeaning labels. Resulting from this derogative name-calling is a negative stigma associated with feminism. Men represent the feminist as a caricature figure for all to see: a fat, bitter lesbian who refuses to shave her armpits. It is no surprise, then, that out of a sense of self-preservation, many women publicly reject feminist ideology. Name-calling is a surprisingly effective technique for males to exercise control over females. Males are motivated to suppress feminists in order to retain their sense of manhood, and females are motivated to stay in their subordinate role so that they will not be associated with the negative connotations of the term …show more content…
Proctor takes away Abagail’s power to dominate him by maintaining his integrity at the cost of his life. Miller provides his audience with Proctor as a guide to light the way for finding one’s gender identity. It is only when men stop their name-calling and women stop their public confessions that the witch hunt for gender-identity will finally end. Men lose their power to subject women to an inferior status when women choose to maintain their integrity at the cost of their immediate social