Gender Roles In The Secret Woman By Sidione-Gabrielle Colette

Gender roles have been engraved in our society and our culture. It 's an idea that has been accepted and taught generation after generation and is the ideal of what is expected of us accepted individuals. There are the gender roles assigned to men of being strong, and being good providers. For many generations, the definition of being a good 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 the ball due to the fact that he needs to see a patient of his. He also suggests that she should go to the ball alone, but at that Irene responds saying, “As for me…. Can you see me in a crowd, at the mercy of all those hands…. What do you think, I’m not straightlaced, I’m … I’m put out!” She basically exclaims that she is too shy and timid to be in such a crowd and seems to be upset at the thought and wishes her husband would not see her as someone who could behave in such a manner. She …show more content…
“ “He was astonished to find that she rolled her hips softly and dragged her feet a little as though she were wearing Turkish slippers” She walked around without any limitations. At one point she even placed her hand on a woman’s breast. This is a such a huge gesture, especially when looked at when it was written and the amount of restrictions the character feels placed on her, by society. The act of placing her hand on another woman’s breast is defiant of all social expectations and what is socially