Women In Jane Eyre

In today’s world, it is very difficult to imagine a life where women live without the rights they have. The feminist movement has fought for the rights women have today; as the years went on, more ideas are brought up to further the feminist movement and make the genders equal. In the novel, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Jane lives in an era where women are viewed as simply the mothers and caregivers. However, even in that era she challenges those views using feminist ideals and later replaces them with expectations closer to how women are viewed today. The article, “Does slut-shaming start with school dress codes?” By Amel Ahmed, describes the difference in how boys and girls are treated by school faculty and friends at school based on what …show more content…
Using examples of sexuality and feministic ideals, the article and novel depict ways in which society’s rules essentially tell us how to live our lives. Everyone has his or her own opinion on the unequal nature of the genders. In school, “ ‘Girls are often told not to wear ‘distracting clothing,} Sandil said. {Schools are sending the message that a girl’s physical appearance is to blame for how boys behave towards them’. “(Ahmed, 2) Not only are dress codes essentially coaching females to watch what they wear so they do not distract males, they also make it very easy for a girl to heed the stereotypical prejudices that surrounds the female gender. However, the stereotypes today have made a lot of progress since the Victorian era of Jane Eyre when society easily accepted the man as the superior. When Bronte created …show more content…
Yet, it still has a long way to go to achieve its ultimate goal of equality of the sexes. The article and the novel demonstrate how society’s expectations can change how a person makes decisions through examples of feminist ideals and sexualization of females. In the article, girls are often unfairly dress coded for “distracting boys”. Thus teaching girls that their bodies are essentially objects so they should change what they wear so they do not distract any males. The novel portrays the character, Jane Eyre, as a strong, independent woman who practices feminist ideals. Unlike many women in the Victorian era, she does not submit to a man’s “power”. She uses her values and beliefs to make choices for herself and by herself. Society has a powerful way of teaching a person how to live his or her own life; yet it is the person who decides whether they value their morals more or what society thinks of them. If a person values what society thinks of them more, they are a follower. If a person values their own morals more than what society thinks of them, they are strong-willed, independent