Feminist therapy

The progressive era in the late 1800s and early 1900s served as a turning point for women regarding the role they play in society. The traditional woman was domesticated and obligated to suppress opinions, both of which resulted in a lack of freedom. Some women and organizations wanted change. They worked to obtain the right to vote, as well as gain economic, political and social equality. In the novels The Great Gatsby and Dracula, the differences of a traditional woman and today's modern woman…

Repressive Sexuality: The Bell Jar depicts Esther’s relationship with herself, to be a “surveyed self” (Gentry, 47). It shows how self can operate in relation to body image and sexuality through idioms of “the fashioned self” (Pelt, 15) and Esther’s confrontations with sexual orientation in The Bell Jar. It links Esther’s identity process with that of the broader organizations of patriarchal power within American society. Esther seems to be in conflict with the idea of sexuality. She…

Laura Bier’s novel, Revolutionary Womanhood: Feminisms, Modernity, and the State in Nasser’s Egypt, was published in 2011 and delves into feminism and state feminism during the Nasser era in Egypt. Bier analyzes the secular nationalist projects that emerged in the 1950’s and the myriad of events that led Egypt to reassess women’s role in Egypts society. The novel is split up into five main parts: the historical roots of State Feminism, the construction of the “working woman”, legal reform in…

G.D. Anderson once said that "Feminism isn't about making women strong. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength." Although America has come a long way in its fight for everyone to have equal civil rights, there is still a long way to go. Through Susan B. Anthony’s legacy and a poem by Sojourner Truth, it is evident that because women aren’t given the same treatment as men, they have similar issues that African Americans had with slavery and the…

Stephen Covey once said, “Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.” In this quotation, Covey explains that once you determine your beliefs and what you stand for, use your voice to inspire others to do the same. The same concept applies in the two works “Ain’t I A Woman” by Sojourner Truth and “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou. The main focus of these pieces is about women taking action and using the power of their voice to change the living for women and the levels of society.…

Feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. While the Feminist Movement is important in the present day, the play written in 1947 by Tennessee Williams became known for its portrayal of the dynamics between men and women. In the play, Streetcar Named Desire, feminism plays the main role. Taking place after the second world war, the men of this play assume that they have more power than women. While, in reality, the women have the same or greater strength…

In “The Laugh of the Medusa” French feminist Hélène Cixous writes about “écriture féminine” and invite women to write about themselves and to reclaim their bodies. She takes into account psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s terms but disagrees with his idea of men being more valuable than women because they have a penis. She also opposes that there is a typical woman and argues that all women have “individual constitutions” (876). Many feminists as Cixous criticize Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual…

The Handmaid’s Tale-a novel written by Margaret Atwood focusing on the dystopian society of Gilead in the near future, where freedom takes on a new meaning. While many feminists and non-feminists alike have branded it a feminist novel, Atwood herself has condemned this, and whenever asked the question she seems to always respond by replying that there are different types of feminism, as if to distance herself from the connotation of the word (Newman, Stephanie). She emphasizes that men and women…

“’Where are the women?’” This is the central question to Cynthia Enloe’s pioneering book Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, in her endeavour to resituate women and women’s labour (whether domestic, sexual, manual or emotional) in their deserved spot within the centre of both the discipline and day-to-day practice of international politics. Enloe skilfully demonstrates the fundamental role women continue to play in the international arena through a series…

The Bonnie and Sam series offers a contested space in terms of gender representation as, whilst, the representations are multifaceted, they are also problematic. The protagonists, in the Bonnie and Sam series, are dualistic in their gendered characterisation. The series was functions within a “range of contradictory notions about what it means[s] to be a girl” (Forman-Brunell and Eaton, 2009, 358). The Bonnie and Sam series seeks to absorb a range of gendered ideals to present a coherent version…