Signifier

As a whole, ancient Chinese society was a patriarchy. Whilst patriarchal systems are particularly detrimental to women, they ensnare men and women alike. Thus, both men and women of ancient China developed methods of social advancement within the confines of their assigned gender roles to try to ensure a stable future. These methods of upward mobility were the exam system and footbinding respectively. Men had the expectation of familial honor thrust upon them, and women were handed the card…

Transnational feminists Inderpal Grewal, Julietta Hua and Leti Volpp aim to decenter from a universal common agenda for women’s human rights that is focused on eliminating the institutionalized invisibility of women in the global arena and inducing women’s equality. The universalized representations of the Third World as an ahistorical and homogenous space which arise in Western imperialist culture fails to account for the particular histories and situations of non-Western women. Grewal, Hua and…

Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, depicts the struggles faced by African American women in the first half of the twentieth century. More specifically, The Color Purple follows the life of Celie, a black woman who initially is oppressed in every aspect of her life, but grows into an independent and confident woman. The novel details her struggles as a queer, African American woman living in Georgia. Through the course of the novel, Celie develops a multitude of relationships, all of which…

Portrait painting thrived in the Netherlands with the increase in production driven by interest in the idea of personhood and the definition of the individual self. Portraits help document the development of a personal identity as it connects factors like marital status, class, and profession. A common portrait genre produced during the seventeenth century portrays their subjects with an impassive demeanor with little vigor. At first, these paintings may be evaluated as lacking “personality” or…

The human social structure is based on the grouping of people together based on some characteristic, whether it be nationality, religion, participation in a particular activity or club, or any of the other many social divisions. The solidarity of these groupings is derived from the interpersonal connections. When the most intimate grouping, the nuclear family structure does not have these powerful bonds, it leads to estrangement in its members, and can lead to the collapse of the family unit.…

Firmly entrenched as cultural signifiers of wealth and power, luxury brands rarely have to pay for advertising or marketing campaigns. Dreaming of achieving the means to own such a good is a better pitch than any marketer on Madison Avenue could ever dream up. This leads to a bizarre aftereffect…

An Analysis on Jay Gatsby as the Epitome of the American society in the 1920s F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby is a novel that focuses on the lives of Americans who belong to the upper class in society in New York set in the 1920s. The 1920s, better known as the Roaring Twenties, was the era characterized by a number of positive and negative outcomes that highly influenced the United States of America. This was the era of economic prosperity, the rise of consumerism, the popularization of Jazz…

Alternately, the misrepresentative stereotypes of the male as an aggressor may prevent both the male victims from recognizing that they are being abused and the abuse being recognized by outside observers (Duke & Davidson, 2009). Additionally, male victims may not disclose abuse because of the stigma associated with victimization as being un-masculine (Turrell et al., 2002) Again, these misperceptions stem from the myth that IPV is a heteronormative expression of sexism and not a gender…

Chinese women, much like women from all over the world have had to and continue to fight for equality. Strict Chinese tradition has left women inferior to men throughout history and the traditions adopted through the many different dynasties over time contribute to the oppression that women face in China. The difficulties that women face in their own culture show the subjugation to tradition and “respect” adopted centuries before by men whom could not care in the least about the safety,…

Cultural and societal identities have been characterised throughout history using a variety of mediums. As illustrated by many authors; such as Roy, Barker or Barnes, the written word, can be among the most powerful form of rhetoric, giving society the “stamp” of identity as chosen by the author. Culture and society can be described as the defining expression of our identity, national or otherwise. Group identity begins with the basic patterning of social cohesion such as inherited knowledge,…