Women's suffrage in New Zealand

During the Victorian period in England, the evangelical movement present led to an incline in the worshiping of God as a guiding figure and impacted the spread of the feminism that subsequently led to an increase in woman’s spirituality and desire for independence. The feminist ideals portrayed by women in England came about by the first wave feminism in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Emily Griesinger describes God as the apparent figure for the strengthening of feminism in her work,…

In history, society has shaped how certain people should behave and what rules one must follow. The act of one breaking away from societal expectations in any period of history was considered out of the question and unheard of. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening the main character Edna Pontellier goes through trials where her gender limits her freedom. Society’s unrealistic expectations drives Edna to perceive death as a form of rebirth and a way of achieving freedom from said society. As Edna…

the Western woman because of the "perpetual masquerade" of their veil, which allows them to walk safely in the streets, and protects them from men's prying (96-97). She sees the veil from the Arab Muslim women’s point of view, and thus, negates its stereotypical image as a metaphor for Muslim women’s oppression. She narrates how the Muslim women in the bathhouse persuade her to undress and bathe, and when they see her corset: "they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in…

Jane Austin uses her book Pride and Prejudice to make a statement about how unfairly women were treated during the 19th century. She explores the ideas of feminism and equality in the context of society and social classes through the daughters of the Bennet family. During the time that the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet grew up, society viewed women as weak, passive, and inferior to men. Nevertheless, Elizabeth refused to submit to the social norm and the idea that women are solely useful for…

In 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, an African American woman named Sojourner Truth gave a speech defending women’s rights. In this speech, she proved that women were capable of doing tough jobs like men. That they had the ability to go to school and get an education, and make the world a better place just like any man can do. Truth proved that the stereotypes given to women were inaccurate, and showed the audience what women were capable of doing. She fought for the rights of both…

For millennia, human societies have mostly been patriarchal. Men have always been in dominant leadership roles where they have all of the power. Women, on the contrary, have been typically portrayed in literature as they would be in normal society: subordinate and weak. This is no different in 17th century England; however, The Tempest contradicts this. William Shakespeare wrote The Tempest in the early 1600s when this cultural stigma was present. The Tempest is a play about a former Duke, named…

care much activism, when in reality she worked hard in order to help push for equality. In her article “How History Got the Rosa Parks Story Wrong,” author Jeanne Theoharis expresses that Rosa Parks was a lifelong activist, rebellious, and also a women’s rights activist through the use of various pieces of evidence to contradict the misconception that Parks was a quiet woman who was only involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In the article, Theoharis shows Parks’s lifelong commitment to…

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is often considered a feminist classic. Evaluate this claim. THESIS STATEMENT: The yellow wallpaper is a short story that describes the attitude towards women's physical and mental health in the 19th century. By writing this short story the author likely attempts to shed some light on being mentally ill women in male-dominated society. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper” www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/theliteratureofprescript…

The connection of isolation and madness of women in American literature. Women were never treated equally as men. As a result of suffrage organizations actions women got voting right in 1920. But the social expectations, gender norms, loneliness, and patriarchal type of family threatened the mental health of many women in those days. The isolation of women at that time as a dedication to the ideals of True Womanhood very often led women to madness. These feminine dramas have become…

Throughout history, females have been subjugated to the will of men and forced to live as second class citizens. Women that have tried to break from these stereotypes and advocate for their own rights and equality have often faced even harsher consequences at the hands of powerful, domineering men trying to preserve the social construct. In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Ophelia, a young women ambivalent of her own position in society, shows moments of outright submission and resignation, while…