History Of Gender Roles In Literature
Gender roles have both affected the ways both sexes perceive each other, this has to do with how we are raised. Our Inclination does prevent us from understanding each other since, society, genetics, and environmental influence play a big part in this. In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, a knight goes on a year-long quest to find out what women most desire in life. Chaucer suggest that because of how each person is different from one another it’s sometimes easy to misinterpret or judge the opposite sex for what they think, say, do, and wear. Another example would be is from “The Men We Carry in Our Minds”, Anneke calls men “persecutors’’ prompting the writer to ponder about how his perception of male duties and responsibilities has been shaped by pasted experiences, he says “The bodies of the men I knew were twisted and maimed in ways visible and invisible”. It is also relatively easy to depict that biology has an enormous impact on gender roles and the actions of behavior that are thought to be relevant to both sexes.
In “The Pardoners Tale”, the males in the story are portrayed as heroic, greedy and sinful. The males are shown to be educated and powerful ones in ‘’The Wife of Bath Tale” the males also take advantage of their wives, but the women can show the weaker side of the male. If we look at “A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft” the problem is how society should treat women, and that women’s minds are just as capable of reason and virtue as men, well Wollstonecraft states that women are less physically strong than men, but strength has nothing to do with modern society now a days. It’s not like we are trying to choke one another for food or we are running away from predators that want to eat us. What he really wants to say is that the quality of a person’s mind is no different between the quality of men and women’s minds. To clear things up Wollstonecraft doesn’t dislike men, she believes men are good people, that why she wants women to receive the same rights as men; to be as excellent as them, she believes if given the chance women can be just as smart and virtuous as men are. So, let me bring up a question, what does the world really lose by giving rights to women? Nothing, because when Saudi Women first take the wheel it only brings courage and strength around the world, bringing both sexes together as a unity, not as a variance. As stated from the article “I woke up today believing with every part of me that this is my right, I woke up believing this is my duty, and I was no longer afraid. ” Said Mrs. Qahtani. The protest of the Saudi women encouraged others around the world, not only women, but men too.
To sum everything up the work and lifestyle of men and women is very dynamic and has changed throughout the years. The expectations of the social norm is different from men and women of present times, what was in the passed would not be acceptable in the present. The different roles are also represented in stories, which have been changed with the present to follow the social norms. The roles of the genders presented in stories are different from the gender roles of today, because of the way peoples views and opinions have changed as society became more educated and modernized. Hence forth the modern ways of thinking and revisions have changed the norms of present-day society view on gender roles. The history behind gender roles and social expectations is still very charismatic.
