FEMINISM

Feminisms
•De Beauvoir, excerpt from The Second Sex (NATC, 1403-14)
•Cixous, "The Laugh of the Medusa" (NATC, 2035-56)
•Gilbert and Gubar, excerpt from The Madwoman in the Attic (NATC, 2021-34)

Simone de Beauvoir suggests that sexuality is oppressive and that while both genders are essential, they are not equal. A woman has a very specific role within the gender, and it is that of the master-slave relationship. Within the slave (feminine) aspect, another problem is that women cannot band together. Solidarity is difficult between women, which may contribute to the gender being suppressed. According to definition, “Feminist theory, which emerged from these feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of sex and gender.”

With regards to the male to female relationship, de Beauvoir says that “And moreover woman is taught from adolescence to lie to men, to scheme, to be wily. In speaking to them she wears an artificial expression on her face; she is cautious, hypocritical, play-acting” (1270). She suggests that women are essentially trained to be submissive, to bottle their emotions, personalities, and their interests to intrigue men. It may have once been hiding admiration for reading or writing, but now it has evolved into silicone personalities. De Beauvoir also says that “the fact is that she would be quite embarrassed to decide what she is” (1269). The social pressure and stigma of
the male identity does not allow any allocation for the female identity. Women are meant to believe that they must be identified in contrast of what they are not, in this case, a man. It should be noted that “Some of the earlier forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle-class, educated perspectives. This led to the creation of ethnically-specific or multiculturalists forms of feminism.”Of course the well known stigma is that a man is aggressive, the alpha male. So, when women are pressed up against this concept, they become the opposite turning from subservient to independent.