Feminism, Domesticity and Popular Culture - Essay Example

Gender as Fiction Gender perceptions and gender roles have often been a central theme of literature in nearly every era. have been presentingtheir personal opinions about gender roles through the characters of their fictional texts. The characters, often times, were a reflection of their own personalities or life experiences. Critics and analysts have been presenting their opinions about literary texts, enabling common readers to become familiar with the themes of gender stereotypes behind the texts. Hence, gender is not natural and, in other words, fictional as literature is responsible for portraying gender stereotypes in a fictional manner. Proponents of this fact state that gender is society driven and non-fictional. Every culture has different concepts of gender roles that are assigned to males and females, and these are the gender roles that define the masculinity and femininity of an individual regardless of his physical anatomy or, in other words, sex. Given below, in this paper, is a comprehensive comparison of two famous texts: “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen (1879) and “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002) The paper delves deeply into how the two authors perceive gender, and whether or not gender is fiction. The thesis statement of this paper is: Gender is only fictional and not real. Written in 1879 by the Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), “A Dolls House” is a three act play. The story revolves around an apparently archetypical housewife, who becomes greatly disheartened and frustrated due to the selfishness of her husband. The characters of the play include Nora (the wife), Torvald Helmer (the husband), Anne-Marie (the nurse), Mrs. Linde (the old widow friend), Dr. Rank (an old friend of the Helmers), Krogstad (the bank employee), and the maid. The play shook the world with its feminist controversies. “A Doll’s House” emphasizes upon self-actualization and independence of choice, for all human beings and not just women, especially when it comes to the bond of marriage. The world took Nora as a hardcore feminist who slams the door upon a man, revealing the fact that a woman can do much more than just running the house and bearing children. This feministic view was quite alien to the Victorian era people, who kept themselves from discussing the play at gatherings due to its controversies. Ibsen was criticized as writing plays intended to destabilize the society and the bond of marriage. He was considered as a challenger of societal norms and traditional values. However, he did not accept the title of a feminist; rather, he called himself a humanist. He emphasized upon the fact the human rights must be respected, by giving every individual the chance and choice to live a life of his own, rather than staying tied to bonds that he can hardly spend his life with. He made Nora leave Torvald, not because he favored women, but because he favored humanity and liberalism. This is the greatest proof that gender is fictional and does not have anything to do with reality. Through his play, back in 1879, Ibsen encouraged people to stand up for their rights against those who did not deserve to be done good to. It was an era when feminism had not yet made its arrival on the front scene. For Ibsen, it was a matter of human rights, and not of women rights. So, gender goes in the background and humanity comes in the forefront. Ibsen used women to express how humanity was being repressed, because normally women are the repressed ones in our society. Hence, a shadow of feminism is there, which cannot be denied. We come to know this when Mrs. Linde says, “I only feel my life unspeakably empty. No one to live for anymore…” (Ibsen 2009:19), which shows how she lived life serving others and not herself. An example of male chauvinism comes when we hear Torvald say to Nora, “I shall not allow you to bring up the children: I dare not trust them to you” (Ibsen 2009:107), which shows how man can demean a woman by being able to snatch from her most basic right. The play shows the couple leading themselves to the dissolution of their marriage, because they were not able to understand the status of one another. For Ibsen, a marriage is successful if the two spouses come to join one another on an equal level. The couple must understand that none of the two is supposed to be dominant or recessive. The disparity of power leads to problems and misunderstandings. Torvald has been shown as a dominant, providing husband; while, Nora is a recessive wife who dreads the disclosure of her crime over her husband, like when she says, “…how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything. It would upset our mutual relations altogether …” (Ibsen 2009:23-24). She gets blackmailed by Krogstad. Torvald treats his wife as an inferior being, by calling her by pet names, as he says, “Is it my little squirrel bustling about?” (Ibsen 2009:8). So, we see that there was no equality between the two spouses, which gave rise to misunderstanding between the two, so much so that the wife preferred to leave the husband instead of living with him anymore. Hence, Ibsen has, through his play, been able to provoke a thought among the people around him, regarding the humiliation of mankind and the violation of human rights. He has been able to give a strong meaning to the institution of marriage, where both the spouses are supposed to live together on an equal basis. None of the two is meant to suffer at the hands of the other. All men and women are equal, and it is not good for a person to consider another person as inferior. This highlights the fact that gender is fictional. Moreover, all individuals have a right to live a life of their own choice, without staying tied to a person who acts unloving and demeaning all the time. Ibsen showed up the women as victims, just because they are victims normally and traditionally, not because he wanted to be called a feminist. So, the message of equality and independence is for men and women equally, thus, proving the point that gender is only fictional and not innate. To be honest, gender can also be considered as fiction because of the power women possess in the modern times’ fiction stories. Women are a powerful gender, despite all weak and humiliating stereotypes attached to them (Irigaray 1985:189). They are referred to as feeble, emotional, unwise, and superficial, as compared to their male counterparts. They are considered to be better at homes, within the boundaries set by men of the society. However, history has manifold examples of such women, who have proved their courage, valor, and dignity, and have made the world acknowledge them as powerful women. Medieval literature contains images of many powerful women. “A Doll’s House” shows them as being authoritative, mindful, wise, and liberal. They know how they can govern men, and how they can take revenge for mistreatment. For example, medieval literature shows how powerful women can be. The queen in “the Wife of Bath’s Tale” (Chaucer 2000) and Alison in “the Miller’s Tale” (Chaucer 1995) are aware of the importance of their sexuality, and they know how to break customary laws and man-made rules to get what they want from life. TIrigaray (1985:189) states that women are valuable, and they know how to use their authority to take revenge against the male-dominated society. The fictional texts portray the power of women, which was not acceptable in the medieval times in the medieval society. Hence, it gets proved that gender can be understood as fiction. Now, “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides is the story of Cal Stephanides who was born a male, but the doctors think he is a female due to ambiguity regarding his genitalia, due to which he was raised as a female. Cal Stephanides is the protagonist of the story. He tells about the whole family tree, starting from his incest grandparents, their struggles in life, and their children. Cal is raised a female, but when he reaches puberty, he finds himself to be attracted to girls and all the things that boys do. He falls in love with a girl, whose brother catches him and he flees. Then, the reader reads and that he gets injured, and when doctors see his genitalia, they think that he is different from a girl, so they try to change his sex properly to a girl. He flees again. He is put into a sex show, and people look at him with surprise when he swims in a swimming pool. The sex show gets raided by the police, and Cal returns home. He is shown to have found his identity as a boy. Written in 2002, the story depicts the idea how females are portrayed as the weaker gender in the society. Now, here comes the difference between the two novels. “A Doll’s House” brought forward the idea of female empowerment while “Middlesex” points towards the idea that there are pre-set gender roles defined by the society. Cal’s genes are male and are at odds with the gender conditioning that the society does to him. Carl’s parents and grandparents stick to the gender stereotypes, but Cal does not. He recognizes his male identity once he reaches puberty, and is shameful of his female brought-up. Cal says, “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl [...] and then again as a teenage boy” (Eugenides 2003:3). This line comes just in the start of the novel, and it makes the reader prepare his mind to look forward to a genuine gender identity crisis coming up in the story. Hence, “Middlesex” by Eugenides points toward the fact that female oppression has always been a common theme among writers of all times, which makes gender fictional. It has always been shown in literature that females are the sufferers and men are the oppressors (Rubin 1975). “Women arent like us. They have carnal natures. The best thing to do with them is to shut them up in a maze,” says Jimmy, a character in the story who is Lina’s partner (Eugenides 2003:113). Lina is Cal’s maternal grandmother. So, “Middlesex” shows that the society is male-dominated, where women are stereotyped as being submissive and indecisive. Women are stigmatized as being unable to work outside their homes (Rubin 1975; Irigaray 1985). For example, the female authors, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (2012) and Zora Neale Hurston (1997), have epitomized their female characters in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Sweat” respectively as victims of racial and gender identity. Their portrayal of characters relates to their personal life experiences. Also, in “Middlesex”, the reader reads: “[Lefty] reinstituted sex segregation in the house, reserving the sala for his male companions and banishing Desdemona to the kitchen” (Eugenides 2003:131). However, the male authors of the same era as “Middlesex”, e.g. William Faulkner (1993) and Ernest Hemingway (2006), have attached an idea of strength and courage to the female gender in their texts “A Rose for Emily” and “Hills like White Elephants” respectively. Faulkner’s Emily is a symbol of strength to disregard others’ opinion; and, Hemingway’s Jig is a symbol of courage to decide against abortion. However, Hemingway has also shed light upon the repression of female nature. “Women are oppressed in societies which can by no stretch of the imagination be described as capitalist,” asserts Rubin (1975:163). Hence, it is proved that the idea of female repression and male oppression is a famous one among the writers; however, the concept of female empowerment paves its way somehow or other. This fact makes the gender fictional. Although females have always been subjected to domination and subjugation, still they have been able to empower themselves through their efforts and wisdom. “...women thus represent a natural value a social value. Their "development" lies in the passage from one to the other,” asserts Irigaray (1985:185). Humm (1997:58) asserts the fact that since the main aim of contemporary fiction is to refigure the body, hence, issues regarding the body, such as, its shape, age and other requirements, become the hot subject matter for magazines, books, journals, TV shows and even popular science fiction. Rubin (1975) states that the issues regarding the body raise questions about body frailty which creates concerns about gender differences, women being treated differently from men and the inferiority they experience as a result. For this reason, the issues regarding body and the gender differences encompassing the fictional stories, like “Middlesex”, are the main concern of current feminist theories. Similarly, if we talk about film, women’s bodies are very often represented as weaker or corrupt figure. Their fears, reproductive powers and maternal body descriptions become the focal points of the current feminist theories. All feminist theories share some basic issues regarding the contemporary popular culture. “Middlesex” is also a novel that stereotypes the female gender in the popular culture. “Middlesex” talks about women being treated differently than men, that is, gender discrimination that is favored basically by male domination. Irigaray (1985) states that the society characterizes women as slaves in houses who do work for their families without getting paid. “All the systems of exchange that organize patriarchal societies and all the modalities of productive work that are recognized, valued, and rewarded in these societies are men’s business” (Irigaray, 1985:171). Feminist theories say that this domesticity has to be ruled out from women’s lives if they want themselves to be treated at an equal status with men and considered as modern. The issues of domesticity and gender discrimination define how feminist theories look at the contemporary popular culture. According to Tuchman (cited in Gillis & Hollows 2009:1), “many early second wave feminists focused on how ‘false’ images of women were created within popular culture, socializing girls into restricted definitions of femininity that were based around ‘hearth and home’”. This imagery of women was very well shown through advertisements, movies, TV shows, magazines, literature, and etcetera, and this is what defines the point of view of feminism toward popular culture. Gillis and Hollows (2009) also suggest that critics and feminist theory researchers have studied women’s role in popular culture like modern fiction, soap operas and melodramas, to find how much women have changed their relationship with domesticity. There were critics who held women, shown in these popular forms, solely responsible for their being captured by domesticity; but later on, critics began appreciating these genres, and were pleased about the power of women about being capable enough of running a home and becoming a source of inspiration for young women. The decade of 1990 brought forward a blacklash thesis that focused mainly on family values and attracted many critics who said that this thesis aimed to bring back the women from the workplace into the pre-feminist times. These critics suggested that emphasizing on family values was totally against the aim of the feminist theories. This was the time when feminism was on its rise, and we see that Eugenides wrote “Middlesex” in 2002, which is an era of contemporary popular culture, feminism, and an awareness of one’s rights and identity. However, the counter-argument is that gender is society-defined, and thus, it is innate or non-fictional. Proponents of gender as fiction state that gender is something that is defined by the society, and not by fiction. That is why, gender is innate, because it can be modified, recreated, and protested against. One culture will define an actual man who beats up his wife; while another culture will consider a person a man considering his height and voice. Some cultures define a woman as a person bearing children; while, others will define a woman as individuals with delicate stature. These are all the gender roles that every culture assigns to men and women, thus associating these roles with one gender. Generally speaking as in all cultures, male gender is associated with roles like going out for jobs, playing games, joining clubs, and becoming politicians; while, female gender is associated with roles like running a house, bearing children, raising them up, doing grocery, serving the family, and the like. Thus, we assign specific roles to one gender, and call it man or woman. Moreover, biologists talk about gamete size when defining sex; but, culture talks about power and freedom while talking about men; and, about frailty, sex and cowardliness while taking about women. This distinction of gender is defined by the society depending upon the societal roles. Women are slightly flexible in that they are open about men’s roles in society, and are ready to accept them. Why this perception arose, goes back to the history of feminism, which has motivated women to come out of their stereotypic personalities, and stand at an equal status as men. The reverse is not possible, nor will men let it happen. They are obnoxious toward reverse gender roles. Stephen (2002:50) gives example from Latin America, and states that, “As the Spanish explored northern Mexico, which later became the American Southwest, they found same-sex sexual interaction among men and men who seemed to be dressed like women.” This shows that gender can be adopted. Also, Kulick (1997:574) describes in his paper how the Latin American society generates diverse arrangements of gender, consisting of men and not-men, instead of men and women. Hence, gender and gender roles are changeable, and this is the main difference between sex and gender. So, gender is non-fictional. However, the fact, that fiction has greatly defined gender and gender roles, cannot be denied. To sum up, fictional texts have always strived to change the social status of women who were always considered to be responsible just for domestic duties, doing chores and looking after their families. Fiction writers have done their best to take women out of their homes and have a better look at the world around them through the use of popular culture. Fiction has played a very big role in changing women’s status and trying to bring them at an equal status with men. However, critics have also asserted that it is the society that defines gender and gender roles, which makes fiction non-fictional. Society has stereotyped the female gender as weak and fragile. However, the truth is that gender can be better understood as fiction, since writers have always brought forward the gender stereotypes in a very lucid manner. References Chaucer, G., 1995. The Miller’s Tale, Oxford University Press, New York. Chaucer, G., 2000. The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Perfection Learning Corporation, New York. Eugenides, J., 2003. Middlesex, A&C Black, London. Faulkner, W. 1993. A rose for Emily. Selected Short Stories, Modern Library, New York. Gillis, S. & Hollows, J., 2009. Feminism, Domesticity and Popular Culture, Taylor & Francis, New York. Gilman, C.P., 2012. The yellow wallpaper. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories, Courier Dover Publications, New York. Hemingway, E., 2006. Hills like white elephants. Making Literature Matter, Bedford/St Martins, Boston. Humm, M., 1997. Cronenberg’s films and feminist theories of mothering. Feminism and Film, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh. Hurston, Z.N., 1997. Sweat, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, NJ. Ibsen, H., 2009. A Doll’s House, Arc Manor LLC, Rockville, MD. Irigaray, L., 1985. Women on the market. The Sex Which Is Not One, Ithaca, New York. [Online] Available at [Accessed 4 May 2015] Kulick, D., 1997. The gender of Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. American Anthropologist, vol. 99, no.3, pp.574–585. Rubin, G., 1975. The Traffic in Women. [Online] Available at [Accessed 4 May 2015] Stephen, L., 2002. Sexualities and genders in Zapotec Oaxaca. Latin America Perspectives, vol. 123, no.29, pp. 41-59. Read More