Sexism in Literature

Brittany Liebenow
Blog Entry 2: Class Related Entry
10 January, 2010
Sexism in Literature

I find it interesting that in our discussions about gender, and consequentially sexism, that we have only really read essays from a more feminist point of view. While I am certainly fine with this, I am also rather curious about arguments from the opposite side: arguments against women. While I don’t condone those arguments on any level, I do enjoy ripping apart these usually unfounded arguments until they pretty much look primitive. Because they are primitive.

Until we reach that point, however, the feminist articles we have been reading are surely enough to tide me over. I really have enjoyed every single reading in this unit so far except for the supposedly “controversial” story out of the red textbook. The story was “The Story of an Hour” by Chopin, and it was very, very boring. I might have missed some sort of incredible universal theme of everything, but at this point I highly doubt it. I think I was so let down by this piece because it was supposed to be controversial implying that it was edgy, fresh, interesting, or new. It was not any of those things. I like those things; I like those things a lot.

My overwhelming love for edgy pieces of feminist literature was satisfied while reading two particular pieces, fortunately. These two pieces are “I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady and “Our Barbies, Ourselves” by Emily Prager.

In Brady’s piece, the overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated position of being a wife and a mother is clearly revealed. Brady describes how a wife, and mother, is expected to do everything a husband wants, when the husband wants it, and without complaining. The wife, despite the enormous amounts of effort put in for the family, is essentially disposable, as Brady describes that a husband will merely discard the wife if a more interesting one turns the corner.

On this note, there is something I believe should have been discussed in class. Although we did briefly touch on the idea above that the wife is treated as disposable and all the horrible things that go with that, we did not discuss the applications of that and how deeply this idea really runs. In this scenario, and in Brady’s work, the husband’s implied gender is male. Keeping this in mind, the using mentality of males is a strong motif in her essay.

Even when a romantic relationship is not marriage, men tend to use women for personal gain and pleasure. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of books and articles about how a woman can keep her man. I can guarantee you that nearly all of these are based off of the sole idea that, in order to keep her man, she must keep him interested and entertained. This is commonly referred to as “the chase.” Men love “the chase.” When this chase is over, it is assumed that most men will just pick up and move on to the next victim. Now tell me, does that really seem very fair?

I really enjoyed Prager’s piece because it discussed the idea that women are so exposed compared to men implying that women are not as important to keep covered up. I thought this was interesting, however, seeing as covered up women are also considered to be disrespected. This paradoxical effect also ties back to Sontag’s idea that women, beautiful or not beautiful, exposed or covered, always seem to be at a disadvantage.