Women's Social Revolution

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An End to a Blog but not an End to the Revolution

It’s a shame to say that the end of this blog has come.

I’m going to be be completely honest for this epitaph. I originally started this blog as a project for my English class in college. We had to pick a theme to write about and were given almost complete freedom in deciding the medium of our writing. One of the suggestions was a blog; seeing as how I’ve never made a blog a before and had been interested in doing so for a while, the choice was clear. It was also incredibly easy to choose the theme to discuss. As I’ve explained before, the feminist movement has always been a topic of special interest for me, and many of the works we read had really impressive and complex female characters.

At first the blog was just an assignment, but as I started writing more, it became something pretty interesting and fun for me as well. I also became much more devoted to the message of the Women’s Social Revolution. I truly believe that the Revolution has been going on since the start of modern civilization. No one enjoys or wants to be in a lower standing than another, especially if undeserved.

As we can see from the works we’ve addressed, the Revolution has existed as far back as the 1600’s. There is Tartuffe, a work in which the two strongest characters are female. Even in a completely patriarchal society, women and men were still trying to speak up against the unfair norms of society. Perhaps it was a result of the enlightenment that Moliere began thinking that women were intelligent and rational beings as well. Either way, we have evidence to support the existence of the Revolution as far back as the 17th century. Jump to the current age, and the Revolution exists the shadows into the light – literally a spotlight. It no longer has to be hidden between the lines of text, it is now openly discussed by the role models and leaders of society. The best example that’s been discussed on this blog is Jennifer Lawrence and Merida, from “Brave”. Both of them are strong bow-wielding lead characters of major movies targeting the youth of today. And even outside of film, Jennifer explicitly speaks about the unfair views of women and girls in this age, especially regarding appearance.

We – society – has made large and clear steps towards equality, but it isn’t enough. we are still far from our final destination. There are still many double standards and unrealistic and patronizing views of women. To finish our journey, we need to make these socially accepted prejudices salient. Unless we make them stand out, we can’t get people to notice what is right under their noses. Without acknowledgement of the wrong, progress can’t be made. So I ask you to start noticing these prejudices surrounding you and rejecting them aloud. Draw attention to them and remove them from your circle of friends. Rather than targeting one single socio-political prejudice at a time, we can get rid of the source by doing this.

With the semester ending, so too will this blog. I just ask that you remember what you’ve read.

Keep fighting. The Revolution continues.

Does Growing Up in the System Equate to Emotional Trauma?

This post is going to be a bit different from usual. I want to talk more about a specific type of character, so the social revolution won’t be the main topic of this post. I am honestly wondering why characters, both male and female, end up having serious love and trust issues after being put into the system. I wonder this, because there is almost no variation between characters with a back-story of being raised in an orphanage.

The two main characters from Toni Morrison’s Recitatif, Roberta and Twyla, are just two examples. In this story we get to see them while they are living in the orphanage and after they’ve grown up. These girls, after growing up, meet frequently, but rather than acting like normal friends and talking about happy things, they get stuck on this traumatic event that occurred in their past. They keep going back to their memories of when an old lady working at the house, Maggie, was pushed down and attacked by other girls. Every time one of these conversations start up, the women become, suddenly, very sullen, afraid, and quite seemingly depressed. They seem to forget all the amazing things in their life and become trapped in that single memory.

This trauma seems to really stick out in Roberta’s case as well. She marries into money and lives an easy life, but it’s obvious she is not happy. It’s really easy to psycho-analyze her, because she is the “classic” case of a child from the system. She is avoidant of love as a result of abandonment, and is very materialistic because of all the hopes that were crushed during her childhood. She can’t trust anyone properly, except Twyla, because she was betrayed too often, and because she doesn’t think anyone can properly understand the pain she went through. It’s the paradigm case we see so often in system children – fictional characters at least.

To bring it back to the topic of the blog, I wanted to discuss this character archetype because of the difference between male and female characters in this kind of setting. As we have already seen, female characters have this kind of weakness brought out of them as result of their time in the system. Men, on the other hand, are portrayed as these violent and powerful characters – the bad boy. It’s strange that growing up in the same conditions would result in completely opposite responses, with the only difference being sex. It’s also strange to me that we don’t see many male orphan characters (I am excluding the Orphaned Heroes that are found so often in ancient myths). Perhaps it is my own fault that I haven’t seen many, but besides 1 or 2 movies with the lead being a male, every other orphaned character I have seen or read has been female.

It makes me wonder if this is the case because society is just so much more accustomed to seeing women in weaker states. Is it because it’s normal to see them on a lower rung of the social ladder, where they have to constantly and consciously wonder what type of person they are and whether they can trust others. I have only seen one exception to this rule of thumb so far. Her name is Emily, from “Once Upon a Time”. She is the main character of the television series, and from the very first episode we see a character that seems to fit the male mold of orphans more. To put it simply, she seemed badass. She was this very strong and independent character, who very much seemed like the lone wolf type. However as the series progressed we see this regression back into the wavering and weak-willed female character. After finding her son, who was also put into the system, she starts having these doubts about love. Soon she loses her initiative and seems to be more pulled along with the story than creating it. There are even multiple episodes devoted to figuring out the trauma she experienced as a child, and these episodes parallel very closely with the conversations between Twyla and Roberta.
It just pains me a little to see such a huge gap in personality in male and female characters, who share back-stories. It really does make it seem that Society is underestimating a women’s ability to handle her emotions and move on.

Why Can’t We All Be Happy?

I was on the train today, and something really interesting happened. There was this one person acting in a very strange manner, which is pretty normal for a NYC subway ride, but the interesting event is what came as a result of the peculiar behavior. … [Continue reading]

In Camera and Under the Spotlight

In Nawal El Saadawi's "In Camera" the main character, Leila, is imprisoned for sullying the King's name, and during her imprisonment is horribly wounded and raped. During the entire story she is put under this spotlight and becomes the center of … [Continue reading]

Looking Back on A Bewitching Tale

I wanted to talk about a horror story written By Akinari in the 17th century. I know its quite a jump back, but it's one of my favorite stories that I read for class this year. The question of who is the bewitched and who is the bewitch-er makes it … [Continue reading]

Lady Godiva

I just wanted to address the new background image of the blog. It's impossible to see the full picture as you scroll down, so I decided to make a post for it as well. As you have probably guessed from the title, the picture is of a painting of Lady … [Continue reading]

Question Time

Now, it's taken some time but I want to finally address the title of the blog. The reason I went for Women's Social Revolution, is because I view history in a way that puts women in a constant state of revolution. They are the one group of people who … [Continue reading]

Old Habits Die Hard

I just read The Perforated Sheet for class and it got me thinking about the cross-cultural differences in how women are treated and viewed. The setting of the story is India, almost a century before. In the story there is a young woman by the name of … [Continue reading]

Sor Juana’s “Man”

There is one poem by Sor Juana, that I fell in love with upon first read. It is the one titled "You Foolish Men" and is the one that discusses the influences of men on women. I love it because of the clear parallels that can be made between the … [Continue reading]

Sealed Off

So the most recent work we read for class is Sealed Off, by Zhang Ailing. It started off so randomly; it just spent the first half of the story describing the different things and people on the tramcar in Shanghai. Then is finally got to the two main … [Continue reading]