The reasons why Women are Oppressed in Society
The women’s movement has changed American life in many ways but gender inequality persists. Society always divides everything into two classes; masculine and feminine and almost every culture has a definite set of rules and expectations that every gender has to meet. For example, in a traditional culture men are expected to earn money for the household, and women are obliged to do the household work. These gender stereotypes are taught even before our adolescence leading to our adult lives subconsciously dictating the world around us. Children acquire these roles through socialization i.e. they learn to behave as directed by societal values, attitudes, and beliefs.
Gender roles define how men and women should behave, speak, dress, and interact in their social context and hence influence them in almost every aspect of life. Generally, men are considered to have autonomy, leadership, dominance, and self-affirmation whereas women are expected to be soft, emotional, dependent, and weak from the heart. These cultural values and beliefs adopted by society may lead to gender inequality. Gender inequality is certainly a huge issue that particularly occurs among women. Due to gender stereotypes, females often are less valued and have lower social status. Over centuries, women have been forced to be subservient to men and their demands. They suffer the negative impact of these rigid norms and roles e.g., they experience restrictions on their mobility and freedom as well as an epidemic level of harassment and violence across the world. They have fewer opportunities to choose how to live their lives. This discrimination and inequalities often cause them to challenge the rigid gender roles.
The size and nature of gender inequality may differ across cultures; women are particularly demoted from cultural life. This is why their lives, jobs, traits, personalities, and emotions are portrayed in novels, poems, and stories to be less admirable than men (Adagha et al., 2016). “My Mother, Crazy American” is a story of Nigerian girl called Ralindu and how she struggles to adjust in America. The story shows how she challenges her gender role by trying very hard to put her African identity to become an authentic American. She changes her name from Ralindu to Li as she believes that “Ralindu and accent are too much for me right now”( Adichie, 2009). She wants to act like a typical American teenager and this encourages her disconnection with her Nigerian culture that causes misunderstanding in her relationship with mother. Her disconnection with Nigerian culture makes her mother feel disappointed as her mother believes that she acts like a traditional Nigerian and behaves like a girl who makes friends with only girls. This created clash with her mother and Li is torn between her mother’s rigid gender norms and her new found culture and freedom. Her boyfriend Matt, who is a pure American calls her mother crazy and declares their breakup. This is when Li takes a closer look and feels not everything in American culture is good.
The world and society where we live have always made women a source to get work and seek attention.In every part of the world where gender roles are imposed, women have constantly been degraded. Every society has different families with different beliefs and distinct views toward things. Some prefer wrapping girls, and others give them all the social space they might need as human beings. In the traditional view, their role as a woman is to cook, clean, stay at home, care for children and provide for all husbands' needs. Although this view has been ignored in various developed and literate cultures, some societies are still in favour of it. As folk stories flow from generation to generation in the same way, these traditions are passed down from elders to their children, then the grandchildren, and so on. In this way, wrong mindsets flow in a society with no offense.
In past years, many authors have put their hard work into portraying the women’s oppressed lives. “Bitter Kola” by Aminatta Forna, “On Her Side” by Nahid Rachlin, “Matchstick” by Desiree Bailey are some of the short stories that were used as a medium to convey this message to society. The major cause of inequality in society is male dominance; they think that due to their fragile and weak body women can’t deal with the hardships of life. They think that women are not emotionally strong to cope with any situation, which is a misconception on their part. The parents with a strong belief in such a narrow concept try to impose them on their daughters without knowing their will.They should know what damage they are doing to her personality by not letting her opt for what she longs for.Another short story, "On Her Side,” by Nahid Rachli, has beautifully pictured the life of an 18-year-old woman named Emma, who has been struggling with the burden of such suppressing cultural beliefs. She has constantly dictated how a woman should be pure, loyal, sincere, and patient in an arranged marriage. Such code of conduct has been passed down to her by her father, Hooshang, who has migrated from Iran. He has lived in Iran for about 23 years and married an American woman named Janet. Although, as a man, he has married according to his will, he doesn’t want her daughter to be derailed from the track of his cultural beliefs. They were now living in America, a society of liberalism and modern trends. He demands her daughter not to date boys and keep herself pure. He tells her to wait for an Iranian proposal for her marriage. In this story, Emma struggles to convince her father to ask her for her will and desires. She wants to take her decisions by herself without a man’s approval.
The gender rules prevailing in a society are determined by the individuals that are following them. In every society, men are supposed to be aggressive, strong, and dominant, while women should be submissive, weak, and recessive in front of them. Her figure judges a perfect woman, her sense to attract men, pure, quiet, and an embodiment of trust and honesty. On the other hand, men are not asked about their purity and sincerity towards the woman. This gives evidence of male dominant society. In this concern, "Matchstick,” by Desiree Bailey, perfectly communicates the problems of a lean-shaped, skinny girl, Mya, who has no essence to attract men. A woman’s beauty is judged by “tiny waists and wide hips and thick thighs, some dimpled or with muscular carvings, and large, round ass cheeks.” She has constantly demoralized and remains in an inferiority complex.When she is alone all by herself, she is still tortured by her shortcomings as Margaret Atwood said :
“You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your voyeur.”
~Margaret Atwood.
She hates her body and admires other women with ideal body types around which men look like a buzzing honey bee upon a flower. Mya’s mindset clearly portrays how males can cause depression and approval to control the ideas of women. The idea to suppress women is evident in many situations, but when she is a girlfriend or a wife shows the best example of it. Women are told to idolize men and should be obedient to their husbands. Our social and cultural norms resist women from being independent and self-empowered. This is the major reason behind a woman’s freedom as a human being. They see their mothers doing household chores, getting scolded by their husbands, fulfilling their needs, sticking to him even if he is not of her mindset.“Bitter Kola” by Aminatta Forna is a story of a woman named Asana who has been married to a man named Osman. She has to idolize him in every sense. Love him, care for him and do all that he says. At first, Osman asked her to stand naked when she was pregnant to appease him for a long time; when she was tired and denied doing it further, he slapped her, tortured her by kicking her in the abdomen. After being beaten by him several times, she lost hope and submitted to whatever he said. She now knows what kind of a person her husband was . In the later years, she was obedient to him. She admitted how her husband was using his dominance as a man to rule her. He tortured her in every possible manner, when she was fed up with his behaviors she refused to stay with him and ended their relationship.The story was a lesson to show how women can part ways from men who don’t deserve care and respect.
Male dominance is the bitter reality of our society. Whether we accept it or not, it’s a nuisance that makes women weaker and males more powerful. Many cultures around the world are still following the fact which supports women’s oppression. America and many other countries in Europe are quite lenient in this concern; still, some have hard rules. Men are given leverage in every part of society for being dominant, especially in marriages. Women take care of the home, perform their duties of picking up children from school, giving them food while the men are at their workplace.If we think vice versa, that appears impossible.Conclusion :In a nutshell ,equality of men and women would be a great step towards a better society that men and women bother to treat equally. Women would be free to demand, would have freedom of speech, authority, and respect. Such a society won’t ask men to be submissive to a woman, but it would give women a right to tell what they feel, what they like and desire.Reading and writing stories on feminism is a great way to show women’s struggles in society and would surely turn the tables. The stories of Ralindu, Mya, Emma, and Asana are great life lessons for women to stand up and say no to what they can’t do anymore. This behavior would bring awareness and a positive change in different strata of this male dominant society .Mothers would play a great role in this concern. They should tell their daughters not to bear any oppression and make their sons aware of the respect of women. A society must have a balance in both genders, which would make that society gold. As Susan Sontag beautifully quotes :
“What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.”
~Susan Sontag
