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Shushed Voices

We are exposed to gender labels all the time. While men do the rough work, women either stay at

home or take pink-collar jobs. Adults preconceived ideas rub off on us at a comparatively early

age without our knowing. Sometimes even intelligence is called into question depending on the

sex of a person.

The aim of this study is to demonstrate how women have been shunned and snubbed throughout

history, as well as to point out what their situation is today.

Analysis and Theory-based Interpretation

Although women suffer from sundry stereotypes, it is difficult to determine where these

stereotypes stem from. In her book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that men

normally believe in the myth that women are mysterious and cannot be understood on a logical

level. In her own words,[this myth]permits an easy explanation of all that appears inexplicable;

the man who does not understand a woman is happy to substitute an objective resistance for the

subjective deficiency of mind; instead of admitting his ignorance, he perceives the presence of amystery outside himself: an alibi, indeed, that flatters laziness and vanity at once. [] then the

mystery serves to excuse it all.

As Beauvoir says, men find it easier to put women down as mysterious, since this allows them to

treat them differently. Following this train of thought, she states that in patriarchal cultures men

are the norm and women the deviation,and she observes thatwomen have internalized this

ideology, so that they live in a constant state of inauthenticity.

In a similar vein, Lorna Goodisons story I Dont Want to Go Home in the Dark gives an example

of an inauthentic woman: She realized all she had to do was to sit there and maybe saymmmmm every now and then. This kind of behaviour is explained by Beauvoir in the following

quote, woman is taught from adolescence to lie to men, to scheme, to be wily. [] she is cautious,

hypocritical, play-acting.

Aside from being hypocritical, women often have to play a passive, dull role in marriage. It is an

embedded belief in our society that the man has to be the head of the household. Since he is the

financial provider, his wife has to stay at home in order to take care of the children and do the

housework.

In regards to this issue, Beauvoir says that since man occupies a privileged situation in this

world, he is in a position to show his love actively; very often he supports the woman or at least

helps her; in marrying her he gives her social standing.

Virginia Woolf also addresses the issue of economic dependence, and she concludes that a

woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Woolf explains that

female writers in the past did not have privacy and often found themselves interrupted while they

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were writing. In addition, she remarks that female writers were usually mocked and regarded as

less intelligent than men.

In this sense, she explains that there was an enormous body of masculine opinion to the effect

that nothing could be expected of women intellectually. [] There would always have been the

assertionyou cannot do this, you are incapable of thatto protest, to overcome. Moreover, Woolf

states that any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone

crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village [] feared andmocked at.

Woolf also attempts to answer why men tend to subjugate and discriminate against women, and

she concludes that the former, in order to feel better about themselves, think that other people

are inferior to them. This issue becomes evident in Lorna Goodisons story when the main

characters date tells her, You drive a ten-year-old car and you live in a flat which is very

charming but you dont own it and it might fall on your head soon.

In regards to womens current situation, many improvements have been made when it comes to

legislation. Most countries recognize the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms ofDiscrimination against Women(CEDAW). In addition, womens salaries are, broadly speaking,

equal to mens.

However, gender labels are still present, since most CEOs and presidents in the world are male.

In addition, many countries still regard women as inferior to men. For example, the Indian writer

Sailendra Singh gives a detailed account of womens current situation in India. Her story

Women in India Want to Be Men describes what it feels to be a woman in a misogynist society.

She tells us that many women are well aware of the fact that they are treated unfairly, but at the

same time they know they cannot do anything to change that.

Conclusion

As we have seen, women still suffer from gender labels, which might prevent them from fulfilling

their potential.

In my view, women have to actively pursue their dreams and pay no attention to what others

might think about them. Dealing with stereotypes of any sort is a daunting task, but it is a

prerequisite for success. Since it seems improbable that most men will change their views,women themselves have to demonstrate that they are not lower than men. Step by step, they

might manage to break away from any label given to them.