Jan 30- A Room of One's Own

Are women human? That is basically what man is stating when he says that women are not legally people once they are married. Society gave more rights to animals than they did to women. Women were not allowed to keep anything, property and money, they were given- they had to give it to the man of the house.
While there has never been an female Shakespeare, there were female playwrights during the time of Shakespeare. In my 450 Renaissance Drama class we are reading two plays written by women in that time, they were famous playwrights during the Renaissance yet Shakespeare became so popular that every other playwright got overshadowed by his "greatness." Women writers were frowned upon; anything that allowed women access to the outside life was frowned upon. Access would corrupt their views and and would cause them to run sexually wild. Men were afraid that they wouldn't have control over their women anymore. It was all about control...

Jan 26- Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft grew up with an alcoholic father and she took care of her family because her father could not do so. She wrote one of the first responses to a piece by Burke (a Whig) on the reflections of the revolution in France- in 1789 and she wrote her first piece in 1789 titled "The Vindication of the Rights of Men" anonymously. She writes it as if she was a man and readers believe that the author was a man. Manly= virtuous and rational. Mary defends democracy and the republic. In 1792 she writes "Vindication of the Rights of Woman"- singular, implying the individual not society. She fell in love with Gilbert, they professed love to each other (to her it was married) and had his child out of wedlock. She believed it was marriage- he did not, he thought they were just lovers since it was not legal.

When we use the word men people assume that we are talking about the public, the society as a whole. Yet we never use the word "woman" to refer to society as a whole or when we describe the populous.

Chapters 2-5: Her argument in chapter 2 is that women are being degraded because their education that they are given is taught to make them sexually alluring to man. Soldiers are like women because they do as they are told, to be moved up in rank/socially they have to behave a certain way socially. Soldiers are educated to behave a certain way as are women- proving women are not naturally inferior? Are women educated to be "weak" now? Are we grooming women to be dependent and not independent?

Jan. 23--- Cinderella

Extreme Makeover Home Edition is a great representation of the Cinderella story, the rags to riches. The family situation is such a horrible one and yet they still try to make other peoples life better all while trying to survive. Yet they never show how they will afford this house after it is built. They built this extravagant house for this family who couldn't afford a new house... how will they afford this new better house? Again they never show what happens after the happily ever after....

The music, movies, books etc that tells us that fairy tales are the way to live our lives and dictate our choices because of the way we feel about our lives. They show us that the only way to get a man is to be a "perfect princess." We need to realize that we have our own choices to make and no one can make them for us.

Cinderella Fairy Tale

The "Cinderella Fairy Tale" is a popular one in today's society--lots of people are pulling themselves up by their boot straps and making something out of nothing. One instance of this is in writing novels. My cousin is a writer and she has been struggling to get her novel published for many months now. She sends it out to many publishing companies each week and waits for that one letter that says its the one. Each time she gets disappointed, she doesn't give up instead she moves ahead to the next publishing company in hopes of her dream coming true. When novels first come out authors are not heard of until someone reads their book and tells others about it, they have to be shared for it to become popular. For example, J.K Rowling was turned down by many publishing companies until Scholastic decided that Harry Potter would make a good series. Yet to make it well a known story they had to spread the word. Scholastic did and she became an overnight sensation- a rags to riches story.

Jan. 21- Fairy Tales

"The Courtship of Mr. Lyon"
--This version is very different from Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast. In Sexton's version the reader does not see the reason for the Beast's appearance yet they can see that he still has some human qualities; he cares for Beauty yet he is aware of his masculinity. His claws repulse her while his otherness attracts her. His otherness is what drives her away and brings back to him. Love changes him into a "real" man. Is that saying that to be a real person you have to be in love? Fairy Tales have given society a false sense what life is supposed to be like, they show the "perfect" courtship, the "perfect" marriage and that's it. They show none of the problems or how to work through the problems of a marriage.

Jan 16- Fairy Tales and Weight by Jeannett Winterson

As a culture we idealize perfection and in doing so the strive for perfection can lead to a change for the better yet it can also lead to pain and self sacrifice. For example, A princess or the "ideal woman" seems to be representative of how women would like to know themselves, we as a gender are forced into a submissiveness where we sit back and wait for things to happen, unlike men who are taught to take control. This stereotyping is slowly changing yet still in place. We see women in the workplace who are trying to achieve status in the business world yet when they meet a person who they could potentially marry, they are expected to stop working and stay at home for the family and to keep the house.

Fairy Tales.....they teach children that its okay to be submissive and change yourself for the man you love. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle falls in love with the Beast even though he verbally abuses her and degrades her as a woman. This shows children that it is okay to be in an abusive relationship because the man MAY change into a 'human'. In the Little Mermaid, Ariel has to change who she is to be with the man she loves. She has to give up her family and the life she has known to become human for the man. This teaches children that the female is the one who is supposed to change for the man .

Weight by Jeannett Winterson

In the artistic retelling of fairy tales does art help counteract ideology?

--Winterson states in her introduction to Weight, that the retelling of fairy tales allows for new material to be interjected into the existing text which allows for a new emphasis or bias on the key elements in the story and with the retelling it allows for a different perspective to be told which then allows for different interpretations of the story (xvi). I think that it does help counteract the ideology because of the different perspectives given and the new material interjected into the fairy tales.