Democracy & the Status of Women: Reflections From Literature

Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, sectio FF – Philologiae

Both men and women constitute the species of human beings but men have dominated over women since time immemorial and have neglected and seem to have denied their rights altogether in many situations. Women very often have been deprived of human rights and society seems to have played with them as if they were cards or puppets to serve the purpose their superior 'others' have liked. This reductionist position of women has been reflected in literature, firstly, by male writers and then by female writers. Unfortunately the portrayal of women in the hands of many male writers appears to have been either more reductionist than what it is/was in reality or more exaggerated while most of the female writers appear emotional and over sentimental in their portrayal of women characters. This paper attempts to briefly study the condition of women as reflected in literature in relation to the actual condition of women of different times. Women did not have much scope for institutional education and very few had the opportunity of reading at home because of conservative society in the past. The male dominated conservative society did not think that women were human beings and they needed education. Society understood by human beings only men who would earn and dominate the others serving them. As women were kept confined to homes and hearths and did not earn, they had the status like that of servants. To make and keep women subordinate and subservient to men, men had concocted different texts and associated them with religion. The uneducated women, brought up under the shade of religion, believed those texts without questioning their authenticity and the more they believed the more they became subservient. Any deviation on the part of a woman was treated with physical cruelty, and women tolerated in silence even being bitten by their

2019

There is no world and world development without women. The force and the power of the macrocosm largely dwell in women, untapped and realistic it is still vibrant yet lying idle among the society. The macrocosm as a large family has diversified systems, cultures, traditions, societal clans, best practices, life styles and governmental impacts on existing living form of mankind. Life and generations is sure not to exist without the rhythm of women; she is the heartstring of the society and the macrocosm in complete unison. The world would turn barren and devoid of growth in absence of the power of women. The stately form a man exalts in the power of women. Social awareness on protection and establishment of such a power believed in every part of the world, which ever the country of existence. There have been multitudinous writer, authors, socialists and people of different walks of life who have put forward views and philosophies in women development and expressed angst on the atrocities leveled against women, taken to be the weaker sections of the society. This paper would highlight and bring to limelight the well being of women through some eminent writers/authors of the world. The perspectives through the expressions of female writers, a personal relevance of those writers and that has given impetus to the concept of womanhood and provide a solution in establishing equanimity to existence of a woman.

2020

Literature asserted itself to be an intellectual imitator to life for generations in this earth that has voiced the voiceless. The recent modern and postmodern literary ideas have changed the whole scenario of the literature. One of the contemporary issues is the gender inequality. Writers across the globe wrote about every burning issue of their times. One among such issues is gender inequality. Some of the writers had suffered with this menace of the society themselves and have lightened this menace very keenly and acutely in their works. This gender inequality was a result of illusions both in the family and society about its members. These writers remained an active reformist to bring a social change in the society. Throughout their journey they worked for this deprived classes of the society. This research paper attempts to bring out all the elements of gender inequality, the agony and the pain suffered by these members around the globe through the lenses of fiction.

The American Dream is that any man or woman, despite of his or her background, can change their circumstances and rise as high as they are willing to work. This quote by Fabrizio Moreira holds good for men but for women this dream posses many challenges before it is fulfilled. Women are multifaceted and perform a significant role in society. Across the world women have their challenges to face in this man"s world. In India women are considered as the goddess from the ancient time however, it is also true that they are not treated as goddess. Considering them as goddess alone is not enough, it needs positive continuous effort and participation of both men and women to really bring women empowerment. Initially women were confined to domestic chores and kept within the four walls of the house. Gradually women started getting educated and as the rate of literacy in women increased there has been some progress. Women since ages have expressed their felling, thoughts, anger, experience and anxiety through their writing not only in English but also in other languages.. This paper is an attempt to explore the various genres of women"s writing across the world to understand the life of women and also the manner in which they were portrayed in literature. This paper also tries to make a comparative study of the writings in India with other countries both in the past and present in an attempt to know how successful we have been in achieving women empowerment.

IJASOS- International E-journal of Advances in Social Sciences, 2017

As literary texts are considered as a free area of imagination, which often reflect women's reactionary or progressive perceptions, their analysis is one of the best opportunities for the construction of cultural, social, psychological, historical images. Until the 1930-ies the traditional role of women was determined by the male construction: the woman is a mother and wife and is associated to domestic work and taking care of household. The main success of the woman was considered to get marriage and have children. However, the economic crisis caused by the Second World War and the need for women's resources changed the discourse and made the identity of the women of the time of war more complex: the woman undertook multiple role: feminine, working like man, spouse, ideal housewife. Poetic texts by two German female authors-Ingeborg Bachmann and Ilse Aichinger, and four Georgian female authors-Ana Kalandadze, Lia sturua, Iza orjonikidze and Manana Chitishvili were chosen as the objects of this study. As the historical contexts of Georgian and Austrian literature of the twentieth century reveal some similarities, such as the annexation, the Anschluss, a small country with a glorious past, a small county with a large neighbour etc., these similarities outlined the object of this study. The comparative analysis of poetic texts by Georgian and Austrian female authors revealing on the one hand, contemporary and historical peculiarities of feminine narrative, and on the other hand, contrasts in cultural contexts, allow us to demonstrate and establish their national, individual and historical characteristics. The comparative analysis of the feminine narrative of the twentieth-century may also reveal sub-alternate status and marginalized role of women in the totalitarian regime.

CIERMMI Women in Science T-X Humanities and Behavioral Sciences, 2021

The following essay intends to show women presence in some scripts, mainly narrative, by authors and shea uthors who decided to recreate them in the literary artwork. The twentieth century will be the encompassing component and some of its decades, the encompassed parts; the classification follows the desire to deepen into those mentioned she characters which are already part of the Mexican literature history. We began the journey in 1903, with Santa, by Federico Gamboa and ended in 2009, with The Insurgent by Carlos Pascual, covering a little the present century, given the importance of some script that address the framework theme: women as a literary creation. We consider it important to mention that the contributions of this study are two, one, as its name indicates, highlighting the presence of women as creation in the literary work and, another, which, although we know, according to the Language Royal Academy LRA, character is a masculine noun, we propose, at least in this essa...

Young Scientist

The article focuses on the problematic issues of the undervaluation of women's writing in the 19 th-20 th centuries. The research aspects in this sphere have been illustrated; the insight on the struggles of women writers against male editors and authors and their selfishness and total disregard for them has been highlighted; the challenge faced by women writers of being unaccepted in the literary world, often having to prove the worthiness and importance of their works, being categorized in ways different to men has been emphasized on. The research has been done on the basis of the analysis of gender studies' approach to women's writing. By taking a closer look at the public reception of the female authors in the nineteenth-twentieth centuries we assume that the narrow-mindedness of the patriarchal society and the lack of basic human rights to freedom of women's writing in this period hindered the development of female literature. In order to step on the male-dominated literary path and stand alongside the men, female authors had to use male pseudonyms or write anonymously to avoid the condescending judgements of men-critics. Women writers faced the challenge of being unaccepted in the literary world, often having to prove the worthiness and importance of their works, being categorized in ways different to men.

2020

The remarkable influence of gender studies in recent years on the Greek educational system has inevitably led to the integration of a multi-focal thematic section entitled “Gender in Literature” in the new Lyceum curriculum. This section truly captures the interest of adolescents, as it stimulates the approach of literary texts and promotes constructive discussions that often lead to further enjoyment of reading. On this base a collaboration between University of Athens and Anavryta Model Lyceum was carried out in Literature class in both institutions. This article aims to present the main stages of this cooperation on the subject of “Literary Representations of Women’s roles from traditional to modern society”, as the institutional framework for teaching literature clearly supports the historicity of texts. Besides explaining the rationale behind this educational action, we are proposing a selection of literary texts that were used in class and presenting the objectives and didacti...

Journal of Literary Education, 2020

The remarkable influence of gender studies in recent years on the Greek educational system has inevitably led to the integration of a multi-focal thematic section entitled “Gender in Literature” in the new Lyceum curriculum. This section truly captures the interest of adolescents, as it stimulates the approach of literary texts and promotes constructive discussions that often lead to further enjoyment of reading. On this base a collaboration between University of Athens and Anavryta Model Lyceum was carried out in Literature class in both institutions. This article aims to present the main stages of this cooperation on the subject of “Literary Representations of Women’s roles from traditional to modern society”, as the institutional framework for teaching literature clearly supports the historicity of texts. Besides explaining the rationale behind this educational action, we are proposing a selection of literary texts that were used in class and presenting the objectives and didactic methods practiced, the type of tasks assigned to the pupils as well as the skills developed by them. The paper insists on certain texts that are particularly valuable for this approach and offers examples of taking advantage of contextual elements. Finally, we are showing how this collaboration became a real example of extroversion for both institutions and we are attempting a comprehensive evaluation of this project and its impact within the students’ and teachers’ community