Womans Studies Essays - Womens Rights, Feminist Theory, Gender

Woman's Studies Oppression is defined by The Collins Paperback English Dictionary as, ?to subjugate by cruelty, force. etc. To afflict or torment. To lie heavy on (the mind, etc.)?. According to one of the authors in the book Feminist Frontiers IV, Marilyn Frye says: ?The root of the word oppression is the element ?press'. The press of the crowd; pressed into the military service; to press a pair of pants; printing press; printing press; press the button. Presses are used to mold things or flatten them or reduce them in bulk?. Something pressed is something caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict or prevent the thing's motion or mobility. Mold. Immobilise. Reduce.? The word oppression is often related to feminism. The statement that women are oppressed is often found with the statement that men are oppressed as well. According to Frye, ?oppressing is oppressive to those who oppress as well as to those they oppress.? It is not only women who are oppressed; Men claim their oppression as the fact that they are not supposed to show their emotion, they aren't allowed to cry, it is unacceptable. In many countries, for example Afghanistan, women are deeply oppressed. They must cover their entire bodies with clothing, including their face or they will be severely punished with torture. In most parts of Canada and in many parts of the United States women are just as free as men are. Although there are instances of oppression, for example Frye writes in her article titled ?Oppression? that it is common in the US for younger women to be in a bind were sexual activity and sexual inactivity are both unaccepted. It happens in some parts of the country were g irls might be called names like ?slut? or ?whore? for having had sexual relations with a boy. But the other girls who haven't had sex are often called ?prude? or ?uptight?. In these cases girls have no choice, it's a lose-lose situation. They can't be accepted either way. This also goes for the way a woman dresses. If she dresses one way, perhaps wearing a low-neck shirt and a short skirt, she may be seen as easy because she's showing her sexual availability. If she dresses another way by wearing a turtleneck and a pair of lose dress pants, she may be seen as uptight and self-conscious about her body. Another form of oppression is the lack of power women have in a divorce. In the movie ?For richer, For Poorer? the women in the film was physically abused by her husband and she left him with the children. Since the children were young she still had to mind them and was unable to get a job. Her husband refused to pay alimony or child support, while he was buying expensive suits, went to tanning salons and fancy gyms and drove a fancy car. According to the narrator in the film, like this women, four out of ten marriages fail. Women head Eighty-five percent of single parent families. Eighty-five percent of men fail to support their families fully and sixty percent fail to support at all. Another fact stated in the film was that after a divorce men's standard of living goes up usually by sixty percent. Women's on the other hand goes down usually to forty percent. This goes to show that there is a lack of support programs for women and their children and that those women are oppressed. T hey are lacking freedom and their rights. In Readings two there is references to how women's sexuality has a connection with economic, political dominance and the control that man has. Rosalinda Mendez Gonzalez wrote Reading two, which is titled, ?Distinctions in Western Women's Experience: Ethnicity, Class, and Social Change?. One of the main questions in this reading is ?What did the settlement of the land itself mean for the women of different classes and ethnicity Many of the answers came from the focus on pioneer women and their lives. Their lives are studied through their diaries and or literature left behind. Gonzalez explains that this is biased. There is evidence of the experience of working class women, but