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F Fem

The document is a group assignment submitted by two students that analyzes patriarchy and biological essentialism. It provides examples of how patriarchy has promoted the belief that women are inferior to men based on biological differences. It discusses how patriarchy has manifested in various cultures and countries, oppressing women by restricting their opportunities in education, work, and social roles. It highlights the influential works of Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf in raising consciousness about patriarchy and arguing for women's basic rights and intellectual freedom.

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Fariha Younas Dar
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38 views

F Fem

The document is a group assignment submitted by two students that analyzes patriarchy and biological essentialism. It provides examples of how patriarchy has promoted the belief that women are inferior to men based on biological differences. It discusses how patriarchy has manifested in various cultures and countries, oppressing women by restricting their opportunities in education, work, and social roles. It highlights the influential works of Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf in raising consciousness about patriarchy and arguing for women's basic rights and intellectual freedom.

Uploaded by

Fariha Younas Dar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Group Assignment

Submitted by:

Fariha Younas Dar (202110001) Warda Mubeen (202110006)

Semester: 3rd

Section: Null

Submitted To: Dr. Babar Jamil

Course Code: ENG625-Literary Theory and Criticism


Question: Patriarchy is thus, by definition, sexist, which means it promotes the belief that
women are innately inferior to men. This belief in the inborn inferiority of women is a form
of what is called Biological essentialism because it is based on biological differences
between the sexes that are considered part of our unchanging essence as men and women.

Elaborate the given statement with appropriate examples.

Answer:

Anglo-European civilization is deeply entrenched in patriarchal ideology such as many


patriarchal and monster women of Greek and Roman Literature, the patriarchal interpretation of
the biblical Eve. Even the literature of Western canon developed under the patriarchal ideology.
In against to this patriarchal ideology, feminist waves, feminist theory and literary criticism
made an ultimate goal to change the world by promoting women’s equality.

In 19th century, men and women have many substantial distinctions. Both gender
differences are the result of biology that are based on essentialist’s ideas. The term biology
meant that the physical appearances or gender in society. People starts believe that there is a
system which controls the influence of women and men. That believe is called patriarchal
system.

Patriarchal presents women like weak and inferior than men. Such as in this patriarchal
society women pushed back and give lower opportunities in education and work. This ideology
gives two identities a woman, “good girls” or “bad girls”. If a woman obeys traditional gender
roles, she consider a good girl and put her in pedestals and idealized as pure and angelic. In
contrast, if a woman disobey all these old rules, she characterized as a bad girl. Especially, if a
woman break the rules of sexual conduct for patriarchal women. She considers a sexually
provocative.

Patriarchy works variously in various countries. There are major differences between
patriarchy in the European and Asian countries. Countries have different cultures that effect
differently in women’s experience of patriarchy. In the United States, for example, for women of
color, paternal experience is inseparable from their experience of racism. African American
feminists, especially white mainstream feminists, have been instrumental in exposing the
political and ideological boundaries of the cultural experience. Black feminists, for example,
have analyzed ways to understand gender oppression in addition to racial oppression. Black
women are oppressed by patriarchy, black feminists observe not only because she is a woman
but also because she is a black woman, a category that has historically been the United States. I
have been declared less valuable than the white woman category.

In 1949, a French feminist writer, Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex. In
feminist field and patriarchal society, it became an influential work. She declined the traditional
Gender Roles where women is considered as a inferior by telling that they are weak, emotional
nurturing and submissive in contrast of men. Because men represented as strong, rational and
protective. In The second sex, raised consciousness about sexism and patriarchy. “One is not
born a woman, one rather becomes a woman.” These immortal words by Simon de Beauvoir
is the heart of the debate. According to Simon de Beauvoir, women is suffering sex injustice
since Adam and eve. As a woman is born, her limits are told how to wear it and how to cook and
how to live and how to live, no one is given importance to her thinking and ability.

Another influential modernist Virginia Woolf plays a crucial role in patriarchate and
gender equality. She concerned about the role of female in society. In her essay “A Room of
One’s Own”, writer claims that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is
to Write fiction” (Woolf 4).
She claims women’s basic rights, such as leisure, privacy and financial freedom, to enable
them to express their intellectual abilities. To emphasize that women do not have equal
opportunities to keep their intellectual freedom alive and to create art, she uses the metaphor of
Shakespeare’s imaginary sister Judith; Explaining that if Shakespeare had the same intelligent
sister, she would have gone mad, shot herself or spent her days in a lonely cottage.

Today, women get their right to vote, get education freely and able to have a job
independently but the patriarchy system still does not support their new lifestyle.

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