The story "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid is quite an interesting story. It is about a mother telling her daughter all the rules of a good housewife. The gender roles of women during that time were to be a stay at home mom, being nice to all the guests and doing most of the work around the house. In lines 14 it says "this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so they don't have a crease."They have to take care of everyone. In Line 18 it says, "this is how you sweep a whole house". The house is a representation of who they are. A clean house equals a happy family. So throughout the story you see it is mostly orders that the daughter has to follow. But in a couple parts you could see how the daughter almost rebels, In Line 10 the daughter says "but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday School." It's like, she doesn't want to confirm to what society wants.
Women are seen very differently around the world. They have different roles. In "Southern Vietnam culture, property are not passed down to boys but to girls. Men take the women's last name and move into the home with them (Grenier, 2016)."While in India, boys are given more importance. And if a family has 1 boy and 3 girls then the son will get all his parents inheritance. The daughters won't get anything but dowry to get married. Men are the head of the family and are often the ones working. While Italian women are the head of the household in their family. "Did you know that in Japan around Valentines Day, it is the women who buy their men chocolate not the other way around (Grenier, 2016)."
Reference:
https://spark.adobe.com/page/z862E/
This is very well written and makes a lot of good points. I especially like the part where you write about how the house is a representation of who they are. It kind of shows why the mother wants her daughter to be so perfect because it's almost like a representation on her and how the mother raises her children. What do you think, do you agree?
ReplyDeleteYes! Funny enough I have been taught all my life that what you do is a reflection of your parents. So I do agree with your statement of a mother wanting her daughter to be her best.
DeleteWow, that's really interesting how you talked about how different cultures have different ways of running the house. It's really crazy to think that not everyone does things the way we do things. I wonder if women all over the world, although they have different roles, really do have the same pressure to be "the perfect woman" like a lot of us have here.
ReplyDeleteExactly :) It is crazy to think how we all strive for the same thing but in different ways. I do feel like all women do want to be perfect in their own way.
DeleteThis was quite interesting considering that though woman play different roles in different cultures it still seemed to hold the same meanings. Living up to a mans perspective or level, to please a man, marry a man, or men getting the better half of things. It seems they always have the impression of being in charged no matter what. Society everywhere seem to put women down in some way.
ReplyDeleteYou made a great point as well! Sometimes its almost like everything is man driven. Even in the politics, men have so much power. I'm not much of a feminist or anything but i wish we were more equal. Women and man alike.
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