StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Not a Slave to Society, but an Independent, Happy Woman - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The paper "Not a Slave to Society, but an Independent, Happy Woman" highlights that Marjane Satrapi rejected traditional gender norms and expectations by not doing everything that society expects from her as a woman and as a Muslim, but, instead, she followed what made her happy. …
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER95.1% of users find it useful
Not a Slave to Society, but an Independent, Happy Woman
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Not a Slave to Society, but an Independent, Happy Woman"

“Marjane Satrapi: Graphic Novels & Her Family's Influence” demonstrates that Satrapi’s family has numerous independent women as role models, especially her grandmother and mother. These women did not allow society to undervalue them, and instead, their vibrant personalities helped them become independent individuals in a conformist society. Satrapi had strong women role models as her inspiration for her freedom-loving spirit.

Besides the new things I learned about Satrapi and her society, the videos are related to the reading, “The Social Construction of Gender” by Judith Lorber, because they provide examples of how gender is a social process, stratification, and structure, and how Satrapi coped with the social construction of gender in Iran. Lorber argues that gender is a “process” of socially conditioning girls on how to be women, a stratification is a form of gender “ranking” where women are lower than men, and social structure is the organization of work and life according to gender (114-116).

In these videos, Satrapi showed that she also went through the process of being socially taught how to be a woman because of the pressure to be beautiful and to be noticed. In addition, she experienced gender stratification through people who told her where women’s place should be (i.e. as a wife, not an activist) and how they should act in society (i.e. get married and have a family). However, instead of being a woman in society’s terms, Satrapi emphasizes that she will do what is meaningful for her and what makes her happy.

I agree with Satrapi that people should do what makes them happy because their happiness is more important than aligning their identities with gender norms and behaviors. Satrapi says in “Marjane Satrapi LinkTV” that she does things as she likes. She has an independent spirit and she does not work to please others. She says that a person who enjoys her work produces work that will also be appreciated by others. I appreciate her work and how she inspires me to become a person who lives for her dreams of freedom and self-determination. My questions are: (1) How does Satrapi deal with those who criticize her as a “slut” because she is sexually liberated? (2) What can she advise to women who want to be like her, but experience religious and cultural constraints on their gender?

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Video Response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words”, n.d.)
Video Response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/gender-sexual-studies/1650737-video-response
(Video Response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 Words)
Video Response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 Words. https://studentshare.org/gender-sexual-studies/1650737-video-response.
“Video Response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/gender-sexual-studies/1650737-video-response.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Not a Slave to Society, but an Independent, Happy Woman

Addressing Race in America: Declaration of Independence

This dissertation "Addressing Race in America: Declaration of Independence" discussed many issues regarding racial discrimination and the paradoxical atmosphere which still exists in America, and can not say that every individual is free and can enjoy his freedom in a real sense.... ... ... ... Officially and legally the black people get every right of free citizens, but has American white community fully accepted black people....
43 Pages (10750 words) Dissertation

Contrast of the Experience of Slavery as Represented by Douglass and Jacobs

In Narrative on the Life of Frederick Douglass and Incidents in the Life of a slave Girl, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, respectively, present their biographical accounts of life lived under a system of slavery in which they had to answer daily to their masters and endure the worst forms of human abuse.... ouglass gives an account of his life as a slave in and around Baltimore during the mid-1800s.... "Contrast of the Experience of Slavery as Represented by Douglass and Jacobs" paper reviews the gendered perspectives displayed by Douglass and Jacobs to determine what their views were on lives lived as a man and woman robbed of freedom but not of other crucial aspects of personal identity....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Explain and evaluate de Beauvoir's critique of patriarchal man-woman relations

Generally, in a male dominated society it is believed that women are completely unfit to lead an independent life and hence she has to be under the supervision of men.... Explain and evaluate de Beauvoir's critique of patriarchal man-woman relations, especially as it is exemplified in her notion of woman as Other The relationship between men and women has existed since time immemorial.... Marriage is considered to be the link between the man and woman relationship....
10 Pages (2500 words) Essay

Freedom and equality: Rhetoric in the pre-Civil War period

Lydia Marie Child's novel Hobomok (1824) is a romance novel that has an element of interracial marriage between the white woman Mary and the Indian Hobomok.... In the new nation, different groups existed together, but not without acceptance of each other's physical and ideological differences....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

The paper "Incidents in the Life of a slave Girl" highlights that Jacobs exposes abolitionist discourse, not through outright rejection, but through the redefinition of womanhood.... As a young African American woman slave, having lost her mother and a few years later her mother's mistress to whom she was bequeathed, Linda Brent fights all odds against sexual oppression from her father, Dr.... The cult of true womanhood The 19th Century African American woman was expected to be a domesticator....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

Gender Oppression and Liberation in Flauberts A Simple Heart and Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper

Gustave shows Félicité's life as a woman, which Gilman also demonstrates in the life of her story's narrator.... To be a woman is a tyranny if all she lives for is to be a man's woman.... Mary Wollstonecraft argues in A Vindication of the Rights of woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects that men and women by nature are equal because they both have souls that have equal qualities, so they must enjoy similar basic human rights and freedoms....
14 Pages (3500 words) Essay

Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

This essay "Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of woman" presents a Vindication of the Rights of woman that talks about the drawbacks of traditional notions of womanhood that the stories 'A Simple Heart' and 'The Yellow Wallpaper' supported.... Gustave shows Félicité's life as a woman, which Gilman also demonstrates in the life of her story's narrator.... When society sees women as secondary citizens, where they do not have the same rights and freedoms to cognitive, social, and physical development, they can become as unfulfilled and unhappy as the narrator of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and Félicité....
14 Pages (3500 words) Essay

The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America

This report "The Emergence of an independent Women's Movement in America" discusses the bourgeois men of America that can be blamed for the rise of the women's movement and the consequent feminist movement because of their ill-advised moves to control their women.... here is some truth to the old wisdom of being prepared always for unintended changes or consequences, and this applied to the Cult of True Womanhood; it was a movement that arose as a reaction to the challenges and perceived threats brought about by the changes during the Industrial Revolution that shook the political, economic, and social spheres; its stated aims were to preserve the old-world values of what is considered as an ideal woman....
9 Pages (2250 words) Report
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us