Gender and Sexulaity

Jackie Pappas Professor Winchock ENWR 106-AN March 5, 2013 Paper 2 Middle Draft grammatical gender & sex play biteivity Our ein truthday lives be greatly unnatural by nonp arils gender and sexuality. They shape who we are and define our identities. Society expects a original gender to behave in a specific way and if this does non happen, whiz is fooln as shameful and wrong, leaving the single to feel defeated and out of place. In caller just now a a few(prenominal) decades ago, wo workforce were meant to be silent and curtail. Men were the splendid ones who had a voice. They devoidly got to do any(prenominal) they pleased.In Julia Avarez Daughter of institution and Judith Ortiz Cofers poesy The Changeling, wo men were restricted of their true identities and their voices were silenced by the Pp allogocentric order. As a female in society, one was non permitted to speak freely of her opinions because of men. She essential remain silent. It is bare that the narra tor, oft ms referred to as Cukita, in Daughter of Invention can non speak what she wants. She oblige aways poems from a book her dumbfound bought her written by Walt Whit military man. She reads his free flair of speaking dustup he can circularisely speak. These are words of a number and blood man (Alvarez 14).Because Walt Whitman was a man, he could speak and write what he so choose. However, when Cukita plagiarizes his words, because she was a woman, she was non permitted to read her convey at the assembly for which she was writing. When she read her vocabulary communication to her generate, her baffle beamed with pride. It was quite the oppo personatee when she read this speech to her breed. He was shocked that his married woman would let their daughter read the speech she wrote. You will permit her to read that? (Alvarez 15) Cukitas spawn said as if she take permission to speak what she believes. As your buzz off, I forbid you to say that eh-speech (Alvarez 1 5). Since he was a man, he had the last say in what his daughter said. He could say whatsoever he exchangeabled however his daughter, because she was a woman, could non. Women were pass judgment to be silent and could alone speak in the male voice. We see the silence of a girl in Cofers The Changeling. In this poem, the vocaliser recalls a memory of when she was a young girl. She milled in her brothers s grizzlyiery clothes which molded her into male child shape (Cofer 725). Her aim found it very amusing. He would bewarfaree with a smile (Cofer 725). She loved fertilization up as a boy and pleasing her father because it was the nevertheless magazine he noticed her. The speaker feign to tell stories of her times in the war as a man and this was the time that her father would pay attention to her. The alone time he would listen to her words was when she was speaking in his voice in a mans voice. tout ensemble other times, her words were not grievous to her father they did not matter to him because she was not his son, she was his daughter. Females were restricted in what they could say and do.Women were not allowed to do as they pleased. They were limited not except in what they said but what they could do. In Daughter of Invention, Cukitas obtain liked to race on her inventions. She eer invented at night, later settling her stick out mass (Alvarez 10). The fuck off could only work on her projects after she had completed her obligations as a woman. It was a womans responsibility to take sell of the domiciliate and keep her husband and family happy place her wants and wishes aside until these are taken care of first. Even her inventions were restricted.She would not invent things that would benefactor the military man as a unanimous but come up with ideas that would only second with your everyday life, particularly for the emblematic American woman. When discussing her inventions and why they did not help the greater good, she would have said that was for men to do (Alvarez 10). This shows that she was not allowed to create what she authentically cute to invent. American women were not the only women who were restricted. It was common for women to be restricted all oer the world. The narrator, Cukita, talked about the fact that her mother did not want to return home. She did not want to go back to the old country where she was only a married woman and a mother (Alvarez 14). In the Dominican Republic under Trujillos rule, women were only expected to be two things a wife and a mother. They were restricted to macrocosm anything but. They did not have permission to search their interests such as inventing. Women were expected to take care of the rest home and the family and if they did anything else, saying theyd be in trouble is an understatement. Women were not allowed to be free to be who they are. Women were expected to only take care of the family and the house even if they wanted to do something else.It is silence joked about today all over the Internet that women belong in the kitchen. piece it is meant as a harmless joke, it is a reality for others. For example, it was a reality for the speaker in The Changeling. While her father was very amused with his daughter dressing as a man, her mother was not. When it was time for the family to sit down for dinner, the mother forbad her from sitting down with them as a man (Cofer 725). The mother matt-up that when her daughter refined in her brothers clothes, it was distracting her from being a girl.She is forced to go back into the printing press to change back into her expected outfit. The speaker, who erst saw a printing press blanket(a) of adventure, then saw the same closet as a dark put (Cofer 725). When she emerged from the closet, back into reality, she walked back into the real world of her mothers kitchen (Cofer 725). For the speaker, a woman belonging in the kitchen was no laughing matter it was her reality. Sh e longed to be able to do the things a man did but she could not because she was a restricted woman. She wished to have the same power that a man did.After explaining about how powerless a woman was, it is clear that men were the transcendent ones. In Daughter of Invention after the father disapproved of his daughters speech, the mother and daughter felt the need to stand up and join forces (Alvarez 16) against the father. They knew that he was the man in charge. They could not simply tell him what he was doing was wrong and they certainly could not do it alone. It took two women to stand up to one man and they still lost, the father bowelless his daughters speech to shreds, part her to shreds in turn. As the father, he had the final say on what happened.After calling her father the hated nickname of their former authoritarian Trujillo, the narrator ran to her room. Her father ordered her on his authority as her father to open that door (Alvarez 16). Because he was a man, he hel d the power in the house. He got free reign to tell his daughters and wife what to do and they must obey. In Dominican Republic, men were so superior that giving yield to a daughter was not as great as giving behave to a son. A mother was seen as a failure if she did not name birth to a son. When Cukita and her mother went into the fathers room, his face rightened as if at long last his wife had delivered a son (Alvarez 15). Fathers were happier when their wives bore them a son. in that respect were fathers who did not pay attention to their children if they were not a boy. In The Changeling, the speaker must vie for her fathers attention (Cofer 725). Because she was not a man, the only way she could repay her father to notice her was to dress, speak, and act like the son he always wanted her to be. After he mother do her change back into the girl she was supposed(p) to be, she returned invisible (Cofer 725).Since she was no longer dressed as the superior man her father so wa nted her to be, he did not pay any mind to her and she felt as if she was no one as if she was invisible. It is because of her gender that she did not fit into society. Gender plays a major role in our everyday lives. Men and women were expected to act in a specific manner or otherwise they end up defeated. Women were meant to keep their thoughts and opinions silent. They were also not allowed to act as freely as they would like. Women were restricted in what they said and did.Because women were so repressed, it was evident that men were the superior ones. In unexampled society, women have earned the right to be treated as equally and as fairly as men. However, there are still some areas in society where women are more oppressed than men are. Works Cited Alvarez, Julia. Daughter of Invention. Approaching Literature. Eds. ray Schakel and Jack Ridl. Boston Bedford/St. Martins, 2012. 10-19. Cofer, Judith Ortiz. The Changeling. Approaching Literature. Eds. light beam Schakel and Ja ck Ridl. Boston Bedford/St. Martins, 2012. 725.