Raising Cain Essay

During the time both short stories were written and where they were written, similar things were expected of women despite the time period difference. In the 1970’s in the Caribbean, women were expected to take care of the house and their families. In the 1890’s, women were not allowed to do anything and be their own people in any way as long as they were married. These are similar because in both periods, women were forced into being led around by others. In “Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid, the story follows a mother giving her daughter a long strain of advice and tasks she needs to learn how to do. The advice she gives is important and teaches the girl life skills and lessons while also scolding her. This story also reflects the oppression of women during this era, being the late 1970’s. The girl's mother tells her what a girl must do in their society and what she mustn't do. She says to her, “this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways,” It shows how much is expected of a girl, from washing white clothing on Monday and

     In 'Girl'; Kincaid lists a series of orders from a mother to a daughter in such a way that the characters' lives are illuminated and transformed by the mundane household details. The 'Girl'; is more of a gender type of a story, but there is also a lesson that needs to be realized by the girl. In this story the mother of this girl is her teacher, she tells her daughter of how the world is around her, just like Miss Moore in 'The Lesson.'; The mother in this story tries to make her daughter realize that he needs to be viewed as a woman within society. Who or what the

Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain is the eldest and Abel is the youngest. Cain is described as the tiller of the ground whereas Abel is the keeper of sheep. Both men know that God requires an offering, but the offering of Cain is quite different from that of Abel. Abel fears God, and because of this he offers the best of his flock to the Lord. He kills the animal and makes a sacrifice of blood. Abel understands that the shedding of innocent blood for the forgiveness of sin is acceptable. He also knows that this action of his is representative of surrendering his heart to God. By contrast, Cain brings what he has grown and gathered from the earth. In a way, a foolish man would think

The mother also teaches her daughter to cook, clean, and wash which traditionally is up to the women in a household to do. Kincaid makes the reader think and figure out for him, or herself, what point of life the child is in and what gender they are in order to draw them into the story.

In this satirical article, Brady expresses the difference between the roles of women and men in the 1970’s by stating men’s point of view on women and women’s roles in society. Throughout her article, Brady emphasizes the roles of women. For example, women could now “work and...takes care of the children when they are sick”. Comparing the 1880’s to the 1970’s, there has been a big improvement. Many women had jobs outside their home, but still were responsible for most housework and childcare while their husband’s only responsibility in a marriage was to go to work and earn money to support the family. Society’s expectations allowed women to work outside the home to support college education for husbands; however,women had to know how to balance their time between their children and their jobs, making sure that their husbands “cannot miss classes at school.” During the 1970’s, women were still oppressed in many ways and had to follow society's expectations in order to live up to the men’s view of women’s roles in society. Even though society’s expectations of women had improved since The Awakening, most of women’s roles had stayed the same. In the article, Brady specifies how once a husband is “through with school and has a job, [he expects the] wife to quit working and remain at home so that [she] can more fully and completely take

“Girl” is a critically acclaimed short story by the Caribbean-American writer Jamaica Kincaid. It was first published in 1978 in The New Yorker magazine. The story revolves around the stream of consciousness interaction between two women, a mother and a daughter. The mother departs wisdom to the daughter in the form of short, declarative sentences and commands. The conversation ranges from advice about domestic chores to advice about sexual chores, indicating that both housekeeping and sexuality are a part of a woman's domestic labor.

She explains that: … teen boys face many of the same challenges and are longing for many of the same things as girls: they fall in love easily, get their hearts broken and have very mixed feelings about the hypersexualized culture in which they live; they hunger to be more open about their feelings, both with their families and with their male friends, though they exist in a culture that discourages such emotional openness and they desperately want to maintain their social position among their guy friends regardless of the cost to them or others. (42) Because boys are taught to suppress their feelings many boys thus suffer from low self-esteem (43). Wiseman uses anecdotes and illustrations of boys dealing with real-life relationships and emotions to support her claim. She also provides statistics such as boys falling behind girls in regards to high-school GPA and college enrollment which she claims is a result of boys having low self-esteem (43). Lastly, she provides a solution by suggestion that parents should make a concerted effort to communicate more often with their sons about their emotional well-being

In the 1800’s, the women responsibilities were to maintain order in the house, protect and discipline the students. In the 21st century, now women are not just responsible for cleaning, cooking and discipling children, instead women can now work and impose some of those tasks on their husbands. In the story “Our Deportment, or the Manners, Conduct, and Dress of Refined Society”, as the home is considered the “woman’s kingdom” and that it is the women responsibility to “make the lives of her husband and the dear ones committed to her trust, is the honored task which it is the wife’s province” (Gutenberg 1), most of their time is spent in the home making sure the home is kept under control and ready to serve her husbands and children. In reference to the speech by Emma Watson, she states that “we need to end gender inequality” (Watson 1), which in the 21st century it is coming closer to reality. Women now don’t have to remain at home all day, they can now work just like men and provide for their families the same way men do.

Society teaches young boys that they must always be tough and they must hold in their “feminine” feelings, such as crying. Not being able to adequately express emotion causes a build up of unresolved feelings and unfortunately when this build up becomes too high, the most natural outlet is violence. This form of hyper-masculinity contributes to issues of depression and suicide in boys, gun violence and mass shootings, and sexual assault on women because the built up emotions within young boys feeds violence. “Real” boys suffering from depression are taught not to show that emotion. They are taught that it is okay to talk about anger but not okay to talk about sadness because sadness is a “feminine” emotion. Without an outlet to work through sadness, depression brings out aggression and can lead to suicide because boys feel so alone and unable to talk to anyone about the thoughts racing in their head. Likewise, if young men do not take their own lives as a result of built up sadness, they may act out on the public in order to feel control—perhaps with gun violence, mass shootings, or even sexual assault on

Kincaid explored the roles of women around the house, roles that may not seem to be significant, but if a household had to go without these roles the house would suffer. The mother teaches the young woman, “This is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house” (Kincaid, 20). This shows the roles of women inside the house. These roles may seem insignificant but they cannot be overlooked or ignored.

A lot of males’ violent behavior and females’ complaisance can be accredited to family and institutional socialization. Parents usually raise boys on aggressive sports, such as hockey and football, which encourage violence. Girls, however, are generally brought up on "feminine" activities, dance and figure skating to name a few, which promote a gentle, polite nature. It is the rare parent that heeds their four-year-old son’s aspiration to be a ballet dancer by purchasing the child a pair of tights and a leotard. When a boy shows more interest in dolls than in trucks, his family may be distressed, and provoke him to reveal his "masculine" side. After striving for egalitarianism between the sexes for so many years, families still deter young girls from pursuits of hockey stardom, hoping to interest them in Pointe shoes. Displays of emotion by boys are often criticized for being "unmasculine", whereas emotional behavior in girls tends to be expected and accepted. As a result, boys tend to not only hide their feelings, but criticize friends for showing their emotions. Girls, on the other hand, encourage one another to express feelings and console one another naturally.

Often, women are depicted by society to be weak, vulnerable and soft; while men are portrayed by society to be strong, emotionless and superior. This sexist stereotype makes it difficult for men to recognise that they have become victims of abuse, because it is more common for a man to think, ‘I’m a man, I’m the stronger one - this can’t be abuse,’ rather than ‘I’m being attacked, I need to get out.’ Boys are traditionally brought up to be tough and emotionless. While it is socially acceptable for a female individual to break down in tears, if a male were to do the same - he would be ridiculed, told to ‘suck it up’ and ‘be a man.’ This damages their psychological health from young, as they grow up battling with their human emotions in isolation. There has been no cultivation of a culture that encourages males to openly express their feelings. Society denies males of expressing emotion unless it is related to

When boys are young they are told to toughen up or to stop acting like a girl when they are sad or want to cry. Michael Kimmel, author of “Bros Before Hos”: The Guy Code, discusses how there is a code guys are supposed to follow and how being taught natural behaviors, such as crying or talking about emotions, are wrong at a young age negatively impacts boys for their whole life. Emily Smith, the author of Life on the Island, talks about how a decrease in places that have a feeling of community increases the suicide rate among men. Everyone tells boys to act a certain way their father, coach, even people they don’t know, but this is not the only place they hear these negative statements. Television and magazine advertisements often depict men in an unrealistic way that feels unachievable and because of this young boys who view these ads feel negatively about themselves and because of the guy code they can’t share their feelings and emotions which can lead to depression or even suicide.

Women face their lives counterstained to the home in order to cook, clean, give birth, care for children, and only devote themselves to one job, family. Sarah Stickney Ellis writes about the role woman play

This movie focused on something that people don't usually pay attention to, and that's the reason for the movie in the first place. Not only are men's emotions ignored in society but they are also shamed for feeling like humans. From a young age boys are taught that crying makes you weak and feeling emotions is only for women. So as biology goes these boys grow into men with the same mentality and pass the same message on to the next generation. In this paper i will be looking at specifically the way society shapes young boys to grow into emotionally unavailable men. Using the movie “The mask you live in” I will be evaluating the way young men are made to fear the human emotions that god has given them.