Gender Inequality-PAPER 1

Daniel Mehryari

Professor Brady

English 102

3/9/17

Gender Inequality

No matter what time period you are living in, gender inequality is always an immensely sensitive topic to discuss. Although these views of gender inequality have drastically changed throughout history, many of these views are argued to be unchanged or believe that they should remain the same. Literature has always done a great job in depicting gender inequalities and different types of literature from different time periods clearly depict how gender inequality have both changed and have remained the same. Two works of literature that accomplish this are the plays Antigone by Sophocles, and A Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.

During the time period of the play Antigone by Sophocles, the expected roles of men and women were drastically different that how they are depicted today. During that time period, men were shown to be the head of the house who were in charge of bringing in all income to the family, and acted as leaders to all important aspects for the family. On the other hand, the role for women during this time period consisted of caring for the house by having responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning, caring for the children, and above all being extremely obedient to the husband and listen to all commands given by him. This can be proven true when Ismene says “You ought to realize we are only women, not meant in nature to fight against men” (Sophocles 71). This quote from Ismene clearly depicts the role and mindset women had when dealing with a man in this time period. This mindset was to just listen to orders. A second example from the play which accurately shows the gender inequalities in the past is shown during the conversation between king Creon and his son when he says “Your nature is vile, in yielding to a woman” (Sophocles 803). By saying this, Creon clearly shows that he does not believe women in this case Antigone, have the right in society to not only break a law, but in her case, go against the authority of a man, let alone a king as powerful as Creon himself.

Due to the stubbornness shown by Antigone when being told to stop her attempts to bury her brother and listen to king Creon, Creon begins to feel as though he is losing a battle, especially to a woman. This event leads to Creon saying “we cannot give victory to a woman, if we must accept defeat, let it be from a man” (Sophocles 576). This once again depicts the outrageousness that begins to occur when a woman attempts acts of disobedience to a man which is what was being implemented by Antigone. Finally, Creon once again states “As long as I am alive no women shall rule” (Sophocles 576). This quote above all shows that no matter how hard women may have tried in the past or how much effort or work they put in, they will never gain enough respect especially rule. These examples shown from the play Antigone by Sophocles clearly illustrate many of the inequalities of gender shown between men and women in the past and as result of these examples we can see how much gender inequalities have both changed and remained the same today.

The play A Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams also does a fantastic job in depicting gender inequalities shown in the past between men and women. An example shown from this play is then Stanley says “Don’t ever talk that way to me! "Pig – Polack – disgusting – vulgar – greasy!" – them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister’s too much around here! What do you think you two are? A pair of queens? Remember what Huey Long said – "Every Man is a King!" And I am the King around here, so don’t forget it!” (Williams 814). This quote from Stanley perfectly depicts how men and women thought of each other back in the day. What Stanley said would have been made a big deal about today but back then that was expected treatment between men and women. A second example from the play is then Stanley says “Poker shouldn’t be played in a house with women.” (Williams 178). This shows once again that women were given very little respect. The fact that women couldn’t even be in the same room as men while playing a game such as poker is something that would absolutely never be said in society today. A final example from the play which showed gender inequality between men and women is when Stella says “I couldn’t go on believing her story and live with Stanley.” (Williams 165). Stella says this in response to choosing to choose her husband over her sister even though she may believe her sister is telling the truth in accusing Stanley of rape, Stella still chooses Stanley which may be because she knows that during this time period women are not meant to leave their husband no matter what. As you can see, the examples depicted in the play A Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams make it clear that gender inequality between men and women have drastically both changed and remained the same throughout the years.

Although it is clear that long ago there was obvious inequality of genders between men and women, today is not much better. An obvious example which proves gender inequality favoring men over women can be found when speaking about the Unites States Soccer men’s and women’s national teams. Believe it or not, women receive a considerably lower pay than the men for doing the same thing as them (playing soccer professionally). Not only that, but the women national team provides much more wins, which leads to more viewers, which leads to more revenue bringing in then the men. They have even won much more world cups than the men. However, the men still receive a much more plentiful salary. This proves that gender equality still exists today. As stated in the article “The Effect of Gender Equality on International Soccer Performance” written by Julia Bredtmann, “the identified associations might be biased by unobservable country-specific characters that affect both female soccer performance and women’s empowerment.” (Bredtmann 2). This means that even the associations in charge of all professional women’s soccer are remaining biased because of the gender of these women. These biases can lead to much trouble in every direction for example when Bredtmann states, “As we suspect gender equality to be one of the main reasons for differences in the international soccer performance between men and women” (Bredtmann 3). This proves once again that because of these inequalities between men and women, performances are being directly impacted. As you can see, gender inequalities although may have been more extreme in the past, still do exist today in aspects as entertaining as sports.

Gender inequality has always been a very intriguing and sensitive topic to discuss as it can lead to a plethora of opinions. However, it is easy to see that these inequalities have both drastic differences and can also remain unchanged especially in today’s society. Literature helps us depict more clearly how these gender inequalities were back in the day especially from examples within the plays Antigone by Sophocles, and A Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. It will be interesting to see how gender equalities will shift as we move into the future.

Works Cited

Sophocles, and Andrew Brown. Antigone. Warminster, Wiltshire, England: Aris & Phillips, 1993. Print.

Reis, Kurt, and Tennessee Williams. A Street Car Named Desire. N.p., 1986. Print.

Zimmermann@stlouisfed.org, and Bredtmann, Julia & Crede, Carsten J. & Otten, Sebastian. "The Effect of Gender Equality on International Soccer Performance." Ruhr Economic Papers. RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 09 Mar. 2017.