Buleandra Cecilia/Romana-EnglezaGrupa 1, An 2 Essay on the feminism as reflected in the Palmer articles

After having read the article its easy to observe the features that are specific to feminism. As such, from the very beginning of the article there is the idea as women being underestimated, their status is by far neglected, they are to be treated as objects, slaves who are to be sold or bought as the man pleases, thus the whole goal of feminism is to mirror all this hardships that the female gender must have been faced with over time. The status of allies/equality between man and woman which has been forgotten to an antagonistic extent, point from which emerges the problem of the term "patriarchy" which is to be defined as a social system with a male authority to lead it( not female). The approach of the matter of patriarchy is to be taken in the hands of well-educated and feminists and radical feminists like Beechey( who's use of the term"patriarchy" is rather popular and takes it to a higher level of neglecting the female status as she considers patriarchy a way in which the man is the dominator of the woman).On the other hand, Marxist feminists pay attention to denoting the above term by giving a more precise interpretation while connecting the lower status of the woman with the capitalist modes of production. The basis of "pater"(which stands for father in Latin)stands forpatriarchy being all about the empowering status that the father has, while the mother is under the father, being the one assuring the domestic life, not having the same contact with the social environment in comparison to that of the husband. The realm of the woman may be considered in this respect her bedroom, kitchen, while taking care of children and of the husband.The concept of patriarchy is rather complex and diversified, reasons for which it creates misunderstandings within the matter of equality between sexes. As women are proved to be weak,the goal of the feminism is to underline the physiological aspect of the struggle for dominance between two genders. The primary position of man may be explained since birth and his ubiquitous presence in fields that women do not manage to master, or they may intend to master but not as well as a man does. This fields are spread from politics, psychology,sociological, economy. From this point of view I may refer to the psychological impression that a man and woman may carry. This is to be connected to education. Since the Ancient time men would be the ones to be educated, as women were almost considered impossible to be educated. This feature is to be seen in nowadays society, in countries where women still aren't permitted to have access to education, while their husbandsare well-educated. This example is to be recorded in some countries which have a Muslim religion.

The matter of patriarchy is to be reflected in "The Woman's Room"which assumes the radical feministic definition of patriarchy, while following the path of a bildungsroman as it shows the story of a woman in pursuit of being emancipated as she gains her independence from the male dominance. This novel actually may be opposed to those novels that man had created over a period of time, as they were the ones who would have had the ability of writing since women if they wanted to write they would have to use a pen name (for example George Eliot- Mary Anne).In novels, women seem to be rather something idyllic, symbolic, something spiritual that the man (for example in Romanticism) aspires at. Thus, women are the carriers of romantic, nostalgic and melancholycal sentiments. An interesting respect that caught my attention was Kristeva's mentioning of the Amazons, an Ancient example of women who were empowered. They were above men and they would be their own leaders (in any field that a society has). They are remembered not to be a weak model as the women in the above mentioned novels tend to be viewed as, but they were also fierce, great soldiers (in some accounts they are considered to be women who had the left breast cut off so that they could throw spears and use the bow, neglecting their treatment as beauties for the sake of leading and protecting their kinships). In other accounts they were considered to be amazingly beautiful women who refused to have men in their kinships, but for the sake of having descendants (case in which if after 9 months there was a boy born, he would have been killed and if it was a girl she would have been raised according to the laws of matriarchy. As such, there is an example which competes the patriarchy, having exactly the same consistence, while neglecting one type of gender. "The President's Child" takes charge of the anthropological and the psychoanalytical matter of the used term. Beside the matter of the novel, the title actually underlines,even for a person who had not read the text, matter of the man being leader of a society/country/kinship etc. In other words the "the successor to the throne" follows only the male bloodline. For example in a kingdom if there is an heir and a heiress, the heir is the one to be the next in throne and not the heiress.This is actually leading to the point where Julia Kristeva outlined the fact that the social pressures makes the man superior to woman and not man himself, although this may be held in a continuous legacy; as one society raises the man to its superior position, the man is the one to raise his male descendant as the status that he has encountered. Thus, male dominance is not something that man are born with, it is what the society learns its members. The President's Child" insists in the anthropological point of view upon patriarchy. It develops the story of a battle for the custody of the child between Dandy Ivel, an American presidential candidate and Isabel, his former wife. What Weldon managed to underline and it's crucial for any mother (fictional or real person). Women are supposed to be the ones to be with their children in a case such a divorce, since they were the one to carry the child and to raise him, to provide him food for his days of infancy. In my opinion women are the ones that maintain life as they are the ones to give birth to the future generations, and this precise reason preserves them the right to

have the child with them, no matter what the situation is. Man shouldn't be the ones to have the power to take a child from a mother since their role is quite small in the act of procreation. Psychoanalytic novels are Angela Carter's "The magic toyshop" and Emma Tennant's "Hotel de dream". Both novels are opposed to the French version of feminist novels and when it comes to their authenticity the novels are purely fictive, while exposing themes such as family, motherhood and realms of the emotion. The theme of family is to be assumed by Carter's novel.This theme is actually under the pressure of the despotic male dominance which is represented by Phillip who is by far roughly demanding over his wife when it comes to her obedience. The ruthlessness of the novel develops even more when he forces his niece Melanie to play in a puppet theatre (with the role of a nymph and victim of a rape-point from which I tend to believe that the novel tries to bring to the surface the matter of the stereotype that the woman may carry within the fictional work of man, cases in which women are weak beings which may have rush experiences during a lifetime, their life being under the symbol and the impression of tragedy). The house of this tyranic character is rather claustrophobic in comparison to the Hotel de dream, where we deal with agoraphobic. What these two terms may symbolize is the fact that woman no matter if inside her house, or better said in her husband's house, or within the society she is weakened by the "invisible" position that she occupies. As such neither of the places that she stands are made for her, but for man. According to what Walden said about the force being kept only for men, I tend to believe that men have the instinct to underestimate women because they hadnt been in the position of knowing what it is like to be inferior, but only superior, an issue which comes with the impossibility of recognizing the hardship that the opposite sex may have endured. In other words I tend to say that you cannot know good unless you encountered evil. Only the inferior one is the one to raise to a greater expectation, as the superior one is in the position in which he cannot develop but enter a path towards regression.