The biggest thing I took away from the few weeks of
discussion we’ve had on A Streetcar Named
Desire, The Bonesetter’s Daughter,
and the few poems that we read is gender roles. Of course, gender roles can be
relevant in any situation regarding literature, but what specifically stood out
to me was the reversal of gender roles. This was especially relevant in A Streetcar Named Desire and the poem
titled “Amoretti” by Edmund Spencer. Both have a message stating that if women
take on the roles of males, they may be deemed manipulative, evil, or even
crazy. In A Streetcar Named Desire,
Blanche definitely took on some masculine traits, like her promiscuity
(especially for the time period), her previous job (even if it was a teaching
job, which was more common for females, she still had a job in the first
place), and the affair she had with her student (when has the female teacher
ever done this? It’s always the males, at least back then). Even though the
males in the play carried these traits with even more intensity, like violence
and brutality, they would be able to get away with these things due to the fact
that they are males. Because Blanche is a woman, her more masculine traits that
go against societal standards make her seem like a terrible person. Her gender-role-reversal
also indirectly made the other characters send her to a mental asylum. Blanche
probably was mentally ill, but her masculinity made matters worse because it
would not let her fit into society, which is a huge portion of the perception
of mental illnesses. To sum things up, Blanche’s mannerisms that fit into a
male gender role allowed people to assume that she is simply an “evil” and
“manipulative” character, even though she has more depth than that (for
example, the tragic backstory of her childhood/adolescence). The poem
“Amoretti” states an extremely similar theme. The poem is about a beautiful
woman with golden hair that ends up manipulating men because she “traps them”
with her beauty. The poem gives this woman masculine traits, like power and
money (symbolized through the gold motif) and the ability to control others (in
this case, men). However, her masculine traits make her sound like a villain.
The men see her as this manipulative, “black widow”-like creature that only
leads men into her “traps”. Just because she has power, she is assumed to be a
terrible person whose only goal is to hurt men. Men could get away with these
traits, but because she’s a woman who takes on masculine traits, she must be
evil. These two examples always bring me to this question: What would it be
like if the roles were reversed? What if Blanche was a man, doing the exact
same things that she was doing? Would the character be treated as crazy, or
would he just be a typical, rowdy man who is praised for being overly sexual?
The same goes for the poem: If the girl in the poem was a man of power and good
looks, manipulating women, would he just be considered a “player” who is still
worshipped by men (and even some women)? It’s ironic: when men do things that
are typical of them based on gender roles, they are praised. But even in a
patriarchal society where the behavior of men is “better” than women’s, women
still get shamed by falling into masculine positions. Even though these two examples
were written longer ago when the gender division was larger, these things still
happen today.
-- Natalie Geisel, period 6
