Feminism

I have never experienced much disabilities being a women; the society I live in has never been overly advantageous to men. However these two short stories that also talk about women have some sticking features of society that used to think of women as merely a trophy or an object.

Jeannie is raped by a man and she is heart-broken because the man seemed to hate her. Instead of taking aggressive action on the man, she tries to hide from her issues such as moving away from town. Also, her compulsion that she should be loved by all of society is the main reason of her stress. Jeannie symbolizes the portraits of women of those days when women don’t create their own value but is valued by others as merely an object. Just like a dollhouse, Jeannie doesn’t consider herself as a person who has a right to be shameful or angry of the rape accident but a doll that is not loved by someone, a failure.

Another absurdity comes when all the fault of being raped comes to Jeannie herself. When Jeannie defends herself that she was just taking a walk, Mrs. Thompson scrutinizes, saying,

"In high heels? With a purse on your arm, and a hat on your head? You don't go taking a walk in the bush that way. There's no place to walk to. Where'd you think you were going? I could smell Evening in Paris a quarter mile away.”

…

"You could have cleaned up your home a bit. There was always that to do."

The criticism about Jeannie’s clothes provokes some thoughts on KMLA rules too. The reason why KMLA doesn’t allow short pants or even ordinary skirts for girls even in stifling summer days come from the reason that we are living with boys too and it disturbs the study-atmosphere, causing distraction to fellow students and staff. To be girly, fancy and pretty is a desire of ordinary women that is not aimed to seduce other men, but this desire is trampled because it seemingly disturbs men. Doesn’t this rule also mean that we are putting men’s problem in front of women’s ordinary desire? Instead of wearing burka, shouldn’t we just teach men that there are nothing in correlation between “I want sex” and skirts? There was a campaign about women-rape months ago with a phrase

“You raped her because her clothes provoked you? I should break your face because your stupidity provokes me.”

“My short skirt is not an invitation/a provocation/an indication/ that I want it or that I give it… my short skirt, believe it or not, has nothing do with you.”

The actions of these two women provoke the thoughts of the readers that somehow, they are not human being but a doll that should be loved by all, that does not hold any value themselves but should be price-tagged.

 In contrast, Prue deals with her quotidian problem in other way: passiveness. She has some similarities with the above two women characters that she views herself as minor character of her life. From the main story-line of how Gordon meets with the woman waiting at the door, she only hears the crash and the female voice; she is the sideline of the main story, the audience of an absurd act (From lemonhound). She is merely an ornament of Gordon, the safety net and nearly worthless when Gordon’s in love with other woman. However different from the above two characters: Jeannie and Mrs. Thompson, she is well-aware of her and Gordon’s absurdity and passes it away dismissively.

“I think he was afraid I was going to laugh. He doesn’t know why people laugh or throw their overnight bags at him, but he’s noticed they do”

From the eye of Prue, we clearly see how she is the least important of Gordon’s life, (even crème brulee is more important than her) but she passes it away. The passiveness can also be seen in how she treats the tobacco tin. She puts the object that is the reminder of the nonsense of it all and forgets it. Chris Gilmore from lemonhound stated that this is exactly how Gordon treats Prue: he objectifies, dismisses, and forgets Prue. However, I think this action takes greater meaning in how Prue treats her quotidian events. She has all the reason to be angry, regretful or pitiful of the events yet she stays away from the events as if she’s the audience of her life, dismisses it and forgets about it.