Invisible Gender Rules

Invisible Gender Rules

Changing oneself is very difficult to achieve, but a complete change of a group of people is next to impossible. For women, the past many years have changed lives, careers and family life. Yet the women's

revolution did not remove discrimination from society, it only changed certain discriminatory actions into others. Fatima Mernissi wrote the short story "The Harem Within" about a young girl living in a Harem where her primary role is to become a slave to her husband, being both uneducated and unlike herself. Proceeding a few years ahead, Clarice Lispectors short story "Preciousness", introduces another young women with similar problems in the completely opposite place, for this young girls Harem is the society and expectations of her peers. Gender roles are very specific to different cultures and religions, yet what continues to be a problem is that discriminatory rules and regulations that are present. No matter how advanced a place can become, there will always be the discriminatory idea that one gender should be a certain way despite who they really are and who they would like to become Both women and men are subjected to this harsh reality.

Women and men have evolved for many years now, whether it is style, personality or religious beliefs there is always room for change. Although the women's' movement was arguably very successful, there are very many young women who still have personal and emotional problems brought up because of society. Lispector depicts these problems through her character in her short story "Preciousness" by describing the adolescent emotional growing pains that young many women go through. The events that partake in this short story are all very emotional, the young woman does not see herself as important, but instead she sees herself as ugly and lives her life trying to avoid the rest of the world. After the incident when the two youths attack her, "she felt danger [in] becoming "herself"" [page 774], and that "she was in danger of becoming an individual". [Page 774] It seems as if all of her life she was hidden behind this mask so that she could feel separate from the rest of the world. What society is now telling not only this young girl, but also the rest of the world, is that women have the beauty and men have the brains. During this day and age women are allowed in schools, and allowed to have jobs, but they are still discriminated against the way they act, dress and whom they hang out with. Society is an invisible wall, which discourages people from becoming themselves. On the contrary, dating back a few years, Mernissi introduces the women before the revolution. Her story is about a young lady who is born and raised in a Harlem. She is confined in her Arabic culture where "both men and women worked from dawn until very late at night. But men made money and women did not". [Page 780] The woman here do not have the freedoms that the women do in Lispectors short story, they do not have the freedom of choice or speech. Their religious traditions are their invisible walls that hold them back from becoming who they are and who they should be. Time may have passed but their problems only grow different instead of disappearing.

Woman, men, customs and traditions change from country to country, religion to religion, yet one thing that hasn't changed is the problems existing between genders. Both men and women are given gender roles from not only their religious beliefs but from the media, friends, school, and just society in general. In "The Harem Within" gender roles are exhibited quite profoundly from religious beliefs. The young woman that Mernissi writes about is born into an Arabic religion in which extracts her from the rest of her society, she is held back by the walls in her Harem. Her religion is what keeps her from becoming the intelligent women of which she wants to be outside of these walls, it is what keeps her from her freedom. The women in the Harems are uneducated and looked upon as slaves to their men, becoming second class citizens. "Wherever there are human beings, there is a qa'idu, or invisible rules" [780] in which are most of the time against women, depriving them of equality and their basic human rights. For the women who are born into much less controlling religious groups or no religion at all, life does not get easier. The young women in the short story "Preciousness", is not deprived because of her religion, but because of the society in which she lives in. Her feelings and emotions are hidden from the rest of the world in order to keep herself safe, and not get hurt from the harsh words of other people. Although she is very intelligent, she can not stand the feelings that she gets when people look at her, she feels inadequate because of her ugliness; day after day she goes miles out of her way in order to avoid other human life. Although religion and their customs are easy targets to blame for the reason why discriminatory actions are placed upon women, this is not the case, for other offenders are the society of which the people live in.

Character development and the style of writing that