A deliciously gruesome re-telling of a good girl gone bad tale, Delarivier Manley's The Wife's Resentment engages with 18th-century notions of female identity, sexuality, and criminality, using a subtle mixture of counter-arguments to successfully flip the early conventions on their heads. Through her (very appropriately named) heroine Violenta, Manley examines the lack of options and loss of power women of the 18th century faced in a ... as "modesty is rarely or never to be regained." Perhaps somewhat astonishingly, Violenta is not adverse to Count Roderigo's suit; rather, her objections lie...

• Word Count: 1986
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Graduate

... of the 'breadwinner' is more shared that laid upon the male, as there are more families with both spouses in paid-employment than in the past. Young and Willmott think these changes have occurred due to the vast rise in feminism, and that this has had a major impact on ... and outside the home. Ann Oakley (1974) is a feminist who is critic of the Young and Willmott's symmetrical family study and isn't convinced by their evidence as she believes that occasional help from a husband like ironing his own trousers on a Saturday doesn't make him a 'good' husband and it also doesn ......

• Word Count: 676
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Graduate

... surroundings. Brumberg notes that back in the nineteenth century, beauty imperatives for girls were kept in check by consideration of moral character and by cultural mandated patterns of emotional denial and repression. Females during that time period were not quite as involved in linking their bodily appearance to their self-worth or personhood as it is in today's ... obsession with making the body into an all-conceivable project has led to a traditional emphasis on "good works" as opposed to "good looks." This emphasis deals with the fact that the lives of young women in the nineteen...

• Word Count: 759
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Graduate

... key roll in the originality and success in the literary arts for both men and women. Tradition in this case refers to the heritage of struggle and triumph that has characterized men and women's lives and their writings throughout history. For centuries there has been a struggle between men ... , she argues that without a women's tradition to draw from, there would be no successful women writers. Furthermore, men who had the advantage of education, contemporary male peer groups and/or male literary forefathers, they could learn and work from, only served to reinforce the exclusively male d...

• Word Count: 1471
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Graduate

... are inextricably entwined in The Old Arcadia. The Old Arcadia, through a series of surrogacies demonstrates the ideal of the body politic transferred from male to female, in similar circumstances to that of Elizabeth, culminating in an address by Cleophila to an unruly mob. Alfred Bill states that despite the "background of forest shepherd and shepherdesses, flocks and herds" political undercurrents make Arcadia "no ... and desires. She offered "hearty thanks for the good zeal and loving care of her people" in her first speech to parliament, and assured her council that the success of he...

• Word Count: 1452
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Graduate

... with his wish that she marry Demetrius, rather than her beloved, Lysander. Egeus doesn't choose the court on a whim; rather, he is hopeful that by taking Hermia to the literal and symbolic seat of the highest authority of the land, she will recognize and honor masculine authority and, by extension, will comply with traditional gender roles, which dictated that a woman should marry to either preserve ... that may befall me in this case." With this statement, Hermia demonstrates respect for authority by using the formal address of "your grace," but articulates clearly that she is a woman ...

• Word Count: 2208
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Graduate