... of delicate forms of power and influence, and often do so in unusual and even subversive ways that challenge traditional gender roles. Although the male characters generally fail to notice or refuse to acknowledge women's authority and influence openly, they are affected by it. The contemporary reader can't help ... that she is openly refusing to offer her own right to make decisions to authority simply because it should be respected because it is a male-based authority. Until this early point in the play, Hermia is an admirable and even heroic female figure, especially for the feminist ...

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

... labor accrued from a slave woman, she "had to be annulled as [a] woman, that is, as [a] woman in her historical stance of wardship under the entire male hierarchy". Therefore, she was schematized similarly to her male counterpart (in regards to gender identity), giving her supposedly "equal" authority to him. Conceptions of a domineering, matriarchal black woman correspondingly emerged. "In ... would think they had six legs." Morgan writes that this beastly description represented to Ligon, and similarly-minded Europeans of the time, the sole utility of the black woman's body as a produ...

• Word Count: 1150
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Graduate