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Summary Of Working For Judith Shakespeare

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An important piece of literature that covers the topic of feminism is entitled, "Working For Judith Shakespeare: A Study In Feminism,” by Varley and Erdman. They discuss their thoughts on women writers and how women write against a society that did not want women to write. In addition they share Virginia Woolf’s thoughts on how feminism plays into a female writer. She states that oppressed women will write about themselves instead of their characters and that doing this will overshadow the importance of the story by the need to voice their oppression. They define feminism as “the belief in the right of women to have equal status with men as we live and participate in the world together” (Varley and Erdman). Furthermore, Varley and Erdman share …show more content…

Her theory is that Disney has to keep up the reputation of the ideal princess “which is a representation of gender that young females should idolize” (Warner). She discovers a recurring theme within all the Disney princesses. First, Warner notices the new heroines appear more independent; however, they still represent elements that disempower women and still showcase the female image stereotypes. She argues that Disney’s main focus is on producing films that portray perfect women in a perfect world because women are the main viewers of Disney princess films. In addition, this causes women to live unhealthy lifestyles because of “body issues” and “low self-esteem” (Warner). Her article shows the reality behind society’s influences and how princesses, whether strong or weak, still have a large impact on how women should …show more content…

This test must meet three requirements: “It includes at least two women, who have a least one conversation, about something other than a man or men” ( ). During her analysis she found that every Disney movie passed the test except Aladdin. This would lead people to believe Disney is not doing as much harm as we might think; however, Buckk takes her data further by displaying the number of female characters, to the number of total characters, as well as the different types of relationships in the films. Some of her results are as follows: Sleeping Beauty has twelve characters five of which are female and the relationship between the females is positive. Under this critique feminist would have to agree Sleeping Beauty did an amazing feminist job. However, studies have shown Sleeping Beauty is not a strong example of a good heroine. Furthermore, her study showed Frozen and Brave to have thirteen total characters with four of them being female and the relationships in both are positive. The ratio between female characters and all characters is less, yet the characters in these two movies are considered strong feminists. In conclusion, the Bechdel Test as well as numbers can only show so much and fails to show how strong these heroines are. Further reviews of these heroines needs to be discussed to create a more in-depth analysis, which

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