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The Existential Paralysis Of Women

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The Masculinized World: An Analysis of the Historical Construction of Domestic Servitude in Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Existential Paralysis of Women” and in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility

This literary study will define the historical construction of submissive female gender roles in the domestic sphere in Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Existential Paralysis of Women” and in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Beauvoir’s article defines the suffering that women endure as servants in the home due to the overarching construction of submissive gender roles in the “masculine world.” This construction of gender role relies on male-based institutions that have educated women to believe that are inferior as an innate biological fact, yet these …show more content…

This gender role construct is what often makes women feel powerless/paralyzed to change their role in the domestic sphere due to overriding authority of the “masculine world.” In a literary point of view, the role of the mediocre woman in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility can describe how women, such as Lady Middleton and Lucy Steel conform to these submissive gender roles in the 19th century patriarchal institution of marriage. In Austen’s novel, the patriarchal institution of marriage is a strong example of the “masculinized world” that forces women into submissive gender roles in the domestic sphere. The main character of story, Elinor Dashwood, is a young women with logic, good sense, and a strong sense of her own identity as a woman. However, Elinor is contrasted by submissive women that simply follow the orders of their husbands. For instance, Lady Middleton is a woman of the upper classes that Elinor encounters, which describes the slavery of domestic servitude in the “mediocre” woman: “Her manners had all the elegance which her husband's wanted. But they would have been improved by some share of his frankness and warmth” (Austen 31). This is how de Beauvoir defines he submissive power of the “masculine world” as being a

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