Critical Analysis of I Want a Wife by Judy Brandy

Gender is the state of being male or female and because of society gender has been used irresponsibly for many years. Little by little gender roles that society has created and enforced have been changing for good and women have been less and less oppressed because of their gender. even though society has loosened the reins on gender it still has not reconstructed the way the majority of people feel about men and women being equals. Women have been on the front end of gender inequality and because of the stereotypes they have been abused only because they are female. Once a child (boy or girl) is born they are immediately put into a group of stereotypes that have to do with their gender as well as race and one step out they were automatically turned on by society. This was and still is mentally and physically harming humans for no reason at all.

Generally speaking situations for the 1900’s to this day and age have transformed for the better but still continues to use some of the old ideals. Husbands were supposedly superior to their wives and the work of the wife was worth nothing. Let’s take the situation that I want a wife by Judy Brandy conveys to her readers and compare it to the situations of now. Judy Brandy states “I want a wife who will have the house clean, keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it .” After she lists all the things she has to do as a wife for her husband she goes on to say “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?” Wives were expected to be at their husbands feet 24/7 like slaves and yet men still thought they were superior to women because of their gender. She emphasizes the point that the roles of a wife are unfair to the role of a husband, and that there is an obvious difference, inequality, between the roles of husband and wife. In the 21st Century a man can be the one to stay home while the wife goes to work and pays for the bills in the house. Not to mention the husband cooks, cleans, and takes care of the children just like a wife in the 1900’s would do. Women and men are capable of doing the same jobs no matter if you are a female or not. Society and the communities of today have seen and witnessed with their own eyes that gender is only what you are born as and it does not define what you'll become and do in like. No man is smarter than a woman solely because they are born a man, gender does not work like that.

As a matter of fact there is evidence that proves men are not smarter than women. During the 1900’s men believed that they were inherently more knowledgeable than women because their brains were bigger. In Women’s Brain Jay Gould challenges the theory that men have bigger brains then women and because of this men got to treat women like they were lesser of a person. Jay Gould uses fact and intelligence to explain why it is not true that women have smaller brains then men. In saying that women have smaller brains then men it was like saying women were not as intelligent as men. Stephen Jay Gould The goes against the common belief of the time where women’s brain were said to me smaller than men’s and they were not as smart as them. Gould disagreed with Paul Broca’s thoughts on the female brain and it being inferior to that of a man’s. The women that Broca chose to use for his experiments were elder women’s brains that were older than the men, but with age a women’s brain begins to shrink so his experiments were not valid. Gould also backed George Eliot a female writer to further state his claim that women were just as smart and able as men are. Paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Gould was a professor of geology and zoology at Harvard university. Gould uses his own research to prove that Broca’s theory was wrong and not valid and by doing that appeals to ethos. “Since Broca recorded height and age as well as brain size, we may use modern statistics to remove their affect. Brain weight decreases with age and Broca’s women were, considerably older than his men.” Gould is calling out the error that Broca is using in his experiments that are bias, faulty, and can not be used to compare men and women brains sizes. Gould is speaking for women and the capacity that women’s brains hold for a scientific point of view. The samples need to be the same age to even be able to compare them to each other and tested together. Broca shows how many men think that women were still inferior to men and that they did not deserve a better education than they were receiving. Unfortunately men were the only ones allowed to become doctors and that made it harder for women to disagree with what was being said about their brains. This lead to women being submissive to their husbands who were mentally and physically abusing them.

Save your time!
We can take care of your essay

• Proper editing and formatting
• Free revision, title page, and bibliography
• Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Place Order

In addition to men mentally and physically abusing their wives Zora Neale Hurston was a courageous women who spoke out about what black women had to go though during the 1920’s. She wrote the book “Sweat” which is about a wife who works and sweats all day only to have an ungrateful husband come home and beat on her. He would cheat on her and not even tried to hide it, and he would even use the money she worked hard to earn and spend it on his mistress. Though out the passage Hurston uses characterization and symbolism to convey to the readers the hardships the women of the 1920’s had to go through. Zora Neale Hurston uses Delia’s character to convey the independences that women in the 1920’s yearned for and the hardships they alone had to go through. Women back then could not talk back to or disrespect their husbands but could now have jobs to provide for their families. Delia has to work all day to provide a house and food for her marriage but her husband could care less that she has a job he just wants everything his way. A specific quote from the article states “She saw the Sykes had kicked all the clothes together again, and now stood in her way truculently,... But she walked calmly around him and commenced to re-sort the things.” Here the author is showing how Delia chooses to deal with her husband and the disrespect he shows to her hard work and her job. Furthermore the author uses Delia’s husband’s character to portray the disrespect women have to go through. “What’s that got to do with me?’’ Sykes her husband is bluntly telling Delia that whatever she does has nothing to do with him. This is portraying how men did not care how hard women worked they just wanted the women to take care of them and their needs. Delia is being used and example of the hardships men put them through to try to keep women in there place under men. Men did not care how hard a women worked or how bad a women was feeling if it did not pertain to men’s needs. The author wrote this to get her point across of what an abusive husband and an abusive society looks like.Delia and women in general were looked upon as pawns for men to use and abuse and cheat on. Even so these women persevered and took care of their families, had a job to provide for the house and cater to her husband all at the same time.

Zora wrote this book in an African American women’s perspective and so does Sojourner Truth when she wrote Ain’t I a Woman? In the article a Black woman wants to have the same rights and be treated the same as a white woman does. She gives birth like a white woman does and can do anything a man can do because she thinks women are just as good or even better than men. “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place! And ain’t I a woman?” All the things that Sojourner listed was noting that a black woman gets it only applies to white women but she is saying ain’t black women, women as well. “Ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief none but Jesus heard me.’’ She has gone through all these hardships and no one was there to help her except herself and she didn't need a man to get through it all. African Americans no longer have to experience was she had to go through because society now sees a black woman as a woman (for the most part).

Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells a story about a woman who has a controlling husband who has convinced her that she is not ill. She is a submissive wife who will do anything and believe anything her husband says. She just had a child but she does not think she is fit to hold her own baby. In turn she ends up going crazy from her husband locking her in the house and not getting her the help she need so she looks for it in the wallpaper. Things have changed for the better now than it was in the past. Women speaking out like this has impacted the roles of gender that society created and enforced. Women can go to work while the man stays home and takes car of the house and even women have been known to abuse their husbands at home. But even still society is still whispering in the ears of man and telling him that he should be the one with the job and making all the money while the wife’s main job is cooking and cleaning instead of having a job. It’s hard for men and women to get out of the cage of stereotypes the society has incased them in but slowly the cage is opening and women are beginning to have the same opportunities as a man.

Little by little gender roles that society has created and enforced have been changing for good and women and women have been less and less oppressed because of their gender. Women have had a long and hard road just because there were born a women and were different than men. Whether they were black or white they had to go through all the stereotypes that were placed in front of them to get the respect that they deserved. Women endured the mental and physical abuse so that the women of the future would get a chance to speak out and have a voice. this opened doors for women and getting jobs other than being a strong house wife.