Your Body Is Never Yours Essay example -- Literary Analysis, Disgrace

In Disgrace, sex is repeatedly used a source of power. Lurie takes advantage of his young student and also pays prostitutes for sex. The most violent act of power and hatred towards sex and women is Lucy ´s rape, performed by two black men. However, I claim sex is in fact not used for power, but that the author believes that we never own our own bodies. Therefore, considering they are not ours, they cannot be violated. Furthermore, he shows us that the worth of our bodies is simply limited to the expectations of people around us. I state that in Disgrace, your body does not belong to you. It is merely a product of expectations and responsibilities. In the opening of the book, Lurie pays for the service of prostitutes to find relief. In his younger days, he could use his charm and good looks to seduce women now â€Å"if he wanted a woman he had to learn to pursue her, in one way or another to buy her† (7). He speaks of wanting something, suggesting that a woman is a thing that can be had, or in this case purchased. While reflecting of the prize he pays for his favorite-prostitute ´s body he realizes that â€Å"in a sense they own Soraya too, this part of her, this function† (2). They, being the escort company that she belongs too. Here it is implied that Soraya is just a product that can be sold and purchased, or even rented out by its owner. When, one day Lurie sees Soraya shopping with her sons, their relationship change. She becomes a person, a living being and their relation ends on her initiative. This shows of her desire to restrain herself to an object in the eyes of her customer. Subsequently, as David no longer can take pleasure from Soraya, he benefits from his position as a respected teacher to take advantage of the much younge... ...eople ´s eyes. Our bodies are not ours, as Lucy affirmed after she has decided to get married to Petrus. â€Å"With nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing. No cards, no weapon, no property, no rights, no dignity† (205). This is how she sees herself, and perhaps how every person in the novel sees themselves. Everyone realizes that their value is bound to something other than them, David to his status as a professor, Melanie to her youth and beauty, Pertrus to his property and ownership, Lucy to being independent and Bev, who sadly knows that as a dumpy older woman she has no value at all. A sad idea, but nonetheless true in Disgrace. That we are not people but mere products, to be valued, evaluated and graded. The use of power to obtain sex or of sex to obtain power then becomes secondary. As readers we are left with the query of whom or what is deciding our value.

Is this a fair that Men and Women are becoming more equal

It is true to say that often through out time, in various circumstances and situations, individuals have been discriminated based on their gender. We would think that after numerous years of battle for equality, we would have reached the point where the role of men and women at home merged and the different responsibilities shared. Although there is no generally accepted way of measuring inequality between husbands and wives, different researchers have measured it in different ways. However, most find little evidence that inequality in marriage has been significantly reduced. Willmott and Young used the word ‘symmetry' to describe the duties of husbands and wives as the idea of symmetry describes a ‘sense of balance' between the tasks which are carried out. They believe that women took the major responsibilities of domestic labour and child care, men are spending an equal amount of time on home centred activities. Relationships of this type are known as joint conjugal roles whereby tasks are shared. However Willmott and Young have been severely critisized on their assumptions being based on ‘typical, metropolitan white families' over looking family diversity present in society. The term ‘symmetry' does not represent the idea of equality it is intended to. Evidence illustrates the diversity of modern family structure and so the idea of any family being typical in not very realistic. Apparently their sociology same about from a very ‘male stream sociology' so a woman who worked outside the house is believed, is still responsible for the home. There is some support for their work where Gershuny, who studied the amount of time spent by couples on domestic labour found that the ‘proportion of housework performed by husbands has increased as wives have taken on paid employment'. Combining work and family is an important issue not only because it concerns a great part of the population and because it is one of the key issues of equality. It is also a big problem in the everyday lives of people, because both women and men may have full time jobs. Edgell examined the decision making between husbands and wives and found that women tended to dominate in choices made on the basis of domestic spending and children's necessities where as men in areas that were considered more important such as moving homes and finance in general. The study of money management carried out by Pahl illustrated that just over a quarter of the couples in her study had this system in which there was a fair degree of equality. According to Duncombe and Marsden many women in their study expressed dissatisfaction with their partner;s emotional input into the family and most men did not acknowledg that emotion work needed to be done and it again, shows the responsibility placement on women. Concluding evidence on the inequality within family life as suggested by a study by Dunne shows that women are still a long way from achieving equality within marriage. Her enquiry into lesbian households showed that an equitable domestic division of labour can be achieved however it is harder when in a culture that differentiates so clearly between masculinity and femininity stereotypes. Traditional roles that were once adapted to suit the changes from extended families to nuclear have survived into our own century and as much as some of us would like to see the developments of equality, this will be a slow process. Working life sets conditions on people's use of time far beyond the workplace and the working hours. We know that integrating these two parts of life is one of the greatest challenges parents face in their everyday life. The daily schedule of any family with children is probably among the toughest.

Challenges for Building Stable Democracies Essay - 1449 Words

Challenges for Building Stable Democracies It has been stated that the Bush administration’s goal is to have America spread democracy around the world. This may sound radical, but it is really just what our foreign policy has been for the past 60 or so years. The only difference is that now there is no evil communist empire, the USSR has fallen. America has a new ideological enemy the theocracies and oppressive regimes around the world especially Africa and the Middle East, the places that breed terrorists. The Bush administration and most people feel that the best way to stop Terrorism is to wipe out its source. However, in building democracies in the Middle East and other parts in the world there are some extreme difficulties in†¦show more content†¦One thing any democratic state needs to do when they are setting up another new democratic state is they must make sure that the new government is seen as legitimate by the people in it. And the democracy is pretty much doomed if the people despise it. Th e easiest way not to have the government despised is proposed in Machiavelli’s The Prince. In it he states â€Å"It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain. And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways.† (Machiavelli unknown page) As long as these two things are insured for the people then most rational men will not rebel. Getting the government to represent the people is really the hardest part of setting up a new government. Because it has to represent the vast majority of the people, say at least 90% but it also has to be able to get things done fast. Many people think a parliamentary government with many parties like the one in France would answer this problem; the only problem is that because there are so many parties, every cabinet is a coalition of parties that can easily fall apart and can usually get only limited things done. Any new government needs toShow MoreRelatedBelieving in Democracy for Nepal994 Words   |  4 PagesToday everyone believes in democracy in Nepal and experience a new era of democracy because after a long time Nepal got democracy. The process of democratic promotion in Nepal is very complex. In political and social term Nepal travelled a very long way in the last sixty years. In 1947 when India and Pakistan independent, Nepal was ruled by the autocratic Rana regime. I n 1951 Nepal first time attained democracy through an armed revolution against the Rana regime. 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