Discusses themes of cultural sexism in Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd and in Wells’ “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”.
This paper discusses how Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd and Wells’ “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” provide an indication as to how sexist thinking could be imbedded in local cultures. The paper illustrates how both works show that where women are defined by their positions and expected roles, there is little remedy for the woman who has not conformed, whose experiences of life, love and family are aberrant, or cannot be fitted easily with the less creative atmosphere surrounding them.
“As Farmer Oak becomes interested in Bathsheba Everdene he sees the situation, somehow, as a pursuit of something or someone. The implication is made that there could never be uncomplicated, equal relationships between men and women. The comment that women often like to consort with men lower than themselves, has a dismissive air about it, as though no superior woman really needs to be taken seriously, for she is still a person who can be compromised, or who may behave in ways advantageous to males. Indeed, most chapters of the novel have some similar implication, as in XI, as Bathsheba has decided that she herself will farm, Hardy inserts other anti-woman remarks as in, “strange to say of a female in full bloom and vigour, she always allowed her interlocutors to finish their statements before rejoining with hers”. (80) When introducing Sergeant Troy, Hardy shows his insight into a womanizing personality, in Troy’s remark that women must be treated with flattery or abuse, and that they do not value fairness. (148) These remarks are interesting as indications of cultural thinking on the nature of women.”