Discrimination amidst Genders

Introduction

History has it that discrimination against women or women being looked down upon have been the part and parcel of all the societies regardless of the time. Discrimination against women on the basis of sex exists in all fields of life be it in marital status, religion, family, politics, social services, education, public life as well as employment. Discrimination is even apparent in the fields of music, movies, drama's as well as the literature. However, the degree of discrimination varies in all the arenas.

Discussion

In this essay, I argue that females face discrimination in all phases and places and are being looked down upon due to male dominance. In order to analyze the degree of gender discrimination that exists it is necessary to determine what Gender discrimination is. The term 'Gender' here refers to sex which is often utilized interchangeably. Gender can be further defined as the social identity of sexes. Gender is also defined by the social values that exist along with the socialization process. Social values in turn constitute behavior as well as appearance. There are two novels that I came across which constitute gender discrimination and those are Park Wan-suh's Who Ate Up All the Shinga? & Nakazawa, Keiji, Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima.

Firstly, Women discrimination has existed in the fabric of every society and it can be proven via Park Wan-suh's Who Ate Up All the Shinga. Korean dynasty is said to be one of the oldest dynasties and also one of the oldest civilizations. The book throws light over how gender discrimination in terms of women lacking respect and the place they ought to be given is absent. The author highlights the times when the status of women was degraded from to being a slave. The concept of females in relation to husbands was equivalent to the relationship that a King and a Subject shared. Furthermore it is stated that women were kidnapped or captured, marched and at the same time were brutally treated as men soldiers were at that time. For instance, according to Park (2009), “the oppression severed even more when Japanese domination initiated during the war”. (p. 7) The domination brought more pain and suppression (Park, pp.10).

On the others hand, within the text of the book, the author becomes fond of the portrait if her class conscious mother. Her mother is a role model for her during the time of crisis. There are numerous critical accounts of her mother's stubborn belief that the Emperor created the Korean alphabet “overnight” after his inspiration of the shapes on a wooden door frames (Park,2009,5-59). She is obsessed with her daughter becoming a new woman who is achieving modern education and wears western clothes. She looked down upon her neighbors referring to them as trash.

My mother was a woman of many contradictions. Although she was very courteous to our neighbors and their families - the seller screens, chimney sweep, plasterer, and tinker -. An underlying message, she conveyed was that ...