The
philosophical belief of Egalitarianism originates from numerous figures from
world history, such as Karl Marx, the father of Communism, and Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, a Swiss writer of the eighteenth century (humanview.org). This belief
system focuses on humanity as a whole, stating that, no matter the person’s
creed, religion, skin color, ethnicity, family history, or personal history,
everyone is equal in a natural sense; no one is, in any way, better than anyone
else. This whole system, while viewing recent events, is not popularly
practiced. By thinking one’s group is superior than another’s only seems to
bring about war, hatred, and oppression. Civil rights leader and doctor Martin
Luther King one stated that “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed," which accurately
describes how many countries gained their status today.
Throughout
history, civilizations have risen, warred, prospered, and been destroyed. Some
have had an uprising, a revolution; the overthrowing of the region’s power. We
see this throughout history: in the USSR, Colonial America, eighteenth century
France, and, more recently, countries in the Middle East and North Africa, such
as Syria. These revolutions were enacted by those who were oppressed, those who
were not deemed as equals to those in charge; the social inferiority. Women’s
Rights Activists, Black Lives Matter protestors, and French, Russian, and
Syrian rebels all demanded a change; they demanded a change in their lives that
affected not only them, but the others quite like them: people oppressed due to
their skin color, their creed, their lifestyles, their personal histories, or
their genders. So many things have been deemed as inferior, starting with
gender and skin color. We see slavery throughout European History; we see Irish
and black men and women given a separate
bathroom than those who were not Irish and were not black; we see hatred at
presidential rallies, people advocating the murder of innocents because of
their religion or country of origin; we see detainment throughout history, such
as in Nazi Germany and World War Two America due to their religion and race. We
see so much violence and hatred towards people for something they cannot even
control.
Despite
all of the hatred and oppression throughout history that can be discussed and
debated, the women of the short stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “White Woman
of Color” will be the two examined. To begin, both of these stories, in
general, have an underlying theme of oppression: Jane from “The Yellow
Wallpaper” because she was a woman in the late nineteenth century, and Julia
Avlarez in “White Woman of Color” because she had a darker pigment of skin than
her sisters (in the story, her mother’s family deems lighter skin as superior
and more beautiful than their darker skinned kin). In the latter, we see
Alvarez being oppressed for something she could not control. In her story, she
states, “… I realized that this hierarchy was dictated by our coloring,”
(Alvarez 1) with ‘coloring’ referring to her and her sisters’ pigment of skin.
Racism is, unfortunately, a horrible human trait that has been ‘handed’ down
from parts of a generation to parts of the next spanning back thousands of
years. These people, potentially our ancestors, viewed others with a different
trait than them as inferior, such as different religion or skin color. We see
those of the Jewish faith enslaved in ancient Egypt, and the Mayans, Incas, and
Aztecs enslaved and wiped out by the Spaniards. This oppression and sense of
superiority spans far more than skin color and religion. In “The Yellow
Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells the story of a woman ‘diagnosed’
with ‘female hysteria,’ a fraud illness that new mothers were often diagnosed
with, since they often felt the desire to do something other than their ‘gender
roles’ of the time depicted they should be doing. To quote the story, “If a
physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and
relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary
nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do? So I take
phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air,
and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.
Personally, I disagree with their ideas . . .” (Gilman 1). Even from the
beginning, it is shown that men had a dominant say in the life a woman lived
during the time this story was written. During this time, women were deemed as
property, and not actual living beings.
While
oppression is alive and well, we can analyze literature of the past to enter a
window into a time survived only by writing and pictures. By looking at past
dilemmas with oppression, we can take modern-day oppression by the reigns and
subdue it, hopefully eradicate it. The only way we can end illogical hatred of
groups of people is by analyzing texts and literature that focus around
oppression, and learn from the mistakes of our ancestors; the lives cut short
and souls tortured for something they couldn’t control. Those that are
oppressed need to, as Martin Luther King said, “demand the freedom” they so
rightfully deserve.
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