The standardization of Women

Adrienne Rich notes that the standardization of women affects culture in many ways. two specific ways that I noted as interesting were the ideals of women as portrayed by male authors and the undercutting of female creativity in an attempt to conform to the standard of good writing, "trying to sound as cool as Jane Austen, as Olympian as Shakespeare" (169).

The ideals portraye by males authors is particularly dangerous to women. Women come to believe that this is the way that they must look in order to fit in society and find a fitting husband. At the time, this seemed to be the only option for women and thus the unfair ideal seen in male writing put females in a stressful position, where if the "loss of beauty" and a "loss of youth" being a "fate worse than death" (170). This standard placed on women is merely propegated by the male authors who write of such beautiful icons in their poetry or literature. However, this idea of the past, this standardization of women, continues today. Instead of ideas being propegated through literature, it is being imposed throguh the media. Television, Internet, Magazines. All of these sources make women believe that they will never meet this standard of a beautiful woman. And although today marriage is not the only option for women, the desire to be beautiful is still strong enough to justify the alteration of natural body features through plastic surgery. This overwhelming urge to meet as standard began long ago, yet continues today.

The other standard placed on women was their standard to conform to the writing styles of established male authors. Every woman saw the proper way of writing as following in the footsteps of men who have blazed a trail. However, Adrienne Rich realizes that the blind adherance to male style would be undercutting the creativity of women. There is a desire to be like the male authors because they have already layed a foundation, so therefore equality in literature meant losing identity. Rich notes that she "wanted women poets to be eqauls to men, and to be equal was still confused with sounding the same" (171). This became an issue of contention because women were expected to write by the styles of men and in doing so, they lose their sense of identity, creativity, and feminism.