Jamaica Kincaid is a Caribbean novelist, gardener, and gardening writer who was born in Antigua and lives between Vermont and California. The poem depicts a mother trying to mold her daughter into conforming with society's expectations of women by enforcing strict values and etiquette. The daughter questions the mother's advice but is unable to change her mindset that women must conform to society's prejudices. The mother tries to prevent her daughter from being her free-spirited self and instead wants to reshape her mentally into society's idea of the perfect woman.
2. JAMAICA KINCAID
Jamaica kincaid is a Caribbean
novelist, gardener, and gardening writer.
She was born in the city of St. John's on
the island of Antigua in the nation of
Antigua and Barbuda. She lives with her
family in North Bennington, Vermont,
during the summers and teaches at
Claremont McKenna College in
Claremont, California, during the
academic year.
3. Here , there are mainly two individuals present in the poem, the
mother and daughter. The mother is seen to be a little cold hearted,
enforcing in character and strong when it comes to values and
etiquettes concerning the female child. She is seen to be trying her
best in molding her child’s future in a somewhat desperate manner
through words. The child try's to intervene twice and questions her
advice but to no avail, which somehow tells the reader about the
mothers outlook on life. Which is basically, conforming to society
and going by its prejudices. She try’s to prevent the child from being
a free spirited soul that she is at heart, and try's to re construct her
mentally to transform he into Societies idea of a perfect woman.
4. the
topic we chose?
was a specific line from the poem, that stood out among the other, so called
‘controversial topics’ included such as abortion, etc. we can still find such
scenarios in the present day society.. So, The line?
“..This is how to hem a dress when you see the
hem coming down and to prevent yourself from looking
like the slut you are so bent on becoming.”
Our way of dressing has apparently something to do
with RAPE. We are being blamed for something that
is purely a result of the male ego.
5. “We are tired of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result.
Being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening
ourselves to an expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex
. No one should equate
for pleasure or work
enjoying sex with attracting sexual
assault."
RAPE CULTURE
6. How did we choose to relate this topic
to the ongoing affairs?
According to the UN:
1 United States: 95,136
2 South Africa: 52,425 August 10, 2012 virginia: 2
3 Canada: 24,350 found guilty for raping a 16 year
4 Australia: 15,630 old at a party
5 India: 15,468
6 Mexico: 14,373
7 United Kingdom: 13,395
8 Germany: 8,615
9 France: 8,458
10 Russia: 6,978
7. FEMINIST ACTION?
And what did the WOMEN do to show society they were
tired of the male mindset and their degrading ways, tired of
their so called “freedom of expression”, tired of the
inequality shown?
They took a stand. To show what they believed in. To show that the result
of rape was not due to the way they dressed. To show that they actually had no
“ freedom of expression” which was rightfully theirs as a female, that had been
promised to them by the constituion. They tried to scream out their almost
helpless position in society and what they stood for all around the world (
toronto, US, Japan, India, UK ,Australia, etc).
8. A GROUP OF WOMEN
ORGANISING A LEAD BY WOMEN OF ALL
RESPONSE WALKS OF LIFE
9.
10. VIOLENCE PREVENTING
CAMPAIGN: SO WHAT IS THE
SLUTWALK?
The SlutWalk protest marches began on April 3, 2011, in
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with subsequent rallies occurring in the
United States, and rallies planned in Europe, Australia, and the
Middle East. Participants protest against explaining or excusing
rape by referring to any aspect of a woman's appearance. The
rallies began when Constable Michael Sanguinetti, a Toronto
Police officer, suggested that to remain safe, "women should
avoid dressing like sluts.”
NOW, in the poem the girl is forced to dress against her
will, in a particular way that gains the approval by her mother. The
word ‘slut’ here isnt being used in it’s actual context, commonly
percieved (streetwalker), but being reffered to a girl whos
character does not reflect grace, poise, elegance, stature,etc all
attributes that a ‘perfect woman’ must posses.
13. The number of abuse victims has steadily been rising all over the
world. As mentioned earlier, India stands 5th on the UN rape statistics
list. There's not much being done to bring about amendment
regarding this matter. It seems to us that that the only ones being
affected by this callous activity is the FEMALE POPULATION. The
male population's opinion, attention and support still seems to be in
a dormant state. Although a handful seem to show support, the roots
of this degradation have to be analyzed and what we can see is that,
it only arises from the male attitude towards the opposite sex. We
have been ‘objectified’ and are expcted to conform to our male
counterpart. It’s a shocker that they are yet to realize that we too are
individuals born into this world, who equally deserve the respect
being shown to them. Given the present day situation and
technological advancement in all realms of life, we can still find signs
of this male superiority, which was expected to decrease with time.
The urgency of this situation has to realized.
14. Even though the corrupt government system show no
signs of raising the position of this matter higher on its
priority list, which it deserves, we can no longer wait. We
must take matters into our own hands and see to it that
our future generation have a bright vision of it.
Even though it isnt as severe as it use to be in the
previous centuries, we have to put in whatever little effort
that we can to protect ourselves. Even though the idea of
a
15.
16.
17. Acknowledgement:
We would firstly like to thank this institution for
putting us under your guidance for this academic
year.
We as students have concluded that our English
classes with you have been the most memorable
ones. Your crazy ability to have our ears glued to
each and every word actually made it a possible
thought of having an ideal mentor. We truly hope
we can get you as our teacher for the next few
semesters, if not then we are tremendously grateful
for the time we had with you.