Over the centuries, women had to follow the strict and unrealistic standards that ruled their physical and emotional lives. Although the men had no less social restrictions, the problem of gender inequality always boiled down to the fact that, according to the laws of a patriarchal society, a woman belonged to a man, or was more limited in rights than him. Numerous stories from the literature can serve as illustrative examples for this statement. This paper aims to discuss the stories of the Kate Chopin’s character Desiree and the non-fictional personage Maia Kobabe and explain how these characters pushed against the boundaries imposed by society.
The limitations that are put by society on both personages are painful and unfair. Desiree was adopted and then raised as a lady; after she got married and born a baby with a few shades darker skin than her own, her husband Armand turned his back on her, saying that the child is not white, and, therefore, neither is she (Chopin, 1893). Desiree cannot stand this and drowns in the lake, together with the baby. At the end of the story, the narrator reveals that Armand’s mother was black. Still, not only this story is very sad, it also reveals the unbearable pressures put by society on Desiree, which pushed her to rather kill herself than be abandoned by her husband. She tries to overcome the obstacles by writing to her mother, but, although the mother offers her help, Desiree chooses another ‘option’.
Maia’s story is much more cheerful, since the heroine eventually overcomes the obstacles – the feeling of shame she senses while discovering that she has queer or non-binary gender. Today, most women and men who do not fit in the standard of the American Dream, as personified by a pair of blonde housewife and a tidy, short-haired husband with a stable job, are under tremendous pressure from the rigid elements of society. To be more precise, much of the US politics is being done according to the principle “divide and conquer”, when society is divided into supporters of traditional values and heretics by the media.
Since her childhood, Maia was acutely aware of the constraints imposed by the gender “girl”. She could not take off her T-shirt on the beach, she was expected to behave diligently, she had to wear a bra and shave her ankles (Kobabe, par. 10). Of course, these restrictions are much less stringent than they were 100 or 200 years ago. Nonetheless, Maia had to overcome agonizing doubts about her protest against being binary. Fortunately, she met a group named Queer-Straight Alliance that accepted her as she is.
Thus, the life stories of Desiree and Maia and their paths of pushing against the society boundaries were discussed. The story of Desiree is a very sad fictional story, presenting the horror of the limited rights of women, even those who belonged to the elite, some 100 years ago. After the birth of a mixed race child, Desiree drowns in the lake, being unable to accept that her husband abandoned her. On the contrary, Maia finds the strength to accept herself having a non-binary gender. She also finds support of other people, who think and feel like her, and feels almost comfortable around her friends and family. However, some 10-30 years ago, Maia could have faced much more condemnation and aggression for having an alternative gender and refusing to play the traditional woman’s role.
References
Chopin, K. (1893). Desiree’s baby. United States Saturday Post. Web.
Kobabe, M. (2019). Gender queer: A memoir. Web.