Petersen, Emily
Description
Petersen 1 Emily Petersen Thesis “What Did Women in Her Position Do?”: Ambivalent Feminism in Dorothy Whipple’s The Priory Sociologists and cultural theorists alike have highlighted the ambiguity of female roles in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Following second wave feminism―during which Betty Friedan identified “the problem that has no name” (63) and Susan Brownmiller famously called femininity increasingly exasperating (89)―women found themselves, “in a conflicted state, torn between very traditional and stereotypical ideas about who and what they ought to be and rather progressive and liberating concepts of who and what they can be” (Henry 274). Such ambivalence over female identity is not new, nor is it a product of the 1970’s feminist movement. Women have experienced the conflict between social expectations and ideas about challenging female roles for hundreds of years. In 1405 in France, Christine de Pizan wrote The Book of the City of Ladies, aSociologists and cultural theorists alike have highlighted the ambiguity of female roles in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Following second wave feminism―during which Betty Friedan identified “the problem that has no name” (63) and Susan Brownmiller famously called femininity increasingly exasperating (89)―women found themselves, “in a conflicted state, torn between very traditional and stereotypical ideas about who and what they ought to be and rather progressive and liberating concepts of who and what they can be” (Henry 274). Such ambivalence over female identity is not new, nor is it a product of the 1970’s feminist movement
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English Department
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