Feminism- Cure or Curse

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With your husband you chose exile Suffered privation, abduction And then the rejection – The chastity test on the scorching flames

The victim twice victimised. Could those flames turn to flowers

Without Searing the soul?

They say you were the ideal wife You questioned him not And let him have his way The poets who wrote your story Said: a woman is not worthy of hearing

The Ramayana; like a beast she is fit only For being beaten

Could such poetry ever bring you glory? Yet, they spoke their verses without challenge

And With such falsehoods got away.

Sita Speak

You who could lift the magic bow and play

With one hand Who could command the earth with a word

How did they silence you?

(Bina Agarwal 1985)

Slide 19

“Anger” by Linda Pastan

You tell me that it's all right to let it out of its cage, though it may claw someone, even bite. You say that letting it out may tame it somehow. But loose it may turn on me, maul my face, draw blood. Ah, you think you know so much, you whose anger is a pet dog, its canines dull with disuse. But mine is a rabid thing, sharpening its teeth on my very bones, and I will never let it go.

Slide 20

“ “Woman” by Nikki Giovanni

she wanted to be a blade of grass amid the fields but he wouldn't agree to be the dandelion she wanted to be a robin singing through the leaves but he refused to be her tree she spun herself into a web and looking for a place to rest turned to him but he stood straight declining to be her corner she tried to be a book but he wouldn't read she turned herself into a bulb but he wouldn't let her glow she decided to become a woman and though he still refused to be a man she decided it was all right

Slide 21

Slide 22

Feminist Plays

“A Doll’s House” By Henrik Ibsen (1879)

(Norwegian)

Slide 23

Beginning Climax Anti-climax

Liar, hypocrite, criminal

My poor, frightened, helpless, little darling

My little skylark

My little squirrel

My little song-bird

My little scatter brain

My little feather brain

Slide 24

Nora: “I’ve been your doll-wife here, just as at home I was Papa’s doll-child”

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Nora: “What do you consider is my most sacred duty?”

Helmer: “Do I have to tell you that? Isn’t it your duty to your husband and children?”

Nora: “I have another duty, just as sacred.”