Question.

all literary productions have an underlying patriarchal bias.

Answer.
Male dominance and female suppression is one of the earliest known and
the most widespread form of inequality in human history. Male dominance
seems to be a universal, if not inevitable, relationship that has been with us
since the dawn of our species. Female exploitation has its traces in the
household, politics, the general community and in every social and personal
arena.

The ancient and the medieval literature is no exception to the constructs of

the male ego, domination, victimisation of the female characters, and the
struggle of disobedient women.

In much of the written literature of the ancient and the medieval world, all
of us have evidence of women oppression by men in European, Middle
eastern, South East Asian and African cultures. Feminists, both radical and
liberal gear up while reading Tennyson’s The Princess (1847), where
according to the father ‘man is to command, woman is to obey’. Taking this
as an example from not just the 19th century, but the literature post and
before that period too, the female characters are considered unequal and
less important than the men in society. Women are just the females of
humanity and they have to do certain things in the society. It is socially
accepted that women care solely for the children, the house, the cooking
and the cleaning and the men are the breadwinners and disciplinarians. The
duties of women during this time period did not insist of much more than
seeing to her husband’s needs.
Women did not have the same legal and political rights as men and were
under the control of fathers and husbands in almost all the societies. In
some societies in which women had few options for supporting their life if
not supported by a husband, there was even a practice of ritual widow
suicide or murder. This practice was continued in many parts of Asia in the
20th century, and can be still spotted in some parts of the region. In both
Rome and Greece ( countries which are held up as a model of democracy)
women’s every movement in public was limited and under surveillance.
There are cultures today where women rarely leave their home.

In literatures as famous as works of William Shakespeare such as Othello,

Much Ado about Nothing, Hamlet to short stories such as “the jewellery” by
Guy De Maupassant, “the story of an hour” by Kate Chopin, and “the yellow
wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the essence of female victimisation
runs through the pages. The authors show the lack of independence women
were allowed in the 19th century, especially in marriage. The shakespearian
plays poetry male rivals who play significant roles that cause the
destruction of well established relationships. Shakespeare shows two types
of women, women who refuse to submit to men’s demands and demand
equality and women who are submissive to men who also demonstrate that
bowing down to patriarchal rules does not guarantee happiness for women,
in fact, it may actually lead to their domination and victimisation.
Furthermore all female characters whether submissive or not suffered the
consequences of male dominance and victimisation. The male ego was
firmly rooted in the conception of patriarchy. Women were expected to be
meek and subordinate, they were as much as a man’s property as were his
personal belongings, and woman had no rights to freely express herself.
The ill treatment that women endure is in large part the result of men’s fear
of losing control of their women, or by implication, their male authority . In
the three plays, women not only become a victim of male oppression but
also of male ego, a psychological unconsciousness that is often nurtured by
cultural norms.
The short stories express women’s cry for equality and their feelings of
entrapment in their marriage.

America in the mid to late nineteenth century was full of potential. Settlers
were taming the west, once-captive blacks were no longer enslaved, and
the role of women in society was undergoing a metamorphosis. Marring
this progress, however, was a hard, cold reality. Blacks were by no means at
equal status with whites, American Indians were being herded west like
cattle, and women were still considered second-class citizens. America's
power-brokers were still overwhelmingly white, male, and upper/upper-
middle class. Variances were merely exceptions to the rule. Women in the
nineteenth century were dependent on men for their lots in life. Most states
barred women from voting and from owning property. Job choices were
sparse and clearly defined: nurse, maid, grade-school teacher, seamstress,
etc. The only hopes women had for financial prosperity were in marriage or
inheritance. (Robles) Even in marriage, many women were virtually
enslaved; not treated cruelly, but pigeon-holed into certain tasks and
affairs. This virtual enslavement is made evident in three distinct ways by
authors Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The
stories written by them clearly shows that many cultures and religions
justify the oppression of women by attributing sexual power to them, that
men must then rigidly control in order to maintain their own purity and
power. Reproductive functions — including childbirth and menstruation,
sometimes breastfeeding and pregnancy — are seen as disgusting. Thus, in
these cultures, women are often required to cover their bodies and faces to
keep men, assumed not to be in control of their own sexual actions, from
being overpowered.
Women are also treated either like children or like property in many
cultures and religions. For example, the punishment for rape in some
cultures is that the rapist's wife is given over to the rape victim's husband or
father to rape as he wishes, as revenge. Or a woman who is involved in
adultery or other sex acts outside monogamous marriage is punished more
severely than the man who is involved, and a woman's word about rape is
not taken as seriously as a man's word about being robbed would be.
Women's status as somehow lesser than men is used to justify men's power
over women.

The oppression over women not just shows in the texts, but also in the
struggle the female writers and poets went through to publish their texts
and convince the patriarchal society to read them. People saw poetry itself
and its muses as feminine, making it doubly difficult for women to be
authors of poems and so effectively silencing them. Contemporary female
poets placed themselves outside of the sphere of male poetry by forging a
unique discourse of their own from within the patriarchal form, but they
were also bound by the assumptions and the expectations of the time. This
gendering of poetry often trivialised women's writing, as poetry was 'too
high and great' for women. Women poets were therefore forced to reach
beyond these barriers, and in effect manipulate one of the forms of their
own suppression and repression. The trend came to an end later on along
with the women’s liberation movement. The Women’s Liberation
Movement both rediscovered and encouraged new female writers. They
also took over the means of production by setting up feminist printing
houses such as Virago Press. Discover the authors, themes and techniques
of 1970s feminism.

Women have long had a presence in British literature, but this was largely
forgotten by the mid-20th century and so had to be recovered. Since the
18th century, for instance, some educated women with dependents wrote
to avoid destitution and the workhouse. Aphra Benn (1640–89) was one of
the first women writers to earn her living by her pen, opening the door to
other professional women writers in the 18th century. Most famously, Jane
Austen, the Brontë sisters and George Eliot shaped 18th- and 19th-century
literature, and the opinions of the readers who read their work. It is a sign of
the patriarchal society of the time that Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot
both used male pseudonyms under which to publish their work: Charlotte
Brontë wrote initially as Currer Bell, while George Eliot’s real name was
Mary Anne Evans.

Although times, cultures, and roles for women have changed since the16th
century one can suggest that men have not changed drastically. It is evident
that men still feel that their wives should obey and respect their wishes.
Contemporary women are now able to go to school, work, and be as
independent as men. Previously, women were subjected to carrying out
household duties and obeying male authority, which determined whether
they were considered good women. Shakespeare shines a light on the
victimisation of women and exemplifies the consequences that women
endure and when they disobeyed their men. Women today are still being
victimised by male egos and male dominance because the different roles
that society has imposed on both men and women. Women are still
expected to be submissive, domestic, and obedient their partners.Men use
these roles as a
guide to measure their partners up against an imaginary model of perfect
domesticity. However it becomes problematic when she does not fit the
criteria of a good woman, which is when signs of victimisation may occur
.Male dominance and female victimisation is such an important issue that
portrayal of societal roles thatShakespeare presents in the three plays Much
Ado About Nothing, Othello, and Hamlet help to shine a light on the
predicament of women, However these kinds of gender biased treatment
still exist today.