Assignment

In

21st century literature from the

Philippines and the World

Submitted by: John Andrew A. Padilla

Reflection Paper
 A story for children by Svava Jakobsdottir

The story “A story for children” is about a woman devotes herself to her home,
husband, and children. She has a lot of work to do and is subject to the many whims of
her kids. Eventually, her brain and heart are affected by the demands placed on her .

In the long existence of the society the stereotype is a great part of it and even in
todays time. In the story, the common stereotype women are depicted. Even though
many stereotypes are present but the women stereotype is the most talked and known
about. That’s why the story shows a similarity to the typical women. The female
stereotype is expected to have a delicate character, to take care of the house work and
the children, to have no personal identity, and to be relatively simple and inferior in
comparison to men.

In the first part of the story you can see that the women is reading a magazine to
have some sort of strength, self-confidence, courage and also to have a some sort of
conformation that she is in the right path. That tells that a woman needs some sort of
external element to acquire support because society believes that they have no self-
confidence at all. This is the most common stereotype of women

The mother is portrayed as "true to her nature an devote all her energies to her
home and her children”. This is another stereotype that a woman should carry duties
and responsibilities in the house. They are also expected to only focus on the
responsibility of the household and nothing else.

In the story, mama has the responsibility of preparing the meal because it was
said in the story that "children might suffer psychological harm from not getting supper
on time. This said that women should be responsible of feeding and stressing oneself to
prepare the meal with great effort.

The mama in the story is always " swamped with work caring for the children”.
This indicated that the women are expected to take care of the children. No matter how
busy the mother is, she will take responsibility of the children. This also suggest that her
life only revolves in the care and welfare of her children.
 They are expected to have no life what so ever outside the house work. Due to
that the women are expected no to have her own identity. It is shown in the story that
her own heart and brain was removed to indicate that her intellect and emotions are not
known or acknowledge. Rather than having her own identity, she is already been
combined with the household. That’s why in the story the children visit because of they
"didn’t like the sterile smell that clung to everything in the house”.

The sterile smell represents the lack of emotion and intellectual quality. It also
indicates the house itself has been tinted with the non-existence self of mama. She is
considered lifeless because of the typical relation with the house. The last stereotype
you can see in the story is the simple and inferior compared to men.

You can see in the story that stereotype of simple women. This is seen when the
children remove the brain of mama. Even without the presence of the brain she can still
function properly to der her housework. This indicate that women that women do things
without an intellect.

The stereotype that women are relatively simple is reinforced in the story. The
label is displayed through the event where the children take mama’s brain. Even without
her brain, it hadn’t become a bit more difficult for her to do housework. The fact that she
can still do her routine without her brain indicates that women live a simple life and
therefore are simple in nature. The story is saying that the stereotypical women’s life or
responsibilities are so simple that they can be done without an intellect. The other half
of the last stereotype in the stories is related to women’s inferiority. Women are given
no or little authority because they are perceive as lower than men.

As you can see, this is what society sees in women in that time. How they are
being belittle, treated like some sort of married maid, treated as if they don’t have
intellect or emotions and being secluded to have their own thoughts. I was born in this
year of equality, to hear this way of life having to categorized and limiting the ones
movement because of sex and gender it is kind of low for the human intellect.