Woman Warrior 1

Circumstantial is the only word that comes to mind when I examine female oppression. The evidence against them is or the rules that society has bound them to are always circumstantial. Some picky part of tradition or culture that completely ignores any special cases or fails to address particular flaws with the culture's own rhetoric. The worst part is how no one likes to admit to this. People blame other people or the gods or the stars or some entity which they have no control over. That's just wrong. If you want to be a man, then you got to go all the way, no such thing as half way. Kingston portrays some of this in her novel The Woman Warrior. The culture in question in the book is the Chinese culture, one that stands for honor and dignity.

Honor


But what do they do when the Aunt offs herself? 'Oh! It's as if she was never alive.' How ridiculous is that? People would go about causing havoc upon their family because of her and when she was gone, they don't even want to remember her expect on what not to do. Her husband was gone for years, and she committed adultery. Wrong, yes, but not worth killing over or causing the mess the villagers did. Alas! Everyone still blames the stars. "People refused fatalism because they could invent small resources insisted on culpability. Deny accidents and wrest fault from the stars" (Kingston, 13).

The Blame Split Helps to Deal With It


People can justify so much because we have such a unique imagination. Consider the point in the novel when the lion dancers come in. The dance became a symbol and was applicable to anything. "I could stare at ordinary people and see their light and gold. When I get hungry enough, then killing and falling are dancing too" (Kingston, 17). Through her imagination, the aspects of the dance were transportable to other aspects of her life. Kind of weird but very possible.

Fight For Your Rights Girl!


This is how the world works. People justify anything they want to themselves and if they can't find a good reason, they blame it on some entity they have no control over or one that has full control over them. In the end, groups of people suffer. Historically, this group has been women, but the discrimination of this phenomena is purely circumstantial, so everyone is at risk!