opression in womens writings

In Marilyn Frye’s 1983 essay “Oppression,” Frye outlines three main points about what it means to be oppressed. The first point is that of the double bind. Frye describes the double bind as “situations in which options are reduced to a very few and all of them expose one to penalty, censure, or deprivation.” (pg. 27) Frye’s second point tells us that when an individual is oppressed, the obstacles to the individual’s success are based upon that person’s membership in a particular group. Frye’s third key point is barriers of oppression are maintained by those who benefit from the oppression (oppressors). Women in “The Story of Shakespeare’s Sister,” “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” search to find meaning in the lives of women outside of the roles assigned to them by an oppressive male-dominated society. The women in these three stories exemplify Frye’s three main points in “Oppression.”
In the story “Shakespe...