Partner Work

Have you ever felt that members of the opposite sex have special privileges or advantages not available to members of your sex?

Draw up a list of some of the advantages that you think each sex possesses.

Male │ Female │

Written 1662 by Margaret Cavendish “orations” means “formal speech” During this time, there were few published

female authors; tended to concentrate on such subjects as …family, religion, romance, and household responsibilities

Modesty (reservation in speech, dress, or behavior) was a highly valued feminine virtue (moral asset)

Female Orations

“Female Orations” is an imaginary debate between women with differing points of view on the role of women in society

**Argumentation –writing intended to convince an audience that a proposal should be adopted or rejected

Begin with a statement of an idea or opinion and then support it with logical evidence.

Also can anticipate and provide rebuttal of opposing views.

Speaker 1: compares and contrasts the condition of men and women. According to this speaker, what qualities are attributed to men and to women?

Women Men

live as beasts free

miserable happy, famous

restless with labor (there’s no rest) possess rest

easeless with pain (no ease from pain)

possess ease

melancholy (depressed) for want of pleasures

possess pleasures

helpless for want of power possess power and wealth

die in oblivion (forgotten) unconscionable and cruel

Although men have all the advantages, they treat women cruelly

Speaker 2: men fail to listen to women Speaker 3: men do care for women and

work hard to please them Speaker 4: “… we should imitate men; so

will our bodies and minds appear more masculine, and our power will increase by our actions”

Speaker 5: provides a rebuttal saying this is “preposterous and unnatural.” It would make us “hermaphroditical” thus being neither “perfect women, nor perfect men.” Thus we should strive to be “pleasing to God and men” by being modest, humble, patient, etc.

Speaker 6: We should imitate men since they are a “degree in nature more perfect” and thus “we may come, at last, to equal men, both in perfection and power.”

Speaker 7: asks why women should even want to be like men since women are far better. Women are more harmonious, are more graceful, women don’t instigate and fight in battles, etc. “[W]e are their saints.” She says that women are better than men, and men’s behavior shows this to be evident.

Are things different today?(the more things change, the more they stay

the same)•Are these roles desirable?•Are our identities bound? fixed?Bound by ourselves?Bound by our families?Bound by society?• Is Cavendish pointing out the plurality of

self (the many selves within a person)Idea of identity in constant flux