Medea, in Euripides' Medea, could be described as a hysterical and merciless murderer, as she kills an innocent princess and slaughters her own children The women in Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji could easily be described as needy and stupidly jealous, as they are depicted whining and biting their husbands' fingers out of vicious envy. they act like them. Perhaps their actions are born not from inherent personality traits, but rather from the actions of the oppressed. As the Norton anthology claims, "it is the indescribable violence of the oppressed, which. .. because it has been repressed for a long time, cannot be lived under control” (Knox/Thalmann 615). t was about women who were victims of oppression and ultimately lived very unhappy lives due to their unrealistic gender expectations. , and a lack of rights and power in society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayTo start with Medea, Medea, like the women in The Tale of Genji, is the victim of a society that has unrealistic expectations of gender issues with regard to women. ; in many cases, men in society even impose double standards on women. Medea was born in her unfortunate state of exile, all because of her attempts to live up to the ideal of female self-sacrifice. Medea killed her own father and abandoned her own country for Jason's well-being. The expectation of women to be selfless is described in the following lines: "And she herself helped Jason in every way./ This is indeed the greatest salvation of all, ---/ That the woman does not does not separate from her husband” (Euripides 13-15). Even though women are held to such expectations, it is a double standard because men are not expected to do the same. Jason does not stand by Medea when he quickly leaves her for another and ultimately sentences her to banishment. In many ways, men did not appreciate women for the individuals they were, but rather used them for self-actualization. Not only was Jason apparently using Medea selfishly to escape Iosco's life, but also, as the text illustrates, the women of Greece were essentially just a means of raising children. Jason said to Medea: “It would have been far better if men/had had their children in another way, and if women/had not existed” (Euripides 561-563). In many ways, Medea proves her point by murdering her children to show that she is not just a mother, that she and all women in society matter as complex individuals with their own agendas and emotions. Medea, understanding his expectations of women, uses the prescribed female role of selflessness and motherhood to get Jason to follow her plan. She tells Jason to "beg Kreon that the children not be banished" (636), regardless of his own fate. Complementing the sexist expectations women faced, women also suffered from a lack of rights and power in society. Medea is helpless in the face of the fact that as a man, her husband has the power to divorce her. Women do not have the same rights; “there is no easy escape” (Euripides 233). In fact, “she cannot say no to her marriage either” (Euripides 234). Medea is placed between a rock and a hard place when she faces banishment, because women in Greece have no economic power or meansto survive independently without the dependence of a man. Without Jason, Medea has no home and no way to feed herself or her children. The Norton Anthology explains: “Medea is both a woman and an outsider…she is a representative of the two free-born groups in Athenian society who had almost no rights” (Knox/Thalmann 615). Angered by the powerless reality of Greek women, Medea cries, “We women are the most unfortunate creatures” (Euripides 236). It is for lack of other resources that Medea resorts to magic and deception - this is the only power offered to her in society. Like women in Greek society, women in Japanese culture, as The Tale of Genji demonstrates, are not valued for being the independent individuals that they are, but rather seen as a pawn or asset. Their identities were created by an androcentric society in which men held the power to create an impossible ideal of what a woman should be. The Norton Anthology explains: “It was not just attention and affection that they awaited behind their screens, but a definition of themselves that depended entirely on male recognition” (Danly1334). The men in the novel describe an ideal woman. Women who are “gentle and feminine” are admired, but if a woman takes her femininity too far and is “too domestic” and pays “no attention to her appearance,” she is no longer appreciated (Shikibu 1442). They speak of the benefits of a “gentle and childlike wife” in which the man “must take care to train her and make up for her inadequacies” (Shikibu 1442). Such women are valued because, like children, they are seen as not even having independent thoughts and in need of someone to dominate them. However, once again, these women are subject to double standards, because in such cases men criticize. their lack of ability to “perform various services” (Shikibu 1442) when it comes to tasks that the man needs her to perform for him. It is not important that a woman is capable and independent in general, because a man would actually prefer that she not be. However, when it comes to matters benefiting man, she is expected to have the independence to act. In fact, while men desired women who lived isolated and sheltered from others, they regretted not being able to advise them on public matters. Men fixate on the ideal of a “calm and stable girl” (Shikibu 1442), that is, someone who is sufficiently submissive and who “does not throw tantrums” (Shikibu 1442 ). Men primarily criticize women who are jealous or otherwise not adapting to the lifestyle that men participated in, which included polygamy, sexual freedom, and societal independence. The men explain: “It is very foolish for a woman to let a little dalliance upset her to the point of openly showing her resentment” (Shikibu 1443). Not only were women faced with impossible expectations, struggling to manipulate themselves into responding best to men, but they themselves were told: "when there are crises, incidents, a woman should try to ignore” (Shikibu 1443). reminiscent of Medea, the women of the Tale of Genji are at the mercy of the male-dominated world in which they live with very little power or independence of their own. They grow up under the protection of their parents and eventually marry a man and will probably even continue to live with their parents. They were not invited to participate in the world in the same way as men. The Norton Anthology explains: "Nor did they enjoy the same..