Medea, in Euripides' Medea, could be described as a hysterical and ruthless murderer, as she kills an innocent princess and slaughters his own children The women in Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji could easily be described as needy and foolishly jealous, as they are depicted whining and biting their husband's fingers out of fierce envy. Why did these women act as they did? Perhaps their actions were not born of inherent personality traits, but rather the actions of the oppressed. As the Norton Anthology states, “this is the unspeakable violence of the oppressed, who. .. because they have long been repressed, they cannot be controlled” (Knox/Thalmann 615), the women in each story clearly act out of desperation to escape an androcentric reality oppression and who ultimately lived very unhappy lives due to their unrealistic gender expectations and lack of rights and power in society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To begin with Medea, Medea, like the women in The Tale of Genji, is a victim of a society that has unrealistic gender expectations for women; in many cases men in society impose a double standard on women. Medea was born into her unfortunate state of exile, all due to her attempts to live up to the altruistic ideal of femininity. Medea killed her father and abandoned her country all for Jason's well-being. The expectation that women are altruistic is described in the following lines; “And she herself helped Jason in every way./ For this is the greatest salvation of all, ---/ That the wife should not separate from her husband” (Euripides 13-15). While women are held to that expectation, it is a double standard, as men are not expected to do the same. Jason is not at Medea's side when he quickly leaves her for someone else and ultimately condemns her to exile. In many ways men did not appreciate women for the individuals they were, but rather used them in ways of self-fulfillment. Not only did Jason seemingly use Medea selfishly as a way to escape Iosco, but also as exemplified in the text, the women of Greece were mostly just a means of raising children. Jason tells Medea: “It would have been much better if men/had had children in another way, and women/had not existed” (Euripides 561-563). In many ways Medea proves a point by killing her children as a way to demonstrate that she is not just a mother, that she and all women in society count as complex individuals with their own agendas and emotions. Medea, understanding women's expectations, uses the prescribed female role of selflessness and motherhood to convince Jason to agree to her plan. He tells Jason to "beg Kreon that the children will not be banished" (636) regardless of his fate. In addition to the gender 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 “nor can he say no to her marriage” (Euripides 234). Medea finds herself between a rock and a hard place when she faces exile, as women in Greece have no economic power or ways to 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 female and foreign…she is onerepresentative of the two groups of freeborn in Athenian society who had almost no rights" (Knox/Thalmann 615). Angry at the helpless reality of Greek women, Medea cries, "We women are the most unfortunate creatures" (Euripides 236). It is in the absence of other resources that Medea resorts to the use of magic and deception: it is the only power offered to her in society. Like women in Greek society, women in Japanese culture, as demonstrated in The Tale of Genji, do not they were valued for being the independent individuals that they are, rather they are seen as a token or a piece of property. Their identities were created by an androcentric society where men had the power to create an impossible ideal of what a woman should be. woman The Norton Anthology explains, “It was not just attention and affection that 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. “Soft and feminine” women are admired, however if a woman takes her femininity too far and is “too domestic” and pays “no attention to her appearance” he is no longer fond of her (Shikibu 1442). They speak of the benefits of a “kind and childlike wife” in which a man “must take care to educate her and compensate for her inadequacies” (Shikibu 1442). These women are valued because, like children, they are believed to not even have independent thoughts and need someone to dominate them. Even in this case, however, there is a double standard towards these women, because in these cases men criticize their inability to "perform various services" (Shikibu 1442) when it comes to duties that the man needs that she does for him. It is not important for a woman to be capable and independent in general, as a man would actually prefer her not to be, however when it comes to matters that benefit the man she is expected to have the necessary independence to perform. Indeed, while men desired women who lived secluded and untouched by others, they regretted their inability to advise them on public manors. Men settle on the ideal of a "quiet and steady girl" (Shikibu 1442), that is, someone who is quite submissive and "does not throw tantrums" (Shikibu 1442). Men especially criticize women who are overcome by jealousy or who are otherwise not fluid with the lifestyle that men participated in, which included polygamy, sexual freedom, and social independence. The men explain that: “It is very foolish for a woman to let a little flirtation upset her so much that she shows her resentment openly” (Shikibu 1443). Women not only faced impossible expectations struggling to manipulate themselves in a way that best suited men, but they themselves were told: "when there are crises, accidents, a woman should try to overlook them" (Shikibu 1443 ). Once again, in a sense reminiscent of Medea, the women in The Tale of Genji are subject to the whims of the male-dominated world they live in with very little power or independence of their own. They grow up under the protection of their parents and eventually settle for getting married to a man and would most likely also 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, “Neither enjoyed the same mobility as men nor had careers, except as ladies-in-waiting” (Danly 1433). Unlike women in Greece, women in Japan could “own, inherit, and pass on property” (Danly 1433). Despite this, they still suffered from a sense of helplessness, as money could not save them from many products of a culture dominated by..