Jamie DaSilva
Professor Nicholas Helms
Currents in Global Literature
8 December, 2023
After reading Sultana’s Dream and watching Barbie I became fascinated by the way both stories had reversed the traditional gender roles. While the stories and contexts may be different, they both have worlds in which women are the superior sex which completely reverses the traditional idea in which men are the superior sex. I created this annotated bibliography to highlight the similarities that both hold when reversing gender roles. I have added the links to each article under each citation.
Annotated Bibliography
Hossain, Rokeya Sakhawat. “Sultana’s Dream.” Sultana’s Dream., Madras: The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, 1905., digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sultana/dream/dream.html. Accessed 5 Dec. 2023.
Sultana’s Dream written by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain is a story in which traditional gender roles have been swapped. In the beginning of the story we see the main character of the story, Sultana, resting in her chair in the evening. Her friend, Sister Sara, comes into the room, says good morning and asks if she would want to go on a walk through the garden. When this takes place Sultana notes that it is not morning, but actually the middle of the night. When the two women go outside it is miraculously the early morning. Two women walking in the daylight is something unheard of in their culture so Sultana is nervous about what would happen if she were to be seen by a man on their walk. As they continue to walk she notices the complete absence of men outside. Sister Sara calls her timid for the way she is walking about nervously and that is when Sultana notices that Sister Sara is actually a stranger to her. Sister Sara then tells her to stop being nervous about not having a veil on because they are in Ladyland. Sultana then looks around and notices that Ladyland is very different from her own world. She notices that the streets are filled with flowers and Sister Sara tells her that her home could look like this if only the men would allow it to happen. She then questions the absence of men and Sister explains that the gender roles in Ladyland are reversed meaning that the men are kept indoors rather than the women. Sultana then explains how she believes that women should not go outdoors because it is too dangerous for them due to their weak nature. Sister Sara then explains that it is only dangerous if the men are also outdoors with them. When the two women sit down together Sister Sara starts to work on her needlepoint project and begins to explain that she is able to do both her domestic work and the work of men due to how much more efficient women are than men. Sister Sara then further explains how fantastic Ladyland is because there is very little tragedy and hardship as well as them being so much further advanced in technology than they are in Sultana’s world. In this world all the men are forced to fight in the military, but when there was a war with a neighboring country the men lost so, the women were forced to fight them instead. The women were able to defeat them quickly and rather brutally. Since this war no one has tried to invade Ladyland and all the men were confined to the indoors. Sister Sara also explains that since the men have been confined to their homes there has been no crime throughout the land. Sister Sara then took Sultana on a full tour of Ladyland and showed her all the ways in which Ladyland is better than her world, including the machines that are used in the fields in order to prevent anyone from having to work in them. Sister Sara then takes Sultana to meet the queen upon her request and the queen explains how the people of Ladyland would rather have knowledge than wealth. After this visit with the queen Sultana wakes up in her chair and realizes everything she saw was just a dream.
“Official Movie Site.” Barbie, http://www.barbie-themovie.com/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.
(https://www.barbie-themovie.com/ )
Barbie is a movie that came out in 2023 and was directed by Greta Gerwig. At the beginning of the movie we see Stereotypical Barbie drive around in her car and visit various places in Barbieland such as a political meeting and the beach. In Barbieland women hold all important positions of power and are considered to be more important than the men in Barbieland. Along her drive we see various different Barbies While at the beach we are introduced to Ken. Ken is madly in love with Stereotypical Barbie, but she does not seem to return the feelings Ken has for her. Ken’s job is simply beach and he ends up trying to surf and hurting himself while trying to show off for Barbie. To end the night they had a dance party at Barbie’s dreamhouse. This seems to be Babrie’s daily routine and she was never bored of it because to her it was the perfect day. Until one morning she woke up and she noticed some changes in the way she felt, as well as her appearance. She started to panic and went to visit Weird Barbie to hopefully find a way to resolve this problem. Weird Barbie then tells Barbie that she must leave Barbieland to find the cause of this problem and find a solution in the real world. So, Barbie then gets in her car and sets out to leave Barbieland by herself, but part way through the drive while singing along to a song, Ken pops out from the backseat revealing that he plans on going with her. After some hesitance Barbie agrees to let him go with her. When they arrive in the real world they quickly realize that it is very different from Barbieland. They get caught shoplifting and Barbie, as well as Ken, are both arrested when Barbie punches a man for groping her. While they are being arrested we see the Mattel CEO disturbed by their arrivals because this is not something that is supposed to happen. The two worlds are not supposed to mix. Once Barbie and Ken are released from police custody Barbie sets off to find her owner, Sasha in hopes of some answers and she sends Ken away because this is something she wants to do by herself. When she finds Sasha she begins to realize that Barbie dolls are not as uplifting as they are meant to be for young girls and becomes distraught. While Barbie is with Sasha, Ken learns about the patriarchy and believes it to be the best thing he has ever heard of. He then goes back to Barbieland early to tell everyone about the patriarchy. Barbie then finds out that Sasha’s mom, Gloria, is the reason she has been having these problems due to her playing with Sasha’s old dolls. The Mattel executives then find them and try to put Barbie in a toy box so Sasha, Barbie and Gloria flee to Barbieland to avoid the executives. When they arrive in Barbieland they notice that everything is different to Ken implementing the patriarchy. All the women were now housewives and submissive to the men. Barbie then has to convince the women that they are powerful again. Once she does, they all realize that having a society where only one group of people are considered to be powerful does not work in a long term sense so they decide to work towards a more equal society.
Murdana – Dialog, dialog.puchd.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Chandana-Rajbanshi-From-Zenana-to-Mardana.pdf. Accessed 8 Dec. 2023.
This is an article written by Chandana Rajbanshi in which she discusses how gender roles in Sultana’s Dream are challenging the way women were treated in India. She discusses how in the story Sultana and Sister Sara represent two sides of gender roles for women. Sultana represents the world where women of India are not allowed to leave the Zeanna and are forced to marry young. In this version of the world, women are only able to become housewives and are not allowed to attend schools for a formal education. Sister Sara represents life in Ladyland where women are free to do anything they want and men are kept in Murdanas, a Zeanna for men, because they are too violent and are being held accountable for their actions. In Ladyland women are viewed as more powerful than men. This article helps highlight how gender roles are represented in Sultana’s dream because it highlights the difference between gender roles in reality compared to the reversed gender roles in Sultana’s Dream by showing the way characters represent how women act when they are raised in different societies.
“View of Ecofeminism in the Early Twentieth Century Bengali Literature: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream: The Columbia Journal of Asia.” View of Ecofeminism in the Early Twentieth Century Bengali Literature: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream | The Columbia Journal of Asia, journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/cja/article/view/11112/5541. Accessed 8 Dec. 2023. (https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/cja/article/view/11112 )
This is an article written by Labiba Rifah Nanjeeba in which the reversed gender roles are described as ecofeminist due to the system and environment causing oppression in women is challenged. This article uses ecofeminism to highlight the reversed nature of India’s gender roles by comparing the gender roles in Sultana’s Dream to those in India at the time. For example, in Sultana’s Dream Sister Sara talks about how men waste six hours a day smoking which is one of the many reasons she believes women to be more efficient than men. This is a reference to the major environmental changes that took place in India at the time due to how poor the environment was getting from all sorts of smoke. This article helps highlight the reversed gender roles in Sultana’s Dream by making direct references to the realities in India.
Jamie Downie, LMSW. “The Barbie Movie: How It Challenges Gender Roles in 2023.” Gateway to Solutions, Gateway to Solutions, 21 Sept. 2023, http://www.gatewaytosolutions.org/the-barbie-movie-how-it-challenges-gender-roles/#:~:text=With%20the%20Kens%20in%https://www.gatewaytosolutions.org/the-barbie-movie-how-it-challenges-gender-roles/#:~:text=With%20the%20Kens%20in%20charge,a%20stereotypical%20macho%20leadership%20role.https://www.gatewaytosolutions.org/the-barbie-movie-how-it-challenges-gender-roles/#:~:text=With%20the%20Kens%20in%20charge,a%20stereotypical%20macho%20leadership%20role.https://www.gatewaytosolutions.org/the-barbie-movie-how-it-challenges-gender-roles/#:~:text=With%20the%20Kens%20in%20charge,a%20stereotypical%20macho%20leadership%20role.https://www.gatewaytosolutions.org/the-barbie-movie-how-it-challenges-gender-roles/#:~:text=With%20the%20Kens%20in%20charge,a%20stereotypical%20macho%20leadership%20role.20charge,a%20stereotypical%20macho%20leadership%20role. (https://www.gatewaytosolutions.org/the-barbie-movie-how-it-challenges-gender-roles/#:~:text=With%20the%20Kens%20in%20charge,a%20stereotypical%20macho%20leadership%20role. )
This is an article written by Jamie Downie in which the reversed gender roles throughout Barbie are highlighted through showing the effects patriarchy had on the women of Barbieland after the men took over. In this article Downie discusses how after Ken brought the ideas of patriarchy to Barbieland the women were not the only one affected by this change. After the patriarchy was brought back to Barbieland the women became essentially powerless to the men and the men became more violent and aggressive. This article helps highlight the reversed gender roles because it highlights the effects that a very real oppressive concept, the patriarchy, has on both the oppressor and those being oppressed.
Sprockets and Springes 