GENDER ROLES

START UP QUESTIONS

• If you were Sonya would you choose her "job" or be a wage slave?
• If you were Dunya, what would you have done with Petrovich?
• How would you deal with the situation if you were Razumikhin? (About Rask.)

WOMEN'S RIGHTS

• Did male serfs have more rights?
• Why? Cult of Domesticity/Women's expectations.
• Would you choose to stay in the household or work for a low wage ?
• Women who weren't virgins or matyrs were labeled as bad & less honorable
• No room for error but not compensated with the right to vote or = wages.

Examples

• "The old woman was a sickness(..)" it wasn't a human being killed, it was a principle!"
• So the old woman wasn't even a human? Raskolnikov had no sympathy!
• “Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart.”

Men's Rights

• Got: Higher wages, Job Oppurtunities, Voting, etc
• Could do whatever they pleased especially if they had money.
• In Russia, Men dictated the laws, and way of life.
• Would you like this way of living? Why or why not?

Examples

• “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”
• "Truly great men must, I think, experience great sorrow on the earth.”
• “Man has it all in his hands & it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice.”
• “The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”
• “It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of."

Questions

• How would you survive in that time period?
• Would you rather be Raskolnikov or Dunya?
• What would you expect in todays Russia?