Two

Seeing the evolution of feminism, gender roles, and chivalry in these texts reminds me yet again, of the almost paradoxical beliefs all generations have about the past. Like in Ovid's "The Loves"--which is essentially a players handbook written over 2000 years ago--I couldn't help but conclude that the there really is "nothing new under the sun" (Eccl. 1:9) after reading the earlier works; it seems like men, women, and their roles have not changed much. Chaucer's tale actually seems to undermine modern critics claims that feminism is a (relatively) new ideology. His tale reveals that back then, men knew--as Chaucer seems to say--that women's deepest desires were to rule over their husbands and for less superficiality in men's' tastes. While feminist's would obviously discredit such a minimization of their beliefs, there is some truth in Chaucer's work because women do want to be liberated from their subservient positions and objectification. I think the Queen in Chaucer's tale reveals these desires by having the man who raped her go on a quest for a woman's desire so that he could begin to understand that unlike what many men of that era probably believed, that contrary to the erroneous male perspective of women as wanting to be second class citizens, women wanted to be "rulers". At the end, Chaucer also shows today's readers that men back then also had problems with objectification, which is exemplified in the fact that the queen was raped and that he was so concerned with the old maid's outward appearance.

However, we see that men fulfilling the dominant role has still lasted centuries later in the clip from Footloose and the song that's played, "Holding out for a Hero". The clip and song demonstrate how the Herculean man is desirable. While Chaucer gives us a perspective of women wanting equity in their relationships, it fails in it's message—for audience's sake most likely—by reverting back to the very ideology it wanted to combat. Because the author ended the tale with the old woman turning into a beautiful maiden and them living happily ever after, it seems not to take such a modern stance after all, and so the text seems to regress just like the movie and song reveal that women's roles as prizes to be won in a contest with tractors and needing to be saved by a hero have stayed the same up to 1984.

The truck commercial and NY times piece are both indicative of the small changes that have been made since Chaucer's day and before. The commercial illustrates the supposedly masculine traits of homophobia—not wanting to be touched by other men or sing feminine songs. The NY times piece reveals that even in 2014, women are still trying to get equal rights with men.

There is another extreme—in my opinion—though with the new age of feminism. Not extreme in the negative sense, but in it's polarity with the other texts. This new wave of thinking about women's rights and gender roles reveals how now, parents are teaching that gender identities and roles were manufactured by society into a one size fits all kind of labeling. Even further, the gender bread man reveals even more blurring of the lines which we previously defined as simply "male" and "female" with their attached roles. While the world doesn't seem to have changed much, new ideas are popping up in ways that may alter the future much more noticeably.