Breaking The Gender Stereotypes: Gender Patterns In Doris Lessing's Works

Doris Lessing is one of the most extraordinary as well as controversial women writers of our time. Moreover, she is a prolific writer whose production covers a wide range of literary genres. Her African background has resulted in a number of stories deploring the color bar, touching on social reform and advocating individual freedom. This paper discusses her breaking of gender stereotypes, and the ideal gender patterns Lessing builds in her works.In the conventional criteria of gender stereotypes, women are always related to family. They should be gentle, dependent and easy to get close to. At the other end, men ought to be masculine, tenacious, dominant in the gender relationship, and the main source of family income. A"real"man is required to hide his fragility or dread. Gender stereotypes lead directly to a discrimination of one gender upon the other. This kind of discrimination often but not definitely points to women. In fact, people always ignore the discrimination on men which is recessive and indirect.As a writer in a new age, Lessing has a prevision that is often further than her contemporaries. There is no banal or traditional thought in her mind and she never sees things with ordinary eyes. In some of her works, Lessing subverts the traditional concepts of gender and creates most independent women who possess what the traditional men should have, while several men are just like what the traditional women should be. Through the depiction of these unconventional characters, Lessing not only diversifies the images of men and women in literature but also tries to change the gender stereotypes in readers'minds.Different from many of the researches on Lessing's gender view that attach importance to women's experience and self-realization exclusively, this paper discusses both sides of gender. For Lessing, women's liberation ought to be combined with men's cooperation. When we are struggling for the freedom of women, we should not take men as enemies. The pursuit for the freedom of women should not be the excuse of superseding"men-domination"with"women-domination". The final aim of feminism is not to overthrow men but to get to the destination of gender equality. In addition to her concern about women, Lessing does not neglect the care for men. She reveals the agony of men under the restriction of gender stereotypes and expresses her advocacy to men's liberation.This thesis is divided into three chapters. First, some important concepts about female stereotype are introduced. Traditionally, women are supposed to be with characteristics of piety, submissiveness, and domesticity. However, in her works, Lessing has created some unconventional women who are totally different from the traditional ones in the view of gender stereotypes. In addition, Lessing did not stay on the level of pursuing the external freedom of women. In Lessing's point of view, the freedom they have achieved is not the freedom in a real sense. There are still a lot of difficulties on the way to women's liberation.The second chapter discusses Lessing's breaking of male stereotype and her possible solutions to men's liberation. When women are debased as infirm and emotional, men are required to be strong and to suppress their emotions. They have to bear all the pressures both from family and society and cannot show their weakness. Thereby, men are the victims of patriarchy in despite of being the beneficiaries. In Lessing's fictional world, there are some heroes lacking the so-called masculinity, either externally or internally. By analyzing the characters of these men, we can find that Lessing is attempting to break the stereotype on men. Through the revelation of men's inner world, Lessing tries to tell that men's liberation is as important as women's liberation.The third chapter discusses the ideal gender patterns for Lessing. Men and women relate to each other and complement each other on the way to gender equality. Ideal gender pattern, in Lessing's point of view, should be cooperative, mutual supporting and mutual respecting. This chapter also discusses Lessing's endeavor to acquire gender equality and her Marxist gender viewpoint that we should not divide things off. Last, the discussion of Lessing's gender patterns is put in the tradition of women writing, which tries to find out her progressive nature in comparison with the precedent women writers.Through all these analyses, a conclusion will be made that Lessing is attempting to change the conventional gender stereotypes both in the literary world and in readers'minds, and holds that gender equality could be achieved as long as both men and women get liberated. This paper makes up the deficiency of the researches on Lessing's gender view that attaches importance to the women's liberation exclusively and ignores her care for men.