Gender Equality And Gender Differences Of The Play Top...

The plays ‘Top Girls’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ are written in ways that explore the issues surrounding gender equality and gender differences. Churchill explores the ideas of a feminist utopia where the men and women live in separate spheres which are prescribed to suit the stereotypical roles of the genders. For example at this time power dressing was a real strategy used by the new breed of feminists struggling for identity in society. We learn about the relationship between women and working. However, Williams’s characters in A StreetCar Named Desire crucially succumb to the prescribed gender roles where the women are expected to be meekly obedient in a patriarchal society ruled by the opposite sex. Top Girls is set in the early 1980 s, and mainly plays with two main concerns travelling around the 1980’s- feminism and socialism. We unravel a great number of ideas within the novel that mirror the characters rejection of their gender roles. The theme in Top Girls is mostly addressing the ideologies around feminism at a significant time. This is portrayed in a direct manner and tone which veer from bizarre and dreamlike to mundane and give us an insight of the contemporary events going on outside of the play. The time this play was written holds high importance as it was the time of power dressing and was a real up lift for women struggling for identity in modern society. Churchill portrays the central protagonist Marlene as representing the rise of women’s