Mary Read and Anne Bonny

« One of Rediker's insights about piracy describes how sailors saw women as both a fantasy and a threat at the same time: “Any sailors saw women as objects of fantasy and adoration but also as sources of bad luck or, worse, dangerous sources of conflict, potential breaches in the male order of seagoing solidarity” (Rediker 111).

I find this insight interesting because it shows that women have the power to influence men in a good way but they can also be viewed as distractions.

Rediker also talks about the harsh attitude of males pirates towards women, which is one of the reasons why so few women actually appeared on pirate ships during the eighteenth century.

He also notes that Read and Bonny were brought up in a harsh environment that forced them to become determined and strong.

They represented strength and were highly celebrated by lower class women, which I find interesting because it shows class solidarity and a sense of unity in both social class and gender. In her text “If I Were a Man”, Gilman uses sarcasm when she describes the “true” woman simply by putting the word “true” in quotation marks.

Further in her description of a “true” woman, she puts a lot of terms such as “the social” or “society” in quotation marks as well, which clearly shows her sarcasm about what a is considered a “true” woman and how a “true” woman is supposed to behave.

It is important that Mollie is a “true” woman because the way she sees men before she gets to spend a day as her husband would be different if she weren't “true”.

Mollie is the opposite of her husband: she is little, she loves pretty clothes and she doesn't work to earn a living like him.

The fact that she possesses these “true” woman characteristics is what makes her want to be a man.

Her wish is granted when she gets to experience one day as a man.

She dresses as a man during that day and suddenly develops a new resentment for women's hats for. »