Women tend to show their emotions more often than men as their way to express their feeling. Thus, emotional stereotype makes women feel weaker than men.
e. Women are Stereotyped as Artsy
Patriarchal society believes that women are soft and use their emotion and feeling more often rather than their logic. It makes the society believes that women
have kinds of artistic skill to create something beautiful. However, the patriarchal society considers artistic skill that is own by women as something unimportant and
useless. Their artistic skill does not make them become respected by men or get equal treatment. In a patriarchal society, men do not appreciate art works made by women
because they believe only men who are able to produce a great art work. In Cookie, Beauty is portrayed as a girl who has artistic skill. She loves drawing and makes
painting, especially she loves to draw cartoon. She has good imagination in creating the figure that she likes, that is the character in Rabbit Hutch, Sam and Lily. However,
she is afraid to show her work to her father. It can be seen in the quotation below. ‘You have to send it in to Sam, Beauty,’ she said.
‘No, Mum, I’m too old – and my picture’s too weird,’ I said, closing my drawing book.
‘You’re so artistic, Beauty.’ Mum hesitated. ‘Shall we show it to Dad when he comes in?’
‘No’ ‘He’d be ever so proud.’
‘No, he wouldn’t. He’d go off on a rant.’ I puffed myself up and put on a deep Dad voice. ‘Why don’t you do a proper drawing of a teddy rather
than this damn daft cartoon rubbish.’ Wilson, 2016: 114
Beauty’s mother admires the painting that Beauty creates, but Beauty thinks that her painting is childish because she draws cartoon instead of realist painting. Beauty has
an artistic skill, but it does not make her feel proud, because her father does not like it. Her father thinks that a good painting should be realist contains with proper figure of
object instead of cartoon like what Beauty draws. Therefore, Beauty does not want her mother to show her picture to him. Artsy stereotype that Beauty has does not
make her father like and appreciate her. However, artsy stereotype that can be categorized as a good stereotype is not
always good for woman. A good stereotype can be seen as something bad by men because they think women are incapable in making good quality of paintings.
Beauty’s father dislikes the artistic skill that Beauty has. He does not admit that her drawings are good and he does not appreciate her efforts. On the other hand, he gives
the opportunity to Beauty by allowing her to make birthday invitation by herself. However, it is not to draw something that Beauty likes or to produce something that
will make her gets equality. ‘Well, you’d better get busy, little Beauty. You need to write out eighteen
invitations. You can do it on my laptop or maybe hand-print them yourself, seeing as you’re artistic.’
I hand-printed the first one. I used special purple card and my silver italic pen. I didn’t address it to Skye or Emily or Arabella. I didn’t even address it to
Rhona. Wilson, 2016: 121
Making a birthday invitation is something trivial. It is not a grand artwork that can make women become respected or appreciated. Beauty’s father admits Beauty has an
artistic skill but it does not make him proud or appreciate her works since he
considers her works are not substantial. Artsy is one of the stereotypes that can be considered as a good stereotype, but it does not make women feel equal to men. In
the novel, Beauty’s artistic quality does not help her to gain her independence and freedom. She even feels shy about it. She feels afraid to show her paintings to her
father because her father criticizes it instead of appreciates it. Thus, artsy stereotyping does not make women feel equal instead it can make women feel inferior.
f. Women are Stereotyped as Clumsy
