Violence In The West Book Analysis

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Marilynn S. Johnson’s Violence in the West: The Johnson County Range War and the Ludlow Massacre is a poignant depiction of the kind of violence that occurred in the West in the early days of the American settlement. Instances of gender-based violence on the basis of perceived gender roles are also captured in the book. Gender role is a set of societal expectations that reads out how an individual of a gender should think, behave and feel. Significantly, there is close interlinking among gender roles, the level/ nature of poverty and the population's vulnerability more so in sub-Saharan Africa. In the book, the poverty level is depicted by such factors as human and financial capital, social and physical wealth as well as physical, political and the assets derived from nature. Gender role…show more content…
Gender roles vary from one culture to another and have altered with time. Only of late has the role of ‘mother’ been associated with ‘homemaker’ as well as that of ‘breadwinner’ and mother. Even though the term androgyny is usually used to refer to an amalgamation of both feminine and masculine physical characteristics, is now often used to refer to a person who displays both feminine and masculine characteristics that are deemed detrimental, such as those depicted by a man who engage in fierce wrestling matches and yet mildly holds and feeds a baby. The role gender role of women in the tension and conflicts in the old West is accurately captured in the documents attached in Johnson’s book. The analysis reveals that several conflicts were started by white women while Hispanics and other immigrants encouraged their men to press on in times of violence and deaths. Perhaps the most shocking death that was instigated by chauvinism was that Ellen Watson. The book clearly shows how gender roles led to conflict in the
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