"Defaming the honour of a woman was a sin" : A norm-critical gender study of Woman at Point Zero and The House on Mango Street

Abstract: Women are victims of male oppression during countless stages of their lives. Female oppression is rooted in the culture of the societies and that makes patriarchal structures ongoing until this day. Patriarchal structures and social norms make it utterly difficult for women to find ways of liberating themselves from the norms. By using Butler’s performativity theory, an analysis of the novels Woman at Point Zero by Egyptian author Nawal El Saadawi and The House on Mango Street by Mexican American author Sandra Cisneros will be done in this study. With a focus on social norms and patriarchal structures within the novels, a connection will be made to the Swedish school system and how the use of non-Western literature and world literature plays an important role in the multicultural classroom. Being in different parts of the world, in different times and parts of different cultures does not stop women from being affected by social norms, and the analysis of Esperanza, Sally and Firdaus will prove this by applying Butler’s performativity theory, which she develops in texts such as Excitable Speech – a Politics of the Performative (1997) and Undoing Gender (2004).