AJM

MCHS
Maristella Alcudia 2
11-Abbott March 17, 2020

Through a feminist analysis of Lydia Davis’ “An Awkward Situation,” it can be said that
in society, double standards are present, a woman’s value and opinion is constantly belittled, and
despite the injustices inflicted upon them by men, women are expected to be saved by men. The
woman is portrayed as a writer working for her ex-lover, a man who is quite cruel to her; it is
suspected that this is because, in the past, she had been unkind to him as well. In this sense, it
may seem as if she is the oppressor, however, his cruelty towards the woman shows that the
woman was being oppressed, especially since this violence was validated on the basis of
revenge, despite the fact that violence, for any reason, is not moral.
The story demonstrates women as items for men to simply play and decide what to do
with, and this can be seen by how the men in the story constantly make their own assumptions
and decisions about the woman’s worth and purpose. The ex-lover refused to pay the woman for
her work despite admitting in the beginning that she was much more experienced than him while
the second man, the woman’s ex-husband, relies on her for money, despite their non-familial and
non-marital status, and he simply laughs with disbelief when the woman says that she isn’t being
paid. Furthermore, the woman’s distaste for her ex-husband’s writing, along with her thoughts of
not wanting to be associated with the character in the text, can help one infer that the ex-husband
was probably writing about his own corrupted assumptions and views about a woman.
Through how the first man “imprisons” the woman, the story shows that women have no
power over men. It is quite twisted that despite the first two men in the story relying on her for
improvement in their own tasks, they still belittled her worth, and overall influenced her
perception of men, so much to the point that she ironically thought of and depended on another
man -- who is supposed to be by her side, anyways -- to help her escape a situation of oppression
she was put into by men as well.
This reinforces the gender stereotype that men are superior to women, thus further
reinforcing the deeply-rooted patriarchial system. It is ironic to me how Lydia Davis, a woman
herself, wrote a story that puts all these negative assumptions and attitudes towards women,
however, through analyzing the story more, it seems as if she had written it this way to challenge
those stereotypes; in some way, it seems as if she had written this story in the point of view of a
misogynistic man to further show how twisted this type of thinking is, and by doing that, she
challenges the stereotypes that women are not able to critically think and that women do not
realize their own worth.