Gendered Identities Across Cultures: Eunice de Souza and Dorothy Parker

Abstract

This paper undertakes a comparative study of Eunice de Souza and Dorothy Parker to examine the construction of gendered identities across distinct cultural contexts—postcolonial India and early twentieth-century America. Using a gender and cultural studies framework, the paper analyses how both writers depict women negotiating patriarchal norms embedded in family structures, romantic relationships, and social expectations. De Souza’s poetry foregrounds the cultural regulation of female sexuality and respectability within Indian middle-class and religious settings, while Parker’s work explores the emotional labour and vulnerability experienced by women in modern urban America. Despite their differing historical and cultural locations, both writers represent gendered identity as shaped by social surveillance and internalised norms rather than overt coercion. The paper argues that their texts function as cultural documents that expose gender as a socially constructed and culturally mediated category. By placing De Souza and Parker in dialogue, the study highlights transnational continuities in women’s marginalisation while also attending to culturally specific forms of resistance and self-articulation.