Women's Struggle against Patriarchy in "Fight Night" by Miriam Toews

Abstract

Women's struggles are described in the novel Fight Night by Miriam Toews, a feminist study. This study describes the struggles of three women which are carried out by the main character in the novel Fight Night by Miriam Toews. The three main characters are Swiv, Elvira, and Moshie. This writing method uses qualitative methods. In the novel Fight Night by Miriam Toews. Swiv is a 9 years old boy who struggles to get an education and has to take care of his elderly grandmother and pregnant mother. Moshie is a mother from Swiv Moshie struggling to get equality in work. Elvira is a grandmother and a mother where she has to fight against illness and to still get eligibility in the midst of a Mennonite culture. Until finally Moshie goes with Swiv to meet his family, meeting with a family in a city. Moshie also ended up working at an acting company but instead he had to face acting violence because he was forced to dive while pregnant, and Swiv also got lessons from his grandmother after being expelled from school but she had to taking care of grandmother and mother. This study uses a qualitative approach to uncover problems and uses The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1953). This study concludes that every woman can do all the work to survive without any gender differences. Such as gender inequality in career, desire, power, and regulating what jobs can be done.  The writer identified the struggles faced by the main woman characters: become intellectuals, freedom to be herself, freedom to actualize themself.

Keywords: feminism, Fight Night, patriarchy, woman's struggles, qualitative method