HEGEMONY

Hegemony is based on Alias Grace, the grisly double murder that took place in July 1843 in a village, in Upper Canada.  A dominant question of Victorian times was whether women were, by nature, good or evil. Hegemony takes up this question, arguing that this binary is not a sufficient way to understand women, just as it would be an insufficient way to understand men. Hegemony further takes the argument a step further by showing how society’s repression of female sexuality—and its willingness to allow, and even condone, sexual violence against women—cements this binary understanding of womanhood and negatively affects women’s self-expression by tying their worth to their sexuality.

The theme focuses on showing the many different characters liken women to physical objects.