Esther's Fight Against Societal Norms

A lot of societal norms in the 1950s burden Esther Greenwood. Part of the Bell Jar is her pointing out her distaste for these norms and her fight against it. These norms were enabled by the social layout of the time period where women had a defined role in society and lacked the power or respect to push back. 

The first norm we see Esther take offense to and push back against is the double standard of male and female purity. When Buddy Willard reveals that he has already had sex, Esther is shocked. Purity was such an important concept as church-goers and in society, but it felt like the rules didn't apply to Buddy because he is a man. She is also angered by the open acceptance of the norm. When Esther asks some college seniors about Buddy sleeping with the waitress, they reply by saying "most boys were like that and you couldn't honestly accuse them of anything." She also expresses displeasure with Buddy's mom, who urges women to stay pure until marriage but is seemingly okay with the actions of her son. Both the college seniors and Buddy's mom enable a worldview that is incredibly restrictive on women, which comes as a shock to Esther. In order to fight back against this norm, Esther rejects the expectation of a woman having their purity until marriage and eventually loses her virginity with Professor Irwin. Esther tries to keep this a secret from Joan, because Irwin was just a random man and she didn't want Joan to be judgmental of that. Esther thought that her "going to bed with Irwin would be utterly incomprehensible to her (Joan)."

While in the asylum, Esther expresses that the burden of bearing a child is an unfair task put upon her. She says, "I've got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick to keep me in line." With all her conversations with Ms. Willard, Esther must be scared of the type of restrictive life that Ms. Willard preaches for women. Esther doesn't want to just become a housewife who serves her husband. For this reason Doctor Nolan advises for her to get a diaphragm, and she does. The severity of this protest against social norms is shown by Esther's fear in the doctor's office. At first she is massively thrown off by the receptionist asking a simple question and then she is worried about where to be billed to. She decides not to give her home address because she is worried what her own mother will think about the procedure. 

Even though Esther attempted to fight back against these norms, it might not have inspired real change. We can see an example of this when Esther tells Buddy Willard that she doesn't want to get married. In response, Buddy appears cheerful and calls her crazy. The enormity of challenging such a long standing social norm seems preposterous, so Buddy plays off her comment like something she will simply get over. If we consider Buddy to represent the average man during that time, its clear that there was little opportunity for women to fight back against the patriarchal society. Not only were their voices not valued, but people simply came to accept a certain way of living (like the college seniors). For Esther, her fight against these norms had to be primarily in secret. She avoided telling Joan about her losing her virginity, and she also was careful to not publicize her getting a diaphragm. Even though Esther's fight against these gender discriminating norms should be commended, it is sad that the secretiveness of it would've led to little large-scale social reform.