Women's pictures and the perfect moment
It's sort of funny to read some of the defenders of traditional gender roles...
"feminists and Hollywood leftists will use to (vainly) insist on the trope women are equal to men in all things, including physique, strength, and logic."
And someone was explaining that women have less impact in the society, like in science, and thus shouldn't be seen as equals in movies...
Also, someone was saying there were no women in wars, so that's why there are no women in war movies.
And I'm thinking, "you believe that BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING THESE MOVIES WHERE WOMEN ARE DEPICTED AS STEREOTYPICAL BACKDROP".
My personal experience of the world is that women ARE equal to men in all things, including physique, strength, and logic. But I am a woman so I would know this. These guys have never needed to question their conditioning, but it's futile to tell me that the boys I beat in everything would be stronger or more logical than I am :-D
So, this is why I have this blog. To find out the indoctrination and to destroy it.
The essay I linked gives me some more tools. Here are some of my notes.
Molly Haskell:
- Sacrifice - a woman learns to give up her own life and/or personal happiness for someone else
- Affliction - a woman contracts a terrible disease, leaving her a short time to find happiness = man
- Choice - a woman must choose between her career or a man
- Competition - a woman competes with another woman, usually for the affections of a man
There is the "born sexy yesterday" trope
There is "manic pixie dream girl" trope
There is "damsel in distress" trope
There is the "how would you react if it was YOUR mother/sister/daughter/wife?" - for a man to "get it" you have to make him think the person in distress, if a woman, is a woman that "belongs to him".
For a woman to "deserve" good things, she must fit into the "good woman" category. She must be innocent, dutiful, helpless, submissive, obedient, quiet and pretty. The "good" she deserves is the love of a man, the protection, and support of a man. She gets married! YAY!
If she is "bad", if she is experienced, sexually active, independent, resourceful, shows that she is an equal to most people and stronger and smarter than ANY man, she will be punished. She will get silenced, ashamed, hurt, ostracized, perhaps even killed. She will lose everything that is of any value to her.
So, if the plot goes something like this:
- the woman gives the man the strength, reason, know-how, resources, support whatever necessary for him to succeed
- the woman gives the man room for adventures, achievements, whatever it is
- the woman waits, patiently, silently, fighting other females off for the man to come to her
- the reward for patience is the man's love, attention, company, marriage
then the movie enforces ideas that rob the humankind half of the resources.
Another thing to look at is if the woman has any friends.
Does she only communicate with employees or relatives? Are the only females at her level adversaries and competition? Competing about a man?
Is the female lead set apart from other women, visually, narratively, or as exceptional and special?
One can look at the men in a movie the same way. Is he set up as the lone, exceptional hero? How is he exceptional? A killing machine?
How about the role models, teachers, mentors, parent figures? Are these mothers or fathers?
And what do they do?
The stereotypical idea is that
* Women discuss. Women's stories are about relations and romance and emotions. Women feel. Women talk about the "perfect moment".
* Men have adventures, men go inventing things and detecting things and researching things and discovering things. Men do. Men talk about their adventures. Men have stories.
What is the subject, theme, genre of the movie?
The stereotypical idea is that
* Women's movies are about romance and relationships, or emotions. How they feel about this. How they grow emotionally.
* Men's movies are about politics, history, business, war, and sports. Men like science-fiction. Men want to know what happened, how and why.
Of course, it's totally OK to make movies where these things happen, but it shouldn't happen all the time in all the movies because it's not the whole truth. It's like showing someone a picture of red and claiming that's the rainbow.
Gender Bias Without Borders
It's sort of funny to read some of the defenders of traditional gender roles...
"feminists and Hollywood leftists will use to (vainly) insist on the trope women are equal to men in all things, including physique, strength, and logic."
And someone was explaining that women have less impact in the society, like in science, and thus shouldn't be seen as equals in movies...
Also, someone was saying there were no women in wars, so that's why there are no women in war movies.
And I'm thinking, "you believe that BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING THESE MOVIES WHERE WOMEN ARE DEPICTED AS STEREOTYPICAL BACKDROP".
My personal experience of the world is that women ARE equal to men in all things, including physique, strength, and logic. But I am a woman so I would know this. These guys have never needed to question their conditioning, but it's futile to tell me that the boys I beat in everything would be stronger or more logical than I am :-D
So, this is why I have this blog. To find out the indoctrination and to destroy it.
The essay I linked gives me some more tools. Here are some of my notes.
Molly Haskell:
- Sacrifice - a woman learns to give up her own life and/or personal happiness for someone else
- Affliction - a woman contracts a terrible disease, leaving her a short time to find happiness = man
- Choice - a woman must choose between her career or a man
- Competition - a woman competes with another woman, usually for the affections of a man
There is the "born sexy yesterday" trope
There is "manic pixie dream girl" trope
There is "damsel in distress" trope
There is the "how would you react if it was YOUR mother/sister/daughter/wife?" - for a man to "get it" you have to make him think the person in distress, if a woman, is a woman that "belongs to him".
For a woman to "deserve" good things, she must fit into the "good woman" category. She must be innocent, dutiful, helpless, submissive, obedient, quiet and pretty. The "good" she deserves is the love of a man, the protection, and support of a man. She gets married! YAY!
If she is "bad", if she is experienced, sexually active, independent, resourceful, shows that she is an equal to most people and stronger and smarter than ANY man, she will be punished. She will get silenced, ashamed, hurt, ostracized, perhaps even killed. She will lose everything that is of any value to her.
So, if the plot goes something like this:
- the woman gives the man the strength, reason, know-how, resources, support whatever necessary for him to succeed
- the woman gives the man room for adventures, achievements, whatever it is
- the woman waits, patiently, silently, fighting other females off for the man to come to her
- the reward for patience is the man's love, attention, company, marriage
then the movie enforces ideas that rob the humankind half of the resources.
Another thing to look at is if the woman has any friends.
Does she only communicate with employees or relatives? Are the only females at her level adversaries and competition? Competing about a man?
Is the female lead set apart from other women, visually, narratively, or as exceptional and special?
One can look at the men in a movie the same way. Is he set up as the lone, exceptional hero? How is he exceptional? A killing machine?
How about the role models, teachers, mentors, parent figures? Are these mothers or fathers?
And what do they do?
The stereotypical idea is that
* Women discuss. Women's stories are about relations and romance and emotions. Women feel. Women talk about the "perfect moment".
* Men have adventures, men go inventing things and detecting things and researching things and discovering things. Men do. Men talk about their adventures. Men have stories.
What is the subject, theme, genre of the movie?
The stereotypical idea is that
* Women's movies are about romance and relationships, or emotions. How they feel about this. How they grow emotionally.
* Men's movies are about politics, history, business, war, and sports. Men like science-fiction. Men want to know what happened, how and why.
Of course, it's totally OK to make movies where these things happen, but it shouldn't happen all the time in all the movies because it's not the whole truth. It's like showing someone a picture of red and claiming that's the rainbow.
Gender Bias Without Borders
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