The mindset of white liberal feminists contributes to the omission of other women in their fight for individual rights. Thelma and Louise (1991) is an example of how white liberal feminism can illustrate and advocate for the liberation of women whilst excluding other women of different races, classes, and other given circumstances that don’t fall into the typical white heteronormative narrative. The film shows a one-sided account of establishing individual rights as a woman. While the film shows the liberation of Thelma and Louise from the oppressive men in their lives, in the following I will discuss how the exclusion of people of color in the film establishes that liberation is exclusively for one “kind” of women. I will show how the subjects …show more content…
Thelma goes through the most dramatic shift because her placement in the “otherness” of woman sets her set to gain control over her life from her husband and from men, like Harlan, who view her as naïve and assume power over her. Louise, being a working, rational, strong-willed woman becomes liberated through gaining power over herself after a man took it from her through rape. In a way, shooting Harlan was Louise regaining her power over a man and resisting to submit to another male disrespecting her humanity and degrading her into something less than. In comparison with Thelma’s liberation, Louise’s is about regaining power over herself and finding a way to fight back when faced with the threat of masculine men. In the eyes of the law, the two are not even seen as suspects at first because of the fact that they were women. The waitress at the crime scene told the detective twice that “neither one of those two are the type to pull something like this.” Already they are placed in a position of privilege as an exception from the law simply because of their different position in power. Dominate males are the main subjects of law, meaning the detective, cop, and even rapist were able to use their masculinity to their advantage in ways of reduce both women into objects. For example, Harlan used violence and force in order to treat …show more content…
This concept has been around since the women’s right movement has started. White feminists have a tendency to claim they are fighting for female rights, but they somehow skew the definition of a woman to fit into their own position in power and in the process create a “other” within the existing hardships of being a woman. De Beauvoir explains this contradiction happens because “no subject will readily volunteer to become the object, the inessential; it is not the other who, […] as the other, establishes the one.” To clarify, this film shows that white woman are able to become a subject while putting WOC into the category of “other.” This comes with the role racism plays in white feminism. White privilege and sexism is what prevented Thelma and Louise from being seen as dangerous criminals in the eyes of the detective. The detective viewed the two women as woman who needed to be saved. The protection of white woman goes alongside with racism and sexism because it holds white woman on the pedestal and reduces the worth of other women. Sojourner Truth put it into words in a speech at the Akron Convention (1851) by saying “That man over there say that women needs to be helped into carriages, lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere…and aint I a woman?” White woman are to have special treatment as woman and WOC are seen as
Thesis: McGuire argues that the Civil Rights movement was not led just by the strong male leaders presented to society such as Martin Luther King Jr., but is "also rooted in African-American women 's long struggle against sexual violence (xx)." McGuire argues for the "retelling and reinterpreting (xx)" of the Civil Rights movement because of the resistance of the women presented in her text.
Malcolm X stated that the most disrespected, unprotected and neglected person in America is the black woman. Black women have long suffered from racism in American history and also from sexism in the broader aspect of American society and even within the black community; black women are victims of intersection between anti-blackness and misogyny sometimes denoted to as "misogynoir". Often when the civil rights movement is being retold, the black woman is forgotten or reduced to a lesser role within the movement and represented as absent in the struggle, McGuire 's At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power does not make this same mistake.
In “In Living Color: Race and American Culture”, Michael Omi claims that racism still takes place in America’s contemporary society. According to Omi, media and popular culture shape a segregating ideology by giving a stereotypical representation of black people to the public, thus generating discrimination between races (Omi 115:166). In “Bad Feminist: Take One”, Roxane Gay discusses the different roles that feminism plays in our society. She argues that although some feminist authors and groups try to create a specific image of the feminist approach, there is no definition that fully describe feminism and no behaviors that can make someone a good feminist or a bad feminist (Gay 304:306). Both authors argue
S. E. Hinton’s argument is given from the perspective of a 14 year old Greaser named Pony boy Curtis who is being raised by his older brothers Darrel and Soda pop. The theme of the Outsiders is no matter what side you may grow up on whether you are a Greaser or a Socs, that you all can still have the same problems, see the same solutions, and dream the same dreams. You are also able to see how his character grows up and matures during the various interactions throughout this book. The two gangs in the book are the Greasers and the Socs (socials) and honestly, even after reading the book the only reason they didn’t like each other is they both had assumptions about each other that really weren’t correct.
The film and literature presented in this unit was an eye opener to the modern western views regarding race and gender. In this western society we view a male as being strong, powerful, a provider for his family, the head of the household and many other characteristics that relates to what a man should be. When growing up as a child into adulthood we’re stimulated by the many books and movies of a woman being second to a man, a stay at home mom while the man is at home making ends meet just trying to provide for his family and we accept that role because in this western society that’s the ideal role as a woman where we look up to the man as a safety blanket and that’s all we’re brainwashed to know. We were never told about how powerful
The film Wendy and Lucy, directed by Kelly Reichardt, presents a sparse narrative. The film has been criticised for its lack of background story, and as a short film, much of the story is left to the viewer to infer from what is presented in the plot. However, Wendy and Lucy is able to depict the intimate relationship between Wendy and her dog as well as reflecting more broadly on the everyday, and commenting on the current economic state of the film’s setting in America. This essay will examine how film form contributes to the viewer’s awareness of the story in Wendy and Lucy and allows a deeper understanding of the themes presented. The aspects of mise-en-scene, shot and editing and sound in the film will be explored.
On Being Young-A Woman-and Colored an essay by Marita Bonner addresses what it means to be black women in a world of white privilege. Bonner reflects about a time when she was younger, how simple her life was, but as she grows older she is forced to work hard to live a life better than those around her. Ultimately, she is a woman living with the roles that women of all colors have been constrained to. Critics, within the last 20 years, believe that Marita Bonners’ essay primarily focuses on the double consciousness ; while others believe that she is focusing on gender , class , “economic hardships, and discrimination” . I argue that Bonner is writing her essay about the historical context of oppression forcing women into intersectional oppression by explaining the naturality of racial discrimination between black and white, how time and money equate to the American Dream, and lastly how gender discrimination silences women, specifically black women.
In the weekly readings for week five we see two readings that talk about the connections between women’s suffrage and black women’s identities. In Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s Discontented Black Feminists: Prelude and Postscript to the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, we see the ways that black women’s identities were marginalized either through their sex or by their race. These identities were oppressed through social groups, laws, and voting rights. Discontented Black Feminists talks about the journey black feminists took to combat the sexism as well as the racism such as forming independent social clubs, sororities, in addition to appealing to the government through courts and petitions. These women formed an independent branch of feminism in which began to prioritize not one identity over another, but to look at each identity as a whole. This paved the way for future feminists to introduce the concept of intersectionality.
...e and gender, were by default always arguing for universal equality. In no instance could black women argue specifically for their rights and freedom, without necessarily raising up the all blacks and females. As the famous phrase declares, black women were “lifting as they climb” (Brown, 44). In their fight for enfranchisement, they were advocating for universal suffrage; in their movement to end lynching, they were urging, “that every human being should have a fair trial;” in the demand for fair, living wages, they were insisting that all people should have the capacity to live honestly and adequately from their pay (Brown, 34). Black women, not only assumed a peculiar position in society, where they had to band together to fight for their own rights, but also they were in a powerful situation, which granted them the capacity to fight for everyone’s rights.
Throughout “Thelma & Louise,” many gender stereotypes and class status were being challenged. Thelma and Louise were labeled as outlaws because they broke many laws including killing a man, robbing money from a store, and even a high speed chase from the police. However, they felt this was the only way for them to achieve justice and freedom. Their gender had impacted the criminal justice response. This was shown in the beginning of the film when Thelma was being assaulted and attempted of rape. In response, Louise ends up shooting Harlan which kills him . Thelma wanted to go to the police and tell them she was raped and attacked in self-defense. However, Louise didn’t want to go because she believed that the cops would not
In fact, the history of feminism has shown that often times, the feminist movement only serves “the most affluent, socially accepted, and privileged women within it” and often fails to secure equality for women who don’t fit this favored status (Rios, “4 Things We Can Do to Make Feminist Organizing More Inclusive”). The feminist movement’s privileges are largely enjoyed by middle to upper class, white women. However, it is critical to understand that the movement fails and is not doing its job to the fullest extent if it does not focus on those marginalized and oppressed women within it. Jessa Crispin, author of Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto, explains that “Just because a certain population of women — who are mostly white, educated and upper middle class — can participate in higher levels of society, that doesn’t make it a victory for all women, it’s the collective that needs taking care of” (Racco, “Redefining the F
“The Help” is a white mock feel good movie, which seems to feature amnesia of racial conflicts in the South as its primary theme (Stockett, 2009). Author Natasha McLaughlin suggests that ‘The Help’ focuses upon the home and the relationship between African-American domestics and the laws of Jim Crow’s neglected ‘other half’: Jane Crow (McLaughlin, 2014). The American Civil Rights Movement mainly accommodates the public with a view concentrated upon a male dominant perspective but appreciations to Stockett and her moving interpretation of the relationship of Caucasian housewives and their African-American maids the public gets a rare white-washed version of events dealing with the civil rights movement going on within the interior of the households
McIntosh, Peggy. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack. N.p.: Wellesley College Center for Research for Women, 1989. Print.
Sex, love, depression, guilt, trust, all are topics presented in this remarkably well written and performed drama. The Flick, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Annie Baker, serves to provide a social commentary which will leave the audience deep in thought well after the curtain closes. Emporia State Universities Production of this masterpiece was a masterpiece in itself, from the stunningly genuine portrayal of the characters of Avery and Rose, to the realism found within the set, every aspect of the production was superb.
Patriarchal silencing can be enforced in three different ways; physical abuse, emotional abuse, and social demands and/or expectations. Although both books have opposite cultural and racial factors that influence the way in which the women in the books are treated, we can still see that these three ways of silencing women are present. In Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”, the form of patriarchal silencing that is most prominent is the viole...