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Female Adaptation to Male Domi (Click to select text)
The local bar was so sure that its bartender was the strongest man around that they offered a generous $1000 bet. The bartender would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice out would win the money. Many people had tried over time but nobody could do it. One day, this young, little lady came into the bar, wearing thick glasses and a polyester skirt, and said in a tiny squeaky voice, “ I'd like to try the bet.” After the laughter had died down, the bartender got up, grabbed a lemon, and squeezed away. Then, he handed the wrinkled remains of the rind to the little lady. The crowd's laughter turned to total silence as the woman clenched her fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glass. As the crowd cheered, the bartender paid the $1000, and asked the little lady, "What do you do for a living? Are you a lumberjack, a weight-lifter, or what?" The woman replied, "I work for the IRS!" Apparently, the crowd laughed because the woman was not expected to squeeze anything out of the lemon. In fact, a woman in such a situation would be expected to just stand around her hero, the bartender, and cheer him up. How come a woman stepped into the role of a traditional masculine challenger and surprised the audience? Why was it difficult for the crowd to accept a woman in a power-challenging role? How was that swallowed? In the body of the essay to follow, I go on to explore the traditional and cultural context of the confusion over accepting women in new roles traditionally associated with masculine authority. Specifically, I have two main sections of my quest. The first one deals with women reaching out of their current socially acceptable status and challenging the masculine authority involving traditional military settings and destructive power. The second part looks into the exact opposite scenario with women curving back into their shells to protect their traditional basic rights and to make use of the power they already possess. To accomplish the first half of my objective, I am going perform a case study of the 1997 flick, G. I. Jane. Going even a step further, I am going to look at Lauren R. Tucker’s effort to analyze the movie for the same purpose as mine. Her essay, Do you have a permit for that?: The Gun as a Metaphor for the Transformation of G. I. Jane into G. I. Dick, talks about the movie’s representation of female efforts to succeed in the male arena. She looks at the whole perspective in an authoritative way and picks a certain central core of it to have a discussion on in the form of an essay. Her interpretation of the movie can be summarized in the following sentences: "In G. I. Jane, the argument is framed in an innovative way. Through the abandonment of her primary, feminine identity, O’Neil engages in social exchange. This is an example of the “personnel turnover” referred to by Elshtain. The film’s narrative works to transform O’Neil both physically and mentally into the type of female that can succeed within the existing culture and certainly the only kind that can succeed within the social structure of the military establishment." Let us have a look at the theme of the movie as it is presented to the theater audience. In the movie itself, Senator Lilian DeHaven uses her chairmanship of a committee to force the Navy into admitting women into combat units. The Navy offers to try a few discreet test cases on a winner-takes-all basis. They attempt to stack the deck by appointing the first candidate to the SEALs, an ultra-elite commando outfit whose training program has a 60% dropout rate. DeHaven's choice falls on the highly capable intelligence officer Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil. The bulk of the plot follows her and her group as they undergo horrific training at the hands of Master Chief John Urgayle. Hollywood dogma requires that, in a film whose plot centers on the main character trying to accomplish a specific task, there must be a point toward the end when enough setbacks have occurred that the task becomes clearly impossible. This manipulation establishes tension and gives the audience more of a rush when the success comes. Although Lauren has focused her discussion on the movie in terms of the female achievement to make triumphs in a male dominated environment, there is definitely more to it. Jordan O'Neil is not there to make a statement, or to be a poster girl for feminism, or to act like a man, or any other activist slogan. She joined the Navy for a mixture of the same reasons that anyone would in a losing position: to see some action, to serve her country, and to build a successful career. Before the SEALs opportunity, her career was stagnating because, as a woman, she was denied combat experience and an equal chance to prove herself. Even if statistically more men than women could make it as a SEAL, this would say nothing about individuals. It seems so silly to pontificate in advance, in a vacuum, about whether, being a woman, Jordan O'Neil could or should make it. Given the credentials that the film hypothesizes that she has, why not see whether she actually does make it? G. I. Jane makes all of this crystal clear. However, there is an important point that both the movie and Lauren in her essay seem to have missed. The movie and her essay talk about the scenarios where women have to adapt themselves to make appeal to the traditionally male dominated regimes. G. I. Jane has to change her lifestyle, her values, her friends, her priorities, and even her morals to make herself suitable for the system. Realistically though, this “system” is no more of a direct product of traditions, customs, and norms that actually do not exist anymore in today’s world. Instead of having to ask women to change themselves and their lives to find room in traditionally masculine power regimes, why not change the system so that it not only represents the current customs, values, and norms but it also makes automatic room for those who are capable enough regardless of their gender and race? Yes, the idea can be extended to take into account race and other attributes than just gender, but I think the point is well communicated. The movie, although failing to give us a long-term solution, does make the ironic statement that nothing can be achieved in this world of tradition and politics without one of the two sides having to compromise and give up (something to some extent). This is what walks us into the next half of our quest, which delves into the topic of female attempts to protect their core values and rights from societal attacks during a time when they are expected to adapt their lives to secure a berth in traditionally masculine power regime. So I ask the question, what are the political and cultural factors that plague the female social status at the other end of the spectrum as well? Let us do a case study of abortion for this purpose. From day one of the battle over abortion rights, defenders of the “right to choose” used a strategy of denial: deny that the foetus is human, deny that it has any rights, or, for that matter, deny that abortion is anything more than having your toenails cut or blowing mucous from your nose. Abortion had nothing to do with morality, but was merely a woman's right to control her body. It was a simple “procedure” to remove a bunch of cells, a clump of tissue, or the uterine lining. Morality was a dirty word: the preserve of men in funny hats dictating to women, and the domain of the patriarchy wanting to maintain its dominance over women. But this strategy doesn't cut it any more. Developments in technology have brought the foetus into view. Abortion at six-month gestation has made many uncomfortable, as have practices such as foetal reduction, sex selection, and eugenic abortions. As well, women have come forth and said, “Well, it wasn't the quick, easy, emotionally benign procedure we were told it would be.” Women hurt by abortion, survivors of abortion, and other groups testify to the ongoing grief many women suffer after abortion. They understand the feeling that the aborted children would arrive in dreams at their bedsides, tugging at their sleeves, saying, “Mommy, Mommy.” The "pro-choice" movement has been forced to recognize that its rhetoric has become stale and isolationist. Where before it avoided any talk of morality and ethics and refused to entertain any thought that the foetus might be significant, some within its ranks are proposing a paradigm shift. Suddenly, “pro-choicers” are being urged to reclaim the moral ground. I was fortunate enough to have a look at this wonderful book by the researcher and journalist, Leslie Cannold, called The Abortion Myth: Feminism, Morality, and the Hard Choices Women Make. In her book, Cannold wants the pro-choice movement to provide a moral defense of a woman's freedom to choose abortion. This redefinition: “retains the woman-centered approach to abortion taken by the pro-choice movement, but also makes room for the foetus.” She writes: “the denial of the reality and importance of the foetus — a denial which runs counter to the experience of many women — has wound up backfiring on the pro-choice movement. Not only have pro-choice women been 'denied access' to the foetus because of the implicit understanding that it was the property of the other side, the pro-choice movement's reluctance to engage with the foetus has been used as evidence of feminist heartlessness.” There are some really genuine thoughts on this topic that can lead us into examining abortion as a retroactive measure by women to claim grounds that bestow upon them similar power as men in other fields. I am prevented by the length of the essay and space from delving into them. In the ultimate analysis, it is fair to say that the traditional values and norms combined with hostile social and environmental elements have made it very difficult for women to move smoothly through different ranks of our culture. In many fields and activities, they still have to register entries. A closer look will lead us to believe that the most fundamental change has to come from within the system and society. Changing the lives of individuals and groups for every other regime to make them appealing is not a long-term solution.
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