The gap between men and women in the work place is slowly disappearing. It is also being more apparent in today's media. In the year 2000, the movie Keeping the Faith was released and it showed an image of a woman in a more equal role to her male counterparts. In the book, Media, Gender, and Identity, the author David Gauntlett brings up the point that the role of being feminine for a woman doesn’t simply mean be like a woman but if they want to be the role of a stereotypical woman on a daily bases. In Keeping the Faith, the Jenna Elfman's character plays a workaholic woman. What is so interesting about this character is she does sometimes assume the masculine role with her coworkers but is also able to be proud of being a woman. This goes with what Gauntlett is saying about how women try to have a touch of femininity in the way they dress so they don’t appear fully masculine. This is seen in the movie when she has a lace cellphone holder on her leg during dinner because a majority of the film she is seen wearing more “manly” clothes such as suits.
To be honest, the way that I am writing this blog entry actually falls into one of the things that Gauntlett writes later in chapter one about the ten things wrong with the media ‘effects’ model. This model describes flaws in media research. The earlier part of the blog is number one, this is that “the effects model tackles social problems backwards". For my example, I wanted to use Keeping the Faith for my blog and tried to find somethings that would apply to it. He argues that this concept is flawed because it is basically having an answer and looking for a question. It also may make it unclear of what point the researcher is trying to make. This seems like a bad way to research for it may present personal bias and misrepresented facts.
Source: Media, Gender, and Identity by David Gauntlett
You wrote: "What is so interesting about this character is she does sometimes assume the masculine role with her coworkers but is also able to be proud of being a woman."
ReplyDeleteWhat does that sentence mean? That is, what does it mean to say that Elfman's character (a woman) assumes a "masculine" role? What does it mean to say she's proud of being a woman? Does that mean she's proud of having two X chromosomes, breasts, female genitalia, being able to bear a child? Or are you referring to some specific set of personality traits that comprise "being a woman"?
If those character traits come naturally to women, what does it mean to be "proud" of them?
Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify what I was trying to convey in that sentence was that Elfman's character was in a higher role of authority in her work place. This tends to be the stereotypical role of a man. With that position, her character possessed of the of the personality traits that a male in that position would have in American culture. For example, the way she interacts with one of the other employees on the phone when she is looking around with binoculars.
You are correct in saying that what I was referring to was "personality traits that comprise 'being a woman'. Lastly, to be proud of those traits was referring to she was able to acknowledge the fact that she is a woman and not hide it. I say this for sometimes women feel that they need to carry on more "masculine" traits in order to succeed. This character only partially does that.