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In The Movies Happens In Real Life Analysis

Decent Essays

What Happens in Marie Howe’s “In the Movies” Happens in Real Life
Think about the lives of men and women; think about who they are because of their past experiences. Experiences, whether positive or negative, shape every individual, making their lives and personalities unique. Marie Howe writes “In the Movies” to convey that sexual traumatic experiences permanently, and negatively, impact psychological well-being and security which leads to conflict in other areas of life such as relationships with friends and family. Society plays a huge role in how women’s identities have been altered. Culture and perception also influence women’s identities with the use of gender norms, specifically rape culture, as well as the normalization of rape. …show more content…

Gender norms are characteristics and actions that society finds acceptable for how men and women should behave. Howe expresses this difference through a situation where the boundary between gender roles are shown. In the example, “in the way my brothers shot hoops on the driveway with their friends while we girls watched” (Howe 26), the men are active and seen as dominant while the women stand on the sidelines, inactive, and simply watching. The women are more submissive because of their experiences with how society treats women and what is expected of them. They adopted a learned behavior of these gender roles through advertisements, media, and the actions of others towards them.
One cultural influence on women’s identities is the desensitization of sexual assault. An example from the text is, “In the movies, a man rapes a woman because he’s a soldier and his army’s won, and he wants to celebrate” (Howe 27). Rape culture has recently gained more awareness and is becoming normalized because of its constant portrayal in today’s media and news. Howe implies this when she talks about rape in the context of it in movies. Notice how she says “movies”, not just one or a few, just movies, because it is seen so frequently. Sexual trauma impacts a woman’s mental well-being, but society makes it worse by perceiving it as something normal, something that happens daily.
Another influence is how society will often criticize and victim

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