Maternal Instinct: The Social Expectations Of Women In Film

1.) Overall main topic of this book connects between the issue of motherhood and feminism. One major key point I found while reading this book is the author, Amber Kinser explains the growth and progress of the role of mothers in the american society meaning how the roles have changed overtime. A major theme of Kinser’s book is that the public debates may focus on mothering, but the issues affect us all.  Cutting back on health care for women, on education, and on jobs for teachers, social workers and others in the service sector have their greatest impact on mothers, but they affect all of us. Motherhood becomes a symbol for how men and women, single and married, gay and straight, deal with the need for individual options and the need to act for the good of others.

Arguably, my mother is my role mother. As a single mother, she struggled to provide for me in unimaginable ways. Being a woman and a single mother in the Dominican Republic played an important factor on her decay in class and economic status. As a result, it created a sense of awareness for me, to understand that as women we have to work twice as hard than men to accomplish half of what they have. This statement was true not only in the Dominican Republic in the 90’s but also today in America. Looking back at my mother’s struggles I cannot say that I have overcome half as much as she did. However, I can see how being a woman has been a disadvantage and an advantage at times. A disadvantage because as women in my society, we tend to be victims of sexism and harassment. Yet, it may also be an advantage because the same society that subject’s women, at times favors these in the labor market. For instance, when my mother passed away I was 16 years

This genre is typically modern, perky and upbeat, but the common narrative in all of them is that it features a woman who is strong and she overcomes adversity to reach her goals. There is also a message of empowerment that also struggles with a romantic predicament and using comedy to poke fun at the male characters. Industries are still producing soppy romantic comedies for the female audience but the divide between the standard chick flick and romantic comedy is slowly disappearing. Similarly to the beginning of this essay it is evident that institutions are moving in the direction of women’s place in culture in relation to this film genre; women are usually shown as the super power since they are made to appeal to the female audience. However

Being a mother in this dystopian world is seen as a shameful act and something to be ridiculed because of. As being John the Savage’s

Is there a common attitude society has towards women, and their roles as mothers? Betty Rollin, American journalist, reporter, and author, believes there is. She calls it the motherhood myth. She writes about this subject in her essay, “Motherhood: Who Needs It?” The myth is the idea that all normal women want and need to become mothers (Rollin 286). Rollin believes this is false, and argues that there is no biological drive or instinct, that makes women want to become mothers. Society reinforces this myth into us, through many forms of propaganda. Rollin argues against the belief that women’s most important role in life is to become a wife, and mother. She calls for the freedom to choose, and explains that becoming a mother is not an

Women are deemed as a “minority” yet make up 51% of the world population and in 2014 made up only 12% of protagonists in films. And that is just on-screen, the percentage decreases as you go farther and farther into behind-the-scenes positions such as directors, cinematographers, and writers. Add race and ethnicity and those characters' percentages decline even more (Lauzen, 2015.) Women in film and television are often portrayed with emphasis based on their body type and in advertisement are largely objectified. The large objectification and misrepresentation of women in the media has led to an offset psychological view of women from growing up to adulthood.

In the article “ A Mother's Day Kiss Off,” author Leslie Bennetts claims that even through all of the obstacles that women have had to go through to get to this point, they are still discriminated against when it comes to parenting. Bennetts explains how gender roles still exist. The author tries to give examples of how women should work to improve the roles of women with families. In the article “The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was.” author Hope Edelman claims it was not her choice to be the commanding “parent” (55). Throughout the article the author talks about the struggles her and her husband have had. Edelman thought marriage was 50/50, but figured out that that is not always true. The author

For this week’s blog I’ve decided to discuss the two dichotomizing views of women portrayed in the first thirty minutes of the horror-comedy movie “The Babysitter.” This horror-comedy Netflix original movie tells the story of Cole, a young teenager who is one of the last of his age to still have a babysitter. The film presents two schemas of women in American society: the first as the sexy, young, promiscuous babysitter and the other as the suburban “superwoman.” The superwoman stereotype is defined by Harris and Sanborn as the portrayal of women who “appear to handle the demands of career, marriage, and parenting with amazingly little stress and difficulty” (Harris & Sanborn, 2014, p. 81).

Current media is an influencing factor of the pressure placed on western women to juggle the “double burdern”. “New media” as describe by writer Susan J. Douglas “is just as culpable as the “Old media” in perpetuating unrealistic cultural expectations about women, mothers and mothering” . The media portrays what J. Douglas refers as the “New Model Mom”, which describes the expectations of working mothers. The “New Model Mom” is athletically slender, always well groomed, smiling, always attentive to their husbands and has a perfectly balanced diet. This unrealistic image of the prefect mother is placing women with the sole responsibility of caring for the child, domestic duties and still being expected to return the workforce with no extra ask

“Good for her, not me. That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. Good for her, not me,” (Poehler 32). This line from Amy Poehler’s new memoir, Yes Please, is reminding women to take a step back from the so called “Mommy Wars” and remember that not everything is a competition-- one style of parenting may be good for “her”, but not for “me”. The idea that women need to be reminded of this is a little ridiculous, but then again the concept of mother-versus-mother warfare is even more ridiculous. With the influence of the media, society has been forced into the debate of who is the better mother. Mother-blaming has become the cultural norm and is fueled by the media’s depiction of motherhood. Dividing women into two categories, the stay-at-home mom vs the working mother, results in the dimming of women’s power: mothers being pinned against one another are unable to band together and insist on social changes that would benefit all parents. This cultural emphasis on Mommy Wars is yet another way our patriarchal-society continues to oppresses women today.

“Being a single parent and trying to make it” states Fletcher who is currently married but before marriage her life was tough. In her early 20s, Fletcher got pregnant and was not at all prepared. The baby’s father made her feel so worthless by saying it wasn’t his and wanting her to get an abortion. However, she had a great mother who showed a lot of support and was always there for her. The support and positive impact she received from all of her female relatives made her stronger and gave her a positive outlook on life. After 30 years of struggling to be acknowledged, understood, and appreciated, feminism during the 21st century ascended to show a positive impact on women.

Since the 1940’s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940’s and continuing though the 1980’s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990’s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90’s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of women’s roles in movies from the 1940’s though the 1990’s.

It is unmistakable that heroines’ personalities could teach girls to stand up to their beliefs and have a voice, however, they can learn positive qualities from them if super heroines do not appear in the media as often as male heroes. Film and other TV production companies do not make heroines the lead because people are not interested in them. The devaluation of heroines has lead to the lack of heroines shown in the media, which it has not allow girls to see girl power in television, films, books, and other sources of communication. For the last past decade, there has been releases on films about heroes, yet not one shows a heroine as the lead. There is Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, Ant Man, Iron Man, and other male leading

Since the beginning of cinema, there has been an ongoing issue in regards to the representation of women, or in fact, the lack of representation that is authentic to real women. Women have often been reduced to token roles and sexualised for the benefit of the male gaze, thus this turbulent relationship between women and cinema was born. To this day we still have a long way to go, however, the representation of women has evolved significantly due to factors such as; the wave of feminism, changing of ideologies, and subverting hegemonic norms. In the majority of mainstream Hollywood films, we are introduced to the media-induced idea of the 'perfect woman '; beautiful, white, and thin. This is for the benefit of a presumed male audience; and despite there being a handful of rogue female heroines who subvert this idea, this idealized portrayal of women is the overwhelming consensus in most Hollywood films and forms of media we consume. Comic books have also frequently been criticized for this, as they have been guilty of consistently sexualising the female form and catering specifically to a male audience. However in recent years an influx of new heroin 's and the evolving of old characters has helped tackle this issue. The representation of women in comic books has seen steady progress, and most of the original superheroines were created during the 40s and 50s. This is a reflection of the time period they were made, and offers an insight into the ideologies of the time.

Not only are woman subjected to society norms based on their personality characteristics, but also on their life choices and “domestic responsibilities” questions arise for woman like “who will care for you children and husband”. Montague Kern and Paige P. Edley state that women will continue to be “criticized for abandoning their traditional family roles” (1). This topic is not something that is brought up to their male counterparts. I don’t believe I have ever heard a man be questioned on who was going to assume the responsibility of raising their children. So until society genuinely accepts that raising children and other domestic issues are shared endeavors, then women will continue to face this barrier. (Robson, 208)