The Status Of A Woman Essay

The sexualisation of women in advertising has become a very prominent and controversial issue in today’s society. Many brands, products and campaigns we are presented with portray women as being available and willing sexual objects, who exist to cater to the male gender. Gucci is one such brand that does this, focusing on emphasizing the sexual appeal of the female gender in order to sell their products, because as advertisers know: ‘sex sells.’ This new cultural shift can however, be seen as politically regressive for women, as the ideology it brings negatively impacts how women are viewed by society and how they view themselves.

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

In the contemporary context, when one tries to analyze the idea about women from previous decades being an audience and not the crew of a film industry, one wants to question and ask: why were women only an audience or, actors? Maybe there were some culturally held values and beliefs with respect to their contexts? However, with the passage of time, cultural and professional values improved. Technology began to improve and so did the mind-set of professional groups along with the audiences. Film industry has had an impression of providing first entertainment and, second education. Hence those working for the films might have had hurdles in choosing working for films as their career or vocation. At different times in the history, women in different cultural contexts have worked for certain film industries. I want to explore the idea about women and their talent in the film industry. Since I am primarily a viewer of the Bollywood industry and an occasional viewer of the Hollywood cinema, I want to compare the cultural and professional values of those who work for films in different settings. Since the course readings provided information with respect to certain cinema contexts, I wanted to add some ideas providing a comparative analysis of the women talent in diverse film settings.

use of fighting for a vote if we have not got a country to vote in?"

     Ar’n’t I a Woman? Written by, Deborah Gray White shows the trials and hardships that African American Women faced during the years of the infamous plantations up to the civil war. In this book White describes how the images of “Jezebel” and the “Mammy” and how they were the most vulnerable group with the least amount of formal power in Antebellum America. She compares the life of men and women in the slave society, and how truly different they were. The roles of women are shown through the slaves’ life cycle, family life, slave society networks, and the civil war. Each of these various aspects of life are discussed very vividly in the book, and serve purpose in showing how African American

In both Rear Window and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul give a contrasting view of gender roles in relationships to the social norm and give different forms of women in society. With the readings of Hillary Neroni’s The Feminist Theory Julio Garcia Espinosa’s For an Imperfect Cinema and Sergei Eisenstein's Film Form: Essays in Film Theory, I’ll be examining the gender roles within the films of Rear Window and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.

Women make up about 51% of the population of the United States, yet for most of

Even as far back as the United States independence, women did not possess any civil rights. According to Janda, this view is also known as protectionism, the notion that women mush be sheltered from life's harsh realities. Protectionism carried on throughout the general populations view for many decades until the 1920's when the women's movement started. Women finally received the right to vote in the Nineteenth Amendment. The traditional views of protectionism, however, remained in people's minds until the 1970's (Janda et al, 2000: 538-539).

Feminist film theorists have argued that in classical cinema, the spectator’s pleasure revolves around images of the female body. Within the diegesis, the woman often appears as an object to be looked at and acted upon, while the male protagonist is usually granted a more active role, both in terms of his agency in the narrative, and in terms of his enunciative authority. This hypothesis is backed up by elements of two films studied this semester: His Girl Friday by Howard Hawks (1940) and Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder (1944). This is seen through the supporting role that the main female characters take in the movies, the power that the male characters have over the females, and the way ‘that the woman’s image is used to draw attention to specific aspects of the plot.

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.

The role and status of women in American society was challenged and changed by figures like Elizabeth Cady, Jane Addams, Margaret Sanger, and Alice Paul. This process was very long, and certainly not easy, but was possible by the dedication of these women and many others. Despite the criticism, women fought for their freedoms, including their right to vote and join political and public affairs. Harriot Blatch did so by enticing women to join organizations like the NAWSA, which took a strong approach at fighting for equality. Staggering changes for women were coming, changes in family, in religion, in government, in employment, and in education.

Her timid, scared, gentle nature is greatly in contrast with the violent outburst of her mother. Suttree’s reaction to the mother’s attack reinforces his view of women: “You ghastly bitch, he said, and fetched her a kick in the side of the head which stretched her out” (McCarthy 151). Following this altercation, Suttree speaks to the sheriff about his wife’s family, and his tone and choice of words say quite a bit about the general view of women from other men of the town. She is only spoken about in relation to her father, “...the man whose daughter’s life you’ve ruined,” not as her own person. (McCarthy 157) Time and time again, the women in society are portrayed as far from equal to men.

As an artist Kamala Markandaya’s fiction is concerned with change in feminine sensibility brought about by the social, economic and cultural forces, whereas Anita Desai’s major concern is about exploration of the psychological condition of the oppressed hyper-sensitive women. The synoptic views of Anita Desai and Kamala Markandaya’s portray the women protagonists in terms of the shifting sensibilities and changing attitudes of married Indian women. It also tries to analyze the portrayal of women characters that belong to rural and urban upper classes of Indian society. As an artist Kamala Markandaya’s fiction is concerned with

The topic that I’ve chosen for my essay is The Status of A Woman in South Indian or specifically Malayalam Cinema. The first question the arises in my mind while watching any Malayalam movie is why does the nationally and internationally acclaimed Malayalam or for that matter any South Indian Cinema fail to represent women’s experiences, Why are The Female leads just subjected to basic chores, or as an object of desire? Me being a Woman find it very disturbing to see woman being labelled in the same umbrella.

Since time immemorial, women have been the victims of exploitation from every angle. In their own birthplace also, they are not treated equally in some or other ways as compared with the opposite sex. Dissemination and exploitation of women is like the birthmark of every female born in India. Abolition of ‘superiority and inferiority’ among different sexes by all genders give perspectives and commented in a more positive way irrespective of caste and creed yet in real hands-on, its complexity is worth mentioning. Kamala is one such play by Vijay Tendulkar, about the unidentified status of women in the modern exploitative world of power: the power which is created by human being itself