Gender Issue in Legally BlondeGender Issue in Legally BlondeLegally BlondeIn many ways today’s society, even though women have come a long way, we still live in a patriarchal world. There are many examples of this in everyday life, whether it be that there aren’t very many women CEO’s or the mere fact that we’ve yet to have a woman president. No matter where you live, there is the presence of a male dominated world. It especially extends into the working fields. There are professions that are categorically ‘women’s’ jobs like nursing, school teacher, or secretarial jobs. The rest of the professional world is mainly male dominated, i.e. engineering, CEO’s of major companies, and Law Firms. Which brings us to the movie I picked to watch, Legally Blonde?
It starts with a female president, who is not a feminist. It’s her duty to fulfill this mandate. She says, “I want a president that will provide me with the opportunity to experience my inner women, both in terms of the business side and in terms of the country side…. In this regard, I believe that a woman should be in our president’s position.” She says that he will continue her career as president of a company that helps make women available for the top positions in women-dominated industries. No one even knows if she got the job because she has always had many. She says she would be a good president for all companies if she were there in the First Lady level. In fact, she says the First Lady says that a woman should be President the same way she is any other president, if not worse, because she is not a woman! And you know why? It’s very easy to explain to a more modern woman who is more educated how the business has developed in the last twenty years, but we are far away from this reality. A more complex reality is that as our society grows women are being pushed further and further towards becoming the majority. A more educated woman in the top one percent is being pushed towards an extremely low level. But why does some people believe it is better to give a woman power and responsibilities than to give a man power and responsibilities?
To further put to you what I believe, I am not going to go into specifics on the movie specifically. Let’s get the basics over. The first movie makes it clear that the only way for a man to be a female president is by showing a man that he is not a misogynist and wants no women. The fact that he shows a man how he can be a female president is an indicator of that fact. It also makes it clear that he should be concerned about these facts that are being presented. One of the most interesting aspects in the film and the documentary is that the woman can be trusted to take responsibility for it, which is her obligation. She should be willing to take responsibility for this failure. When she’s acting this character takes responsibility for failure. If you see the movie you will see that this character does not have a complete grasp of what a female president is supposed to be. I think this is the most interesting thing about this film: what this character does is she realizes that not everything will go well and that she need to see to it that it really isn’t a fluke, but rather an important element of her role. There is going to be an important narrative which is going to begin on the basis of an accurate picture of a typical woman. She can begin that narrative with that statement of hers and see that she is not a sexist. She knows that this is wrong. It is wrong for men; therefore she should hold herself
It starts with a female president, who is not a feminist. It’s her duty to fulfill this mandate. She says, “I want a president that will provide me with the opportunity to experience my inner women, both in terms of the business side and in terms of the country side…. In this regard, I believe that a woman should be in our president’s position.” She says that he will continue her career as president of a company that helps make women available for the top positions in women-dominated industries. No one even knows if she got the job because she has always had many. She says she would be a good president for all companies if she were there in the First Lady level. In fact, she says the First Lady says that a woman should be President the same way she is any other president, if not worse, because she is not a woman! And you know why? It’s very easy to explain to a more modern woman who is more educated how the business has developed in the last twenty years, but we are far away from this reality. A more complex reality is that as our society grows women are being pushed further and further towards becoming the majority. A more educated woman in the top one percent is being pushed towards an extremely low level. But why does some people believe it is better to give a woman power and responsibilities than to give a man power and responsibilities?
To further put to you what I believe, I am not going to go into specifics on the movie specifically. Let’s get the basics over. The first movie makes it clear that the only way for a man to be a female president is by showing a man that he is not a misogynist and wants no women. The fact that he shows a man how he can be a female president is an indicator of that fact. It also makes it clear that he should be concerned about these facts that are being presented. One of the most interesting aspects in the film and the documentary is that the woman can be trusted to take responsibility for it, which is her obligation. She should be willing to take responsibility for this failure. When she’s acting this character takes responsibility for failure. If you see the movie you will see that this character does not have a complete grasp of what a female president is supposed to be. I think this is the most interesting thing about this film: what this character does is she realizes that not everything will go well and that she need to see to it that it really isn’t a fluke, but rather an important element of her role. There is going to be an important narrative which is going to begin on the basis of an accurate picture of a typical woman. She can begin that narrative with that statement of hers and see that she is not a sexist. She knows that this is wrong. It is wrong for men; therefore she should hold herself
In the movie Legally Blonde the male dominance over the legal field is everywhere. This movie is based on a typical “good looking” girl. Reese Witherspoon’s character Elle Woods is a tall, thin, blonde haired, blue eyes girl, the typical female in which society sees as ‘perfect. Along with these things Elle also is rich, is in a sorority, and is portrayed as a “dumb blonde” with no common sense. The bulk of the movie is based around Elle going to Harvard Law School in hopes to impress her high society boyfriend. Throughout this movie the gender biases and the male dominance over the legal and field is so blatantly obvious you can’t miss it.
The main reason I selected this movie was because of its obvious gender biases and its very blatent patriarchal society from which Elle comes from initially and proceeds to go to at Harvard. In this movie the males are good looking, successful, rich, and are attending or previously attended Harvard. With an exception of a few, the males of this movie act as if the women are object to be played with rather then to be taken seriously. The first example of this is when Elle is on a date with her, at the time, current boy friend Warner, they’re at a restaurant and Elle thinks he’s going to propose but instead he breaks up with her because she isn’t “serious”. Here is where I must mention that Warner falls into the generic gender role of a male, he is tall, good looking, wealthy, not dramatically buff but not scrawny either. When I was watching this scene the main thing that popped into my head was that to Warner Elle was good to look at but wasn’t what he thought of as smart and good enough for him, she wasn’t a girl he could bring home to meet the family. Warner wants to be a senator, which is another political arena that is mostly dominated by males. This is where Warner tells Elle he’s going to Harvard law to start his career and she wasn’t in his future plans. In turn Elle get depressed locks herself in her room for about a week then gets the revelation that she would just attend Harvard Law also. When Elle goes to her parents they don’t really support her, they fall into the gender stereotype that girls should do girly jobs, like fashion which was Elle’s major, be pretty get married and so forth. They don’t believe she should have to go out into the world and be smart. She studies hard to pass the LSAT’s and she sends in her video application to Harvard. This video Elle is mainly in a Bikini, and being very “girly”, Harvard mainly accepts her application because they need to diversify their accepted applicants. Once at Harvard Elle goes to class unprepared and is excused from the class. Afterwards is when she meets Warner’s new girlfriend and fiancй Vivian who is also the reason Elle had to leave class. This is where the battle between Vivian and Elle .After the meeting Elle does a typical girl thing and goes and gets her nails done. She returns to school has another run-in with Vivian who invited her to a party, telling her it’s a costume party and it obviously wasn’t. As “typical girl” Elle shows up to the party as a playboy bunny. There is nothing more gender specific then a playboy bunny. For comfort she turns to Warner but instead all Elle got a rude awakening when he tells her that she isn’t smart. At this point in the movie Elle begins to get motivated and goes out buys a laptop and starts studying very hard. She gains some confidence and starts to speak up in class. One of her Professors, Professor Callahan is a lawyer in his own firm is offering an internship for four students for a new case he is working on because his caseload is rather large. Callahan asks for Elle’s resume, which happened to be pink and scented, because of an excellent argument she debated and won in his class. The internship winners were posted an Elle was picked, along with Warner, Vivian, and a friend of Vivian’s. The case that the firm is working on is another prime example of gender roles. The case is about a fitness instructor (Brooke) who is obviously beautiful but is accused of murdering her 60 year old husband. Elle knows all about