Do Women Invite Servitu` Involontaria?
03.19.08 (3:09 am) [edit]The other day I came across an old movie. A female teacher who is out to change the beliefs of a certain culture. Yeah, not my kind but it was an afternoon with nothing better to do, so what the heck.
You see the message was like this: this female teacher who taught in the Art Department taught in an all-girls institution. The common notion was that, yes, girls supposed to get their education; but also their life-long purpose was to get married. The story is told through one student who I gathered at the end must have ended up as a journalist.
Mona Lisa Smile was the movie. Acted with strong actors, yes actors, I thought that was one of the greatest movie ever made. Kirsten Dunst is the narrator, sort of, of this movie. She acts as Betty who is the main opposer of the teacher. She gets married, misses a couple of weeks on her honeymoon, and comes back expecting the thread of school-life to pick up from where she left it.
I have decided to use this storyline of Mona Lisa Smile for illustration. I remember when I was in university. We had a few female students who were married. The remaining advertised the marriage objective as their intended position in life.
Our group work was always affected by the females. Reason?
“I can’t stay to discus this and that assignment because I have to rush home and prepare dinner for my husband”/
“My husband prefers for me to be there when he comes home, so I have got to rush”/
“My husband insists that with the baby coming, I should take it easy”
You get the drift. Someone has to be there for the hubby so the guys had to finish the assignment and paste the ladies’ names; write notes; forge our comrades’ signatures et cetera.
I never used to give a consideration to this kind of behaviour, because I’m a trooper. Furthermore I admired the fact that these ladies realized that education is important, more so for a bargaining position in life. But then I got to see this movie and something just kind of over-clicked! What does it say about the society?
I think women are so much stereotyped into certain roles it becomes discriminatory. They should cook, clean and look after the house. No one shows this better than a certain scene in this movie.
Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) who acts as the Art Teacher angrily directs her concern of these roles when she asks: “when you leave here (Oakland State University) will you use your education to iron your husband’s shirts; or your physics to know how many pancakes to put on the table and pirouette in a girdle”.
Watson actually did show four ads to drive her point home. From them she used the above quotes, some of which are paraphrases, but they convey what I do mean. Do we as men expect that when we educate our women they shall only use that education as advancement in their housekeeping duties? Do women not realize that by becoming educated they increase their stakes of proving their intelligence and at times become superior to men?
As if by coincidence, a colleague recently confided his dilemma: he hates going home early from work. If he does, his wife after serving him begins drilling him about his day at work. Not the surface stuff, no; the technical details. She knows this because they graduated in the same class and also did the same course.
He describes his ordeal as one of “a daily interview session before a one-woman panel”. This normally goes on uninterrupted until he has to feign work exhaustion so that he can tire to bed.
Personally I think it’s wasted to be so educated only to end up as a housewife or be subservient to someone else. Does it kill love if both spouses have their own careers? I think we torment our partners when we restrict their paths in life all in the name of love. Madleine de Scudery couldn’t have put it any more better of this servitude nature of love when she said: “love makes mutes of those who speak so fluently”.
Women have always had it rough, haven’t they? They work hard and no one is ready to acknowledge that, (me included).Culture is a necessary aspect of our lives but I think it is too stagnant at times.
Yeah, the Mona Lisa Smile was meant to depict the 1953 culture, but the theme still carries on today. In certain girls are only to be educated at a certain level- lower than boys -then get married. Their goal, as culture warrants, is to pay their parents back through dowry. Isn’t this a form of servitude, I do enquire?
I think the old adages of having a man dominating over a woman are out the window. The world today is developing to a more democratic leaning. How else do we claim to be developed?
But then again I challenge women.Just like Lisa Gherardini,the original Monna Lisa ,women seem all the more passive.They try to be the "ideal woman" and let culture walk over them;rather than protest at certain injustices.They smile at everything instead of casting a frown at certain irregularities.Who says why you can't be committed to your obligations as an individual and independently declare your stand!Looking at it all lies in the painting.Leonardo da Vinci ,playing the role of culture directs Madam Gherardini to sit patiently,with arms folded,so that he can achieve he achieves the appropriate visual composition.Musn't it have been purely painstaking for Monna Gherardini to sit there day in, day out-just to make da Vinci a great artist.?Women endure so much in their lives, though ever smiling,yet suffering under all the pressure!
Alexis de Tocqueville did touch a raw nerve when he claimed: “democracy seeks equality in liberty” .I think women should also put their feet down and realize that they should not allow for culture to dictate to them what is right. They should strive to adopt a more democratic approach in order to become more developed - for “democracy attaches all possible value to each man (and woman)”.
posted by: nightbreed (reply)
post date: 03.19.08 (3:22 pm)
I own the dvd ~winks~
posted by: tarroc (reply)
post date: 03.20.08 (12:33 am)
Hey,Sweetheart;so what do you think of the movie itself?
posted by: nakedperson (reply)
post date: 03.28.08 (3:13 am)
do you know what nickster does to blogs/people he doesnt like.. he blocks their ip addresses so they are blocked from tblog
(in response to your question on nicksters blog)
posted by: nightbreed (reply)
post date: 03.28.08 (11:51 am)
when there are over 400 abusive comments made from a blog, that blog persons ip is blocked. he only does this to save tblog. my advice to you is to use any anti-phising software you can so it does not happen to you.