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Monday, April 17, 2006
Men as wimps or vicious villains, women as innocent victims Gender-based prejudice is an important factor in human misery. Its roots are manifold, but one is found in media, in particular in entertainment movies. In the present paper, several movies, conceived in a misoandric mood, are discussed. Women are depicted as victims and good, men as perpetrators and bad. This stereotypical theme is so common that it is not even noticed and it is commonly accepted without reflection. Causes of contemporary misoandry are discussed and it is suggested that they reside in the economic and political conditions, together with the basic psychobiology of love and sex, which have fundamentally changed the conditions of family life in most of the USA and Europe. Reflection on these conditions will not change anything but understanding prejudice is better than not even recognizing how prevalent it is. The stereotypes of men and women are factors in gender-based prejudice. They are present everywhere: in media, in common-sense thinking and talk, in schools, homes and places of work. In the present paper I focus on the movies where the stereotypes are, at the same time, obvious and invisible. The invisible messages are particularly persuasive and therefore dangerous. The much-celebrated Dutch movie Antonia (1995), which won an Oscar for best foreign movie in 1995, is a very cleverly done piece. Here, women are strong and very clever, even brilliant, and men are either brutal criminals, stupid wimps or mentally disturbed. Marriage is out of the question, of course, and the male role in reproduction, while unfortunately still necessary, is minimized. The movie is extremely clear in its prejudices, so very obvious in its distortions of how real men and women are – yet it was given great praise by critics. On the web site www.imdb.com we read that it is “An immensely charming tribute to life”. More examples will now be mentioned, their structural causes and effects discussed..... (For more postings from me, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and DISSECTING LEFTISM. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.) Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by JR at 7:31 PM |
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