Tootsie!

We caught the film "Tootsie" on Tuesday during class and to say it was 'interesting' would be an understatement. The film basically portrays an aspiring actor, Michael who displayed typical masculine traits in the beginning. He was hot-tempered, rash and always ready to stand up to any challenges. These traits masked his talents for acting and producers avoided hiring him for any roles as he was too 'confrontational'. However, when he decided to turn himself into a woman (Dorothy) to audition for a role, he found immediate success. People found his 'masculinity' as a woman refreshing and he quickly became somewhat of a cult idol for women all over. Women, through Dorothy and her willingness to stand up to chauvinistic males, began to learn that they too deserve to be treated as equals to men. Nonetheless, he quickly realised that he has fallen in love with one of his colleagues and had to revert back to his 'manhood' in order to be with her.

There were a few things that particularly stood up in the film for me. One was the fact that it took a man masquerading as a woman, to literally have the 'balls' to tell women all over what exactly it is they need and want. Is this then hinting at the fact that in order for women to be equal to men in a patriarchal society, they need to display masculine qualities? Related to this would be our previous discussions on gender roles and power relations. If we were to follow the above argument that masculinity is needed for equality for men and women, a corollary would be that power is tied to masculinity? Secondly, I found it interesting that not one but two (and maybe even three) men fell for the super masculine Dorothy, with one even wanting to marry him/her! Considering a patriarchal society where men (or masculinity) rules, why were the men in the film portrayed as willing to 'step down' to be on an equal footing with Dorothy? Lastly, Dorothy had to revert back to his life as Michael eventually in order to woo the woman of his dreams. The message I got was that even though we might be able to cross over into the 'realm' of the other gender (by cross-dressing, acting feminine etc much like how Michael became Dorothy), we eventually have to go back to who we were in order for society to work properly. Does this mean that certain gender roles are 'fixed' and cannot be achieved by the opposite gender no matter what they do?

Just some thoughts that I had after thinking about some of the going-ons in the film. What are your thoughts on it? :)

What's at the bottom...?

Recently, we have had a lot of discussion on gender stereotypes and how these were propagated and reinforced through various means common to our daily lives. These include the media, our own upbringing, through religion, educational establishments and believe it or not, even children's cartoons!

So... if gender stereotypes were socially constructed and passed on from generation to generation, what is at the bottom if we were to dig deeper and to peel these stereotypes away layer by layer? Will we find that humans are all born the same and if left alone will dress the same way, talk the same way, walk the same way and basically behave the same way regardless of gender? This thought might be disturbing to some people (very disturbing indeed). Especially those who have had problems trying to understand the opposite gender all their lives.

There are many people out there who have problems communicating and understanding their counterparts of the opposite gender (myself included... sometimes). Imagine the horror of realising that all the misunderstandings are actually our own fault and not because we are innately different!! Would it not be easier for us to believe that all these petty arguments and miscommunications are actually due to differences in traits, built into us from cradle to death, between the two genders? It is after all a great way to push away all the blame for not trying to understand your counterpart of the opposite gender! This is perhaps why self-help books such as Gray's "Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus" sells millions of copies.

But then again, should we accept Gray's premise that Men and Women are inherently different and thus can only learn to tolerate and make little changes to accomodate each other, how much tangible help is this 'self-help' book actually giving you? Essentially, the root of the problem remains and because we are different, we will invariably have misunderstandings. Are we then, not paying to simply assure ourselves that it is not actually our fault but that of 'differences built into our genes, our blood' that these arguments and misunderstandings arise? Would you feel better that way? I definitely will :)