Chivalry, Gender
Roles, and Feminism
First of
all, I saved the two pieces on the disc for the end, so I am glad that I
resisted the temptation to actually listen to “Holding Out for a Hero” because
when I realized what was playing in the Footloose
clip, it made it that much better.
The first
clip/piece I watched was “Royals” by Lorde. Initially I thought these topics
might all be about how we have to find our knight in shining armor like Bonnie
Tyler and her “Hercules” and “white knight”. Clearly Lorde wants to play the
queen to her king, or at least let her “live that fantasy” of it. Even in the
“Dare” Footloose scene, the men in
the movie could be imagined as two men on their horses, swords raised, running
to joust each other instead of riding on tractors playing chicken.
But then I
realized it was about why the fairy tale image of our knight in shining armor
is actually making women be undermined still to this day by men because (some
of us) believe the fairy tale to be true. However, even back in the days of
King Arthur, women were fearful of men taking advantage of them because like in
“The Wife of Bath” tale we see that happened then just like it happens now. I
find it interesting in that piece that men are asking advice of an older woman
on love because that seems backwards. You can tell she doesn’t have a fondness
for friars the way she describes them, but even if she is warming the men not
to repeat the acts like the story she told, who knows if it would do any good
for the men, coming from a woman.
The
“Genderbread” somewhat counters what we see in the Chevy commercial. The
commercial shows men being off put by a male friend who listens and sings along
to a song about a woman sung by a woman (“Man, I feel like a Woman” by Shania
Twain). It generalizes how men are “supposed” to act around more feminine-type
men. Whereas the “Genderbread” explains how men and women can still hold their
manliness or womanliness even if they have feminine or masculine traits.
So far: we
have the fairy tale idea and men still feel the need to be the manly knight
coming to save the damsel in distress but women have been and are continuing to
outgrow this conception of needing to be rescued by men. Even Disney finally
came out with a princess movie that doesn’t involve a man saving the princess
in their 2013 movie Frozen. Also,
like Sandberg in the “A Titan’s How-to on Breaking the Glass Ceiling” who is
pursuing her goals of giving women the confidence to move up in the workforce
and fight for their rights to lead and be equal or more powerful than men. Some
people counter her pipe dream and say she is blaming other women for not trying
hard enough. But I say at least she is trying to do something about it. The
problem from the past…well I’m not even sure how far back it dates, is that
people think to tell women not to be stupid by going out alone at night or
talking to strangers. But rarely is it heard that men shouldn’t be the ones
lurking around in the dark, preying on innocent women.
And finally
we have the “Genderless baby”. Parents who are trying to defy all odds of human
nature. I can totally see their point of it and am all for gender equality, but
like some have said, they are setting their child up for being bullied. Especially
when they have attained all of the attention that they have because of it. If
they wanted to do it, they should have kept it private. The media can and will
attack.
I do
believe this selection of pieces makes a strong point to banish the ideologies
of man saving woman and move towards man and woman fight side by side to save
the kingdom. It’s been a long journey for women’s rights: a lot has been gained
and there are more ground to be covered. I personally believe it has a lot to
do with parenting. So, in that, I support what the genderless child’s family is
doing. They are teaching their children a lot more than we can say for many
parents in this world.
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