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Where Have All the Strong Women Gone?

By Johann Hari, The Independent UK. Posted April 3, 2008.


Women have to soften their ambition, lower their expectations and disguise their strengths in order to get ahead.
bettedaviseyes

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Precisely a century ago, in a suburb of Boston, a child called Bette Davis erupted into the world. She was not only a woman; she was an electrical storm with skin. With nothing but raw talent and raw determination, she became the most famous woman in the world, taking on the Hollywood studio system, the FBI and the Catholic Church.

For a while, this not-especially-beautiful woman in her forties ruled Hollywood, playing tough women who chose their careers and their own desires over sacrificing for men or children or a picket fence. She never pretended to be dumb, or a little girl. She didn't do soft, or simpering. She had a voice like sour cream, and eyes like a raven. Humphrey Bogart said about her: "Unless you're very big she can knock you down." And she was one of the great events of her time.

She was popular with the mostly-female movie audience -- women like my grandmother, who gave me my first glimpse of Bette Davis movies from her lap -- in part because her characters will not accept 'their place.' They want more, more, more. It was not easy to be a strong woman then; she said, "When a man gives his opinion he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion she's a bitch." But she fought, and women responded to it. She was only the most shimmering example of a generation of tough Hollywood women whose characters saw the world as a place not to cower from or simper at, but to conquer: Mae West (who made her first film at 40), Lauren Bacall, Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Barbra Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell, Marlene Dietrich, and more.

Bette was self-confident enough to demand to look bad on camera. On the cast of 'Bordertown', she had a four-hour screaming row with the director because she thought it was ridiculous to show her character wake up in bed with a wig and full make-up; she wanted curlers and cold cream all over her face. In' Marked Woman', she was shown with black eyes and a broken face. In Elizabeth and Essex, she wanted to be shown with a completely bald head -- sending the studio into a panic. And she was self-confident enough to be unsympathetic on screen.

But something odd has happened since the reign of Queen Bette: women in cinema have become weaker. If the symbol of 1930s Hollywood was Bette Davis in 'Jezebel', defiantly wearing red to her virgin-white ball, today it is Cameron Diaz in 'There's Something About Mary', rubbing semen into her hair because she is too dumb to realize it's not hair gel.

As women have progressed, the women we idolize -- in the movies, on television -- have dramatically regressed. Who are our female icons now? Nicole Kidman, whose career is empitomized by her role in 'Moulin Rouge', where she plays a limp, passive prostitute, waiting to be saved. Julia Roberts, whose only iconic role is as a screwed-up prostitute, waiting to be saved. The women of 'Desperate Housewives' -- chaotic ditzes, who are either jobless, or have jobs where they merely spread chaos. The women of 'Sex and the City', who are obsessed with shoes and -- in the end -- have to compromise their careers for men. The popular women are numb blondes or bony little girls with submissive smiles. If a female star becomes too 'tough', she becomes box-office poison: Demi Moore was seen after G.I. Jane as too hard, too 'male.' Even Thelma and Louise had to drive into the Grand Canyon in the end.

The closest we have to Bette Davis-style characters today are found in the films and TV shows of Aaron Sorkin. His dream-girl is a woman talking very fast about foreign policy while putting on her make-up. In West Wing, he found two glorious stars who would have held their own with the 1930s generation: Alison Janney, and Stockard Channing. But what happens to their characters? C.J. has to be given a sick father to humanise her -- unlike any of the men -- and in the end has to choose between Washington and love. Abigail Bartlett is stripped of her job entirely. Janney and Channing are now reduced to bit-parts in films about teenage girls.

The biggest female stars have contracted in every sense. As they are reduced emotionally to hollow male fantasies, they are reduced physically to skin and bone too. If Bette Davis has screen presence, skeletons like Keira Knightley have screen absence; you stop seeing her even when she is the only thing in the frame. Almost all of the great Hollywood starlets would be considered uncastably 'fat' now: who can forget Liz Hurley's statement, "If I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe, I'd kill myself too"?


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Perhaps...
Posted by: daege on Apr 3, 2008 3:49 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I wouldn't say there are no strong females in the same league as this. After all, Natalie Portman shaved her head and looked battered in 'V for Vendetta'. She's one of my idols for many things and I consider her one of the strongest women in acting today.

Don't forget that back in Bette Davis's time there would have been a lot of apparently weak women too. At least as many as today, if not more. It's just that over time, we only remember the strong ones. We can look back fondly at it just like hopefully, we'll look back fondly at the strong women of today in a few years.

However, it can be hard to pick things out when we're so surrounded by the negative in the present moment.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

but they do it anyway. that's the strength of women
Posted by: KaptainSpiffy on Apr 3, 2008 5:09 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Women have to soften their ambition, lower their expectations and disguise their strengths in order to get ahead": more ballsy than what most men will do.

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Success: A man's game for better or worse
Posted by: jwhitneywise on Apr 3, 2008 5:49 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I agree that women should not have to compromise themselves in order to achieve their goals. I would ask though; Why would women want to strive a "male" definition of success, or strong character, other than that it has been denied to them. I, as a male, personally find the rat-race for wealth and fame rather deplorable and am ashamed that my gender has let itself be defined by it. Perhaps the feminist movement should consider whether it's only looking for equality in the world under which old white men have already set the terms, or it's looking to define its own terms of success.

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export your strong-minded women here in italy!!
Posted by: lifegambler on Apr 4, 2008 8:03 AM   
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quote:"For each 16-point rise in IQ, a man is 35 percent more likely to find a partner -- while for women, the same IQ bump reduces their odds by 40 per cent. This is why so many clever women mask their intellects, in pubs and offices across the country".

I think that the problem is that women are sick and tired of being obstacled and discriminated in every aspect of their life.
I'm afraid that most women simply gave up to narrow-minded male chauvinism and forgot their value. I always hated both machism and disposable blondes, and the social damages due to their 'mentality'.
It's so sad to realize that women are compelled to hide their intellectual strenght to be noticed and appreciated by 'men'.
Fight women, fight! True Men do not need to destroy your dignity to feel self-confident (by the means you well know...), the world of 'machos' is sick and sad... and almost death, as you can notice.

Pablo

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CommonDreamer
Posted by: CommonDreamer on Apr 5, 2008 1:53 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A great article raising some very interesting points. I think today's mindless rampant consumerist society (adroitly engineered by Wall Street and our other financial institutions)...has also fallen into unintelligent Maxim magazine style living. You can't find an art film to save your life in the boring, McMansioned suburbs. The cookie cutter housing reflects the fearful conformism and surprisingly - lack of individualility now present in society - an individuality which we as Americans think is our strongest trait. But we have been corporatized, dumbed down and our wages have been raided by corporate raiders...and we actually have less power than we ever did in so many ways. Only by reversing some of this disastrous corporatization and decrying greed as motivation can we overcome the powerlessness that has lead to the softening of great individuals...who now don't speak up because they have fear. How about Howard Dean, John Edwards and so on? What is it we're afraid of? Where are the Angela Davises...the Jane Fondas...and so on? This society drank the trickle down corporatized koolaid and is drugged out on consumerism, me-ism, and not activism. This is our biggest problem now.

When we get rid of the Maxim style thinking and get back to activism and progressivism, maybe then women will be empowered. As it is, they bought the corporate machine, lock, stock and barrel - and without changing it for the better. The work schedule's still the same but doesn't address the needs of families at all - it's built for men who had someone at home taking care of the other 40 hours of invisible work that just doesn't go away, no matter how we try to ignore it. Instead we are just going along as the great corporate machine takes us down into the rabbit hole. Still waiting for some real activists. Some European style sensibility. Some real strength - maybe someday. Great article!

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» RE: CommonDreamer Posted by: Andrew_S
Hollywood types..
Posted by: messedup on Apr 7, 2008 5:56 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Nice article about hollywood girls. The strong women all turned into spoiled brats who get whatever they want..

The less strong are obviously all fat and lazy.

But they are strong minded and really full of sass, and I guess that's whats important these days.

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So that is why I had to go all the way to China to get a smart wife?
Posted by: AsteroidMiner on Apr 10, 2008 12:00 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Only a stupid man would want a stupid wife.
The female chauvenist lies. It is American WOmen
who want to turn marriage into a high priced form
of prostitution.
Female chauvenist = Home Ec or humanities major who
really majors in husband hunting instead of a subject.

Actually my Chinese wife was working on her PhD in Chemistry
in the US when I met her.

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A very interesting article
Posted by: odie-wan on Apr 14, 2008 1:44 AM   
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You voice some of the same thoughts I've often had. There are few female actors today that I would laud as a role model for their choice of roles and for their public personas. Examples that do spring to mind are Vanessa Redgrave, Maggie Smith and sometimes Kathy Bates. None of these women are conventionally beautiful but in my eyes they are strong gorgeous women.

In reply to one reader's comment about why women would want to act/be like men...women don't. They want the freedom to be who they are. If that means that sometimes their behaviour is deemed to be masculine then so be it. Women want to be able to be the individuals they are, not the cookie cutter bimbo fantasy that is pushed these days.

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