Feminine Ideology: To Be a Woman Is to Perform
Feminine ideology has been upheld to certain expectations to achieve the embodiment of what it truly means to be a woman. For centuries, women have been forced to comply with the stereotype of appeasing men. The importance of maintaining youth-like beauty, staying home to take care of children, cleaning, and preparing hot meals to place at their husband's seat at the table. A woman’s role in life is to perform whatever a man desires them to be. However, I will talk about the effects it has on women, how this ideology is portrayed throughout the media, and how modern-day society perceives it.
Older generations believe in more traditional values; women partaking in the feminine ideology can help create an equal balance within any relationship between a feminine and masculine dynamic. Feminine energy is caring and loving, whereas masculine energy — emotionless and analytical — can help balance each other out. Others with modern beliefs may argue that it takes a negative toll on women’s mental health as well as social status. For example, women dealing with body dysmorphia, toxic femininity, not being paid the same as men, etc.
In the media, feminine ideology in my opinion is best conveyed through the directing styles of Sofia Coppola and Greta Gerwig. Coppola and Gerwig’s directing styles focus not merely on female stories but the feminine ideology, in what can be read as effective cinema about girlhood in an era of post-feminism, which privileges girls' experiences. Coppola is a distinctive auteur within a discourse that expands upon notions of feminism, which nonetheless exhibits supposedly paradoxical tropes and interests that appear antithetical to female empowerment with her film The Virgin Suicides (based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides) — a tragic story of the Lisbon sisters, told through the eyes of obsessive teenage boys. In this film, the Lisbon sisters were treated more like objects rather than victims of their demise. They have glorified assumptions about the Lisbon sisters being mysterious and alluring whilst in actuality they were being emotionally abused by their parents. They are just seen as possessions to be taken. The only thing the Lisbon sisters wanted was to be truly loved. But with their needs being unmet, they didn't see the point in living anymore.
Gerwig is also known for her feministic directing style with Barbie and Lady Bird.
Barbie: Barbie begins to have existential thoughts. Is being perfect all I am good for? What if I could be something else other than perfect? Would there be more to life? Figuring out her own identity, Barbie has to choose between Barbie world vs. the real world and its problems. Barbie dolls were created to help young girls feel empowered to be whatever they choose to be, not what society wants them to be. The only issue with this is that the Barbie doll was then highly selective with only having hourglass body shape, blonde with blue eyes dolls. Lacking the diversity for women of color, of disability, etc. Over the years they have branched out and become more inclusive.
Lady Bird: A female protagonist's (Christine) transition into young adulthood, the story is mainly focused on her relationship with her overprotective mother and the journey to find herself. Christine’s story fights back with the norms of Hollywood cinema, while also bringing attention to some problematic subjects of the gendered societal expectations. Gerwig criticizes the narrative and genre of the stereotypically represented females in movies and the gaze. Lady Bird criticizes lots of subjects in the patriarchal world. It’s important to acknowledge that most movies are constructed in a male-dominated way and that stereotypic females are only portrayed to serve patriarchal needs; women’s representations in the industry are only based on men’s ideas about women.
Within the media, there is a woman by the name of Brittany Broski, who is commonly known across social media as an internet personality who has a podcast called Broski Report. In one episode, Broski talked about Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie and expressed what it meant to her and how it made her feel. Broski stated:
What made me so emotional is that it summed up a unifying trauma between all women alive today and how from birth there is some sort of doom that is accepted by all women which is: I have to live the rest of my life with the knowledge that men view me as a sex toy. I’m not afforded the same privileges and rights as men and people think I'm stupid while also having to fit into boxes men have made for me. ‘Walk, sit, and eat this way.’ – at what point did you hang up the Barbie doll and start thinking about how boys perceive you? it was no longer about playing mermaids and being a human experiencing nature life, and love. Women were always revered. We were taught your number one goal in life is to be pretty and make sure that men like you. Men are just as victims to the world they created as women are and it fills me with rage that women lose a sense of purpose because the most important thing becomes pleasing men. Imagine a world where that doesn’t exist. Imagine a world where you can do your hobbies and things you enjoy without wondering if you look good while doing it.
Women have been rebelling against the feminine ideology and the dangerous effects that come with it. I highly recommend reading the book Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Friedan fully indulges in the Feminine Ideology and how it affected her and other women in 1960s America.