Girls, Girls, Girls! week 15

Throughout history, women have been regarded as beautiful sex objects to be desired by others. This can be observed through artifacts found from all around the world in addition to stories that have been handed down for centuries. It's no wonder that feminism has been such a difficult challenge through the years. With the cultural norms set in place for so long, change takes time. It's almost like women were asleep acting out the roles of the attractive, subservient, passive woman, performing her domestic duties. Once changes began to unfold, they awoke to the fact that they do have the ability to create new ideas and expectations of the female gender within our society.


Those who create the circumstances to incorporate these changes will impact generations to come. Some of these impacts have gone unnoticed but helped set the path for others to follow. I just saw a trivia question which read; "Who was the first woman candidate for the U.S. presidency?" The answer was Victoria Woodhull and only 19% of the people got this question correct. She was a woman 100 years ahead of her time. She ran for president in 1872, nominated by the newly formed Equal Rights Party. Even though laws prohibited women from voting, nothing prevented them from running for office, she possibly she set the bar for Alice Paul who changed the course in history allowing women to vote.


Girls have not been encouraged by our society to partake in various subjects such as computer sciences, IT fields, and the music and film industries. This is mainly due to the male dominant populations that control these industries. This dominance creates barriers for equal gender opportunity. Within the film industry many regard creating a film as a craft that is to be learned while working through the years thought of as an inherited profession. Many feel that women could not produce movies that would create much revenue such as a romance from a feminist perspective, whereas men produce violent, fast pace, sexy box office hits. Film producer, Kathryn Bigelow proved this theory wrong, she is the ex- wife of well known producer James Cameron ( Avatar) and was the first woman to win the a 2010 Oscar for Best Director. The title of that movie was "Hurt Locker" which by they way, a realistic war movie about deactivating bombs in the Middle East. It is fast paced, very violent, and contains foul language. Although more women are in the film industry today than in the past it is still a struggle. This could be attributed to the diffusion of feminist ideology, the increased accessibility of inexpensive video technology, and the introduction of more media education programs for youth (GMM 191). In the past ( and still much of today), women were cast as the sex symbols adding to the decoration on the set appealing to the eye and not considered being placed behind the camera. These ideas are changing due to the above mentioned but unless the opportunity is given to these girls and technology is readily available, they will not pursue these areas of interest. It is because of these extraordinary women and their accomplishments that girls can excel in these gender dominant careers.