Gender Oppression essays

Gender Oppression essays Since the beginning of time every angle of life has been looked at from a male/female standpoint. People begin to feel uncomfortable when the ground between man and woman gets broken. After watching Sally Potters Orlando (1993), a movie based on a novel written by Virginia Woolf (1923), in which a man transforms into a woman over a four-hundred year period, and watching Kimberly Pierces film, Boys Dont Cry (1999), I began to understand more how the world looks at the two genders. Although Orlando managed to end her life happily, she still had to fight the battle of gender, whereas when Branden Teena was discovered as Teena Branden, the people around her became uncomfortable, and unfortunately, she did not get the same ending as Orlando. Orlando projects a feminist future full of promise, while Boys Dont Cry answers Woolfs optimism with a brutal, resounding not yet! Throughout Orlando, Orlando never changes who s/he is no matter what body s/he inhabits. When he changed into a woman he simply looked into the mirror and said, Same person, just a different sex. Branden Teena, on the other hand, feels completely determined by her body and her self-presentation. When discovered as a girl, Branden did not want to be seen by others, she felt closed up and very insecure. Even though she knew that people knew she was not a boy she still denied that she was female, she had the mindset to be man and still faced things like a man. When being questioned by the police, Branden kept up the tough act and kept her secrets, that is until the police began to harass her because of the manner in which she behaved, calling her a dike or a lesbian and so forth. Even Brandens family criticized her for the way that she exposed herself. Brandens cousin tried to relate the way she was, but all he saw was a girl wearing his underwear, dating other wom...