My attention was caught by an article that appeared on the current issue of MS magazine; in it, the author, Carmen D. Siering, describes Bella, the protagonist of the much acclaimed movie Twilight, as “a blank slate, with few thoughts or actions that don’t center on Edward.” She continues by saying that, where Bella is “infantilized,” Edward is “condescending” and the only one allowed to “initiate intimacy.”

I pondered. Wait a minute!  Why did I like the movie if such were the premises? Is it possible that I, too, am a victim of our patriarchal society’s canons subscribing to the widespread notion that women can’t be happy unless they have a man who worships and loves them? The mere fact that the book sold 22 million copies and many more saw the movie seems to corroborate these assertions.

For my part, I watched the movie with detached interest at first, a glimpse of excitement in the middle and a longing for “it” to continue by the end. For two days I fantasized about it and even convinced my daughter to buy the movie once it came out in DVD. And yet, throughout it all, I sensed a weakening of the person I have become, as if, through the two hours of watching it, I had regressed into the young woman I was, when being liked and nurtured by a man was intrinsic to achieve happiness and fulfillment.

How did we so easily buy into a story that is so clearly devoid of redeeming values? What happened to the teachings of the strong women that were our grandmothers and the ones who fought for our ability to stand up and claim our strength?

According to Adrienne Rich, author of “Of Woman Born,” patriarchy, which literally means “the power of the fathers,” became prevalent in our culture after the advent of industrialization in the early 1900’s. Women, from working their farms, sewing textiles and tending to the animals, joined the men in the factories and showed resilience to hard work and pain in a far greater measure than their counterparts (and took care of the households as well afterward). Men, threatened by such powerful presence, made sure that the women retreated into the house to become full time mothers and homemakers, (which also coincided with the need for comfort and centeredness that emerged after the Vietnam War).

It was during this time (50’s and 60’s) that Disney released Cinderella and later Sleeping Beauty, movies that sent a clear and loud message to young women all over the world, that of needing a man (preferably one riding a white horse) to rescue them. I grew up during those years.

According to Rich, it is Patriarchy that is responsible for the woman’s loss of her individualization and the birth of “the Mother, the dangerous archetype, source of angelic love and forgiveness in a world increasingly ruthless and impersonal.”(29)***

Patriarchy is a subtle and a hard to discern phenomenon. In the words of Rich, “It does not…imply that no woman has power…but that the power of the fathers…permeates everything, even the language in which we try to describe it…(she) has access only to so much of privilege and influence as the patriarchy is willing to accede to her…” (33-34).”

Patriarchy is far from dead. The fact that so many people fell in love with Edward (I am one of them, remember?) and what he represents, means that we have not yet acknowledged, reclaimed, and put into practice our ability to function without the dream and the illusion of a man sweeping us off our feet with his white horse or, better yet, his blood-dripping teeth.
 
***See more on Motherhood in my blog dated 4/2 or on my upcoming ones