Working Class Women in Films

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The Role of Women Women continue to be depicted on screen with negative stereotypes. They are misrepresented and underrepresented. One might argue that there has been a lot of changes made with the rise of action roles for women but these roles are extremely sexualized and the majority of female in such action characters are not images of empowerment; they do not draw upon their femininity as a source of power, and they are not operating outside the boundaries of traditional gender restrictions. Instead, they operate inside highly socially constructed gender norms, rely on the strength and guidance of a dominant male action character, and end up re-articulating gender stereotypes just like many other type of female roles, therefore, not much progress has been made. Along with being sexualized women are also portrayed as submissive, week, desperate, psychotic, emotional, or gentle and affectionate while men are aggressive, independent, ambitious and self-confident. If a woman’s role is to play the characteristics of a man she would most likely be considered cold, crabby and a few other not so nice words. Much work needs to be done to improve the status and portrayal of women in films. In the film Norma Rae and TV show, Roseanne we are able to see two aggressive, ambitious and confident women as well as affectionate but the roles of working class women like Norma Rae and Roseanne are rare, “contemporary American audiences are simply unaccustomed to seeing interesting, strong and resourceful working-class women. Whether ordinary or extraordinary, working-class women of all races and backgrounds, need greater representation”(Johnson, 2014) Too many times, working class is thought of as lazy, unproductive failures of society who are going nowhere instead of hard working women who struggle by the unfair and unequal social, educational, political and economic

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