Notes Molly Haskell, Introduction, from Reverence to Rape

Introductory Notes, Female Role in Film Molly Haskell, “Introduction,” From Reverence to Rape

 Male Chauvinism – a man showing extreme or aggressive support for his gender

 Patriarchal society – a society ruled by male authority figures (eg. fathers) and men’s rules, especially rules and roles created for women

 Puritanical – an attitude or outlook on life based on strong moral beliefs that is critical of the behavior of others; based on English Protestants, who sought to simplify forms of worship in the 16th and 17th centuries

 Misogyny – Literally, “hatred of women”; misogynist – a man who hates women; misogynistic – adj. – behavior that demonstrates hatred of women

 Misogyny can be subtle: one model is the “mother/whore dichotomy”, which holds that women can only be categorized as "mothers" or "whores." Another variant is the “virgin/whore dichotomy” – in which women who do not adhere to a saintly standard of moral purity are considered "whores," “sluts,” and other derogatory terms

 Victorian – relating to the era of Queen Victoria of England (1837-1901) and to the typically conservative, old-fashioned romantic ideas and ideals of that era (eg., females work in the home, care for the children, etc.) NOTES FROM INTRODUCTION  p. xii: A “double-standard” existed for women in Haskell’s youth: men were supposed to ask girls out, while girls had to wait for their phone calls; in addition, men were able and sometimes expected to have sex with a number of women and be admired for this ability, while women behaving the same way were stigmatized as “whores” or “sluts”

 p. xii: “fragmenting of the unified self” is the division each person faces between the way we see ourselves and the way we’re expected to behave by society

 p. xiv-xvii: Haskell sets up the importance of a course examining the “Female Role in Film.” She says “at stake is nothing less than the hierarchy of Western civilization which posits God, Man, Woman, and Child in descending order of importance. Women, at the center of the upheaval, are in a unique position to look forward and backward, to decide how much of the past is worth salvaging as a foundation for the future” (xvii). In other words, it is up to us to challenge or change the attitudes about women so that we can function in healthy relationships.  Up to the present day, women have been viewed in terms of 19th Century Victorian “romantic values that are now being called into question” (xvi). These values divide men and women into the following roles: Men Women - conqueror - conquered - active - passive - “stronger sex” - “weaker sex”

 In addition, women have been further divided into categories of “virgin” and “whore” by these values. For women, Victorian values dictated taboos against sex by single, unmarried women. “No man would marry a woman who was not a virgin,” Haskell said (xiii). These are the traits of both types:

Virgin Whore - superior - inferior/weak - cold - hot - primal, positive - “publicly castigated” - honored - privately sought by men - nice girl - sexpot

 It was safer for women of Haskell’s generation to avoid sex. This created another quality of womanhood in the 20th century: “women would flirt, tease, withhold sex, to get what we wanted. It would rarely occur to us to ask outright for a place on the starting line, to enter the ranks of competitive male activities and thereby lose our place on the pedestal and our ‘preferred’ passive position in the game of love. We became ‘superfemales’ rather than ‘superwomen’” (xiv). This passage illuminates another problem for women: they were placed on a pedestal to be honored, but that also placed beauty, rather than the mind and emotion, at the center of female “worship” by men. The “pedestal” made them less human and robbed them of a voice

 American morals relaxed during the Jazz Age and Great Depression (late teens through the 1930s) then “rigidified” afterward, as show in films due to the Production Code

 The overall effect of these values as portrayed in film? Peer pressure has caused “an undue emphasis on sex. Sex has become not simply an appetite or a matter of individual taste, but supreme, defining quality of the self” (xiii-xiv).

 This, then, is the reason for studying “Female Role in Film.” “Is separatism … the answer,” Haskell asks, “or is it possible that, after the current stalemate, men and women will come to each other on a basis of greater mutual understanding? … Can men love women as their equals?” (xvi).

 Homework Question: According to Haskell, why are films such useful tools in documenting women’s roles in society? What do they tell us?