media analysis

Jeremy Price
Media Analysis
Women Studies
G.I. JANE
Feminist ask why can’t women be in a male dominant world and be feminine. The movie “GI Jane” is a great example why women can be in a male dominant world. Females in a traditionally male dominated world are mistreated in many different ways. The most important and most common ways are through double bind, beauty myth, and work conditions, all of which are in the movie “GI Jane”. There are a lot of different scenes in the movie that involve all of these characteristics of women feminism. The movie is about a lady that wants to show men that she was just as strong as them mentally and physically. She had to take in all kinds of abuse from most of the men in the movie. She had to do things that she was very uncomfortable with doing like taking showers with the men not knowing if and when one of the men will try to rape her or things of that sort, but she had to do it because she had to prove to the men in the military that she was not as weak as they assumed she was. If the men saw her show any signs of weakness out of her then they had the right to kick her out of the military because according to them she wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. So she put in her mind that she was not going to show none of the men any signs of weakness. At the end of the movie she made out of the military with high honors and a lot of respect from a lot of men in the military because she made it through a lot of the hard training that they forced her to go through to prove herself to them. In this process of proving herself to these men in the military she had to go through a little bit of double bind.
She was in a very tough situation far as double bind because if she were to quit and give up on trying showing the men that she was as strong as the men then she would be looked at as being weak by all of the men in the military. If that were to happen then it would have made her hold experience and purpose pointless. On the other hand if she did better than all of the men military she had to think about dealing with women or other men that looked at her as not being feminine enough. For example if she were to finish all of her training and tone her body up to look really ripped up like a mans body would look in the military then she would get judged as being too masculine to be a woman by a lot of men and women in today’s society. Of course this is not far to her because she has to go through a lot of things while she is trying to prove herself to the men in the military but this is just how things work in the world. Either women are too feminine to work hard at something that a man can do so men automatically assume that a woman can’t handle a man job or if a woman does do a mans job as good as a man can do it then she is too masculine.
Another issue that she had to deal with while in the military was beauty myth. Beauty myth is very important in today’s society because for some strange reason some people feel like woman has to live up to the same exact standard for as beauty. In the movie she had to something that would mess up her beauty myth, but it was required to be in the military training. She had to cut all of hair completely off. She to get a buzz cut exactly like all of the men in the military. Now of course the fact that she did this made her look even more masculine than she was and this would make it harder for her in society because now not only did her body look physically fit like a man but now all of her hair is gone so she may be mistaken as a man. This totally goes against the so called “Beauty myth”. This doesn’t make it ant easier on her because now a lot of people are going to look at her as being too masculine and that is not something that was not something that she aiming for when she entered the military with the men.
One of the most important characteristics of feminism she had to deal with is the work conditions or in her situation the conditions of the training area and military base that she had to live in with the men for quite some time. She had to deal with a lot of harassment from the men at anytime of the day and night. She had to go through many nights in the cabins that they slept in with barely getting any sleep at all because the men would be calling her names all through the night and saying all kinds of vigor things to her. She was also had to worry about that fact that she might have gotten raped or sexually harassed at anytime of the night. In fact there was a very disturbing scene where she was in the shower with the men, because they didn’t have separate showers for women, and a few of the men that were in the shower with her tried to rape while she was bathing. Of course she knew that this would happen because she is a woman with woman features and she was exposing all of her features to the men but this wasn’t done on purpose because all she was doing was taking routine shower just like the men were doing. She had to go through the attempt of rapes more than one times so she figured out a way to not go through this. She started taking showers after all the men would take a shower. She felt more comfortable doing that.
At the end of the movie she made out of the military with flying colors. Something that a lot of the men in the military didn’t think she would never do. Even men and women outside of the military didn’t think it would happen. So she made a name for herself in the military and in society. She proved that women can do whatever men can do. Despite all of the double bind, the beauty myth and the work conditions she still manage to make out of the military with her head high. She also earned a lot of respect from men in the military. She earned respect from men and women outside of the military because she did the impossible.