Gender Inequality

» woorama - warrior women

mmm. maybe with "woman as aggressor"? although this has its problems also. in most western literature you have the inevitable demise of powerful or aggressive women as a recurring theme - it's only with the recent advent of the dystopian future heroine that we see anything more positive emerging.

this began with terminator 2, with a kind of kick-ass anti-madonna figure. but she was only allowed to get away with that as some kind of "protective maternal instinct". this was the birth of a new-millennium archetype.

the dystopian future heroine has now progressed to what we see in "alien vs predator" - a heroine of indeterminate ethnic background who is a leader and a warrior in her own right. there is some problematic stuff around her symbolic "initiation" into the male-oriented warrior domain, but nothing too difficult to get past.

i think we're seeing some forward movement here, if you believe popular culture is any indicator. i just hope it's not simply a case of transposing masculine discourses of power onto female characters (eg. girl grabs father's "gun").

in indigenous cultures women have always had their own warrior ways and rituals. perhaps it is time for western/colonised women to reclaim them.

-- posted by woorama