Written By: Geetika Mahajan, 14, California
There are some things that aren’t just tropes. The movies introduce a woman who is supposedly the best in her field, someone who is willing to live and breathe and die for something that the male protagonist is completely inexperienced in, and then he takes the reigns and upstages her with a little bit of friendly bewilderment. And come one, it’s not antifeminist, he’s just good, he’s standing there, with a little grin of triumph, having just proven that he’s more powerful than she will ever be- and we buy it. I go home and I study and I get good grades, but I never talk in class, never voice my opinions, never answer questions in class. I mumble my way through presentations and speeches, waiting for some fool to walk in and offer a sarcastic, biting correction. I wait for this man to show up and prove that I am incompetent, I have always been incompetent, I will never be smart enough or strong enough or educated enough to rise above him.
And the trope doesn’t just say, "this man is good at what he does.” It says, “even this incompetent man is better than the woman.” He could battle any other person to earn his pack order, but it’s the woman, because even intrinsically, she is the weakest in the group. The ultimate battle will be man against man. It always has been.
And I wish- I wish- that it stopped in the movies. But the number of men who have tried to(gently) tell me that I’m crazy, delusional, just another feminazi on her period- tells me it worked. Call it coincidence, but men are always looking to make a correction, to come out on top, to be able to flip a woman onto her back and expose her to the world, and say “see! For all her education and experience, she is just another woman.” Some may call this mansplaining. I say, “This is a system of silencing women.” He tells me that it’s just a movie and there are more important issues I should focus on. He sees himself as the man in the movies, having just walked in, pointing to my equation on the board: “Here’s the flaw,” he says. In real life, I am too frustrated to speak, In the movie, he is inevitably right.
Elle Woods flips her hair and says, “What, like it’s hard?” and it’s a funny line. It’s funny because in every other movie, it’s been said by a guy.