Over the past few days, I watched a little Australian mini-series, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, as it came highly rated, and featured a pretty good cast. What starts out as a reasonably interesting premise (a girl loses her parents in a mysterious fire, then is sent to live with her elusive grandmother on a flower farm) rapidly devolves into full-blown soap-opera. You've got one-dimensional villains, predictable, over-the-top "revelations", the works.
Anyway, it would be a reasonably entertaining light watch, if it wasn't for the misandry inherent in almost every scene. For anyone who doesn't know, misandry is the equivalent of misogyny, aka the hatred and discrimination of men.
When the show tells you that the little girl's father is abusive, you're like okay, fair enough. Reasonably interesting. Then you learn that the grandmother is running a secret refuge for abused women. Then you find out she was raped, which brought about her son (the abusive dad). Then the little girl grows up, runs away, and shacks up...you guessed it, with a gaslighting, abusing prick.
It's just too much. And it's quite jarring to realize that this show is highly rated despite this obvious discrimination. If it was the other way around, if a show portrayed every female character as manipulative shrews and gold-diggers, it would be trashed completely.
For me, it was one of those shows that are so absurd, you're laughing through all the "deep" moments. I did wonder what it'd be like watching it as a man. A bit infuriating, certainly. I don't think I'd be comfortable if the reverse were true in the show, so can't imagine a man would have a good time watching this sort of thing.
However, plain misandry aside, another aspect bothered me even more.
The statue of Molly Malone. Dublin, Ireland.
A child doesn't come out of the womb with their personality set in stone.
Which seems to be what this show is suggesting. So, the grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) is raped, has a son, who in turn is violent and abusive, beating his own wife and daughter to a pulp. The parents die, but the little girl and her newborn brother survive the fire, at which point the grandmother adopts the little girl, but lies about the brother's survival, and puts him up for adoption, fearing he would turn out "like his male ancestors".
And while there is a bit of a row between the old woman and her (female) partner when everyone learns the truth, in the end the old woman is still portrayed as a kind, well-meaning old spirit. For me, the premise of separating siblings, of leaving a poor little baby alone in the world was so infuriating, I wouldn't dream of having any more sympathy for the grandmother from that point.
Apparently, the inherent fear of males as evil is enough to justify her actions.
Now, for anyone who's ever looked at a psychology book or manual, the thought is preposterous. Children aren't born evil. And it seems evident to me that the only reason the woman's son grows up to be a prick is that she was probably not a very good mother, infused him with poor values (instead of healthy, masculine values), and was no doubt responsible for the abuse he himself perpetuated. As if to prove the point, her grandson is adopted by a kind, nurturing family, and grows up to be a good man, proving it's not "the evil male gene" at all.
Where we show young children love and support, and provide them with stable home environments with strong models (of both sexes, ideally), they grow up to be good, honorable children.
Which is exactly what we risk doing as a society now with our young men. In an (unintended, I expect) way, the show parallels our world. We're bringing up generations of young men in a "shelter" where women are being treated at the same time as delicate flowers, but also as matriarchs and law-makers, while any notion of a strong, valued, good man is anathema. The fact that this sort of show can be on TV, and earn a high user rating on IMDB is very telling of where we're at as a society.
One can't help but worry that we're breeding a generation of men who will hate and rail against women in some form or another.
It's March 8th today. International Women's Day. I've been exchanging messages with the women in my life all morning, with most wishes revolving around a combination of femininity, grace, but also strength. It's a very enlightened wish, in many ways, and I do think ideally, a woman needs to combine both (if she is to have a truly fruitful life). That the answer isn't to choose between being girly or tomboy-ish. It's not career or home. It's both. A woman needs to be feminine, to embody and accept those sides of her that are nurturing, soft, considerate and maternal, while also accepting the masculine, the ambition, the goal-oriented, the resolution-prone, the assertive.
It's the only way to be free as a woman.
I can't help but think the same is true about men. A good man isn't weak or wimpish. A good man is strong and assertive without being aggressive or cruel. A good man, in my book, embraces his feminine side without becoming a "sissy". And frankly, I think as long as we keep thinking in such simplified either/or terms, we're failing to progress as a society.
*source
Women are fantastic creatures and our efforts are appreciated all over the world
Happy women’s day!