Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Did the 2013 Inauguration pass the Bechdel Test?
Although women before her had identified a similar gender bias issue in fiction, cartoonist Alison Bechdel coined the Bechdel Test in her strip Dykes To Watch Out For. A piece of fiction passes the Bechdel Test if two female characters of the piece speak of anything other than men at least once. Famous movies that have surprisingly (or not) failed the Bechdel Test include the original Star Wars trilogy, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Avatar and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The test exists to contrast the persona of male characters versus the persona of female characters in fiction; men, generally, are portrayed as caring a lot less about women than women care about them. Does this gender bias exist in real life though? Although CNN presented many female faces during the 2013 Presidential Inauguration, it felt overall that men dominated the inauguration and dominate our politics. The women of the inauguration (mostly Michelle Obama and Jill Biden) seemed to be cheerleading the men on rather than doing anything substantial. Will there ever be a "first gentleman" of the oval office and a first female Vice President of our country and although we apparently live in a free country why have only men been the leaders of it?
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