Miss Representation (2011, 2012)

Miss Representation is a documentary film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. It was shown on US television (OWN) and released on DVD in 2012. Here is some basic information about it:

** Written, produced and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom

** Run time: 85 minutes

Several witnesses were interviewed for the film, but the list of names is too long to be included here. I will mention only one of them: Barbara J. Berg, whose book Sexism in America (2009) covers the same issue as the film.

Miss Representation shows how US women are under-represented in places of power: few women are leaders or owners of large companies; few women are governors of a US state; few women are members of Congress; and no woman has ever been elected as president of the US.

This film got some good reviews: on IMDb it has a rating of 77 per cent, which corresponds to four stars on Amazon. I understand the positive reviews and I agree with them. However, I also understand why the average rating does not go higher than this.

Miss Representation gives a good description of the current situation in the US regarding gender relations, but there is no analysis here. Some important questions are never raised and therefore never answered; this means some important aspects are never explored.

Question # 1: How did we get here? How did men manage to capture such a large share of power, money, and opportunities? Why did women allow this to happen?

Question # 2: If we do not like what we see, what can be done to change the current situation to something better? How can power, money, and opportunities be shared more equally by men and women?

Question # 3: Some women of the world have reached powerful positions when they became president or prime minister of their country. Did these women make a difference? Did they make the world a better place for other women? Were they better and more honest leaders than the men who had held these posts before them?

The answer is no. In fact, they were often worse than the typical male politician. In order to get where they wanted to go they had to be worse - more ruthless - than their male rivals. Just think about Margaret Thatcher, who was prime minister of the United Kingdom for several years. Did she work for equal representation of men and women? Hardly. Was gender equality an important item on her agenda? Not exactly.

Miss Representation laments the fact that women are under-represented in Congress and that the US has never had a female president. Let us assume 50 per cent of the members of Congress were women. Let us assume the US had a female president. Would this fact really change the laws of Congress or the policies of government in any significant way?

I am afraid the answer to this question is no. Women often vote the same way as their fathers or their husbands, so even if there are many women in parliament or in government, this is no guarantee that we will see any real and significant improvement of the current situation.

I realise that what I have said in relation to question # 3 is a taboo, i.e. something that is not supposed to be said. But the discussion about gender relations has to be honest and open. Otherwise there can be no real change, no real improvement of the current situation.

While women of the US have many complaints, which are fully justified, they should be happy that they are living in the US and not in a country such as India, China or Vietnam where gender selection before birth is widespread. If a women in one of these countries is pregnant with a girl, she is often forced to get an abortion, because most men want to have a son and they do not wish to be the father of a daughter. A daughter is considered a tragedy!

Gender selection before birth is a horrible practice. While it is usually illegal, the law is not enforced by the authorities, perhaps because most male leaders of these countries cannot understand that it is wrong.

Miss Representation is an interesting film, but as you can see, it has a significant flaw, which I cannot ignore. I like this film and I want to give it a good rating, but I have to remove one star because of this flaw. Therefore I think it deserves a rating of four stars.

PS. For more information about gender relations in the US and the rest of the world, see the following films:

** America the Beautiful (2010)

** Half the Sky (2012)

** Girl Rising (2013)

** It’s a Girl (2013)

*****