Gender Issue in Legally Blonde

Legally Blonde

In many ways today's society, even though women have come a long way, we still live in a patriarchal world. There are many examples of this in everyday life, whether it be that there aren't very many women CEO's or the mere fact that we've yet to have a woman president. No matter where you live, there is the presence of a male dominated world. It especially extends into the working fields. There are professions that are categorically 'women's' jobs like nursing, school teacher, or secretarial jobs. The rest of the professional world is mainly male dominated, i.e. engineering, CEO's of major companies, and Law Firms. Which brings us to the movie I picked to watch, Legally Blonde?

In the movie Legally Blonde the male dominance over the legal field is everywhere. This movie is based on a typical "good looking" girl. Reese Witherspoon's character Elle Woods is a tall, thin, blonde haired, blue eyes girl, the typical female in which society sees as 'perfect. Along with these things Elle also is rich, is in a sorority, and is portrayed as a "dumb blonde" with no common sense. The bulk of the movie is based around Elle going to Harvard Law School in hopes to impress her high society boyfriend. Throughout this movie the gender biases and the male dominance over the legal and field is so blatantly obvious you can't miss it.

The main reason I selected this movie was because of its obvious gender biases and its very blatent patriarchal society from which Elle comes from initially and proceeds to go to at Harvard. In this movie the males are good looking, successful, rich, and are attending or previously attended Harvard. With an exception of a few, the males of this movie act as if the women are object to be played with rather then to be taken seriously. The first example of this is when Elle is on a date with her, at the time, current boy friend Warner, they're at a restaurant and Elle thinks he's going to propose but instead he breaks up with her because she isn't "serious". Here is where I must mention that Warner falls into the generic gender role of a male, he is tall, good looking, wealthy, not dramatically buff but not scrawny either. When I was watching this scene the main thing that popped into my head was that to Warner Elle was good to look at but wasn't what he thought of as smart and good enough for him, she wasn't a girl he could bring home to meet the family. Warner wants to be a senator, which is another political arena that is mostly dominated by males. This is where Warner tells Elle he's going to Harvard law to start his career and she wasn't in his future plans. In turn Elle get depressed locks herself in her room for about a week then gets the revelation that she would just attend Harvard Law also. When Elle goes to her parents they don't really support her, they fall into the gender stereotype that girls should do girly jobs, like fashion which was Elle's major, be pretty get married and so forth. They don't believe she should have to go out into the world and be smart. She studies hard to pass the LSAT's and she sends in her video application to Harvard. This video Elle is mainly in a Bikini, and being very "girly", Harvard mainly accepts her application because they need to diversify their accepted applicants. Once at Harvard Elle goes to class unprepared and is excused from the class. Afterwards is when she meets Warner's new girlfriend and fiancй Vivian who is also the reason Elle had to leave class. This is where the battle between Vivian and Elle .After the meeting Elle does a typical girl thing and goes and gets her nails done. She returns to school has another run-in with Vivian who invited her to a party, telling her it's a costume party and it obviously wasn't. As "typical girl" Elle shows up to the party as a playboy bunny. There is nothing more gender specific then a playboy bunny. For comfort she turns to Warner but instead all Elle got a rude awakening when he tells her that she isn't smart. At this point in the movie Elle begins to get motivated and goes out buys a laptop and starts studying very hard. She gains some confidence and starts to speak up in class. One of her Professors, Professor Callahan is a lawyer in his own firm is offering an internship for four students for a new case he is working on because his caseload is rather large. Callahan asks for Elle's resume, which happened to be pink and scented, because of an excellent argument she debated and won in his class. The internship winners were posted an Elle was picked, along with Warner, Vivian, and a friend of Vivian's. The case that the firm is working on is another prime example of gender roles. The case is about a fitness instructor (Brooke) who is obviously beautiful but is accused of murdering her 60 year old husband. Elle knows all about Brooke and states from the beginning that she felt Brooke was innocent. Elle visits Brooke in prison to get her alibi; Elle brings Brooke a basket of "goodies" which included make-up, flowers, and a cosmopolitan magazine.