Other than my favorite Tarantino film Death Proof, last Saturday night I witnessed the first female driven lead/cast to really blow me away. Within the first 20 minutes I was filled with awe, visceral emotion, and just full on badass chick envy. I was seeing strong, beautiful women on the screen fight as warriors. The best part- I would not dare say they were fighting like men; no, they were fighting with strong, beautiful acrobatic movement and screams let out just like I do when I’m hitting the boxing bag hard. It was real and not masculinized. My boyfriend turned to me in mid-battle and said that these women were definitely more interesting to look at fighting then your average Hugh Jackman (not that he isn’t a boss). Why? Because women are grantedly more beautiful creatures to look at (thanks bae), and that doesn’t mean they can’t be equally tough at the same time.
Prior to the movie viewing I was doing some reading on human psychology and Freud's idea that women from birth develop what he considers to be “penis envy”. He reasons that “anatomy is her fate” and so by us females lacking anatomically we then cultivate this envy which we make up for in other ways such as having children. I laughed but also paused to objectively think- is it possible that from birth we as women already feel unequal, envious, and yearn for the “penis”? Personally no, I could not say I envied to have what a man has anatomically speaking. Erich Fromm in The Dogma of Christ and other Essays, explains the Freudian idea that women cannot ever be equals with men because of the biological differences we have, but even more so by the characterological differences- the idea that our loving, intuitive nature serves us unfit for the modern dominant society. I agree that these differences do exist, but that it doesn’t mean women have to masculinize themselves in order to be dominant equals. This is the root of why I really loved Wonder Woman. She was very much intuitive and emotionally driven, but took control even in a room full of men.
Without trying to spoil the movie for those of you who have not seen it yet, Wonder Woman (Diana), showed her emotionally driven side multiple times. Guilty for thinking this way, there definitely was a moment where I thought her emotional sensitivity served as a disadvantage, something I feel done on purpose. Perhaps caring too much and not being a bit more pragmatic as her lead male partner Steve Trevor. But those thoughts would soon be dismissed as her emotions and intuition that was doubted consistently by her male team led her to kick MAJOR ass and showcased how much more focus and dominant she was because of how in-touch she was with her femininity. But what is it that would really makes us equals? In words of Diana Prince herself,
“It's about what you believe. And I believe in love. Only love will truly save the world.”