Breeding Stock

I've watched a few movies lately that touch on something very close to me and something that has always riled me up--the male portrayal of women as mere wombs for breeding.

The first movie I saw recently that dealt with that was Pan's Labrynth. In that particular movie, the mother was being kept alive throughout much of the movie for the sole reason of providing a child for the the Captain. He didn't care at all about her, but it was the child that mattered...having the offspring was what mattered and keeping his legacy.

Over the weekend I saw The Hills Have Eyes 2, which opened with a horrific scene of a poor woman who had been captured by mutants and strapped down for 9 months to a nasty bed to provide a baby for the mutants. After she's done giving birth, the mutant kills her. It was just horrible imagining such an experience.

And while most treatment isn't as bad in Western Society, in the Middle East and India and many countries around the world, women still are are seen as breeding stock. Honor killings are rampant in order to preserve male reputations and women are nothing but mere property to be won.

Then you only have to look to American culture and shows like The Pickup Artist on VH1 to see that women are still viewed as nothing more than prized to be won. Commercials show us all the pretty girls that men can aspire to achieve if they use their various products. So case in point....women are a commodity...not people.

I now see how much work feminism has ahead of it in securing equal rights for women. It may never happen with a securely entrenched patriarchy...at least in America.