Research...

• Typically ‘under a patriarchal regime, women are, by definition, excluded from positions of power and authority’[4]. Women were depicted as passive objects and were seen to be ‘inferior’ towards the males, as they were seen to be ‘breadwinners’. Women are dependant on the males, as they are biologically stronger then women, and the females are physically seen to be inferior towards them.

• Throughout Provoked and many Asian films, the male are depicted as active, both physically and mentally. Whereas the women as passive and inferior to the men ‘… masculinity confer a privileged position of power and authority… to which woman is the Other’. This is seen in ‘Provoked’ where there is a high angle shot of Andrews beating Rai and she is sitting on the floor crying. This connotes Andrews is superior and has power over Rai. The high angle also connotes him being given the God like authoritative. An image in the Eastern culture, which exists, is the husband should be seen as a god like figure. The low angle shot on Rai crying shows that she is subordinate to her husband and retains no power over him.

• 'Second Wave' was coined by Marsha Lear, and refers to the increase in feminist activity’[11]. This was the period, in the late 1960’s where females wanted to increase their status and make their identity of their own. It can be seen that Asians are trying to achieve this now. ‘Second Wave Feminism did not just strive to extend the range of social opportunities open to women, but also, through intervention within the spheres of reproduction, sexuality and cultural representation, to change their domestic and private lives’. The purpose of this act was to give females a better right and say, in which they can be seen to be equal between the two sexes.
  
  
• During the Second World War ‘Women were also conscripted to civilian war work in factories’. This was the stage when females had to take over masculine jobs, as the men’s had gone to war. It can be said that females are seen to be superior and had gained their new identity by proving that they can do men’s job and not just sit at home and be typical housewives.

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