Mother India, Fire, and Male Dominance

                Male dominance is a strong concept that is present in every culture but on different levels. In America, male dominance is present but not over populated. It is almost an underlying truth that women have slowly been breaking since the early 70’s. There is the idea that women can’t be happy without men or male figures can use their muscular power to dominate over women, but many of us women have learned that we are just as powerful but in our own unique ways and that we DO have a say in how are lives pan out. Other cultures are not as lucky, which is exactly what both Mother India and Fire portrayed during their depiction of the lives of women in India. Interestingly enough they both took this concept in different ways, which I will explain below.

                In Mother India there was a women who raised a family on her own under the rule of a dominant male figure – her ‘land lord’ in modern day terms. She gave him almost all of her earnings and food, leaving her family to starve. Although she never really stood up to him and left the land, she did take it into her own hands to farm and feed her children. She pushed the land lord around and did not take his offer to be with him to make her life easier; she wanted to do everything on her own. This was not a typical behavior for women in India. She showed that although the culture she was born into said that women were obedient to men, she did not want any part of it.

                On the other side, in the film Fire, there are two women who at first are very traditional and obey their husbands. They stayed in the house and waited for their men to come home while they cooked, cleaned, or simply sat around waiting. As the film progresses they learn that they do have the choice to be happy, even if it may not fit cultural norms. Unlike Mother India’s assertive tactics of shoving it in the man’s face, the girls sneak around about their new found power. They make it seem as those they are close friends and not lovers so that they are not frowned upon, until finally they are caught. This is when the women stand up for what their heart and soul believes in, throwing away all they have ever known about tradition.

                What I enjoyed about these films is that women stood up for what they believed in and did not let a man (or anyone for that matter) determine their way of living. It is important to remember that society comes with preset boundaries, but it is up to us if we want to follow them. Who says that someone else should determine your love life or your freedom?