Background of the study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the study

Most discussion about women is about their role in a domestic and public sphere. Throughout history, women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men have. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women’s most significant professions, because, maternity the biological role of women has traditionally been regarded as their major social role as well. The resulting stereotype that “a woman’s place is in the home” has largely determined the ways in which women have expressed themselves. So, women have less right to actualize themselves in a public sphere. Women in the world are lack of support for fundamental functions of human life. Explaining it, in her book, Woman and Human Development the Capabilities Approach, she says: “They are less nourished than men, less healthy, and more vulnerable to physical violances and sexual abuse. They are likely much less than a man that has to be literate, and still less likely to have professional or technical education. They should attempt to enter the work place, they face greater obstacles including intimidation from family or spouse, sex discrimination in hiring, and sexual harrasment in the workplace-all, frequently, without effective legal recourse.” 1 Women were long considered naturally weaker than men, squeamish, and unable to perform work requiring muscular or intellectual development. Historically, women’s oppression problem is based on a patriarchal culture that 1 Martha C Nussbaum. Woman and Human Development the Capabilities Approach Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2000, p.1 has been internalized in most culture of every country in this world. The patriarchal culture locked our mind; even some women think that men are superior while women are inferior. Women are always intimidated, many kind of exploitation can attack women such as sexual harrasment, sexual abuse rape, etc , domestic violances, physical violances, etc. This all can happen to women anytime and anywhere since men still give their bad sight over woman and put women position in subordinate position. We could even see it through Jean Jacques Rousseau work, Emile. Through his Emile, he wrote: “Men and women are made for each other, but their mutual dependence is not equal. We could survive without them than they could survive without us. They are dependent on our feelings, on the price we put on their merits, on the value we set on their attractions and on their virtues. Thus women’s entire education should be planned in relation to men, to be useful to them, to win their love and respect, to raise them as a children, to care for them as adults, counsel and console them, makes their lives sweet and pleasant.” 2 From the text above, We could clearly see that rousseau work put women in subordinate position, it mentioned above that “...Women’s entire education should be planned in relation to men, to be useful to them, to win their love and respect, to raise them as a children, to care for them as adults, counsel and console them, makes their lives sweet and pleasant.” Nancy Tuana in filsafat berperspektif feminis explains that western phylosophy has seen women inferior toward men as a weak creature, as the second sex. Insufficient in a definition of human being, that is: irrational, and 2 Susan Alice Watkins, et al., Introducing Feminism, London: Icon Book, 1999, p.11 have an incomplete morality. 3 So, that is why, In the past, western women were not recognized to have a better life out of their household affairs. Although some developments have freed women for roles other than motherhood, the cultural pressure for women to become wives and mother still prevents many talented women from finishing college or pursuing careers. This myth of the natural inferiority of women greatly influenced the status of women in law. For example, under the common law of England, an unmarried woman could own a property, make a contract, or sue and be sued. But, a married woman, defined as being one with her husband, gave up her name, and virtually all her property came under her husband’s control. During the early history of the United States, a man virtually owned his wife and children as he did his material professions. If a poor man chooses to send his children to the poorhouse, the mother was legally defenseless to object. Some communities, however, modified the common law to allow women to act as lawyer in the courts, to sue for property, and to own property in their own names if their husband agreed. 4 Women have fewer opportunities than men to live free from fear and to enjoy rewarding types of love, especially when, as often happens, they are married without choice in childhood and have no recourse from bad marriage. This is seems an unfair regulation for women, and this condition often inspires some of a film director to produce a movie related to the unfair treatment received by women. Adrienne Shelly, through her movie, waitress, tries to describe woman’s 3 Gadis Arivia, Filsafat Berperspektif Feminisy Jakarta: Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan, 2003, P.25 4 Women’s History of America presented by women’s international center. Accessed on april 22, 2009. http:www.wic.orgmischistory.htm. oppression because of man’s arrogance. The movie starring, Keri Russell, Jeremy Sisto, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, Andy Griffith and Adrienne Shelly. Jenna Keri Russell a small town woman who works at joe’s pie diner as a waitress and pie maker also. Jenna possesses an extraordinary talent for baking delicious and savory pies, inspired by her reaction to events in her life. She is unhappily married to a freak control man, earl Jeremy Sisto. Earl used to force Jenna to serve him in bed, but, jenna does not want it at all. Jenna feels like sleeping with the enemy, because earl has never give her any happiness during their togetherness. Until someday, Jenna found that she is pregnant, and It is a bad news for her. Unlike most woman where she becomes pregnant and it promptly changes her life for the better, Jenna spends her whole pregnancy displeased about it, because she does not want the baby. Another Earl bad behavior can be seen through Earl attitude who always makes Jenna gives her own tip money after she finished her work. Earl has never gives jenna a chance to do what she wants to do and relieve her dreams. He told that the only thing that Jenna needs to do is serve him well. This isn’t the life she wanted for herself but it’s the one she got. Jenna struggles to find happiness in spite of her undesireable circumstances. From then on, Jenna deals with her pregnancy with the help of her awkwardly uncommunicative gynecologist Nathan Fillion. Jenna is eager to be part of that pie-making contest, so, the revolt started, she’s been hiding money under furniture and in cabinets all over the house. Her plans revolving around entering a pie-making contest in a nearby town and using the winnings to help fund her free from Earl and the start of a new life. As the baby born, she looked that the baby was the cutest baby ever. Since that time, Jenna had a bravery to decide what she goes to take for her life with the baby then. She decides to divorce from her husband, Earl, and make her affair with her gynecologist, Dr. Pomatter over. Furthermore, she won the pie bake-off contest, and later she owned her pie shop that she runs with Dawn and Becky, then change it name into Lulu’s Pies based on her daughter name. Afterwards, her life becomes happily ever after with her cute little baby and she can finds her own destiny and determines her own way. It will be quite interesting to scrutinize various efforts by jenna for liberating herself from any kinds of subordination especially from private patriarchy tied up in her domestic life. This film packaged and well done played by Kery Russel, make Waitress enthusiastic to be discussed. This is the reason why the writer intends to examine feminism values which is reflected through the character of jenna and her attempt to achieve a better life quality of hers.

B. Focus of the study