born a woman

Cameron 2022-02-02 08:02:37

I have seen an old Hollywood movie "Gentlemen's Agreement", and I still remember it to this day because of a special feeling. Among them, Gregory Peck plays an extremely successful social journalist who is tasked with covering the current state of Jewish discrimination in contemporary American society. He gladly complied, but was unable to do anything since—because it was an old topic, and because Nazi atrocities were so clear-cut and clear-cut. Any civilized person would be ashamed to reveal his prejudice against Jews, let alone discrimination. Anti-Semitism - a scandal that can almost constitute a civilized community. What else is there to say as a journalist? To this end, Pike visited his WWII comrade-in-arms, a successful Jewish businessman. The latter was extremely cautious about it, hardly saying a word. When asked about Parker, his answer was: Unless you were born Jewish, you would never understand.


This remark made Piketon open his mouth: as a successful reporter, his reporting has always been based on experience. For example, when reporting on miners, he works in underground mines; when reporting on homeless people, he sleeps on the streets. This time it was much simpler, Pike added a few vowels to his "old German surname", and once it became an "old Jewish surname", he was bracketed to his house number, and he became Jewish. Changes appeared immediately, and the attitude of the concierge became ambiguous and subtle; the female secretary's smile became more affectionate and less awe-inspiring among the ranks; the perfect and thoughtful social consumption service system would make mistakes in him from time to time. dropped" the Pikes. His child's application for the summer camp was rejected on the grounds that the places were full, when in fact there were still more places. It is an absolutely secret rule that no Jews will be admitted to this camp. Until the child was scolded and beaten on the street by other low society children: because he was a "Jewish pig". Parker, who has always been self-contained, generous, and humane, fell into a rage. He angrily went to question him. What he encountered was the perfunctory parents who pretended to be angry, and the children's mean and smug faces revealed their true attitudes. When Pike visited his Jewish friend again, the latter spoke up: Now you know. To be a Jew means a life of thorns in the back day in and day out, the invisible stinger stabs you every day, but you can't shout, protest, because you can't get the evidence - it's all too accidental, too trivial; in condescending listening, truth Or in the face of artificial shock, you appear nervous, fussy, or even ungrateful and ignorant.



I don't know how faithfully I retell the story, how much I add to my own feelings and experiences. Remember this old Hollywood film, not because of its sensational and delicate narrative, not for its justice and conscience: because in the film, Parker was able to publish his successful report: "I was a Jew for ninety days", and stopped him a Jewish career, and as a non-Jewish, righteous U.S. citizen to do a great job of saving the Jews. But what if you were really born Jewish? I was young when I watched this movie. The feeling at that time was that just by changing the word "Jew" into the word "woman", the bitterness of being born as a woman and a woman who was unwilling to obey male norms could be chewed alone in a society where women were liberated. , a poignant, trivial and trivial "Jew in a civilized community" that is unknown to outsiders, inhumane to outsiders, seems to be an appropriate metaphor for the reality of the new women. I have since discovered a more appropriate term, which is "liberated women, like civilians in occupied territories, liberated black slaves." Perhaps the latter is more accurate, since women are nowhere near as "lucky" as Jews: Jews may be able to hide their Jewish identity by dropping those vowels, but women cannot hide their gender any more than blacks can wash away their own Skin color (otherwise it wouldn't be social news that Michael Jackson gradually "turned white"). The thousand-year history of the persecution of the Jews can be recounted and resonated, but the history of women is still dark and empty. Being born as a woman seems to be arranged by God, but it is not only a gender, but also a role and a destiny. There are too many claims about women, too many rules, and all your actions are too easy to categorize and explain, even though the authoritative interpreters themselves know nothing about "women" - like Freud Lamentation: OMG! Can anyone tell me what happened to the woman?


Being born as a woman is a fact that cannot be escaped for a moment, despite being in a social scene where "men and women are the same". Everything - the eyes of men, the feedback from women, the unscrupulous comments of passers-by, the oversight and peeping of women's lives, reminding you of your "identity" all the time. When I was in college, I chatted with European girls I met for the first time, and said that if there was an afterlife, all Chinese women would choose to be men; most European girls would not hesitate to be women. One of the reasons stated is: how happy it is to be a woman - someone opens the door, picks up a coat, is under the protection of Lianxiangxiyu, and is invited by everyone on weekends without paying a penny. Then and then, the Chinese women here (including me) uniformly envy the civilized West. Today, when China has become civilized, I will also be in the year of no confusion. I know that if you accept and successfully play a female role, then life is indeed much better, but you know the joys and sorrows. The problem is that if all the norms and representations of women fail at you, then you're a monster, a sub in a loathsome and dubious sub. I was a woman who lived in a gentle world, and my height was out of bounds (at that time, there was no such a glorious career as a fashion model, and there was no fashion that took height and thinness as beauty), and even more single and 30 years old, I have experienced all kinds of bitterness. After marriage, my husband reminded me that the word that appears most frequently in your vocabulary is "injured". To be too vulnerable, too easily to feel hurt, becomes a pathological condition, or at least an allergy. But what no one has asked before, nor can it be verified, is whether those invisible stingers exist, whether the fact of the injury is true, and whether it is a large number of adults can be ignored. For me at least, there was no blatant discrimination or "persecution". But thorns are everywhere, and there are many kinds of male classmates in the same college, who are like brothers and sisters. You are really good, but you must first learn to be a woman, and then you will be a complete person. In the future, similar advice can be heard from time to time between the same sex and the opposite sex. Gradually into confusion and confusion: learn - to be a woman? Am I not a woman? Why learn? Is that a skill or skill? Where am I not "like" a woman? What exactly is a "woman"? What is a "woman"? This is obviously not a concept of biological sex. Otherwise I know myself to be a sound, somewhat precocious woman. Gradually understand that what needs to be learned is a kind of acting, and being a woman means acting lazy. A woman is a clearly defined and similar character: weak, mother, virgin, slut, or witch. What an abundance of choices. The rest: "masculine," if not to say perverted.



Thinking can begin, but the thorns don't disappear. When I was a little successful, I heard the evaluation: a woman, it's not easy! After being single for a long time, it became a topic of after-dinner tea: as vicious as "no one wants it" - postscript: Who dares to ask for it? ! Insidious such as "homosexuality" - if you avoid your girlfriend for fear of being intimidated; someone who understands women's psychology well, makes a shameful third party, so she keeps it secret - oneself is like a jade; naturally grief and anger are abnormal. When Xingzhi went to lightly apply powder and put on a pectoral, the male colleague Dayue suddenly said intimately: How wonderful! Your three-pointed manliness usually scared all the male compatriots into the bunker. And so on, and so on. Luckily for me, I haven't been to the talent market yet, and all the "talent" needs are marked: male. If the civilized society is ashamed to admit its discrimination against Jews, then the more civilized Chinese society is less and less able to conceal their gender prejudice and discrimination. From 'Liberation is too much! What more do you want?' to 'Women's liberation is costly. Women go home and restore normal social order', although this is undoubtedly the old lament of Xipan Guangdan: women's liberation makes "men Unemployed, women are homeless.” However, with social changes, women workers were the first to be laid off.



A woman can be a scarlet letter or a badge of honor. Once the World Women's Conference is held, once the March 8th Festival comes, women can be described as extremely beautiful. In the future, it is still unclear as a second-class citizen. Women's liberation has also become an outdated bureaucracy. Confused and traumatized, she finally declared herself a feminist. The husband and wife joked: "Equal rights between men and women are enough, why women's rights?" Yes, women, not feminism. The author is more concerned with the gender cultural structure of the patriarchal society, and the many distortions of women and men in this still strict gender order. In a cultural sense, in gender, there are no natural men and women, but they are constructed and pruned. Feminism, and perhaps some other less grand idealism, knows that it cannot be done.

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Extended Reading
  • Geovanni 2022-04-21 09:03:45

    The performance of the lines is not smooth, but the writing of the lines is superb and infectious

  • Tina 2022-04-24 07:01:25

    I don’t know if it’s a translation or a problem of understanding. It was only about halfway through the film that I realized that it was to reveal the incident of Jewish discrimination. I kept looking at “anti-Semites” and thought they were looking down on Jews, but the truth was the opposite; the heroine felt too contrived, It looks a little chilling under the close-up facial expression; can the incident end because of the heroine's final reflection?

Gentleman's Agreement quotes

  • Phil Green: I'm going to let everybody know I'm Jewish.

    Kathy Lacey: Jewish? But you're not! Are you? Not that it would make any difference to me. But you said, "Let everybody know," as if you hadn't before and would now. So I just wondered. Not that it would make any difference to me. Phil, you're annoyed.

    Phil Green: No, I'm just thinking.

    Kathy Lacey: Well, don't look serious about it. Surely you must know where I stand.

    Phil Green: Oh, I do.

    Kathy Lacey: You just caught me off-guard.

  • Elaine Wales: You just let them get one wrong Jew in here, and it'll come out of us. It's no fun being the fall guy for the kikey ones.

    Phil Green: Miss Wales, I'm going to be frank with you. I want you to know that words like yid and kike and kikey and coon and nigger make me sick no matter who says them.

    Elaine Wales: Oh, but I only said it for a type.

    Phil Green: Yeah, but we're talking about a the word first.

    Elaine Wales: Why, sometimes I even say it to myself, about me, I mean. Like, if I'm about to do something I know I shouldn't, I'll say, "Don't be such a little kike." That's all.