According to Critical Theory Today, the big concern in materialist feminism is how women are economically and socially oppressed (Tyson, 93-94). Colette Guillaumin notes that women are expected to give up their personal time and the products of their bodies (hair, milk, children), while being obligated to provide sex to men and care to their family members (cited in Tyson, 95). This is made more complicated by considering class as well; for example, higher class women do less domestic work than lower class women due to the ability to hire paid help. However, all women experience this appropriation, as Guillaumin calls it, to some extent. My interest is in how women subvert, exploit, or otherwise rage against the expectation that they are supposed to give, give, give to men.

There is a compelling line in the materialist feminism section of the text that inspired me: “Women’s sexual obligation to men occurs in both marriage and in prostitution. For Guillaumin, the primary difference between the two is that time limits are placed on a man’s use of prostitutes, and he has to pay for the specific acts he wants” (Tyson, 95). Within the patriarchy, we see a limiting duality to womanhood: “good girl” or “bad girl.” Now the bad girl, the whore, is socially disparaged, but this quote suggests she has more economic power than her counterpart because men have to meet her on her terms. This is precisely why she’s disparaged, because the patriarchal male considers her a threat to his absolute power (Tyson 86). So the text gave me one very overt answer to my question, but the thing that snagged me is that prostitutes do not have much social power. The choice between “good girl” and “bad girl” seems to be a choice between which appropriations to attempt to reclaim, the social ones or the economic ones. We know women are not actually this dichotomy, but how do they present their complexities in a way that men are forced to acknowledge? Better yet, is that even possible under a patriarchy?

This week, I looked for my answers in Thelma & Louise, and I came to the tentative conclusion that this is possible for women to achieve this presentation, but it is difficult to sustain. In Thelma & Louise, Thelma starts out as the “good girl,” keeping house and submitting to her asshole husband’s authority. She has little independence from him, and she’s expected to put all her time and energy into tending to his lifestyle needs. Meanwhile, Louise is more of the “bad girl.” While not a prostitute, she supports herself, and she has agency outside of a man from the beginning. This dichotomy quickly starts to break down once, as neither woman fits wholly into either type of women. Thelma cheats on her husband and robs gas stations, completely flipping her social and economic “goodness” on their head. At the same time, Louise asks her boyfriend for a loan and tries to figure out a solution to their problems. This comes to a head at the end of the movie. The audience knows that Thelma and Louise are complex people… and then they die. More precisely, the process through which their humanity and personhood came to light leave them in a place where choosing to die is better than any alternative.  

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. 3^rded., Routledge, 2015.

Thelma & Louise. Directed by Ridley Scott, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayers Studios Inc., 1991.