I love it when guys remind women of how far they’ve come. You know the attitude: “Cut the whining, babe – you don’t have it so bad.”Yeah, I guess things have changed for the better. I suppose the fact that we can now cook the family dinner with microwaves instead of conventional ovens is a big help and that the proliferation of cable sports channels keeps men out of our hair while we scour the toilet bowls. All after a satisfying day at the office, of course.Whenever someone tells me how much things have changed, I can’t help but subdue a little inward groan. I like to believe that things are different than they were when my mom was a teenager – even though I still have a friend who wasn’t allowed to call boys unless they called her first, even though the guys I hang out with still play sports while the girls watch them and even though most men are still thrown into hysteria by the sight of female armpit hair. Not quite believing that 30 years have gone by since this was all supposed to have changed, I sniff society with a nose finely attuned to the scent of sexism.So I’ve decided to turn my fury on perhaps the greatest cultural artifact of the decade: “Star Wars Episode I.” Don’t get me wrong, I liked the movie. But it’s been over 20 years since the first Star Wars movie came out and I was able to ignore its predictable lack of female characters – I just chalked it up as another example of how things “used to be.” But twenty years later, it’s a little harder to excuse. Any of you who have seen Episode I know that the way things “used to be” is still the way they are.Just like its predecessors, “The Phantom Menace” has a dearth of female characters: Only two or three who have more than one line (one of them being, of course, a mother – no fathers around in Episode I). Just like its predecessor, the new flick has no female soldiers, bodyguards, enemies or counselors. We are graced with one or two female pilots out of an entire fleet and Lucas throws in one token human female Jedi warrior for good measure (two or three of the non-human Jedi knights are supposedly female, although it’s impossible to tell from looking). Sure, Natalie Portman’s character rules a country, but only under the supervision of male advisers and while decked out in restrictive, elaborate clothes and time-consuming hair and makeup. And face it: The girl winces when she shoots a gun. But the worst example of this movie’s male-centered plot and character choice is the hundreds of non-human characters populating the movie. Try as I might, the only non-human creatures I was able to spot (with the exception of the pod-race crowd) were Jabba the Hutt’s girlfriend and his female slaves, decked out in bikinis, of course. Excuse me, but am I supposed to believe that females of these various are all to become extinct in a couple hundred years? More likely, they were just locked away at home taking care of babies while their hubbies got all the screen time.All of the special effects, fantastic sets and strange creatures in the world can’t make up for the sad fact that this movie is not for women. Sure, you’ll probably tell me that the movie was targeted at men, that men will buy most of the action figures and that men will buy most of the movie tickets. But that’s no excuse – this would have been a great opportunity for men to see women in some non-stereotypical roles. But what can you expect from a male director, mostly male production crew, etc.?Maybe Star Wars is a huge exception. Maybe all of this summer’s other massive blockbusters will give speaking parts to dozens of women and only a few men. But somehow, I don’t think so. And somehow, I don’t think that things have changed as much as we’d like to believe.
Jessica Weeks is a sophomore sociology major from Shaker Heights, Ohio.