On The Ambition Gap

Anastasia, Drusilla and The Sleeping Beauty, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Below is an exchange I had with various women on the FB Guardian Comment is Free article entitled: The five most pathetic female film characters of all time. Most comments and likes following my post are an example of the lack of ambition most women suffer of. I know the vast majority will agree that Mulan is the best because she didn't go back to pour tea in practical terms (please read the exchange below to understand), but from where I stand that's exactly what she virtually did. She had the possibility of being the Emperor adviser and she didn't catch it. To do what? To go back home and teach little girls how to be strong and get married. Because that's the final ending of any Disney story! Wherever you come from, however badass you might be in a Disney movie you can only end up married. Those who want to and have the capability of being a great warrior/Emperor adviser/business enterpreneur/ for the rest of their lives and do it for themselves not for family&friends are NEVER represented.

Even intelligent women don't see it and don't have any problem when watching Mulan with

a) the future husband accepting a promotion - while Mulan goes back to the village
b) with coping with an incompetent man adviser for the whole film - while Mulan is not considered competent enough for the job despite displaying superhuman qualities in intelligence and leadership for most of the film
c) with proudly stating that it wasn't her ambition to become captain (note: she has been automatically downgraded from emperor adviser to captain without even thinking) and she only did things for her family not for herself - as if doing things for herself and not for someone else was a sin. (They haven't even watched the film carefully on this one because she does it for herself: to be someone to be proud of when she looks in the mirror).
d) with stating that she'd like to go home to her family love and "have a nap"! The epitome of "Look at me! How cute am I? Having a nap like a little kitty after all this fuss!".
e) with considering ambitious teaching two little girls back in the village how to be strong - when she could have opened schools all over the country as an adviser.

I think these women answers are where women problem lays. It is the ambition gap Sheril Sandberg keeps on pointing out. This lack of ambition is so ingrained that they can't even recognize it or it is considered so negative particularly if it is personal ambition and not to help someone else that it must be rejected - another ingrained concept.

I'm not for forcing women to be ambitious if they don't want to but perhaps we should start thinking that the main problem women face to get out of predefined gender roles is themselves.

Note: I left the names because they were comments under a public article not a private exchange.
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Alessandra Forti
Emily Watson in breaking the waves in this horrendous story of degradation; any Disney princess even Mulan who rejects the place offered her by the emperor to go back home and be a good girl; Keira Nightley in pirates of the Caribbean 3 when she throws everything away in the last 5 minutes to live on an island to see a man once a year for eternity.

Robyn Frances Shepherd · Durham, Durham
Actually Tiana in Princess And The Frog is pretty kick ass for her race and gender considering when it's supposed to be set.

Rebecca Bishop · University Campus Suffolk
Aww, come on, what more do you want from Mulan? She freakin' dressed as a man and fought in a war even though she would be executed if discovered, didn't give up even after she was found to be a woman and saved an entire freakin' country, receiving huge honors from the Emperor. So what if she didn't want a poxy job where all she'd get to do would be follow the Emeperor around and take notes? xD I'd just want to go back home after fighting in a war, too!

Alessandra Forti
Rebecca Bishop Given that Mulan is better than the sleeping beauty or Cinderella up to when she refuses the job. For me showing that one could be the best and then not reaping the benefits is a bit futile and typical of women who do all the work and then leave the honors and the carriers to the men. We have different views of the world. I wouldn't go home. I'd take the job.

Marina Lacoste
Totally agree about Keira Knighley, I was sooo angry in the last five minutes, i mean, what the hell? I didn't think her character was heading that way.

Nikki Atwood · College of the Canyons
Alessandra Forti ~ Mulan achieved all of her goals though. She saved her father from the war and death on the battlefield, she restored honor to her family and her own name, and she showed her true value as a person and a warrior. She didn't need the job, she accomplished all that she had set out to do. To not take the job showed a form of humbleness, she didn't need a high ranking job to be happy. Her family was proud of her, and she was most comfortable with what she has. At the end of the movie, the emperor and China's subjects bowed to her accomplishments and she was praised. She was acknowledged as a woman of power, I don't think any of the men in the movie took any of that away.

Alessandra Forti
Nikki Atwood she indeed showed humbleness and that's why I don't like it. She did it for love with complete lack of ambition which makes acceptable for her being a temporary warrior. Translated as real life experience it's like doing all the research work for a big presentation and then stepping back and let a man present it. Who do you think will stride in the carrier? The man or the woman?

Maggie Sheen · University of Technology, Sydney
Alessandra Forti So humility isn't a strong characteristic? Frankly, I would prefer any daughters I may have to see the ending of Mulan as it is, with Mulan humbly turning down the offer of a job for which she has no qualifications and set out with no desire to obtain. And I hardly think Mulan can be accused of lacking ambition when there's an entire montage devoted to her ambition to overcome her own physical and mental weaknesses. Just because she doesn't want to become empress, or adviser to the emperor, does not mean she lacks ambition. Furthermore, the notion that women should behave in a cut-throat, love-less manner to obtain what they want is antithetical to feminism, which denotes that women should be able to express themselves as individuals as opposed to caricatures defined by gender stereotypes.

Alessandra Forti
Maggie Sheen having ambition doesn't mean to be cut throat and heartless. It is a myth that ambition and care are mutually exclusive. That she is not qualified for the job also might be questionable at the beginning of the film she wasn't qualified to be a wife (just because she couldn't serve tea) either and definitely not to be a soldier. If she was a bit more ambitious she could carry her qualities into the job and be a star. And that's what I'd teach to my daughter she can be a star if she wants to, she doesn't have to chose to go home to resolve an internal conflict that doesn't really exist.

Maggie Sheen · University of Technology, Sydney
Alessandra Forti But the point is Mulan already is a star - the entirety of China bows to her; can't that be enough? And I would hardly say that Mulan is qualified for the position of chief political adviser to the Emperor - she's a small-town girl who spent time in the army. Yes, with perseverance, she could accumulate the required experience for the position, but ambition isn't limited to wanting the best job available. Mulan doesn't want the job, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'd hardly want my children to pursue a career they didn't want only because they felt obligated due to its prestige. Additionally, as I recall, you stated that you detested the fact that Mulan "did it for love without ambition", implying that love has no place in ambition.

Alex Morrison Durden Plattner · Paris, France
Maggie Sheen i totally agre with that

Alessandra Forti
Maggie Sheen I did say that. The film like many others instills the perception that a woman cannot be ambitious without being a bitch and that she can do super human things only and exclusively out love and generosity (otherwise she is a bitch) which is absolutely not true. She can be both and teaching otherwise means limiting women choice. A woman realization cannot be limited only to the affective sphere. I find this extremely restrictive and suffocating. And if we want to talk about competence she most certainly would be a better adviser than the slimy character that is the Emperor adviser during the film. :)

Rebecca Bishop · University Campus Suffolk
And also, Mulan didn't just go back home to be a good girl - in Mulan 2 she's shown teaching the little girls of the village how to be strong and then she's personally chosen by the Emperor to guard his daughters on the way to their arranged marriages, something which Mulan challenges and the princesses ultimately end up rejecting their arranged marriages and choose their own futures. Obviously it's not a great film but as Disney sequels go I've seen far worse (lol), and she didn't just go back home and start pouring tea again, she's a highly respected warrior. Although both films are very different from the original legend of Mulan where she fights in the army for years without being discovered and retires back home in total obscurity.
But anyway, I don't quite get what you're saying about the job thing. Why should a woman have to take a job she doesn't want just to prove a point? In my opinion that's just as bad as a woman being forced into any other role she doesn't want. Mulan had her own mind and made her own choices, which frankly, is what I thought feminism was all about, not doing something you don't actually want to do just to go "lol, in your face men!"

Alessandra Forti
Rebecca Bishop who said anything about being forced. I just said that for once I'd like to see a woman in one of these films making a different choice than going back home and getting married. There is nothing wrong with that of course but there is absolutely nothing wrong with accepting the top job offered her by the Emperor either. Instead of going back to teach little girls in her village she could open schools in the whole country to make an example of the difference. I've never seen the sequel but reading the synopsis it seems to me that her future husband didn't have any qualms to accept a promotion and become a general.

Rachel Azevedo
mulan's ambition wasn't to run off and become captain of the guard. she wanted honor. for her family, not just herself. she didn't go home to be a good girl, she went home because she had accomplished what she set out to do.

Anna Sophia May
Alessandra Forti I'd go home. I nearly died, I did some big things, I saved the country, nearly died again.. I don't care how big and strong I am, I want to go home and be with the family I love. And nap.

Alessandra Forti 
Anna Sophia May go home.... I take the job.

Anna Sophia May  
Alessandra Forti Ok! I'd hate working in politics.

It's Christmas!

Xmassy, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

This morning I woke up with a Christmas feeling. I hope I will not waste it. I haven't really touched my camera in a while aside a brief flickr meet to the Christmas markets where I took this I haven't seriously thought about it in a month and a half. I'm upset by this lack of interest I'm showing for anything other than my computer lately. I can't stand it anymore (Velvet Undergroung, 1969).

Freedom Of Exchange

Freedom Of Exchange, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

The only sentence I keep on thinking looking at this picture is "Thank god I live in a civilized country". It has many defects but it tries and every now and then you see these gems of tolerance at the point that the freedom of exchange is possible. That's when I love most the UK.