Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been chosen by the ‘young Australian women association’ to deliver a speech. I’ll be talking to you about the poem ‘orb spider’ by Judith Beveridge, and the film ‘not without my daughter’ directed by Brian Gilbert and produced by Harry J Ufland, through a variety of techniques these composers have represented women in many ways, and I’ll be talking about it to all of you present here today.
The poem ‘orb spider’ by Judith Beveridge, she connects her own feelings through watching the spider, usually spiders are associated with being scary/hairy etc. The spider goes about being un-noticed, like many mothers and emphasising the importance of every day female energy, in reminding us of the balance sense of order in the world.
“I saw her, pegging out her web” the metaphoric or symbolic representation, she refers to the spiders to every day representation of women like pegging out the washing, “this as pressed flowers in the bleaching light”, the simile used as pressing flowers in a relation to women’s everyday life by ironing or pressing the clothes or by organising meals. “She taught me to love the smallest transit”. The poet has learnt from the spider to love and appreciate the small things in life.
As we can see in this poem the domestic settings (housewife duties) portrays the stereotype of representation of women as housewives in our society today.
Over the centuries or since the beginning of time, women have been oppressed and the lack of power has still been continued today.
In the film, ‘not without my daughter’ it demonstrates the lack of power that women have in Iran. Once, “you marry an Iranian man you automatically become citizens of Iran” the women or wives are like private properties to their husbands.
They have no rights, they are more like breeding machines, the stereo type of women that have to just stay at home, cook, pray & raise the kids. The laws regarding women are very strict, they don’t have a lot of freedom and when they divorce their husbands, they automatically have to forfeit their children, to their husbands, they have no power whatsoever, after the divorce over their children, the oppression that Iranian women face in Iran. In the film Betty tries to escape and return back home to America with her daughter Mathob. When she escapes from her husband’s home in Iran, the TV protestors create a lot of tension by making the audience feel as though they are in immediate danger. While they travel in trying to escape different borders, the music is very dramatic and scary, it puts the audience in a lot of suspense and puts the audience at the edge of their seats, there is no dialogue in that particular scene, which builds up tension and then the music cuts out.
Some of the women in Iran don’t like to seek help, they are tormented and tortured if they hide or keep secrets from their husbands, and the representation of women in Iran is very weak. It’s like the women are being caged in their own homes, and until their husbands free them, they will be remain caged.
In conclusion, I have stated the different types of representation of women in various countries, and how sometimes animals are being used to portray the everyday life style of the representation of women in our world.
Stacey Fernandes