MEGAWATI-40300120097

MID ACADEMIC WRITING

TITLE : The Portrayal of Women Power Against The Glass Ceiling

Phenomena in The “What Men Want” Movie (2019)

A. Background

Discrimination against gender also refers to the roles assigned to women

and men. Army M. Blackstone (2003) describes gender roles as roles given to

men and women based on their gender, culture and general beliefs. Traditional

gender roles define masculinity and femininity in women and men. In

traditional gender roles, women have reproductive roles and do household

chores. Adjie (2016) shows that this inequality or discrimination originates

from the patriarchal system between men and women. male complement.

In a job there is still a gender imbalance between women and men. The

emergence of gender equality is due to gender inequality in various fields such

as education, social work and the economy. It also affects many things, such

as working time, position, and other forms of work. Between women and men

there are barriers that prevent women from reaching higher levels in various

activities. This barrier is referred to in many literatures as a glass ceiling

phenomenon.

The glass ceiling phenomenon often occurs in social life, the focus is on

the world of work, but it is rarely noticed by the people around it. The

inability of a person to reach his optimal potential due to discrimination could

be because he is from a minority race or because he is a woman, as the name

implies, namely the glass ceiling that is invisible but prevents us from rising

above it. Which are we know that the glass ceiling is a social phenomenon

related to the fate of women and minorities in the workplace. . The phrase was

coined in 1978 by Marylin Lode during a panel discussion on women's

desires. She argues that the invisible glass ceiling is more a cultural issue than

a personal one that affects and undermines women's aspirations and career

opportunities (Loden 2017). The history of glass ceilings began in the past

when women were still confined to their homes. At that time women were

referred to as gender subordinate to men (Srivastava, 2019) as a result women

were not allowed to work, receive proper education or have a political

conscience. Through the wave of feminism, women began to express a desire

to challenge this image to achieve gender equality (Arat 2015).

This phenomenon is still happening today in countries such as America,

Indonesia, Korea and others. Which is where women are still not allowed to

become leaders in a company in the world of work. As experienced by the

main character in the film "What Men Want" (2019), namely Ali Davis, who

felt he had lost the opportunity to get promoted in his company on the grounds

that his boss thought Ali was not able to communicate well with their male

clients. Ai furiously said he would prove his ability and he would break the

glass ceiling that he was experiencing at the company.

“What men want” (2019) a film that will be the object of this research,

this film is an American romantic comedy film released in 2019 which was
worked on by Adam Shankman as the director in this film, and Taraji P.

Henson as the main character . This film is also a remake of the 2000 film

“What Women Want”.

Judging from the film that the main character has the desire to break the
glass ceiling in the company where he works, the researcher chooses to use
feminist theory as a support for this research. Feminism theory is closely
related to the glass ceiling phenomenon and the object chosen by the researcher
is also related to feminism. Broadly speaking, feminism is part of ideology.
Ideology is a set of normative beliefs and values held by individuals or groups
for reasons other than purely epistemic. There are many well-known ideologies
covering various human activities related to characters in literary works.

In addition, according to Kariger and Fierro (1995) feminism is a

doctrine that recommends social, political and economic rights of women
equally with men. The concept of feminism includes gender, cultural
recognition, attitudes and belief systems towards women and men, gender,
descriptive, biologically based variables used to differentiate between women
and men, and gender roles and culturally accepted behaviors that are
considered more desirable for women and men (Crystal, 2017). According to
Aida Fitalaya S.Hubies (Ardianto and Q-Anees, 2007:184) feminism begins
with understanding the position of women who are not equal to men in society.
As a result of this understanding, various efforts have emerged to investigate
the causes of this inequality, eliminate and seek formulas for equal rights for
women and men in all areas of their human potential.

Judging from previous events that have occurred in the real world and
many do not care about this, the researcher reveals that this topic is worth
discussing because there are still many people who are not familiar with the
term "glass ceiling" even though this is very obvious in various fields. and it
still happens in the modern era, and the object chosen is very closely related to
the phenomenon where a woman works in a company where 90% of her co-
 workers are men. Even though he has good performance at work, he has not
been able to get a high position.

Therefore it is important to know the effects that cause glass ceilings in a

company or workplace and how to overcome them so that this phenomenon no
longer occurs in the world of work.

B. Formulation of The Problem

Based on the explanation of the background above, then I found the

problem to be raised in this research;

1. Analysis of the glass ceiling effect faced by the main character in the
film.
2. How does the main character fight the glass ceiling phenomenon?