Traditional Gender Roles, Consumption, and the Globalized World: An Analysis of Eat Drink Man Woman

Özet

Inequalities between men and women have a long history. Emerged in the eighteenth century in order to eliminate the disadvantages of being female and achieve gender equality with men, feminism has always aimed to change the status quo and abandon patriarchy to create a more equal administration. Although there have lately been significant improvements in achieving gender equality in a wide range of areas worldwide, especially since the last quarter of the twentieth century, feminist thought has continuously sought ways to overcome various obstacles that women face and create a better world for women. Traditional gender roles and their organization are essential issues that feminist ideas and views generally elaborate on. These traditional gender roles, including how the family is organized in societies as the smallest part, have inevitably changed and become subjects of reformation in the same era. Furthermore, capitalism has gained power and led to social results, as it has directed how people spend money and increased consumption. Capitalism also brought globalization, which connected various locations and societies worldwide, signaling a new culture that tends to abandon traditional values and create a different way of thought and living. In this paper, the movie Eat Drink Man Woman (originally titled Yin Shi Nan Nu) will be analysed regarding traditional gender roles, consumption culture, and globalization. The movie explicitly references these concepts and represents how they shape people’s lives in various ways.