One of the most significant contributions of feminism to philosophy, value theory, and many other academic disciplines is to draw attention to the importance of viewing theories, past events, and contemporary problems from different perspectives. A popular way to discuss the consideration of feminist critiques, or seeing theories or events from the perspective of femi- nist theorizing, is to suggest that we consider a topic from a feminist stand-
point or through a feminist “lens.” This same metaphor of using different “lenses” to view theories or events has surfaced in other sorts of theorizing as well. It has become popular to say that viewing a practice through the lens of race, class, or economics can reveal different aspects that might not have surfaced without the use of those perspectives. Using a somewhat over- simplified example to illustrate, we can consider that forty-three different people have held the office of president of the United States. If we look at this situation through a feminist lens, we would surely notice that all forty- three have been male. If we consider the same fact through the lenses of race, class, and economics we would note that all have been Anglo (except Presi- dent Obama) and that most have hailed from rather specific and privileged educational, economic, and class backgrounds. As a further example of the lens metaphor, we can examine some common and seemingly innocuous practices in our culture, including male door-opening behavior; the typical restaurant waitstaff’s offering of the check to the man at the table; the female titles of “Miss” and “Mrs.,” which express a woman’s marital status, in com- parison to the singular male counterpart of “Mr.”; and so on. Such events and situations may be cultural in nature but viewing them through the lens of feminism can shed light on the inherent gender bias in these otherwise generally accepted practices.
I will utilize the lens metaphor here by considering the characters of Felicity, Sydney, and Olivia in light of two of the recurring and central themes in feminist theorizing. These are the recognition of the pervasive historical and current oppression of women that shapes and influences societies and individuals in both overt and subtle ways and the criticism of the traditional Western notions of self and autonomy as being gendered (that is, the impar- tial, unconnected, and independent observer is a male ideal, many femi- nist theorists argue). Again, we can use these two central themes as lenses through which to examine our three female characters. I’ll call the former the “oppression lens,” as it reveals how the systemic oppression of women can influence situations and events. I will call the latter the “interconnected- ness lens,” as many contemporary feminist theorists suggest that people are interconnected in ways that cannot be transcended in the manner that the traditional independent male ideal of the self suggests.3 So what can these
two lenses reveal about Felicity, Sydney, and Olivia?
Looking first through the “oppression lens,” we need to remember that second- and third-wave feminists argue convincingly that the oppression of one gender is considerably more far-reaching than merely their exclu-
sion from the political, social, educational, and economic spheres (as the main goal of first-wave feminism was to gain inclusion for women in these spheres). In looking at Sydney, Felicity, and Olivia through the lens of sys- temic oppression, the first thing I notice is that they are all survivors of sorts of some significant manipulation or deception. One of the most interest- ing features of these three female characters is their “coming out the other end,” so to speak, after manipulation at the hands of patriarchy in one form or another.
Felicity’s choice of college, ostensibly to follow a man she hardly knows and has a crush on, is really a move away from her controlling parents’ (mostly her father’s) expectation that she will follow in her father’s path and become a physician. We find out early on that he seems to have even manip- ulated the system a bit to guarantee her access to Stanford in premed. Her whole life seems to have been preplanned by her parents (from the “zygote” phase on, as Felicity tells us in the first season). Paternalistic manipulation, though perhaps loving, is still paternalistic manipulation. Through repeated attempts at bribery by her parents to get her “back on track,” she resists and remains in New York to find herself.
We can see Sydney’s manipulation at the hands of SD-6, her father, Jack Bristow, and Arvin Sloane as clear examples of oppression—examples of the male patriarchy dominating a woman’s psyche so completely that she never truly acts freely since the “self” of a person so dominated cannot ever act freely. Conceived in this way, when Sydney finds out that she does not actu- ally work for the CIA or the U.S. government but instead is part of a major power working against both, her situation appears somewhat analogous to that of a woman who at some point recognizes her oppression and sees for the first time the feminist point that the entire political and social system within which she has been raised has been indoctrinating her into the patri- archy. When Sydney turns into a double agent and eventually brings about the downfall of the organization that has for so long held her captive, both literally and metaphorically speaking, through its lies and manipulation, she has in many ways broken free. But she is trained for, and is really quite good at, being a spy, and so she goes on in that line, thus trading one kind of oppression for another, but at least with her eyes now opened she seems to be able to “choose” her allies and allegiances a bit more freely.
Fringe begins with Olivia Dunham recognizing her own manipula-
tion at the hands of her lover and partner, John Scott, whom she kills in the pilot episode after she risks her life to save him and he then tries to kill
her. Throughout the show, Olivia is a driving force in many ways, rather than a follower. Unlike Felicity and Sydney, outside of her manipulation by her partner, the manipulation she faces repeatedly in the show is an all- encompassing power struggle that isn’t as individualized a struggle as the other two characters’. But as with Felicity and Olivia, much of what hap- pens centers on the choices Olivia makes. All three of these characters can tell us something interesting and useful when seen through the feminist lens of oppression.
Looking through the “interconnectedness lens” we can consider whether Sydney, Felicity, and Olivia make decisions through the traditional detached male, independent observer approach. (Interestingly, the Observers from
Fringe seem to personify this separatist and impartial masculine role in
many ways.) As before, we see Sydney and Olivia occupying more inde- pendent roles, but interestingly, they do so with a strong support network. The three shows in question (Felicity and Alias more significantly) in many ways revolve around the choices made by the three female characters. Of course, the feminists who argue against adopting the “male” conception of the internal self and of “human” autonomy as an impartial and separate entity from the embodied and social creature might not see their choices as truly free, but I argue that the representation of women making intelligent choices that shape the world in meaningful ways is significant. And all three of these characters, Felicity and Sydney in particular, demonstrate that these decisions needn’t be made entirely from the independent, impartial, male standpoint but rather can be made while recognizing the interconnected- ness that women often more clearly represent.
Sydney Bristow and Olivia Dunham represent strong feminist role models in terms of first- and second-wave feminism. Examining Felicity Porter as a character across her four years in college (and the show) demonstrates that considering her coming-of-age tale as a whole makes her a better example of a role model than does examining many of the particular events in the show or her specific choices. None of the characters, however, really addresses the core of the issues on which third-wave feminists focus. In considering the two central feminist themes of pervasive oppression and the genderedness of the Western notion of autonomy, Abrams’s three female lead characters offer interesting pictures of different aspects of these concepts. In the end, Sydney and Olivia are much closer to the traditional male ideal of detached independence than Felicity, for good or for bad. I argue that Abrams has cre-
ated three strong female characters and that feminist lessons can be learned in considering their suitability as female role models.
Notes
1. Ann E. Cudd and Robin O. Andreasen, Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthol- ogy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 1.
2. This is not to argue that men and women should be treated equally in terms of sameness but rather that they should be treated equally in terms of opportunities afforded them.
3. Of course, not all feminist theorists who note the “maleness” of traditional Western notions of self and autonomy as independent and impartial suggest that these need to be replaced with the concept of an interconnected self that encompasses the feminist notion. Some instead suggest that traditional conceptions of the self and of autonomy are the correct concepts, even if rooted in a gendered and idealized “male- ness.” The notion of self and the corresponding concept of autonomy are significant philosophically in numerous ways, the most compelling of which can be found in value theory and in political theory. The feminist attack on the genderedness of the impartial observer stance can be seen most significantly in the ethics of care approaches and in feminist epistemology, where feminist theorists suggest that we cannot be separate in order to make ethical decisions or to access knowledge in a truly impartial manner, as the impartial observer stance suggests.
Scene 2
61