Wadjda Film Analysis

Throughout history Patriarchy has been a normalized form of society where men dominate over women. In the film “Wadjda”, Wadjda is a brave young girl who lives in a very patriarchal society, Saudi Arabia. Wadjda goes against the norms of her society and makes her own decisions. Throughout the movie several forms of power are seen by Wadjda, and her mother, to get what they want, such as power-over and power-too. By doing this, this film predicts that the only way a woman can get what she wants is to be like a man, or ignore men. In Saudi Arabia woman are seen as virtually nothing. They have restricted resources and are put at a great disadvantage being that they cannot go out in public without permission from a male. This type of power is referred to as power-over. Power-over is the ability of one person to carry out his will against another (Sutherland, 2013, p.151). This type of power is seen as domination, which holds the view that what it means to be a woman is powerless, and what it means to be a m an Is to be powerful (Sutherland, 2013, p.151). Throughout the film this type of power is seen by the way men have to drag …show more content…
When a woman experiences power-over, she is adopting a “mans” way of asserting power, such as picking up ways of power from men. When a woman demonstrates power-too she is asserting her own power from her own life, such as being a mom or being religious. She is already expected to do these things; she just finds power in them. However both of these types of power don’t really threaten the patriarchal structure of societies, since either women are acting like men or ingoing men. This can be problematic because it keeps women at a lesser disadvantage than men, and keeps men above women. However this could change, if women would have came together in the film and objected to how women are suppose to act based on their