Glass Ceiling In Jonathan Demme's Silence Of The Lambs

Women’s activist Marilyn Loden derived the phrase “glass ceiling” in 1978. A metaphor for the barrier that keeps women from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy, this phrase served as an inspiration for women apart of the second and third wave feminism movements. In particular, women experience a glass ceiling within the workplace, as women are unable to achieve higher-up positions within their specific field of work. Even further, those who do manage to secure a rank equal to their male counterpart receive a smaller paycheck. Sociologists Wendy Wolf and Neil Fligstein have analyzed the relationship between sex and authority within the workplace and conclude that “recent research has shown that women are much less likely than men to be in positions of authority, even when they have the same level of education and …show more content…
Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs explores the conflicts that women face within the male sphere. Clarice Starling, an FBI Trainee, is assigned to a case involving a transexual murderer (Buffalo Bill) who skins his female victims in order to make a bodysuit with female features. To solve the case, Starling must work with criminal/psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter to reveal information behind Bill’s motives and his possible whereabouts. Because Clarice is able to kill Buffalo Bill in the final scenes of the film and earn herself the title of “FBI Agent”, female viewers praise the film for Starling’s ability to further her position in a male industry, despite constant advances from the men she encounters. Though Silence of the Lambs offers a female heroine who seems to break the gender barriers she faces in a male dominated industry, closer examination of the film reveals that to be feminine is to be flawed and fatal, as the only way to survive and achieve advancement as a woman in a male profession is to undertake a masculine persona despite constant reminders of her