Social Construction of Gender Differences in Mona Lisa Smile

Mona Lisa Smile

The movie "Mona Lisa Smile" has within its plot and theme a number of examples of gender construction, and the characters play out their roles based largely on the concept of the social construction of gender. This paper will delve into how gender roles are portrayed in the film, and the paper will use available literature and critiques of the social construction of gender.

Social Construction of Gender

An article in The Feminist Agenda points out that a social construction does not just appear suddenly in the natural world; instead, a social construction is invented by or created by society. It is invented and developed through "cultural practices and norms" and as it becomes a social construct it may "govern the practices, customs, and rules concerning" the way we understand and use them (Feminist Agenda). The article explains that various social pressures work to "reinforce the idea that gender is a social construction" rather than some "essence" that originates from biology (Feminist Agenda).

Social construction of gender also means that within each of the two genders there are differences in status, in entitlement, in language, in knowledge, in attitude and in goals, among other differences. Social statuses are "carefully constructed through prescribed processes of teaching, learning, emulation, and enforcement" (Rothenberg, 2007). Indeed, Rothenberg asserts on page 56, "…gender cannot be equated with biological and physiological differences between human females and males." The "building blocks" of gender are "socially constructed statuses," and that is where the gender construction comes into play in Mona Lisa Smile. Social activities and cultural beliefs and practices eventually distinguish one character's philosophy and goals from another character of the same sex, which is another way of describing the social construction of gender.

Mona Lisa Smile

Though this film, starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and Maggie Gyllenhaal, was not generally well received by film critics -- in fact some reviewers and critics ridiculed it and others made mean-spirited comments -- it does have excellent examples of the social construction of gender.

Katherine Watson (played by Julia Roberts, who, by the way, was paid $23 million to star in this film, the biggest payday at that time for an actress) has an ongoing battle with an administration that is far more conservative on social values than Watson. Many students are scornful of Watson's California heritage, and they even consider her lectures on modern art to be somehow "subversive." The social construction of gender at Wellesley College is seemingly based on the value of marriage; women at Wellesley are being primed and prepared for marriage, not for careers, and when an instructor like Watson comes along there are going to be clashes.

Although there is tension and resistance to Watson's values, the plot flows through her character. Watson hears the school president telling the students, "A few years from now, your sole responsibility will be taking care of your husband and children." And Watson's response to the conservative school president (played by Marian Seldes) is to say: "I thought I was headed to a place that would turn out tomorrow's leaders -- not their wives." It pains Watson that some of the best students turn their backs on careers to marry men who have already begun to cheat on their wives prior to the nuptials. But again, the differences in gender construction in this film are vast and yet they are very entertaining as well.

What Watson is doing is going against the tide at the college; she is trying to instill a sense of feminism in her female students, which is like an uphill battle against a stiff wind. In the first place have a liberal / feminist woman from UCLA teaching art history at Wellesley, one of the most conservative colleges in America, is setting the stage for conflict. According to critic Roger Ebert, the film would have been "more absorbing" if Watson and her students were "fighting their way together out of the chains of gender slavery" (Ebert, 2003). But that is not the case at all, and it is more like Watson fighting to get her points across to a college where women are asked to take classes in home decorations and table settings.

The social construction of gender in this film also juxtaposes the old school values of the school president (and many of the students) with the more liberal idea that since young women of college age are sexually active they should protect themselves from becoming pregnant. Betty Warren (played by Kirsten Dunst) is just as conservative as her mother, who is the head of the Alumni Association.

Betty writes an editorial for the college newspaper noting that the school nurse, Amanda Armstrong (played by Juliet Stevenson), has been dispersing contraception. The social construction of gender from the point of the healthcare representative runs head-first into the social construction of gender from the point-of-view of an old-school conservative daughter that emulates her mother's conservatism. Hence, sadly, the nurse is fired. Since when is healthcare a matter of liberalism or conservatism? Healthcare is about keeping bodies healthy, but on an ultra conservative campus, dispensing "the pill" is seen as skullduggery, and again, the punishment a nurse receives for doing what she considers her job is one form of social construction of gender at odds with gender construction from another point-of-view.